The Man in Gray - Jr. Thomas Dixon

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plantation had a white overseer as slave driver with a blacksnake whip in his hand. A negro foreman was incredible. As a matter of fact there were more negro foremen than white overseers in the South.

      In Uncle Ike's cottage by the light of many candles the school for boys was in session. Custis' brother "Rooney," was the teacher. He had six pupils besides Sam. Not one of them knew his lesson to-night and Rooney was furious.

      As Phil and Custis entered, he was just finishing a wrathful lecture.

       His pupils were standing in a row grinning their apologies.

      "I've told you boys for the last three weeks that I won't stand this. You don't have to go to school to me if you don't want to. But if you join my school you've got to study. Do you hear me?"

      "Yassah!" came the answer in solid chorus.

      "Well, you'll do more than hear me to-night. You're going to heed what I say. I'm going to thrash the whole school."

      Sam broke into a loud laugh. And a wail of woe came from every dusky figure.

      "Dar now!"

      "Hear dat, folks—?"

      "I been a tellin' ye chillun—"

      "I lubs my spellin' book—but, oh, dat hickory switch!"

      "Oh, Lordy—"

      "Gib us anudder chance, Marse Rooney!"

      "Not another chance," was the stern answer. "Lay off your coats."

      They began to peel their coats. Big, strapping, husky fellows nudging one another and grinning at their fourteen-year-old schoolmaster. It was no use to protest.

      They knew they deserved it. A whipping was one of the minor misfortunes of life. Its application was universal. No other method of discipline had yet been dreamed by the advanced thinkers and rulers of the world. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was accepted as the Word of God and only a fool could doubt it. The rod was the emblem of authority for child, pupil, apprentice and soldier. The negro slave as a workman got less of it than any other class. It was the rule of a Southern master never to use the rod on a slave except for crime if it could be avoided. To flog one for laziness was the exception, not the rule.

      The old Virginia gentleman prided himself particularly on the tenderness and care with which he guarded the life of his servants. If the weather was cold and his men exposed, he waited to see that they had dry clothes and a warm drink before they went to bed. He never failed to remember that his white skin could endure more than their sunburned dark ones.

      The young school-teacher had no scruples on applying the rod. He selected his switches with care, and tested their strength and flexibility while he gave the bunch a piece of his mind.

      "What do you think I'm coming down here every night for, anyhow?" he stormed.

      "Lordy, Marse Rooney," Sam pleaded, "doan we all pay you fur our schoolin'?"

      "Yes, you do when I can manage to choke it out of you. One dozen eggs a month or one pullet every two months. And I don't even ask you where you got the eggs or the pullet."

      "Marse Rooney!" protested Sam. "Yer know we gets 'em outen our own yards er buys 'em from de servants."

      "I hope you do. Though my mother says she don't know how we eat so many chickens and eggs at the house. Anyhow I'm not here because I'm going to get rich on the tuition you pay me. I'm not here for my health. I'm here from a sense of duty to you boys—"

      "Yassah, we know dat, sah!"

      "Give us annuder chance an' we sho' study dem lessons—"

      "I gave you another chance the last time. I'll try a little hickory tea this time."

      He began at the end of the line and belabored each one faithfully. They shouted in mockery and roared with laughter, scampered over the room and dodged behind chairs and tables.

      Phil fairly split his sides laughing.

      When the fun was over, they drew close to their teacher and promised faithfully to have every word of the next lesson. They nudged each other and whispered their jokes about the beating.

      "Must er bin er flea bitin' me!"

      "I felt sumfin. Don't 'zactly know what it wuz. Mebbe a chigger!"

      "Must er been a flea. Hit bit me, too!"

      Sam tried to redeem himself for failing on his lessons in arithmetic. He had long ago learned to read and write and had asked for a course in history. The young teacher had given him a copy of Gulliver's Travels.

      "Look a here, Marse Rooney, I been a readin' dat book yer gimme—"

      "Well, that's good."

      "Yer say dat book's history?"

      "Well, it's what we call fiction, but I think fiction's the very best history we can read. It may not have happened just that way but it's true all the same."

      "Well, ef hit nebber happened, I dunno 'bout dat," Sam objected. "I been suspicionin' fer a long time dat some o' dem things that Gulliver say nebber happen nohow."

      "You read it," the teacher ordered.

      "Yassah, I sho gwine ter read it, happen er no happen. Glory be ter God.

       Just 'cause yer tells me, sah!"

       Table of Contents

      The next morning found Phil walking again between the white, clean rows of the quarter houses. He was always finding something to interest him. Every yard had its gorgeous red autumn flowers. Some of them had roses in bloom. The walks from the gate to the door were edged with white-washed bricks or conch shells. The conch shells were souvenirs of summer outings at the seashore.

      In the corner of the back yard there was the tall pole on which were hung five or six dried gourds with tiny holes cut in the sides for the martins. And every gourd had its black family. The martins were the guardians of the servants' chicken yards. The hawks were numerous and the woods close to the quarters. Few chickens were lost by hawks. The martins circled the skies in battalions, watching, chattering, guarding, basking in the southern sun.

      At noon the assembly bell rang at the end of the Broadway of the quarters. From every cottage, from field and stable, blacksmith shop, carpenter's shop, the house of the spinners, the weavers, the dairy, the negroes poured toward the shed beside the bell tower.

      "What is it?" Phil asked of Custis.

      "Saturday noon. All work stops."

      "My Lord, it's been raining nearly all morning. The field hands haven't worked a lick all day. Do they stop, too?"

      "It's the unwritten law of the South. We would no more think of working on Saturday afternoon than on Sunday."

      "What are they gathering under that shed for?" Phil inquired.

      Custis led him to the shed where Ike, the foreman, stood with Mrs. Lee beside a long table on which were piled the provisions for the week to follow.

      The negroes laughed and chattered like a flock of blackbirds picking grain in a wheat field. To each head of a family was given six pounds of meat for each person. A father, mother and two children received twenty-four pounds. Their bread was never rationed. The barrel in each cottage was filled from the grist mill, a bag full at a time. They had their own garden and flocks of chickens. Sugar, coffee and molasses were given on the first of each month.

      "Come right back here now all ob you!" Ike shouted, "des ez quick ez yer put yo vittles away. De Missis gwine gib ye yo' winter close now, case she gwine ter Wes' Pint next week."

      The provisions were swept from the long table. Out of the storehouse came huge piles of

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