AMONG the human flotsam
and jetsam that followed in the wake of the Civil War, there drifted into a
certain Southern town, shortly after the surrender, two young colored men,
named respectively William Cain and Rufus Green. They had made each other's
acquaintance in a refugee camp attached to an army cantonment, and when the
soldiers went away, William and Rufus were thrown upon their own resources.
They were fast friends, and discussed with each other the subject of their
future.
"Well, ez fer
me," said William, "my marster had put me ter de bricklayer's an'
plasterer's trade, an' I'd wukked at it six weeks befo' I come away. I hadn'
larnt eve'ything, but I reckon I knows ernuff ter make a livin' at it."
"Ez fer me,"
returned Rufus gloomily -- he was not of the most cheerful temperament --
"I don' know how ter use nuffin' but a hoe."
"I has ter use de
hoe in my bizness too," rejoined William. "De mo'tar has ter be mix'
wid a hoe. W'y can't we go in podners? You kin mix de mo'tar, an' I'll put it
on, tel I've larnt you all I knows. We'll keep ou' money tergether, an' w'at I
makes shill be ez much yo'n ez mine, an' w'at you makes shill be ez much mine
ez yo'n, an' w'at we bofe makes shill belong ter bofe of us. How would dat
'rangement suit you?"
Rufus, having felt some
alarm at the prospect of facing the world alone -- slavery had not been a good
school for training in self-reliance -- found this proposition a very agreeable
one, and promptly express- ed his willingness to accept it.
"And now,"
said William, who thus early in the affair assumed the initiative, "we
ought to hab somethin' ter show ou' agreement -- dat's de way w'ite folks does
bizness, an' we'll hafter do de same. I knows a man roun' here w'at kin write,
an' we'll git some paper an' hab him draw up de articles."
The scribe and the
paper were found, and William dictated the following agreement, the phraseology
of which is reminiscent of certain solemn forms which he had heard used from
time to time, being town-bred and accustomed to the ways of the world: --
"William Cain and
Rufus Green is gone in partners this day to work at whatever their hands find
to do. What they makes shall belong to one as much as the other, and they shall
stand by each other in sickness and in health, in good luck and in bad, till
death shall us part, and the Lord have mercy on our souls. Amen."
This was written in a
doubtful hand, on each of two sheets of foolscap paper, and signed by the
partners with their respective marks. Each received a copy of the agreement,
and they promised the man a half-dollar for his services, to be paid out of
their first earnings.
Having found a place to
live, William and Rufus settled down as well as their uncertain fortunes would
permit. It soon became apparent that William was the more capable of the two,
and equally clear -- to his patrons at least -- that he had not worked at his
trade long enough to learn to do fine work. In consequence of the discovery,
the partners soon themselves engaged almost solely in the white-washing and
patching business, at which they were fairly successful. Even here, however,
William's relative superiority manifested itself, and he generally wielded the
brush while Rufus mixed the whitewash. When business was slack, they engaged in
such manual labor as they could find. They ate together, slept together, and
had a common purse, from which they supplied their necessities and had a little
left for amusements and tobacco.
They were living thus,
in a hand-to-mouth way, but with the cheerful contentment characteristic of
their race, when a Northern philanthropist, filled with the fine, post-bellum
zeal for the freedmen, purchased at a low price an extensive plantation in the
vicinity of the town, which he cut up into small farms, and, for the
encouragement of industry and thrift among the Negroes, sold to them at prices
little more than nominal. All but two of the farms had been disposed of before
he discovered William and Rufus. Learning that they lived in what they called
partnership, he informed them that such a relation was incompatible with the
development of self-reliance and strength of character, and that their best
interests would be promoted by their learning each to fight his own battle. A
thoughtful student of history might have suggested to the philanthropist that
the power of highly developed races lies mainly in their ability to combine for
the better accomplishment of a common purpose. The good man meant well,
however, and his method was admirably adapted to separate the wheat from the
chaff. His arguments, or his liberal offer, proved effective; William and Rufus
put away the whitewash pails and brushes and became freeholders and farmers
upon adjoining tracts of land.
The soil was fertile,
and the new owners were filled with the buoyant hopefulness and zeal which
characterized the colored people immediately after their emancipation, when
there seemed to be a rosy future for their race, not in some distant
generation, when the memory of their bondage should have become dim and
legendary, but for themselves and their children. The good philanthropist,
waiving for the moment his theory of self-reliance -- of which indeed his whole
generous scheme was a contradiction -- gave his beneficiaries advice and
oversight for several years, during which William and Rufus, in company with
their neighbors, throve apace. In much less time than even the philanthropist
had anticipated, both farms were paid for, and William and Rufus tasted the
pleasures which any healthy-minded man feels when he first knows himself owner,
in fee simple, by metes and bounds, of a piece of the soil which, in a broader
sense, is the common heritage of mankind.
During the first years
of their separation William and Rufus remained fast friends. The friendship,
like their former partnership, was of more practical benefit to Rufus than to
William. It was largely due to William's advice about plowing and planting and
harvesting, to William's superior knowledge of horses and cattle and hogs, and
his more trustworthy intuitions about wind and weather, that Rufus had been
able to pay for his farm and procure his deed at the same time with William.
This aid, too, was rendered spontaneously, and so much as a matter of course,
that Rufus, who was a man of slow perceptions, flattered himself upon being a
very successful farmer, and on the high-road to substantial wealth.
Nevertheless, as the
years rolled on, William's greater prosperity became apparent even to Rufus,
who began gradually to appreciate the fact that William's fields bore larger
crops, that his cows calved oftener and gave more milk, that his hogs were
fatter and better bred, that his hens laid more eggs and suffered less from fox
or hawk, or other thieves.
Shortly after becoming
a landowner Rufus had married a wife, who in time bore him several children.
William, too, had selected a helpmeet, with a like effect upon his household.
The first rift in the long friendship came one day when one of William's
children and one of Rufus's had a juvenile dispute, which, if left to
themselves, they would have forgotten in an hour. Their mothers, however, took
up the quarrel, and having longer memories, became somewhat estranged over it.
Since the families were near neighbors and had long been dependent upon one
another for the exchange of neighborly courtesies, a quarrel was irksome to say
the least. At first William and Rufus paid no attention to the
misunderstanding, its only effect upon them being that they met and talked
along the turnrows and across fences rather than by each other's firesides. As
it was, the trouble would probably soon have been smoothed over, had not the
demon Envy, with its train of malice and all uncharitableness, taken possession
of Rufus's wife and passed from her to her husband.
Mrs. William Cain came
out to church one Sunday in a new frock. Rufus was unable, at the moment, to
buy his wife a garment equally handsome. To make matters worse, William drove
Mrs. Cain to church the same day in a new buggy, a luxury in which Rufus, who,
like William himself, had hitherto walked to church or driven thither in his
cart, could not as yet afford to indulge.
"Dat Cain 'oman is
puttin' on mo' airs 'n ef she own' somebody," sniffed Mrs. Rufus.
"She jes' displayin' dem clo's, an' he's jes' bought dat buggy -- he must
'a' got it on credit -- jes' ter show off an' make us feel po' an' mean. Rufus,
ef you are de man I take you fer, you won' have nuthin' mo' ter do wid dem people!"
When William next saw
Rufus working near the fence and walk- ed down to pass the time of day, Rufus
saw him coming and moved farther away. For the first few times that this
occurred, William sup- posed it to be a mere coincidence; but when Rufus one
day passed him on the road without speaking, even the pretence of deep
absorption in thought did not deceive William. His old friend had turned
against him, and he felt sore at heart. Surely a friendship of such long
standing ought not to be broken because of a few hard words by two quick-
tempered women on account of a children's quarrel.
It occurred to William
that perhaps he might pour oil upon the troubled waters. One Saturday evening
he sent his hired man over to Rufus's house with a message.
"My boss wants ter
know," said the messenger, "ef you wouldn't lack ter borry his buggy
ter-morrer afternoon an' take a ride somewhar."
This seemed to Rufus
very kind of William, and he was on the point of accepting the offer, when Mrs.
Green broke in: --
"You kin go an'
tell William Cain dat we don' go ridin' in borried buggies; dat w'en we git
able ter pay fer a buggy, we'll ride, an' not be trapesin' roun' de country
showin' off in buggies w'at ain't paid fer!"
This message, delivered
with fidelity both to language and spirit, aroused some righteous resentment in
William's bosom. If Rufus preferred enmity to friendship, William concluded
that he would at least not force his good offices upon his neighbor, but would
hereafter wait until they were requested. He knew from past experience that
Rufus would need them sooner or later. As a consequence of this mutual
coolness, the breach between the neighbors became, if not wider, at least more
pronounced.
The purchase of the
buggy and the incidents growing out of it, had taken place in the autumn, after
the crops had been gathered and sold. During the following winter Rufus's sweet
potatoes, which had not been properly put up, began to rot, and almost his
entire supply was spoiled before he became aware of their condition. During any
other winter, William, whose potatoes always kept well, would have lent him, at
a nominal price, enough potatoes to tide him over the season. This time,
however, Rufus was compelled to pay winter prices for his potatoes, and cart
them home from the town, five miles away.
Henceforth misfortune
seemed to follow Rufus. His cows went dry, and the family had to get along
without milk, while they could see, as they drove along the road, William's
pigs feeding upon the surplus of his dairy. One of Rufus's two horses was taken
sick. Upon a similar occasion, the winter before, William had suggested
treatment which had cured the complaint. Rufus administered the same remedy for
a different disease, and the horse died. So far had the ill-feeling toward his
neighbor gone that Rufus ascribed the death of the horse to William, instead of
to his own folly in giving the medicine without a proper understanding of the
ailment.
William would have been
willing at any moment to resume their former relations, upon proper advances
from Rufus, of whose misfortunes he was indeed not fully informed, for
intercourse between the two families had entirely ceased and even the children
were forbidden to play together. The line that separated their farms marked as
well the boundary between two school districts, and the children went in
opposite directions to different schools. But there came a time when even
William's patience was exhausted, and he began to feel something like anger
toward his whilom friend.
The rear part of
William's farm consisted of a low meadow, through which ran a small stream.
With the instinct of a wise farmer seeking to diversify his crops to the best
advantage, William had planted this meadow in rice, with very good results. In
the cultivation of this cereal it was necessary, now and then, to flood the
meadow. This had heretofore been accomplished easily by damming up the stream
at the point where it left William's land, whereby it overspread its banks and
overflowed the low ground. This had resulted also in flooding Rufus's meadow,
which was of similar location and extent, and through which the stream flowed
before reaching William's land; but as Rufus had hitherto followed William's
advice and example in the matter of planting rice, this overflow was mutually
satisfactory and profitable to both.
In the season that
followed the beginning of this alienation of an old friendship, Rufus planted
his meadow in rice; but lacking William's wisdom, and not having the benefit of
his advice, Rufus's crop proved a failure, and the following year he determined
to plant the meadow in corn. Having received no notice of his neighbor's
intention to change the crop, William planted rice as usual, and in due time
dammed up the stream in order to flood the meadow. When Rufus saw the water
coming upon his corn, he said nothing to William, but went to consult a lawyer,
who advised an injunction. A lawsuit was accordingly begun, and William
restrained from backing up the water on the adjoining land.
It was this
unneighborly conduct on the part of Rufus that turned the milk of William's
friendship into the gall of enmity. He employed the best lawyer in the county,
and instructed him to fight the lawsuit to the bitter end.
A quarrel between
adjoining land-owners is usually a tedious affair, with many collateral
complications, and the law's delays are proverbial. In the course of the next
year or two it became necessary, at a certain stage of the proceedings, to make
a detailed plat of Rufus's farm, for which purpose a surveyor was employed. In
order to perform his work properly, the surveyor went to the county records and
procured an exact copy of the description in Rufus's deed. When with his
instruments he went to survey Rufus's lines he made a remarkable discovery --
the deed did not convey that piece of land at all, but contained a repetition
of the description of another parcel in the philanthropist's allotment,
previously sold to a different purchaser.
The surveyor was -- he
believed unjustly -- a poor man. His ancestors had once been rich in land and
slaves. His grandfather had once owned the very plantation out of which Rufus's
farm had been carved. The family had been ruined by the war. Driving past these
flourishing farms, the surveyor had often thought they ought to be his own. Now
he had discovered that one of the best of them was occupied by a Negro who held
it under a clouded title. After a very brief struggle with his conscience, the
surveyor made a long journey. In a distant Northern city he found a descendant
of the philanthropist, who had met with reverses and had died in comparative
poverty. Upon certain plausible representations the surveyor procured, for a
small sum, a quit-claim deed of all the right, title and interest of the
philanthropist's heir in the land occupied and improved for many years by
Rufus. Armed with this document he returned home and began an action in
ejectment.
The writ served upon
Rufus fell like a bombshell in the heart of his household. Never had he so
needed the advice and moral support of his former friend as when he first
comprehended the import of the proceedings now begun against him. If he had
followed his first impulse, he would have gone and begged his friend's pardon
for his own past conduct, to which, he obscurely realized, the alienation of
recent years was almost entirely due. Some such suggestion to his wife evoked,
however, a torrent of indignant protest.
"Beg his pa'don
indeed!" she cried. "He's 'sponsable fer all ou' troubles. Ef he had
n' dammed up dat creek you never would 'a' gone ter law, an' den you would n'
'a' h'ed no su'veyor, an' all dis trouble would n' 'a' come on us. He's
'sponsable fer it all, an' you sha' n't go nigh 'im."
So Rufus went for
advice to his lawyer, who tried the case and lost it on a technicality. A
better advocate might have won it. A rich man, properly advised, might have
taken the case to a higher court with a fair prospect of ultimate success. But
Rufus's misfortunes, including the expenses of litigation, had exhausted his
cash and his credit, both of which had been derived from the property now
decreed to be no longer his. He lost the spring of hope, and yielded to what
seemed the inevitable. His wife took the blow as hard, but in a different
manner.
"You're no 'count
at all," she said to Rufus bitterly. "I ma'ied a man wid land an'
hosses an' cows an' hawgs. Now after ten years er slavin', w'at is I got? A man
wid nuthin', an' not much er dat! I've wukked myse'f ter skin an' bone, fer
who? Fer a w'ite man! I mought as well never 'a' be'n freed. But I'll do so no
longer! Hencefo'th you c'n go yo' way an' I'll go mine."
She went away in anger,
taking her two children and moving to the neighboring town, where she rented a
small room and took in washing for a living. Rufus still lingered at the farm,
which he had received a two-weeks' notice to vacate. Several times during the
first week he had seen William near the line fence, looking toward the house
that must soon be occupied by strangers. Perhaps William was sorry for his old
friend -- more likely he was gloating over his fallen enemy. Rufus hardened his
heart and stiffened his neck, and when he saw William, looked the other way.
On the last day of the
second week Rufus harnessed up the old sore-backed horse, his sole remaining
beast of burden, to the rickety spring wagon which in the apathy of
hopelessness he had not cleaned or repaired for several months. Only the day
before he had seen the new owner riding along the road with his wife,
inspecting their future domain. Rufus had rented an abandoned log cabin in the
woods not far away, where he could hide his diminished head in shame; and he
hoped to procure day's work on the neighboring farms, whereby to keep body and
soul together. He would resign his deaconship in the church, and henceforth
lead the life of obscurity for which alone his meager talents qualified him. It
was hard, nevertheless, to leave the land that he had labored upon for so many
years, the house he had built with his own hands, and in which he had expected
to spend his declining years in peaceful comfort -- it was very, very hard.
He loaded the wagon
with his few remaining chattels -- his wife had taken some, and others had been
sold. When he had brought the last piece out of the house, he sat down upon the
doorstep and buried his face in his hands. In that moment of self-examination
the true source of his misfortunes became entirely clear to him. Long he sat
there, until even the sore-backed horse turned his head with an air of mild
surprise in his lack-lustre eye.
"Rufus!"
So deeply had Rufus
been absorbed in his own somber thoughts that he had not seen William climb
over the fence and approach the house. At the sound of his voice so near at
hand, Rufus looked up and saw William standing before him with outstretched
hand.
"No,
William," said Rufus, shaking his head slowly, "I could n' shake
han's wid you."
"Stop yo'
foolishness, Rufus, an' listen ter me? Gimme yo' han'!"
"No,
William," returned Rufus sadly, "I ain' fitten fer ter tech yo' han'.
You wuz my bes' frien'; you made me w'at I wuz; an' I tu'ned my back on you,
an' ha'dened my heart lak Farro of ole Egyp' ter de child'en er Is'ael. You had
never done me nuthin' but good; but I went ter de law 'g'inst you, an' den de
law come ter me -- an' I've be'n sarved right! I ain' fitten' ter tech yo'
han', William. Go 'long an' leave me ter my punishment!"
"You has spoke de
truf, Rufus, de Lord's truf! but ef I kin fergive w'at you done ter me, dey
ain' no 'casion fer you ter bear malice 'ginst yo'se'f. Git up f'm dere, man,
an' gimme yo' han', an' den listen ter my wo'ds!"
Rufus rose slowly, and
taking each other's hands they buried their enmity in a prolonged and fervent
clasp.
"An' now
Rufus," said William drawing from his pocket an old yellow paper, through
which the light shone along the seams where it had been folded, "does you
reco'nize dat paper?"
"No, William, you
'member I never l'arned ter read."
"Well, I has, an'
I'll read dis paper ter you:
"'William Cain an'
Rufus Green is gone in partners this day to work at whatever their hands find
to do. What they makes shall belong to one as much as the other, and they shall
stand by each other in sickness and in health, in good luck and in bad, till death
shall us part, and the Lord have mercy on our souls. Amen."
"Ou' ole
podnership paper, William," said Rufus sadly, "ou' ole podnership,
w'at wuz broke up ten years ago!"
"Broke up? Who
said it wuz broke up?" exclaimed William. It says 'in good luck an' in
bad, till death shall us part,' an' it means w'at it says! Do you suppose de
Lord would have mussy on my soul ef I wuz ter fersake my ole podner at de time
er his greates' trouble? He would n' be a jes' God ef he did! Come 'long now,
Rufus, an' we'll put dem things back in yo' house, an onhitch dat hoss. You
ain' gwine ter stir one foot f'm dis place, onless it's ter go home ter dinner
wid me. I've seen my lawyer, an' he says you got plenty er time yit ter 'peal
you' case an' take it ter de upper co't, wid eve'y chance ter win it -- an'
he's a hones' man, w'at knows de law. I've got money in de bank, an' w'at's
mine is yo'n till yo' troubles is ended, an' f'm dis time fo'th we is podners
'till death shall us part.'"