Brother Against Brother; or, The Tompkins Mystery. Read online

  CHAPTER III.

  DINNER TALK.

  America furnishes to the world her share of politicians. The UnitedStates, with her free government, her freedom of thought, freedom ofspeech and freedom of press, is prolific in their production. One whohad given the subject but little thought, and no investigation, would beamazed to know their number. Nearly every boy born in the United Statesbecomes a politician, with views more or less pronounced, and thesubject is by no means neglected by the feminine portion of thecommunity. That part of Virginia, the scene of our story, abounded with"village tavern and cross-roads politicians." Snagtown, on Briar creek,was a village not more than three miles from Mr. Tompkins'. It boastedof two taverns and three saloons, where loafers congregated to talkabout the weather, the doings in Congress, the terrible state of thecountry, and their exploits in catching "runaway niggers." A large percent of our people pay more attention to Congressional matters than totheir own affairs. We do not deny that it is every man's right tounderstand the grand machinery of this Government, but he should notdevote to it the time which should be spent in caring for his family.Politics should not intoxicate men and lead them from the paths ofhonest industry, and furnish food for toughs to digest at taverns andstreet corners.

  Anything which affords a topic of conversation is eagerly welcomed bythe loafer; and it is little wonder that politics is a theme that rousesall his enthusiasm. It not only affords him food, but drink as well,during a campaign. Many are the neglected wives and starving childrenwho, in cold and cheerless homes, await the return of the husband andfather, who sits, warm and comfortable, in some tavern, laying plans forthe election of a school director or a town overseer.

  Snagtown could tell its story. It contained many such neglected homes,and the thriftless vagabonds who constituted the voting majority neverfailed to raise an excitement, to provoke bitter feelings and fomentquarrels on election day.

  Plump, and short, and sleek was Mr. Hezekiah Diggs, the justice of thepeace of Snagtown. Like many justices of the peace, he brought to theperformance of his duties little native intelligence, and less acquirederudition; but what he lacked in brains he made up in brass. He was oneof the foremost of the political gossipers of Snagtown, and had filledhis present position for several years.

  'Squire Diggs was hardly in what might be termed even moderatecircumstances, though he and his family made great pretension insociety. He was one of that rare class in Virginia--a poor man who hadmanaged by some inexplicable means, to work his way into the betterclass of society. His wife, unlike himself, was tall, slender and sharpvisaged. Like him, she was an incessant talker, and her gossipfrequently caused trouble in the neighborhood. Scandal was seized on asa sweet morsel by the hungry Mrs. Diggs, and she never let pass anopportunity to spread it, like a pestilence, over the town.

  They had one son, now about twelve years of age, the joy and pride oftheir hearts, and as he was capable of declaiming, "The boy stood on theburning deck," his proud father discovered in him the future orator ofAmerica, and determined that Patrick Henry Diggs should study law andenter the field of politics. The boy, full of his father's conviction,and of a conceit all his own, felt within his soul a rising greatnesswhich one day would make him the foremost man of the Nation. He did notobject to his father's plan; he was willing to become either a statesmanor a lawyer, but having read the life of Washington, he would havechosen to be a general, only that there were now no redcoats to fight.Poor as Diggs' family was, they boasted that they associated only withthe _elite_ of Southern society.

  'Squire Diggs had informed Mr. Tompkins that he and his family would payhim a visit on a certain day, as he wished to consult him on somepolitical matters, and Mr. Tompkins and his hospitable lady, settingaside social differences, prepared to make their visitors welcome. Onthe appointed day they were driven up in their antiquated carriage,drawn by an old gray horse, and driven by a negro coachman older thaneither. Mose was the only slave that the 'Squire owned, and though sixtyyears of age, he served the family faithfully in a multiform capacity.He pulled up at the door of the mansion, and climbing out somewhatslowly, owing to age and rheumatism, he opened the carriage door andassisted the occupants to alight.

  Though Mrs. Tompkins felt an unavoidable repugnance for the gossipingMrs. Diggs, she was too sensible a hostess to treat an uninvited guestotherwise than cordially.

  "I've been just dying to come and see you," said Mrs. Diggs, as soon asshe had removed her wraps and taken her seat in an easy chair, with abottle of smelling salts in her hand and her gold-plated spectacles onher nose, "you have been having so many strange things happen here; andI told the 'Squire we must come over, for I thought the drive might dome good, and I wanted to hear all about the murder of your husband'sbrother's family, and see that strange baby and the crazy boy. Isn't itstrange, though? Who could have committed that awful murder? Who putthat baby on your piazza, and who is this crazy boy?"

  Mrs. Tompkins arrested this stream of interrogatories by saying that itwas all a mystery, and they had as yet been unable to find a clew.Baffled at the very onset in the chief object of her visit, Mrs. Diggsturned her thoughts at once into new channels, and, graciouslyoverlooking Mrs. Tompkins' inability to gratify her curiosity, began torecount the news and gossip and small scandals of the neighborhood.

  'Squire Diggs was in the midst of an animated conversation on hisfavorite theme, the politics of the day. The slavery question was justassuming prominence. Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and others, had attimes hinted at emancipation, while John Brown and Jared Clarkson, and ahost of lesser lights, were making the Nation quake with the thunders oftheir eloquence from rostrum and pulpit. 'Squire Diggs was bitter in hisdenunciations of Northerners, believing that they intended "to take ourniggers from us." He invariably emphasized the pronoun, and always spokeof _niggers_ in the plural, as though he owned a hundred instead of one.'Squire Diggs was one of a class of people in the South known as themost bitter slavery men, the small slaveholders--a class that bewailedmost loudly the freedom of the negro, because they had few to free. Atdinner he said:

  "Slavery is of divine origin, and all John Brown and Jared Clarkson cansay will never convince the world otherwise."

  "I sometimes think," said Mr. Tompkins, "that the country would bebetter off with the slaves all in Siberia."

  "What? My dear sir, how could we exist?" cried 'Squire Diggs, his smalleyes growing round with wonder. "If the slaves were taken from us, whowould cultivate these vast fields?"

  "Do it ourselves, or by hired help," answered the planter.

  "My dear sir, the idea is impracticable," said the 'Squire, hotly. "Wecannot give up our slaves. Slavery is of divine origin. The niggers,descending from Ham, were cursed into slavery. The Bible says so, and nonigger-loving Abolitionist need deny it."

  "I believe my husband is an emancipationist," said Mrs. Tompkins, witha smile.

  "I am," said Mr. Tompkins; "not so much for the slaves' good as for themasters'. Slavery is a curse to both white and black, and more to thewhite than to the black. The two races can never live together inharmony, and the sooner they are separated the better."

  "How would you like to free them and leave them among us?" asked the'Squire.

  "That even would be better than to keep them among us in bondage."

  "But Henry Clay, in his great speech on African colonization in theHouse of Representatives, says: 'Of all classes of our population, themost vicious is the free colored.' And, my dear sir, were this horde ofblacks turned loose upon us, without masters or overseers to keep themin restraint, our lives would not be safe for a day. Domineering niggerswould be our masters, would claim the right to vote and hold office.Imagine, my dear sir, an ignorant nigger holding an important officelike that of justice of the peace. Consider for a moment, Mr. Tompkins,all of the horrors which would be the natural result of a lazy, indolentrace, incapable of earning their own living, unless urged by the lash,being turned loose to shift for themselves. Slavery is more a bless
ingto the slave than to the master. What was the condition of the negro inhis native wilds? He was a ruthless savage, hunting and fighting, andeating fellow-beings captured in war. He knew no God, and worshipedsnakes, the sun and moon, and everything he could not understand. Ourslave-traders found him in this state of barbarism and misery. Theybrought him here, and taught him to till the soil, and trained him inthe ways of peace, and led him to worship the true and living God. _Our_niggers now have food to eat and clothes to wear, when in their nativecountry they were hungry and naked. They now enjoy all the blessings ofan advanced civilization, whereas they were once in the lowestbarbarism. Set them free, and they will drift back into their formerstate."

  "A blessing may be made out of their bondage," replied Mr. Tompkins."As Henry Clay said in the speech from which you have quoted, 'they willcarry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion,civilization, law and liberty. And may it not be one of the greatdesigns of the Ruler of the universe (whose ways are often inscrutableby short-sighted mortals) thus to transform original crime into a singleblessing to the most unfortunate portions of the globe? But I fear weuphold slavery rather for our own mercenary advantages than as ablessing either to our country or to either race."

  "Why, Mr. Tompkins, you are advocating Abolition doctrine," said Mrs.Diggs.

  "I believe I am, and that abolition is right."

  "Would you be willing to lose your own slaves to have the niggersfreed?" asked the astonished 'Squire.

  "I would willingly lose them to rid our country of a blighting curse."

  "I would not," said Mrs. Tompkins, her Southern blood fired by thediscussion. "My husband is a Northern man, and advocates principles thatwere instilled into his mind from infancy; but I oppose abolition fromprinciple. Slaves should be treated well and made to know their place;but to set them free and ruin thousands of people in the South is theidea of fanatics."

  "I'm mamma's Democrat," said Oleah, who, seated at his mother's side,concluded it best to approve her remarks by proclaiming his ownpolitical creed.

  "And I am papa's Whig," announced Abner, who was at his father's side.

  "That's right, my son. You don't believe that people, because they areblack, should be bought and sold and beaten like cattle, do you?" askedthe father, looking down, half in jest and half in earnest, at hiseldest born.

  "No; set the negroes free, and Oleah and I will plow and drive wagons,"he replied, quickly.

  "You don't believe it's right to take people's property from them fornothing and leave people poor, do you, Oleah?" asked the mother, inlaughing retaliation.

  "No, I don't," replied the young Southern aristocrat.

  "You are liable to have both political parties represented in your ownfamily," said 'Squire Diggs. "Here's a difference of opinion already."

  "Their differences will be easy to reconcile, for never did brotherslove each other as these do," returned Mr. Tompkins, little dreamingthat this difference of opinion was a breach that would widen, widen andwiden, separating the loving brothers, and bringing untold misery to hispeaceful home.

  "What are you in favor of, Patrick Henry?" Mrs. Diggs asked, in hershrill, sharp tones, of her own hopeful son.

  "I'm in favor of freedom and the Stars and Stripes," answered PatrickHenry, gnawing vigorously at the chicken bone he held in his hand.

  "He is a patriot," exclaimed the 'Squire. "He talks of nothing so muchas Revolutionary days and Revolutionary heroes. He has such a taste formilitary life that I'd send him to West Point, but his mother objects."

  "Yes, I do object," put in the shrill-voiced, cadaverous Mrs. Diggs,"They don't take a child of mine to their strict military schools. Why,what if he was to get sick, away off there, and me here? I wouldn't stopday or night till I got there."

  Dinner over, the party repaired to the parlor, and 'Squire Diggs askedhis son to speak "one of his pieces" for the entertainment of thecompany.

  "What piece shall I say?" asked Patrick Henry, as anxious to display hisoratorical talents as his father was to have him.

  "The piece that begins, 'I come not here to talk,'" said Mrs. Diggs, hersallow features lit up with a smile that showed the tips of her falseteeth.

  Several of the negroes, learning that a show of some kind was about tobegin in the parlor, crowded about the room, peeping in at the doors andwindows. Patrick Henry took his position in the centre of the room,struck a pompous attitude, standing high as his short legs would permit,and, brushing the hair from his forehead, bowed to his audience and, ina high, loud monotone, began:

  "I come not to talk! You know too well The story of our thraldom. We--we--"

  He paused and bowed his head.

  "We are slaves," prompted the mother, who was listening with eagerinterest. Mrs. Diggs had heard her son "say his piece" so often that shehad learned it herself, and now served as prompter. Patrick Henrycontinued:

  "We are slaves. The bright moon rises----"

  "No, sun," interrupted his mother.

  "The bright sun rises in the East and lights A race of slaves. He sets--and the--last thing"--

  The young orator was again off the track.

  "And his last beam falls on a slave," again the fond mother prompted.

  By being frequently prompted, Patrick Henry managed to "speak his piecethrough."

  While the mother, alert and watchful, listened and prompted, the father,short, and sleek, and fat, leaned back in his chair, one short leg justable to reach across the other, listening with satisfied pride to hisson's display.

  "The poor child has forgotten some of it," said the mother, at theconclusion.

  "Yes," added the father; "he don't speak much now, and so has forgottena great deal that he knew."

  Mr. Tompkins and his wife, inwardly regretting that he had not forgottenall, willingly excused Patrick Henry from any further efforts. Andthough they had welcomed and entertained their guests with the cordialSouthern hospitality, they felt somewhat relieved when the Diggscarriage, with its ancient, dark-skinned coachman, rolled away over thehills towards Snagtown.