FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160  
161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   >>   >|  
ad life. You usually weren't sick, but if you were sick, it afforded you the luxury of tea. Turpentine and caster oil composed the entire _materia medica_. Turpentine was used for sore throats, cuts and bruises. Castor oil was used for everything else except a major fracture which called for the master sending in a doctor to the quarters. Yes, the gov'mint men with the blue uniforms and the shiny brass buttons had descended from the North on Athens--descended in spite of the double-barrelled cannon that the little master and the little master's men had tried on them. The blue clad invaders had come in despite of the quick breast-works, and the new-fangled cannon, and Bob Toombs boast that he "could beat the damn Yankees with corn-stalks before breakfast". (If only they had fought that way--if only they had [HW: not] needed grape-shot had enough to invent cannon mouths that spoke at the same time and were meant to mow down men with a long chain--if only they had not been able to fight long after Bull Run, and after breakfast!) Yes, the Yankees had come over the classic hills of Athens (Athens that had so many hills that she would have been named Rome except for her first land-grant college,) had left, and had come again to stay, and to bring freedom to John Cole and his kind. This was six months after Lee and his palandins had laid down the sword--the gallant, the unstained (but, alas, claimed Meade's batteries) the unconstitutional sword. Six months had gone and freedom had come. But John Cole, slave of Henry Hull, the banker, found that his freedom was the freedom of "the big oak"--Athens famed tree-that-owns-itself. He was free, but he had no way to go anywhere. He was rooted in the soil and would stay fast rooted. He worked on with his master for 20 years, without pay. Did he believe, back in slavery time in "signs" and in "sayings"--that the itching foot meant the journey to new lands--that the hound's midnight threnody meant murder? No, when he was a young buck and had managed the bad horses, he had had no such beliefs. No, he was not superstitious. If the foot itched something ought to be put on it (or taken off it)--and as to the hounds yelping, nobody ever knew what dark-time foolishness a hound-dog might be up to. But he was old, now. Death always comes in the afternoon. He does believe in things that have been proved. He does believe that a squinch-owl's screeching ("V-o-o-o-d-o-o! W-h-o-o-o?
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160  
161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
freedom
 

master

 

Athens

 

cannon

 

breakfast

 
rooted
 
descended
 

Yankees

 
Turpentine
 

months


unstained

 

gallant

 
claimed
 

worked

 
unconstitutional
 

banker

 
batteries
 
foolishness
 

yelping

 

screeching


squinch

 

afternoon

 

things

 

proved

 

hounds

 

threnody

 

midnight

 

murder

 

journey

 

slavery


sayings

 
itching
 

managed

 

itched

 

horses

 
beliefs
 

superstitious

 
uniforms
 

buttons

 
called

sending
 

doctor

 
quarters
 
invaders
 

breast

 

double

 
barrelled
 

fracture

 
afforded
 

luxury