Read Ebook: Daddy Jake the Runaway and Short Stories Told after Dark by Harris Joel Chandler Kemble E W Edward Windsor Illustrator

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Ebook has 780 lines and 40614 words, and 16 pages

"You were very much mistaken, then," said Doctor Gaston, sharply; "and if I had seen you strike Jake with your strap, I should have been tempted to take my buggy-whip and give you a dose of your own medicine."

As a matter of fact, Doctor Gaston was very angry, and he lost no time in giving the new overseer what the negroes called his "walking-papers." He paid him up and discharged him on the spot, and it was not many days before everybody on the Gaston plantation knew that the man had fallen into the hands of the Conscription officers of the Confederacy, and that he had been sent on to the front.

At the same time, as Mrs. Gaston herself remarked, this fact, however gratifying it might be, did not bring Daddy Jake back. He was gone, and his absence caused a great deal of trouble on the plantation. It was found that half-a-dozen negroes had to be detailed to do the work which he had voluntarily taken upon himself--one to attend to the carriage-horses, another to look after the cows, another to feed the hogs and sheep, and still others to look after the thousand and one little things to be done about the "big house." But not one of them, nor all of them, filled Daddy Jake's place.

Many and many a time Doctor Gaston walked up and down the veranda wondering where the old negro was, and Mrs. Gaston, sitting in her rocking-chair, looked down the avenue day after day, half expecting to see Daddy Jake make his appearance, hat in hand and with a broad grin on his face. Some of the neighbors, hearing that Uncle Jake had become a fugitive, wanted to get Bill Locke's "track-dogs" and run him down, but Doctor Gaston and his wife would not hear to this. They said that the old negro wasn't used to staying in the woods, and that it wouldn't be long before he would come back home.

Doctor Gaston, although he was much troubled, looked at the matter from a man's point of view. Here was Daddy Jake's home; if he chose to come back, well and good; if he didn't, why, it couldn't be helped, and that was an end of the matter. But Mrs. Gaston took a different view. Daddy Jake had been raised with her father; he was an old family servant; he had known and loved her mother, who was dead; he had nursed Mrs. Gaston herself when she was a baby; in short, he was a fixture in the lady's experience, and his absence worried her not a little. She could not bear to think that the old negro was out in the woods without food and without shelter. If there was a thunderstorm at night, as there sometimes is in the South during September, she could hardly sleep for thinking about the old negro.

Thinking about him led Mrs. Gaston to talk about him very often, especially to Lucien and Lillian, who had been in the habit of running out to the kitchen while Daddy Jake was eating his supper and begging him to tell a story. So far as they were concerned, his absence was a personal loss. While Uncle Jake was away they were not only deprived of a most agreeable companion, but they could give no excuse for not going to bed. They had no one to amuse them after supper, and, as a consequence, their evenings were very dull. The youngsters submitted to this for several days, expecting that Daddy Jake would return, but in this they were disappointed. They waited and waited for more than a week, and then they began to show their impatience.

"I used to be afraid of runaways," said Lillian one day, "but I'm not afraid now, 'cause Daddy Jake is a runaway." Lillian was only six years old, but she had her own way of looking at things.

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Lucien, who was nine, and very robust for his age; "I never was afraid of runaways. I know mighty well they wouldn't hurt me. There was old Uncle Fed; he was a runaway when Papa bought him. Would he hurt anybody?"

"But there might be some bad ones," said Lillian, "and you know Lucinda says Uncle Fed is a real, sure-enough witch."

"Lucinda!" exclaimed Lucien, scornfully. "What does Lucinda know about witches? If one was to be seen she wouldn't stick her head out of the door to see it. She'd be scared to death."

"Yes, and so would anybody," said Lillian, with an air of conviction. "I know I would."

"Well, of course,--a little girl," explained Lucien. "Any little girl would be afraid of a witch, but a great big double-fisted woman like Lucinda ought to be ashamed of herself to be afraid of witches, and that, too, when everybody knows there aren't any witches at all, except in the stories."

"Well, I heard Daddy Jake telling about a witch that turned herself into a black cat, and then into a big black wolf," said Lillian.

"Oh, that was in old times," said Lucien, "when the animals used to talk and go on like people. But you never heard Daddy Jake say he saw a witch,--now, did you?"

"No," said Lillian, somewhat doubtfully; "but I heard him talking about them. I hope no witch will catch Daddy Jake."

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Lucien. "Daddy Jake carried his rabbit-foot with him, and you know no witch can bother him as long as he has his rabbit-foot."

"Well," said Lillian, solemnly, "if he's got his rabbit-foot and can keep off the witches all night, he won't come back any more."

"Oh, may I go, too?" asked Lillian.

"Yes," said Lucien, loftily, "if you'll help me get some things out of the house and not say anything about what we are going to do."

Lillian was only too glad to pledge herself to secrecy, and the next day found the two children busily preparing for their journey in search of Daddy Jake.

The Gaston plantation lay along the Oconee River in Putnam County, not far from Roach's Ferry. In fact, it lay on both sides of the river, and, as the only method of communication was by means of a bateau, nearly everybody on the plantation knew how to manage the boat. There was not an hour during the day that the bateau was not in use. Lucien and Lillian had been carried across hundreds of times, and they were as much at home in the boat as they were in a buggy. Lucien was too young to row, but he knew how to guide the bateau with a paddle while others used the oars.

This fact gave him confidence, and the result was that the two children quietly made their arrangements to go in search of Daddy Jake. Lucien was the "provider," as he said, and Lillian helped him to carry the things to the boat. They got some meal-sacks, two old quilts, and a good supply of biscuits and meat. Nobody meddled with them, for nobody knew what their plans were, but some of the negroes remarked that they were not only unusually quiet, but very busy--a state of things that is looked upon by those who are acquainted with the ways of children as a very bad sign, indeed.

The two youngsters worked pretty much all day, and they worked hard; so that when night came they were both tired and sleepy. They were tired and sleepy, but they managed to cover their supplies with the meal-sacks, and the next morning they were up bright and early. They were up so early, indeed, that they thought it was a very long time until breakfast was ready; and, at last, when the bell rang, they hurried to the table and ate ravenously, as became two travelers about to set out on a voyage of adventure.

It was all they could do to keep their scheme from their mother. Once Lillian was on the point of asking her something about it, but Lucien shook his head, and it was not long before the two youngsters embarked on their journey. After seating Lillian in the bateau, Lucien unfastened the chain from the stake, threw it into the boat, and jumped in himself. Then, as the clumsy affair drifted slowly with the current, he seized one of the paddles, placed the blade against the bank, and pushed the bateau out into the middle of the stream.

It was the beginning of a voyage of adventure, the end of which could not be foretold; but the sun was shining brightly, the mocking-birds were singing in the water-oaks, the blackbirds were whistling blithely in the reeds, and the children were light-hearted and happy. They were going to find Daddy Jake and fetch him back home, and not for a moment did it occur to them that the old negro might have gone in a different direction. It seemed somehow to those on the Gaston plantation that whatever was good, or great, or wonderful had its origin "down the river." Rumor said that the biggest crops were grown in that direction, and that there the negroes were happiest. The river, indeed, seemed to flow to some far-off country where everything was finer and more flourishing. This was the idea of the negroes themselves, and it was natural that Lucien and Lillian should be impressed with the same belief. So they drifted down the river, confident that they would find Daddy Jake. They had no other motive--no other thought. They took no account of the hardships of a voyage such as they had embarked on.

Lazily, almost reluctantly as it seemed, the boat floated down the stream. At first, Lucien was inclined to use the broad oar, but it appeared that when he paddled on one side the clumsy boat tried to turn its head up stream on the other side, and so, after a while, he dropped the oar in the bottom of the boat.

The September sun was sultry that morning, but, obeying some impulse of the current, the boat drifted down the river in the shade of the water-oaks and willows that lined the eastern bank. On the western bank the Gaston plantation lay, and as the boat floated lazily along the little voyagers could hear the field-hands singing as they picked the opening cotton. The song was strangely melodious, though the words were ridiculous.

It was to the quaint melody of this song that the boat rocked and drifted along. One of the negroes saw the children and thought he knew them, and he called to them, but received no reply; and this fact was so puzzling that he went back and told the other negroes that there was some mistake about the children. "Ef dey'd 'a' bin our chillun," he said, "dey'd 'a' hollered back at me, sho'." Whereupon the field-hands resumed their work and their song, and the boat, gliding southward on the gently undulating current, was soon lost to view.

To the children it seemed to be a very pleasant journey. They had no thought of danger. The river was their familiar friend. They had crossed and recrossed it hundreds of times. They were as contented in the bateau as they would have been in their mother's room. The weather was warm, but on the river and in the shade of the overhanging trees the air was cool and refreshing. And after a while the current grew swifter, and the children, dipping their hands in the water, laughed aloud.

Once, indeed, the bateau, in running over a long stretch of shoals, was caught against a rock. An ordinary boat would have foundered, but this boat, clumsy and deep-set, merely obeyed the current. It struck the rock, recoiled, touched it again, and then slowly turned around and pursued its course down the stream. The shoals were noisy but harmless. The water foamed and roared over the rocks, but the current was deep enough to carry the bateau safely down. It was not often that a boat took that course, but Lucien and Lillian had no sense of fear. The roaring and foaming of the water pleased them, and the rushing and whirling of the boat, as it went dashing down the rapids, appeared to be only part of a holiday frolic. After they had passed the shoals, the current became swifter, and the old bateau was swept along at a rapid rate. The trees on the river bank seemed to be running back toward home, and the shadows on the water ran with them.

Sometimes the boat swept through long stretches of meadow and marsh lands, and then the children were delighted to see the sandpipers and killdees running along the margin of the water. The swallows, not yet flown southward, skimmed along the river with quivering wing, and the kingfishers displayed their shining plumage in the sun. Once a moccasin, fat and rusty, frightened by the unexpected appearance of the young voyagers, dropped into the boat; but, before Lucien could strike him with the unwieldy oar, he tumbled overboard and disappeared. Then the youngsters ate their dinner. It was a very dry dinner; but they ate it with a relish. The crows, flying lazily over, regarded them curiously.

"I reckon they want some," said Lucien.

They passed a white man who was sitting on the river bank, with his coat off, fishing.

"Where under the sun did you chaps come from?" he cried.

"Up the river," replied Lucien.

"Where in the nation are you going?"

"Down the river."

"Maybe he knows where Daddy Jake is," said Lillian. "Ask him."

"Why, he wouldn't know Daddy Jake from a side of sole leather," exclaimed Lucien.

Meanwhile the boat drifted steadily with the current. Sometimes it seemed to the children that the boat stood still, while the banks, the trees, and the fields moved by them like a double panorama. Queer-looking little birds peeped at them from the bushes; fox-squirrels chattered at them from the trees; green frogs greeted them by plunging into the water with a squeak; turtles slid noiselessly off the banks at their approach; a red fox that had come to the river to drink disappeared like a shadow before the sun; and once a great white crane rose in the air, flapping his wings heavily.

Altogether it was a very jolly journey, but after a while Lillian began to get restless.

"Do you reckon Daddy Jake will be in the river when we find him?" she asked.

Lucien himself was becoming somewhat tired, but he was resolved to go right on. Indeed, he could not do otherwise.

"Why, who ever heard of such a thing?" he exclaimed. "What would Daddy Jake be doing in the water?"

"Well, how are we's to find him?"

"Oh, we'll find him."

"But I want to find him right now," said Lillian, "and I want to see Mamma, and Papa, and my dollies."

"Well," said Lucien with unconscious humor, "if you don't want to go, you can get out and walk back home." At this Lillian began to cry.

"Well," said Lucien, "if Daddy Jake was over there in the bushes and was to see you crying because you didn't want to go and find him, he'd run off into the woods and nobody would see him any more."

Lillian stopped crying at once, and, as the afternoon wore on, both children grew more cheerful; and even when twilight came, and after it the darkness, they were not very much afraid. The loneliness--the sighing of the wind through the trees, the rippling of the water against the sides of the boat, the hooting of the big swamp-owl, the cry of the whippoorwill, and the answer of its cousin, the chuck-will's-widow--all these things would have awed and frightened the children. But, shining steadily in the evening sky, they saw the star they always watched at home. It seemed to be brighter than ever, this familiar star, and they hailed it as a friend and fellow-traveler. They felt that home couldn't be so far away, for the star shone in its accustomed place, and this was a great comfort.

After a while the night grew chilly, and then Lucien and Lillian wrapped their quilts about them and cuddled down in the bottom of the boat. Thousands of stars shone overhead, and it seemed to the children that the old bateau, growing tired of its journey, had stopped to rest; but it continued to drift down the river.

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