Negro Tales Part 1

Negro Tales.

by Joseph Seamon Cotter.

THE AUTHOR

The Author is one of a race that has given scarcely anything of literature to the world. His modest tender of some Christmas verses to me led to an inquiry which revealed his story of unpretentious but earnest and conscientious toil. He is wholly self-taught in English literature and composition. The obstacles which he has surmounted were undreamed of by Burns and other sons of song who struggled up from poverty, obscurity, and ignorance to glory.

Joseph Seamon Cotter was born in Nelson County, Kentucky, in 1861, but has spent practically all his life in Louisville. He had the scantiest opportunity for schooling in childhood, though he could read before he was four years old. He was put to work early, and from his eighth to his twenty-fourth year earned his living by the roughest and hardest labor, first in a brick yard, then in a distillery, and finally as a teamster.

At twenty-two his scholars.h.i.+p was so limited that when he entered the first one of Louisville's night schools for colored pupils he had to begin in the primary department. His industry and capacity were so great that at the end of two sessions of five months each he began to teach.

He has persevered in his calling, educating himself while at work, and is now Princ.i.p.al of the Tenth Ward Colored School, at Thirteenth and Green streets. The man whose advice and encouragement at the beginning chiefly enabled him to accomplish this was Prof. W. T. Peyton, a well-known colored educator of this city, whom he regards as his greatest benefactor.--THOMAS G. WATKINS, _Financial Editor Louisville Courier-Journal_.

NEGRO TALES

CALEB

Patsy and Benjamin, her husband, were talking about their first and second weddings, and of Caleb, their son. They were also thinking of Rahab, Caleb's teacher.

"We have been blessed in the number of our weddings," said she.

"Yes; but cursed in Caleb," he replied.

"Our last wedding, as free people, was not equal to the first as slaves."

"That was because Caleb came in between."

"How many ex-slaves have considered the significance of these second weddings?"

"How many fathers and mothers have been cursed by only sons?"

Caleb entered the room as his father uttered these words, and struck him violently over the heart. The old man straightened up, gasped spasmodically, clutched at his breast wildly, and then fell heavily to the floor. Caleb, with a parting sneer, left the room, while Patsy ran to the aid of her husband. She turned him on his back, opened his s.h.i.+rt at the neck, but her efforts were of no avail. Benjamin was dead.

Patsy did not report Caleb for the murder of his father, but went on thinking her own theology and asking Rahab to explain.

"A thirty-dollar coffin? No, no, undertaker! A five-dollar robe? No, no, undertaker! Four carriages? No, no, undertaker! Think you the living have no rights? Cold, rigid dignity will suffice the dead, but the living must have money. He was my father, and I am his heir; therefore, speedy forgetfulness for the one and luxury for the other. Five hundred dollars are upon his life. As four hundred and fifty slip through my fingers I'll remember I owe him something for dying a pauper. Twenty dollars will keep Patsy chewing starch; and you, undertaker, may have the rest, and the thanks of science for your services. Why gaze upon the dead? Think you how you can make it twenty? At twenty? At twenty, you say? Cigars, cigars, ten dollars for cigars. You can't? Out! Out! Out!

Offend not the living by pitying the dead."

Caleb thus addressed the undertaker while gazing upon the dead body of his father.

As the undertaker left the room Patsy hobbled in upon her crutches, sat close to the corpse and sobbed aloud.

"Why those tears, old woman?" asked Caleb.

"Where is your heart, Caleb, my boy?"

"In the twenty dollars you hold in your hand. Disgrace, and disgrace, and ever disgrace! The old man was a boaster in life and a pauper in death. Now you would spend for starch what I should spend for cigars. No more disgrace for the family, old woman. Eschew starch, bless your son, and hie you to the washtub."

He took the money and arranged it in the shape of a cigar.

Patsy looked lovingly at Caleb, and considered Rahab's offer to preach Benjamin's funeral sermon.

On the day of Benjamin's funeral Rahab was present. Patsy gave him a chair close to the coffin. The people were so seated that egress was impossible.

Leaning upon her crutches and gazing straight into Rahab's face, Patsy gave out, and the people sang: "A charge to keep I have, a G.o.d to glorify."

Rahab looked at the corpse; and, seeing a sermon in the cold, rigid form, turned and looked at Patsy. "Beware of the immediate future," said she.

Rahab trembled, stammered something, and looked at the ceiling. Patsy brought her crutch in close proximity to his head.

Said she, keeping her crutch in motion and her eye in Rahab's: "Words of the dead to the dead avail little. Were it not for your presence there would be no funeral sermon. The man in the coffin is not dead, but sleeping. Why should we disturb his slumbers? You have just life enough to hear your doom. Why should we not p.r.o.nounce it?"

Rahab started to rise. Patsy moved her crutch, and the people sang: "That awful day will surely come."

Rahab dropped back into his seat and looked wildly around the room.

Patsy laid her hand gently upon his shoulder and said: "Rahab, Benjamin's blood is in part upon your hands. Caleb believed you when you said that G.o.d would curse him. After seeing your crimes he believed that G.o.d had cursed both. To be cursed, he thinks, gives the right to curse.

Rahab, the Master is waiting and calling."

"He is waiting," said Rahab; "but not to bless."

The people sang: "While the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return."

Rahab raised himself up with difficulty and pitched forward upon the floor.

"Rahab, what do you see?" asked Patsy.

"I see Caleb's undoing between me and the New Jerusalem. Fool was I. I won his confidence, and led him to believe false doctrine. G.o.d, pardon Caleb. I sinned in his sight and laughed at his virtue. d.a.m.n not Caleb, O G.o.d, but me."

Rahab ceased to speak and was carried out. His last words were: "d.a.m.n not Caleb, O G.o.d, but me."

Some said he died of excitement; others said it was of pure consciousness of guilt.

A few weeks pa.s.sed. The night was cold, and Patsy was dying. Caleb sat in a corner of the room. In his mouth was a lighted cigar. At his feet was a split-covered box, from which came a sound that was music to his ears.

On a similar night about a year before Patsy cried out pitifully: "My baby, my Caleb, perdition, perdition!" She had sprung forward, as though about to clutch something, and had struck her head against the stove, inflicting an ugly wound.

"It was all a dream," she afterwards said. "Methought my Caleb was a babe again. I pressed him to my heart and crooned one of those nonsensical baby ditties so old, yet so sweet to the mother's heart.

When he said 'Dad,' 'Dad,' I held him up and kissed his chin, mouth, nose, eyes, and forehead. I looked five years ahead and saw him clinging to my dress while I gathered roses for his brow. I looked ten years ahead and saw him among his schoolmates, contending for the mastery in sports and studies. Again I looked and saw him a man of thirty, I, bent and gray, leaning upon his arm, receiving the confidence of the wise, the respect of the just. Time, the robber, would steal my angel. I held him up and kissed his hands and feet over and over. I fell asleep. When I awoke my baby was lying upon the floor. Thinking it was hurt, I screamed: 'My baby.' Straightway it turned into Caleb, the man, and I called: 'My Caleb!' A flame of fire sprang up and began to circle him round. Then it was I cried: 'Perdition, perdition!' and sprang to help him. This ugly wound on my head will be my death; but Caleb, Caleb!"

The night was cold, and Patsy was dying. Caleb sat in a corner of the room. In one hand was the stump of a cigar. In the other was a chicken, still making the sound that was music to his ears. When Patsy's groans disturbed him he moved the empty box with his feet.