CHAPTER LXV.

A GROWING SEASON IN YAZOO-MORE STRAW FOR BRICKS-BRICK WITHOUT STRAW-AS COVERING FOR A PURE HEART AND AN ENLIGHTENED MIND WHICH IS MOST BEAUTIFUL, A DARK OR A LIGHT SKIN?

TH

HE period from 1869 to 1875 in Yazoo was one of substantial, and as I now look back upon it, of wonderful progress. When once we had fairly entered on our work and the incrustations of slavery surrounding the hearts and the minds of the people, " both black and white," began to yield under the fructifying power of liberty--liberty restrained by just and equal laws-there seemed almost no limit to their expansion. The school rooms provided were filled full, the capacity of the teachers taxed to the uttermost, the kinks wrought in the mental fibres of the people by the most-by African slavery, were rapidly untangling, and the infections which that foul leper had scattered abroad in the social and political body were being rapidly expelled. Men and women who, born into a world that forbade them to aspire, to hope or to die, had never realized a picture, began to make them. What if the result was a daub! In the sight of Him who made us all it was beautiful, nay it was perfect. It was more than a prayer. It was Peter on the water before he began to sink. In Yazoo, under our planting, the daub took on form and beauty until all said it was a picture. The irre

It

concilables were not pleased with it. It was a rebuke to them, and how dare "our nigros" presume to do that! was more, it was a menace, a perpetual menace. It menaced the hoary and time-honored privilege of a "white" to be the superior of a "black!" But Grant was still President, and there still remained a Republican majority in Congress. Therefore, rave ever so madly, we had no fear that any rebel would be allowed to thrust his fist through our picture, nor to cut it, nor to use it for a target, while at pistol practice. So the negroes, men and women, held up their heads, walked upon the side-walk, when they were in town, even dared to sue at law a white and take away a coat or gown, "sassed back," and often "struck back," and I never knew one to refuse to employ a white man or woman to do their drudgery for them solely because of their complexion. Still more wonderful and incredible was the conduct of Aunt SophiaMrs. Sophia Waters, I should have said; for times had indeed changed in Yazoo. Mrs. Waters was no longer Aunt Sophia. But I am approaching dangerous ground now, and out of respect to the feelings of some of my readers shall tread lightly. Mrs. Waters was a colored lady; she had been the slave of old Judge Fox, up to the time of the arrival of the "Bureau" at Yazoo. Since that event she had accumulated some property. She at one time had money laid by, but the Freedman's Bank swallowed that-for a season at least. She also had a daughter, a real beauty, quite advanced in her studies and a very sensible girl. Judge Fox's son Dick fell in love with Josephine, Mrs. Waters' daughter, and "wanted" her, but neither the girl nor the mother would receive him upon any other terms than as a suitor for her hand in marriage. Now Judge Fox was rich, so everybody said, and both he and Mrs. Fox loved Dick dearly. Dick became almost distracted and begged his mother for her consent. The plan was to marry and sail away to some land where a woman was a woman for aye that, and aye that. The mother at last consented, but the father, old, and near

death's door, raved and protested until she withdrew it. Then a conspiracy was formed to obtain the girl for Dick according to the prevailing custom in that region when the high-contracting parties are on opposite sides of the caste line. Whether they accomplished their purpose or not, I cannot now say, but it would seem that they did, for, shortly afterward, Dick consented to take a white girl to be his wife; of course the white girl consented too.

Alas! the fathers of the Congressional plan of reconstruction, had they been able to have anticipated such things, could never have framed a law to meet such a case, nor such as the following. The papers never mentioned it. They could not, one of the prerequisites to its fitness for the columns of the Democrat or of our Banner, was still wanting in 1875. Zealous efforts had been put forth by "high-toned, honorable gentlemen" and ladies all along the family tree, even to the very roots, of the persons who were directly concerned; a white man and his white wife. These efforts failed to discover any trace whatever, even by that "surest of all tests," the finger nails, of negro blood in the family of either, yet-well, everybody said the child was a mulatto. It was a high-toned family. Being such, and there being no trace of negro blood anywhere to be found in any of its ancestors, it could not be said to have " breed back on the nigro." It could only be a "freak of nature." That settled it—i. e. nature settled it, and the husband joyfully recognized his own.* Of all the bright, quick-witted, modest and aspiring young girls in the Sabbath-school Charles and the General organized in the little church on the hill we helped to build, Susie Poindexter was first. Her ability to memorize was something marvelous. She rarely recited her lesson without reciting also an entire chapter, which she had herself selected. Susie was a good girl; but eight years old when she began, in the winter of 1867-'8, now, in 1871, she was fourteen. Her parents had taken a just pride in her develop

*He sent the boy North to be brought up

ment, and we all hoped that she would be able to acquire a sufficiently thorough education to fit her for excellent service as a school teacher. We had no fears for her morals. She was a strong, high-minded girl, but just at the point where the "brook and river meet," I lost sight for a time of Susie. When finally I met her it was upon the street. Her former pleasure at meeting me thus, and her grateful smile and courtesy were lacking. She appeared anxious to avoid me, and had a guilty look upon her face. At once realizing the truth, I set on foot inquiries which resulted in informing me that a "high-toned, honorable gentleman," one of Yazoo's "best citizens," was revelling in the "personal satisfaction" of having entangled upon his hook, while fishing upon the "inferior side of the line," one of "Morgan's black pets." When next I met Susie I held out my hand to her and greeted her with all the affection I had formerly manifested toward her. Then she began to cry. Still holding on to her hand, I asked her to come and see my wife, and talk it over with her. At this she cried all the more, and replying through her sobs: "Oh, Colonel Morgan, it ain't no use for me to try, I'm nothing but a nigger anyway." She withdrew her hand and ran away. Susie Poindexter was but one of the number who began with such bright prospects, only to fall away. Some met ruin in their own home. The Sabbath-school and the day school were the only places where they could stand without besmearing themselves with pitch. If perchance it was not within the dwelling of their parents, it was likely to be in that of their mistress or employer, and almost always upon the streets, or in the fields where, during a large part of the year, they were required to work. At all times liable to the grossest vulgarities and obscenities from white youth and men, and from black, too, the wonder is that many more were not defiled than there The fact is, the aspiring young colored girl, black or light complexioned, has always had to contend with such a multitude of obstacles that those who have conquered them

were.

are entitled to wear a crown in this world, as well as in the next.

Had we any such in Yazoo?

Yes, more than a few. The Emancipation Proclamation of Mr. Lincoln wiped out forever all stains upon the characters of colored women that affected their reputation for chastity and womanly purity. In the eye of all the civilized world it was to them a new birth, and every colored woman who realized the fact, and entered purposely into the battle of life by the new path, ought to have been and should hereafter be recognized by every true American woman or man, as the equal of the noblest in the land. Thus I believed and taught during my " dictatorship" in Yazoo, and thus I still believe, and mean to continue to teach. The result in Yazoo was to inspire colored women with the belief that the new path led out of Egypt to the promised land, where a pure heart, and an enlightened mind possibly might so light up a dark covering that it would be merely a question of taste which, the light or the dark skin, was most beautiful