The Kidnapped And The Ransomed Part 25

"Then he is mine!"

"Yes."

"For five hundred dollars!"

"Yes."

"Yery well, your money will be ready when you want it."

Hogun hastened back to the auction. The boys were just going up.

He bid off the youngest for seven hundred and fifty dollars, and the other became the property of a planter, named W--, a few miles south of the town.

It was night. At his desk sat the young Jew, reviewing the business of the day. Cautiously the door was opened, and Peter entered the counting-room-- pausing to listen before he closed the door lest some chance visitor might be approaching. All was still.

"Now, Mr. Friedman," said the slave, while his voice trembled, and his whole frame was agitated, "I've come to pay you that money; and I reckon you wont cheat me. I've worked mighty hard to get it. There's three hundred dollars in this yer bag."

So saying he drew the precious treasure from his pocket, glancing instinctively towards the corners of the room, to be sure that no spy was there concealed. He proceeded to untie the bag. It was made of leather--about twelve inches long, three inches wide at the bottom, and half that width across the top.

It contained pieces of silver of all sizes, and now and then, as they came forth with a melodious clinking, a piece of gold glittered in the lamp-light.*

* It was Peter's custom, when he saw a piece of gold in the hands of a gentleman whom he had served, to ask him if he would not like change for that. If he received an affirmative reply, he would bring from his precious bag the amount in small silver coin. The writer knew him at one time to get ten dollars in five-cent-pieces, changed for gold. His habits of industry were so well known that such a request excited no suspicion--the small amount thus changed at once was presumed to be the sum of the poor fellow's wealth.

When the bag was about half emptied, Peter paused. It would be so easy for him to lose it all, and he had known so many slaves defrauded of their hard-earned gains, that it seemed impossible for him to trust. "But," thought he, "I've knowed Mr. Friedman a long time, and I never knowed him to do a mean trick. If I can't trust him, the Lord help me! I can't never be free without trustin' some person, any how."

He emptied the bag upon the table, and both counted it twice. It was right-three hundred dollars.

Mr. Friedman wrote a receipt for the money, and signing it, handed it to Peter. Poor fellow! He could not read it; but he believed it genuine, and a load was lifted from his heart. After all, he might be deceived. He was in this man's power; but he resolved to trust, and to go to work with all his might to earn the balance of the sum required to make him a freeman.

The next day Mr. Hogun received the stipulated five hundred dollars, and gave a bill of sale, of which the following is a copy:

"$500. For the consideration of five hundred dollars, paid to me this day, I have sold to Joseph Friedman a negro man named Peter. I bind myself and heirs to defend the t.i.tle of said negro, Peter, to the said Joseph Friedman and his heirs against all claims whatever.

Given under my hand and seal this 15th January, 1849.

JOHN H. HOGUN.".

Great sympathy was felt in Tusc.u.mbia for "poor Uncle Peter." It was so strange that Hogun would sell such a faithful old man to a Jew. Of course, Friedman wanted to make money out of him; and when he became no longer profitable, he would not scruple to carry him off and sell him.

Thus spake gentlemen and ladies; and soon their children caught the tone. "Don't you think," said one bright eyed little girl to another, as they walked to school, "Uncle Peter is sold!"

"Sold? I'm so sorry! Who's bought him? Are they going to carry him off?"

"No--no not now. Mr. Friedman's bought him; and 'ma says he's a Jew, and she says Jews will sell their own children for money. Pa says he don't doubt that Mr. Friedman will sell him the very first chance he gets to make money out of him; and then, perhaps, he'll be taken off to the rice swamps."

"Oh! that will be too bad! Aunt Milly says that in the rice swamps they don't care no more for killing black folks than they do for pigs and chickens. Oh! I'm so sorry for poor Uncle Peter! But what did they sell him for? He did'nt run away--nor his master didn't die."

"I don't know what made them sell him, his master wanted the money, I reckon. Oh! I wish my Pa owned him--he wouldn't sell him, I know. Ma says she thinks it's a pity for black folks to be sold at all, but sometimes it can't be helped."

"Well, I think it ought to be helped, for they feel so bad to be carried away off from everybody that loves them. Just think--if Mr.

Friedman should sell Uncle Peter away off where he never could come back Oh! wouldn't it be too bad?"

Said a gentleman, "Why did't you let me know, Peter, that your master wanted to sell you? I'd not have let that Jew get you. He'll sell you again; or, perhaps, work you to death."

"No, sir, I reckon not," replied Peter; "Mr. Friedman's always been mighty good to me, and I reckon he'll use me fa'r. Leastways, I belong to him now, and he'll do just as he thinks best."

Such was the judgment p.r.o.nounced upon the n.o.ble-hearted Jew by men and women who had bought and sold, and beaten, and oppressed the poor until their cry had gone up to heaven. They considered it their right thus to trample on their darker brethren.

They were born slaveholders, and when their servants neglected their duties, or so far forgot their station as to speak improperly to their superiors, they must be beaten, though their heads were grey.

Money, too, was sometimes "tight," and then the sale of a few of the young negroes that were "really in the way about the kitchen"

would help to fill the purse. These were their rights under the Const.i.tution; but for a Jew to have such power over a choice old servant was quite too bad. "A foreigner too! How could he know the feelings of tenderness cherished by a true Southerner for his slave?"

Meanwhile the despised and suspected Jew was arranging, with the object of all this sympathy, their future relations to each other.

"You may work, as you did before," said he to Peter, "but you may keep your earnings. When you get two hundred dollars more, I will give you free papers, and you shall go where you like. I do not want your work--get all you can for yourself."

Did the heart of the slave bound at these words? Did the tears of grat.i.tude sparkle in his eye? and the bright beams of hope irradiate his countenance? Ah! there is One "who seeth not as man seeth,"

and in His eye the generous truthfulness of the slandered Jew outshone the gaudy hypocrisy of his traducers.

Peter continued his usual labors with a light heart. He had now no hire to pay--his earnings were all his own.

The night after paying his three hundred dollars to Mr. Friedman, he went out to make his usual semi-monthly visit to his wife. How her heart throbbed when he told her all! Again and again she asked him if he were sure Mr. Isaac would be true. The children, too, had their hundred questions. Their father was very dear to them; and now he possessed new dignity, even in their eyes. "Just think, he would soon be free!" No selfish dread that thus he might be lifted above them dimmed their transparent hearts. They loved their father, and they could not doubt him.

A few months later, a heavy sorrow fell upon this loving group.

The third son, William, who, at Peter's solicitation, had been hired, as waiter, to Captain Bell, in Tusc.u.mbia, was found drowned in the Spring Creek, just below the town.

It was a warm morning in July, and he had obtained permission to go out fis.h.i.+ng. Several boys were near him bathing, but after a while, they all left him, and went some distance down the creek.

Here they continued their play till about dinner time, when, as they came up, one of them noticed a boy's clothes on the bank. "They're William's clothes," said two or three at once. "Where is he?" Alas, they could obtain no answer to their question, and they ran up to town and gave the alarm. A crowd of men and boys hastened to the creek; and after diving for some time, they found him at the bottom.

That night the sorrowing father conveyed the lifeless body of his son to the cabin of his wife, whence he was buried beside the little ones that in their infancy had sunk to happy slumbers.

Poor Vina's heart was almost crushed by this affliction. William was her darling; indeed he was a favorite with all who knew him.

"Oh!" sobbed his mother, "I could a seen him die if I'd thought it was the Lord's will; but to think o' his strugglin' and goin' down thar all alone, 'pears like, it's more'n I can b'ar."

In September of this year, Joseph Friedman returned from Texas; and soon after, Peter paid to him one hundred dollars, which he had earned since January. The Jew seemed delighted at the success of his humble friend, and congratulated him on the prospect of soon becoming free. Only one hundred dollars was now lacking, and that, if he were prospered, he soon could earn; and then he should be free.

Patiently he toiled on. His brow was all unruffled, and no trace of care was visible on his cheerful face. He moved so quietly in his accustomed course, that men forgot their jealousy of the Jew, and little maidens ceased to pity "poor Uncle Peter."

Late in the evening of the sixteenth of April, 1850, Peter sought, once more, the counting-room of Mr. Friedman. His hand might well tremble as he raised the latch; for his all was now at stake, and he was helpless. He entered. There sat the little Jew, looking at him with his keen black eyes. Timidly he drew forth his leather bag, and commenced counting out the money.

A footstep approached. Mr. Friedman quietly laid a pile of papers over the coin, and Mr. S--, the auctioneer, walked in.

"What, Peter," said he, "are you paying up?"

"Yes, sir. Ma.s.s'r Joe make me pay him up close[.]"

"How much do you have to pay?"

"Well, sir, he makes me pay him half a dollar a day."

"That's pretty tight, but it's the best way, after all."