The one queer feature about The Countryman was the fact that it was the only plantation newspaper that has ever been published, the nearest post-office being nine miles away. It might be supposed that such a newspaper would be a failure; but The Countryman was a success from the start, and at one time it reached a circulation of nearly two thousand copies. The editor was a very original writer, and his editorials in The Countryman were quoted in all the papers in the Confederacy, but he was happiest when engaged in a political controversy. Another feature of The Countryman was the fact that there was never any lack of copy for the foreman and the apprentice to set. Instead of clipping from his exchanges, the editor sent to the office three books, from which extracts could be selected. These books were Lacon, Percy’s Anecdotes, and Rochefoucauld’s Maxims. Then there were weekly letters from the army in Virginia and voluntary contributions from many ambitious writers. Some of the war correspondence was very gloomy, for as the months wore on it told of the death of a great many young men whom Joe had known, and the most of them had been very kind to him.
The days in the printing-office would have been very lonely for Joe, but the grove that surrounded it was full of gray squirrels. These had been so long undisturbed that they were comparatively tame. They were in the habit of running about over the roof of the office and playing at hide-and-seek like little children. To the roof, too, the blue-jays would bring their acorns and hammer at the hard shells in the noisiest way, and once a red fox made bold to venture near Joe’s window, where he stood listening and sniffing the air until some noise caused him to vanish like a flash. Most interesting of all, a partridge and her mate built their nest within a few feet of the window, and it often happened that Joe neglected his work in watching the birds. They bent the long grass over from each side carefully until they had formed a little tunnel three or four feet long. When this was done, Mrs. Partridge made her way to the end of it and began to scratch and flutter just as a hen does when taking a dust-bath. She was hollowing out her nest. By the time the nest was completed the archway of grass that had hid it was considerably disarranged. Then Mrs. Partridge sat quietly on the little hollow she had made, while Mr. Partridge rebuilt the archway over her until she was completely concealed. He was very careful about this. Frequently he would walk off a little way and turn and look at the nest. If his sharp eyes could see anything suspicious, he would return and weave the grass more closely together. Finally, he seemed to be satisfied with his work. He shook his wings and began to preen himself, and then Mrs. Partridge came out and joined him. They consulted together with queer little duckings, and finally ran off into the undergrowth as if bent on a frolic.
The work of Mr. and Mrs. Partridge was so well done that Joe found it very difficult to discover the nest when he went out of the office. He knew where it was from his window, but when he came to look for it out of doors it seemed to have disappeared, so deftly was it concealed; and he would have been compelled to hunt for it very carefully but for the fact that when Mrs. Partridge found herself disturbed she rushed from the little grass tunnel and threw herself at Joe’s feet, fluttering around as if desperately wounded, and uttering strange little cries of distress. Once she actually touched his feet with her wings, but when he stooped to pick her up she managed to flutter off just out of reach of his hand. Joe followed along after Mrs. Partridge for some little distance, and he discovered that the farther she led him away from her nest the more her condition improved, until finally she ran off into the sedge and disappeared. Joe has never been able to find any one to tell him how Mrs. Partridge knew what kind of antics a badly wounded bird would cut up. He has been told that it is the result of instinct. The scientists say, however, that instinct is the outgrowth of necessity; but it seems hard to believe that necessity could have given Mrs. Partridge such accurate knowledge of the movements of a wounded bird.
In carrying proofs from the printing-office to the editor, Joe Maxwell made two discoveries that he considered very important. One was that there was a big library of the best books at his command, and the other was that there was a pack of well-trained harriers on the plantation. He loved books and he loved dogs, and if he had been asked to choose between the library and the harriers he would have hesitated a long time. The books were more numerous—there were nearly two thousand of them, while there were only five harriers—but in a good many respects the dogs were the liveliest. Fortunately, Joe was not called on to make any choice. He had the dogs to himself in the late afternoon and the books at night, and he made the most of both. More than this, he had the benefit of the culture of the editor of The Countryman and of the worldly experience of Mr. Snelson, the printer.
To Joe Maxwell, sadly lacking in knowledge of mankind, Mr. Snelson seemed to be the most engaging of men. He was the echo and mouthpiece of a world the youngster had heard of but never seen, and it pleased him to hear the genial printer rehearse his experiences, ranging all the way from Belfast, Ireland, where he was born, to all the nooks and corners of the United States, including the little settlement where the plantation newspaper was published. Mr. Snelson had been a tramp and almost a tragedian, and he was pleased on many occasions to give his little apprentice a taste of his dramatic art. He would stuff a pillow under his coat and give readings from Richard III, or wrap his wife’s mantilla about him and play Hamlet.
0047
When tired of the stage he would clear his throat and render some of the old ballads, which he sang very sweetly indeed.
One night, after the little domestic concert was over and Joe was reading a book by the light of the pine-knot fire, a great fuss was heard in the hen-house, which was some distance from the dwelling.
“Run, John,” exclaimed Mrs. Snelson; “I just know somebody is stealing my dominicker hen and her chickens. Run!”
“Let the lad go,” said Mr. Snelson, amiably. “He’s young and nimble, and whoever’s there he’ll catch ’em.—Run, lad! and if ye need help, lift your voice and I’ll be wit’ ye directly.”
The dwelling occupied by Mr. Snelson was in the middle of a thick wood, and at night, when there was no moon, it was very dark out of doors; but Joe Maxwell was not afraid of the dark. He leaped from the door and had reached the hen-house before the chickens ceased cackling and fluttering. It was too dark to see anything, but Joe, in groping his way around, laid his hand on Somebody.
His sensations would be hard to describe. His heart seemed to jump into his mouth, and he felt a thrill run over him from head to foot. It was not fear, for he did not turn and flee. He placed his hand again on the Somebody and asked:
“Who are you?”
Whatever it was trembled most violently and the reply came in a weak, shaking voice and in the shape of another question:
“Is dis de little marster what come fum town ter work in de paper office?”
“Yes; who are you, and what are you doing here?”
“I’m name Mink, suh, an’ I b’longs to Marse Tom Gaither. I bin run’d away an’ I got dat hongry dat it look like I bleedz ter ketch me a chicken. I bin mighty nigh famished, suh. I wish you’d please, suh, excusen me dis time.”
“Why didn’t you break and run when you heard me coming?” asked Joe, who was disposed to take a practical view of the matter.
“You wuz dat light-footed, suh, dat I ain’t hear you, an’ sides dat, I got my han’ kotch in dish yer crack, an’ you wuz right on top er me ’fo’ I kin work it out.”
“Why don’t you stay at home?” asked Joe.
“Dey don’t treat me right, suh,” said the negro, simply. The very tone of his voice was more convincing than any argument could have been.
“Can you get your hand out of the crack?” asked Joe.
“Lord, yes, suh; I’d’a done got it out fo’ now, but when you lipt on me so quick all my senses wuz skeered out’n me.”
“Well,” said Joe, “get your hand out and stay here till I come back, and I’ll fetch you something to eat.”
“You ain’t foolin’ me, is you, little marster?”
“Do I look like I’d fool you?” said Joe, scornfully.
“I can’t see you plain, suh,” said the negro, drawing a long breath, “but you don’t talk like it.”
“Well, get your hand loose and wait.”
As Joe turned to go to the house, he saw Mr. Snelson standing in the door.
“It’s all right, sir,” the youngster said. “None of the chickens are gone.”
“A great deal of fuss and no feathers,” said Mr. Snelson. “I doubt but it was a mink.”
“Yes,” said Joe, laughing. “It must have been a Mink, and I’m going to set a bait for him.”
“In all this dark?” asked the printer. “Why, I could stand in the door and crush it wit’ me teeth.”
“Why, yes,” replied Joe. “I’ll take some biscuit and a piece of corn bread, and scatter them around the hen-house, and if the mink comes back he’ll get the bread and leave the chickens alone.”
“Capital!” exclaimed Mr. Snelson, slapping Joe on the back. “I says to mother here, says I, ‘As sure as you’re born to die, old woman, that B’y has got the stuff in ’im that they make men out of.’ I said them very words. Now didn’t I, mother?”
Joe got three biscuits and a pone of cornbread and carried them to Mink. The negro had freed his hand, and he loomed up in the darkness as tall as a giant.
“Why, you seem to be as big as a horse,” said Joe.
“Thanky, little marster, thanky. Yes, suh, I’m a mighty stout nigger, an’ ef marster would des make dat overseer lemme ’lone I’d do some mighty good work, an’ I’d a heap druther do it dan ter be hidin’ out in de swamp dis away like some wil’ varmint. Good-night, little marster.”
0052
“Good-night!” said Joe.
“God bless you, little marster!” cried Mink, as he vanished in the darkness.
That night in Joe Maxwell’s dreams the voice of the fugitive came back to him, crying, “God bless you, little marster!”
But it was not in dreams alone that Mink came back to Joe. In more than one way the negro played an important part in the lad’s life on the plantation. One evening about dusk, as Joe was going home, taking a “near cut” through the Bermuda pasture, a tall form loomed up before him, outlining itself against the sky.
“Howdy, little marster! ’Tain’t nobody but Mink. I des come ter tell you dat ef you want anything out’n de woods des sen’ me word by Harbert. I got some pa’tridge-eggs here now. Deyer tied up in a rag, but dat don’t hurt um. Ef you’ll des spread out yo’ hank’cher I’ll put um in it.”
“Haven’t you gone home yet?” asked Joe, as he held out his handkerchief.
“Lord, no, suh!” exclaimed the negro. “De boys say dat de overseer say he waitin’ fer Mink wid a club.”
There were four dozen of these eggs, and Joe and Mr. Snelson enjoyed them hugely.
From that time forward, in one way and another, Joe Maxwell kept in communication with Mink. The lad was not too young to observe that the negroes on the plantation treated him with more consideration than they showed to other white people with the exception of their master. There was nothing they were not ready to do for him at any time of day or night. The secret of it was explained by Har-bert, the man-of-all-work around the “big house.”
“Marse Joe,” said Harbert one day, “I wuz gwine’long de road de udder night an’ I met a great big nigger man. Dish yer nigger man took an’ stop me, he did, an’ he’low, ‘Dey’s a little white boy on y o’ place which I want you fer ter keep yo’ two eyes on ’im, an’ when he say come, you come, an’ when he say go, you go.’ I’low, ‘’hey, big nigger man! what de matter?’ an’ he ’spon’ back, ‘I done tole you, an’ I ain’t gwine tell you no mo’. So dar you got it, Marse Joe, an’ dat de way it stan’s.”
And so it happened that, humble as these negroes were, they had it in their power to smooth many a rough place in Joe Maxwell’s life. The negro women looked after him with almost motherly care, and pursued him with kindness, while the men were always ready to contribute to his pleasure.