"He can blow the flute very well, that 'a can," said a young
married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was
known as "Susan Tall's husband.
married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was
known as "Susan Tall's husband.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
"
"Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my
boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers- that they
were, sure, weren't ye, Jacob? "
"Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with
a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper
jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a
milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him.
However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore
us, didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe ? »
"No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty
or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a
cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assum-
ing a chinchilla shade here and there.
"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a
place when I was quite a child. "
man in the
## p. 6949 (#337) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6949
"Ay; the other day I and my youngest daughter Liddy were
over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy.
"We were
talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification
Day in this very world, when the use-money is gi'ed away to the
second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the
day because they all had to traypse up to the vestry-yes, this
very man's family. "
«< Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us
a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster,
removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion red and
bleared by gazing into it for so many years. "Take up the
God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis warm, Jacob. "
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled
tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat:
it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside,
especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of
which may not have seen daylight for several years by reason
of this incrustation thereon-formed of ashes accidentally wetted
with cider and baked hard; but to the mind of any sensible
drinker the cup was no worse for that, being incontestably clean
on the inside and about the rim. It may be observed that such
a class of mug is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and
its vicinity for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes
any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom
in drinking it empty.
Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm
enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermom-
eter, and having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree,
raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust some of the
ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because
shepherd Oak was a stranger.
"A clane cup for the shepherd," said the maltster command-
ingly.
--
"No, not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of consid-
erateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and when
I know what sort it is. " Taking the mug, he drank an inch or
more from the depths of its contents and duly passed it to the
next man. "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neigh-
bors in washing up when there is so much work to be done in
the world already," continued Oak in a moister tone, after recov-
ering from the stoppage of breath which is occasioned by pulls
at large mugs.
## p. 6950 (#338) ###########################################
6950
THOMAS HARDY
"
"A right sensible man," said Jacob.
"True, true; it can't be gainsaid! " observed a brisk young
man - Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman,
whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know
was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to pay
for.
"And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis'ess have
sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of
victuals. Don't ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the
bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and
maybe 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know
what that is, as you say, and you bain't a particular man, we see,
shepherd. "
"True, true; not at all," said the friendly Oak.
"Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the
sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by con-
trivance! "
"My own mind exactly, neighbor. "
"Ah, he's his granfer's own grandson! his grandfer were
just such a nice unparticular man! " said the maltster.
"Drink, Henry Fray, drink," magnanimously said Jan Cog-
gan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and
share alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed
signs of approaching him in its gradual revolution among them.
Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze
into mid-air, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than
middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it
down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-suffering
look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it presented
itself to his imagination. He always signed his name "Henery"
-strenuously insisting upon that spelling; and if any passing
schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second "e" was super-
fluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y"
was the name he was christened and the name he would stick
to-in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were
matters which had a great deal to do with personal character.
Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup fo Henery, was a
crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in
his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage register of
Weatherbury and neighboring parishes as best man and chief
witness in countless unions of the previous twenty years; he also
## p. 6951 (#339) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6951
very frequently filled the post of head godfather in baptisms of
the subtly jovial kind.
Ther's plenty more in the bar-
«< Come, Mark Clark, come.
rel," said Jan.
"Ay, that I will; 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark,
who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the
same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special dis-
charge at popular parties.
"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop! " said Mr.
Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the
cup towards him.
"Such a modest man as he is! " said Jacob Smallbury. "Why,
ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young
mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph ? "
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No, I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, re-
ducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek
sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas noth-
ing but blushes with me! "
"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.
Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.
"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass; his shyness, which was
so painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now
that it was regarded as an interesting study.
an interesting study. "Twere blush,
blush, blush with me every minute of the time when she was
speaking to me. "
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a
very bashful man. ”
"Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster.
"And how long have ye suffered from it, Joseph? "
"Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes, mother was concerned to
her heart about it - yes. But 'twas all naught. "
"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph
Poorgrass? "
"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to Green-
hill Fair, and into a great large jerry-go-nimble show, where
there were women-folk riding round-standing upon horses with.
hardly anything on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a
morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the Woman's Skittle
Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a
horrible evil situation, and a very curious place for a good man.
## p. 6952 (#340) ###########################################
6952
THOMAS HARDY
I had to stand and look ba'dy people in the face from morning
till night; but 'twas no use I was just as bad as ever after all.
Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a
happy Providence that I be no worse, and I feel the blessing. "
"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a
profounder view of the subject. Tis a thought to look at,
that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very
bad affliction for ye, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis
very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like
him, poor feller. »
He appealed to the shepherd by a feeling
glance.
«Yes,
-
"Tis, 'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation.
very awkward for the man. "
« Once
"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan.
he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap
of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home along through
Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass? "
"No, no, no; not that story! " expostulated the modest man,
forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
"And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan with an
impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide,
must run its course and would respect no man. "And as he was
coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not
able to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-
a-lost! man-a-lost! ' A owl in a tree happened to be crying
'Whoo-whoo-whoo! ' as owls do, you know, shepherd" (Gabriel
nodded), “and Joseph all in a tremble said, 'Joseph Poorgrass
of Weatherbury, sir! ""
wwwxxx. com
"No, no, now that's too much! " said the timid man, becom-
ing a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't say sir.
I'll take my oath I didn't say Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury,
sir. ' No, no; what's right is right, and I never said sir to the
bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would
be hollering there at that time o' night. Joseph Poorgrass of
Weatherbury,' - that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha'
said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper Day's metheglin.
There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended where it did. "
The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the
company, Jan went on meditatively: -
"And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph? Ay, another
time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph ? "
## p. 6953 (#341) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6953
"I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions
too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being
one.
"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would
not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's
hand in it, he kneeled down. "
"Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of
the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities
of the experience alluded to. "My heart died within me, that
time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then
the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in
earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went
on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and thinks I, this makes four,
and 'tis all I know out of book, and if this don't do it nothing
will, and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me,
I rose from my knees and found the gate would open,—yes,
neighbors, the gate opened the same as ever. "
A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all,
and during its continuance each directed his vision into the ash-
pit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical
sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light,
partly from the depth of the subject discussed.
Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place is this to
live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under? " Ga-
briel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice
of the assembly the innermost subject of his heart.
-
"We d' know little of her — nothing. She only showed her-
self a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor
was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the
As I take it, she's going to keep on the farm. "
man.
"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan.
"Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under
one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man.
Did ye know en, shepherd-a bachelor man? "
"Not at all. "
"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife Charlotte,
who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were.
farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was
allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but
not to carry away any outside my skin I mane, of course. "
"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning. "
――――――
## p. 6954 (#342) ###########################################
6954
THOMAS HARDY
"And so, you see, 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value
his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered
as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting
the man's generosity - "
"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.
—
- And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and
then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket-
so thorough dry that that ale would slip down-ah, 'twould slip
down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks
as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You
used to go wi' me sometimes. "
"I can, I can," said Jacob. "That one, too, that we had at
Buck's Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple. "
་་
"Twas. But for a drunk of really a noble class, that brought
you no nearer to the Dark Man than you were afore you begun,
there was none like those in farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a
single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most
cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old
word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great
relief to a merry soul. "
"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at
the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations
is a necessity of life. "
Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a
very aged man, malter, to have sons growed up so old and
ancient," he remarked.
"Father's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye, father? "
interposed Jacob. "And he's growed terrible crooked, too, lately,"
Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rather
more bowed than his own. Really, one may say that father
there is three-double. "
<<
"Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster
grimly, and not in the best humor.
"Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father
- would'nt ye, shepherd? "
"Ay, that I should," said Gabriel, with the heartiness of a
man who had longed to hear it for several months. "What may
your age be, malter? "
The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for
emphasis. and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the
ash-pit said, in the slow speech justifiable when the importance
## p. 6955 (#343) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6955
of a subject is so generally felt that any mannerism must be
tolerated in getting at it:-
"Well, I don't mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I
can reckon up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I
bode at Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north)
"till I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east), "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to Norcombe,
and malted there two-and-twenty years, and two-and-twenty years.
I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed that
old place Norcombe, years afore you were thought of, Master
Oak" (Oak smiled a corroboration of the fact). "Then I malted
at Durnover four year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and I was
fourteen times eleven months at Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding
north-west-by-north). "Old Twills wouldn't hire me for more
than eleven months at a time, to keep me from being chargeable
to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then I was three year at
Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candle-
mas. How much is that? "
«Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman,
given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hith-
erto sat unobserved in a corner.
"Well then, that's my age," said the maltster emphatically.
"Oh no, father! " said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in
the summer and your malting in the winter of the same years,
and ye don't ought to count both halves, father. "
"Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's
my question. I suppose ye'll say next I be no age at all to
speak of? "
"Sure we shan't," said Gabriel soothingly.
"Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan,
also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a won-
derful talented constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he,
neighbors ? "
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting
unanimously.
The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough.
to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having
lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were
drinking out of was three years older than he.
While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's
flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery
## p. 6956 (#344) ###########################################
6956
THOMAS HARDY
Fray exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a
great flute by now at Casterbridge? "
"You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly.
trouble, neighbors, and was driven to it.
poor as I be now. "
"Never mind, heart! " said Mark Clark.
careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come.
thank ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired. "
"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard this Christmas,"
said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak! "
"I've been in great
I used not to be so
"You should take it
But we could
"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel readily, pulling out his flute
and putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbors; but such as I
can do ye shall have and welcome. "
Oak then struck up 'Jockey to the Fair,' and played that
sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the
third round in a most artistic and lively manner by bending his
body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time.
"He can blow the flute very well, that 'a can," said a young
married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was
known as "Susan Tall's husband. " He continued admiringly,
"I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that. "
"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have
such a shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass in a soft cadence.
"We ought to feel real thanksgiving that he's not a player of
ba'dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been
just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low
mana man of iniquity, so to speak it as what he is. Yes,
for our wives' and daughters' sakes we should feel real thanks-
giving. "
"True, true,-real thanksgiving! " dashed in Mark Clark con-
clusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion.
that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what
Joseph had said.
"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the
Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times, that ye may be as
much deceived in the clanest shaved and whitest shirted man as
in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I may term it so. "
"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray,
criticizing Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second
"Yes, now I see ye blowing into the flute I know ye to
be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were
tune.
## p. 6957 (#345) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6957
scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's-
just as they be now. "
"Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look
such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criti-
cism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with
the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of
'Dame Durden':
'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate',
And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle-Tail'. "
"I hope you don't mind that young man Mark Clark's bad
manners in naming your features? " whispered Joseph to Gabriel
privately.
"Not at all," said Mr. Oak.
"For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," con-
tinued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning suavity.
"Ay, that ye be, shepherd," said the company.
"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good
manners demanded; thinking, however, that he would never let
Bathsheba see him playing the flute.
THE GRAVE-DIGGERS
From A Pair of Blue Eyes'
A
LL eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and
the ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly.
"Why, 'tis our Stephen! " said his father, rising from
his seat; and still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he
swung forward his right for a grasp. "Your mother is expect-
ing ye- thought you would have come afore dark.
But you'll
wait and go home with me? I have all but done for the day,
and was going directly. "
"Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so
soon again, Master Smith," said Martin Cannister, chastening the
gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of counte-
nance, in order to harmonize the feeling as much as possible with.
the solemnity of a family vault.
"The same to you, Martin; and you, William," said Stephen,
nodding around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of
## p. 6958 (#346) ###########################################
6958
THOMAS HARDY
bread and cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely
by compressing their eyes to friendly lines and wrinkles.
"And who is dead? " Stephen repeated.
"Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall," said
the under-mason. "Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault
to make room for her. "
"When did she die? "
"Early this morning," his father replied, with an appearance
of recurring to a chronic thought. "Yes, this morning. Martin
hev been tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She
was very limber. "
"Ay, poor soul, this morning," resumed the under-mason, a
marvelously old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for
his body that it would not stay in position. "She must know by
this time whether she's to go up or down, poor woman. "
"What was her age? >>>
"Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candle-light.
But, Lord! by day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour. "
"Ay, night-time or daytime makes a difference of twenty
years to rich feymels," observed Martin.
"She was one-and-thirty really," said John Smith. "I had it
from them that know. "
"Not more than that! "
"A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she
was dead for years afore 'a would own it. "
"As my old father used to say, 'dead, but wouldn't drop
down. '»
-
"I seed her, poor soul," said a laborer from behind some
removed coffins, "only but last Valentine's Day of all the world.
'A was arm in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, 'You be
ticketed "church-yard," my noble lady, although you don't dream
on't. '»
"I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in
the nation, to let 'em know that she that was is now no more? "
'Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour
after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had
- half an inch wide, at the very least. "
-
"Too much," observed Martin. "In short, 'tis out of the
question that a human being can be so mournful as black edges
half an inch wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very
narrow border when they feels most of all. "
## p. 6959 (#347) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6959
"And there are two little girls, are there not? " said Ste-
phen.
"Nice clane little faces! -left motherless now. "
"They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss
Elfride when I were there," said William Worm. "Ah, they did
so's! " The latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary
melancholy to a remark which intrinsically could hardly be made
to possess enough for the occasion. "Yes," continued Worm,
"they'd run upstairs, they'd run down; flitting about with her.
everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah well! "
"Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here
and there," added a laborer.
"Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from
'em so was so drowsy-like, that they couldn't love her in the
jolly-companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter
I seed Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and
Miss Elfride wiped their noses for 'em so careful, my lady never
once seeing that it wanted doing; and naturally children take to
people that's their best friend. "
«< Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must
make a place for her," said John. "Come, lads, drink up your
ale, and we'll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for
beginning at the wall as soon as 'tis light to-morrow. "
Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie.
«< Here," said his father. "We are going to set back this wall
and make a recess; and 'tis enough for us to do before the
funeral. When my lord's mother died, she said, 'John, the place
must be enlarged before another can be put in. ' But 'a never
expected 'twould be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George
first, I suppose, Simeon ? »
He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what
had originally been red velvet, the color of which could only just
be distinguished now.
"Just as ye think best, Master John," replied the shriveled
mason. "Ah, poor Lord George! " he continued, looking con-
templatively at the huge coffin; "he and I were as bitter enemies
once as any could be, when one is a lord and t'other only a mor-
tal man. Poor fellow! He'd clap his hand upon my shoulder
and cuss me as familiar and neighborly as if he'd been a common
chap. Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down, and
then 'a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine
## p. 6960 (#348) ###########################################
6960
THOMAS HARDY
new teeth would glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I,
being a small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all.
Such a strappen fine gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather
liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I looked at
his towering height, I'd think in my inside, 'What a weight
you'll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle of
Endelstow Church some day! '"
"And was he? " inquired a young laborer.
"He was.
He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound.
What with his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one
thing and t'other"-here the ancient man slapped his hand upon
the cover with a force that caused a rattle among the bones
inside "he half broke my back when I took his feet to lower
en down the steps there. 'Ah,' saith I to John there—didn't I,
John? —that ever one man's glory should be such a weight
upon another man! ' But there, I liked my Lord George some-
times. "
―――
Tis a strange thought," said another, "that while they be
all here under one roof, a snug united family o' Luxellians, they
be really scattered miles away from one another in the form of
good sheep and wicked goats, isn't it? "
"True; 'tis a thought to look at. "
"And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his
wife is doing no more than the man in the moon, if she's gone
downward. And that some unfortunate one in the hot place is
a-hollering across to a lucky one up in the clouds, and quite for-
getting their bodies be boxed close together all the time. "
"Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say 'Hullo! '
close to fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me. "
"And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's
nose, and she can't smell me. "
"What do 'em put all their heads one way for? " inquired a
young man.
"Because 'tis church-yard law, you simple. The law of the
living is, that a man shall be upright and downright; and the
law of the dead is, that a man shall be east and west. Every
state of society have its laws. "
"We must break the law wi' a few of the poor souls, however.
Come, buckle to," said the master mason.
And they set to work anew.
## p. 6961 (#349) ###########################################
6961
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
(1848-)
NE evening recently the lady whom Uncle Remus calls 'Miss
Sally' missed her little seven-year-old. Making search for
him through the house and through the yard, she heard
the sound of voices in the old man's cabin; and looking through the
window she saw the child sitting by Uncle Remus. His head rested
against the old man's arm, and he was gazing with an expression of
the most intense interest into the rough weather-beaten face that
beamed so kindly on him. "
With this charming picture Mr. Joel
Chandler Harris opens the historic advent-
ures of that Ulysses of the fields, Brer
Rabbit. Uncle Remus, the raconteur of the
adventures, has a prototype on every South-
ern plantation, and his stories are familiar
to all Southerners. The art of Mr. Harris
lies in the way he has transferred their im-
palpable charm to canvas.
Before the appearance of 'Uncle Remus,
His Songs and Sayings' (New York, 1880),
the negro had figured in literature; but he
had figured for a purpose, either to illus- JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
trate a principle as in Mrs. Stowe's great
novels Uncle Tom's Cabin' and 'Dred,' or he was the stage negro
of the minstrel show- - an intolerable misrepresentation. Perhaps he
was too familiar a feature in the landscape of the Southern author
for him to appreciate his artistic value; and as for the foreigner's
conception of him, what Dr. Johnson said of the descriptive poems
of the blind poet Blacklock may very well be applied to these efforts.
"If," said Johnson, "you found that a paralytic had left his room,
you would conclude he had been carried," meaning that the blind
man had described what he had read, not what he had seen.
No such charge can be brought to the author of these inimitable
sketches. Like his own hero Brer Rabbit "he was born and bred in
a brier patch," in middle Georgia, in the town of Eatonton, Decem-
ber 8th, 1848, and his happy and adventurous youth, pleasantly com-
memorated in his On the Plantation,' was passed in the society he
XII-436
## p. 6962 (#350) ###########################################
6962
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
has made famous the world over. Uncle Remus, Mink, Sis Tempy,
Daddy Jake, were not more real personages to him than "de creeters »
they taught him to know and admire. In true American fashion, he
passed from the printer's case to the bar, but forsook law for litera-
ture, his first love,— became a member of the staff and later an editor
of the Atlanta Constitution, and the author of many books, of which
'Uncle Remus is the initial. 'Nights with Uncle Remus,' 'Rainy
Days with Uncle Remus,' 'Mingo and Other Sketches,' 'Daddy Jake
the Runaway,' and 'On the Plantation,' belong to the same series.
Mr. Harris has written other books of plantation romance and actual-
ities, that betray the charm of which he is a master, but to the vol-
umes we have named he owes his high and permanent place in
American literature.
Those who are familiar with the subject know that when Mr.
Harris chose the plantation negro, he had a character of some sub-
tlety to deal with. Like the Celt, he is a creature of extremes, care-
lessly happy one day and despairing the next; but saved from revolt
by a pathetic philosophy born of his helplessness, and also by a
sense of humor that restores his equilibrium. These peculiarities
are not so evident from his actions-for he has been suppressed by
his surroundings—as in his songs and stories, which display his poet-
ical temperament and his picturesque imagination. With the self-
confidence of the artist, Mr. Harris in portraying his character chooses
the most difficult, that is, the dramatic form. Uncle Remus, the seer
of the plantation, sits before his lightwood fire making "shuck" horse-
collars, with the "little boy" for audience, varied by occasional visits
from his satellite "Sis Tempy," or his enemy the incomparable, the
irrepressible Tildy"; and as he works at his self-imposed task, lev-
ies on the whole community for illustrations of weakness and folly.
Or like a child watching his elders, he imitates their manners and
customs, makes his shrewd comments, gives his hard thrusts, and
dispenses his deep philosophy. Only when Mr. Harris drops the dra-
matic form, as in 'On the Plantation,' 'Mingo and Other Sketches,'
and 'Daddy Jake the Runaway,' does he permit himself the luxury of
pathos, so obvious in the negro's life. When Uncle Remus or any
of his confrères is speaking in propria persona, he shows the same
reserve in displaying his deepest emotions as the wounded animal
who seeks his lair.
«
Nor is it strange that the life of the plantation negro should have
developed his mystical side. Much of it is spent alone, with only the
"creeters," between whom and the white man he occupies a middle
distance, for companions. Nor strange that like St. Francis of As-
sisi, each living thing becomes a brother and sister to him, endowed
with personality and a sentient nature. St. Francis preached to the
## p. 6963 (#351) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6963
birds and the "four-footed felons," the "ferocissimo lupo d'Agobis";
and Uncle Remus, though he considers them far too wise to learn
from so poor a creature as man, endows them with all our vices
and virtues. Did not the mystics Æsop and La Fontaine the same?
But the old darky in a dim fashion does more: through them he
expresses a revolt from his own condition, and the not unnatural
desire to circumvent the master who has so long controlled him.
Not to the swift in these stories is the race, nor to the strong the
battle. The weakest, the most helpless of all the animals, the rabbit,
is the hero and the champion, and in every contest is victorious over
the wolf, the fox, the bear. Not virtue but weakness triumphs when
Brer Rabbit milks the cow, fools the fox, and scalds the wolf; not
passion but mischievousness.
With a view to edification which cannot be too sternly deprecated,
etymologists have claimed Uncle Remus and his Songs' as a con-
tribution to the Folk-Lore Society. Better can we spare him to the
natural-history societies, to which he may contribute the chapters
on 'How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Fine Bushy Tail,' 'Why Mr. Rabbit
Whipped his Young Ones,' 'Why the Negro is Black,' and 'The Use
Miss Goose Put her Hands to. ' But Mr. Harris has a higher motive
in letters than utility, we believe. His province is to charm and to
amuse.
WHY BROTHER WOLF DIDN'T EAT THE LITTLE RABBITS
From 'Uncle Remus and his Friends. Copyright 1892 by Joel Chandler Har-
ris, and reprinted here by permission of and special arrangement with
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston.
"UNC
NCLE REMUS," said the little boy one day, "why don't you
come up to the big house sometimes, and tell me stories? »
"Shoo, honey, de spoon hatter go ter de bowl's house.
Ef I wuz atter you ter tell me tales, I'd come up dar en set in
de back porch en lissen at you eve'y day, en sometimes eve'y
night. But when de spoon want anything, it hatter go ter de
bowl. Hit bleedz ter be dat-a-way. "
"Well, you used to come. "
"Des so! " exclaimed Uncle Remus. "But whar wuz you
'bout dat time? Right flat er yo' back, dat's whar you wuz.
You laid dar en swaller'd dat doctor-truck, twel I be blest ef you
had mo' heft dan a pa'tridge egg wid' de innerds blow'd out.
En dar wuz Miss Sally a-cryin' en gwine on constant. Ef she
wan't cryin' 'bout you, she wuz quoilin' at me en Marse John.
## p. 6964 (#352) ###########################################
6964
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
'Oman tongue ain't got no Sunday. Co'se, when I git dar whar
you wuz, I hatter set down en tell tales fer ter make you fergit
'bout de fuss dat wuz gwine on. I 'member one time," Uncle
Remus went on, laughing, "I wuz settin' dar by yo' bed, tellin'
some great tale er nudder, en de fus' news I know'd I woke up
and foun' myse'f fast asleep, en you woke up en foun' yo'se'f in
de land er Nod. Dar we wuz,-me in de cheer, en you in de
bed; en I'd nod at you, en you'd sno' back at me; en dar wuz
de old torty-shell cat settin' by de h'ath, runnin' dat ar buzz-
wheel what cats has got somewhars in der innerds; en de clock
wuz a-clockin' en de candle a-splutterin'; en des 'bout dat time
Miss Sally come in en rap me 'pon topper de naked place on my
head wid er thimble; en I kotch my breff like a cow a-coughin',
en den Miss Sally start in ter quoilin', en Marse John ax 'er
what she doin', en she 'low she des whisperin' ter me; en Marse
John say ef she call dat whisperin', he dunner what she call
squallin'; en den I up en groanded one er deze yer meetin'-
house groans.
"Dem wuz great times, mon," continued the old man, after
pausing to recover his breath. "Dey mos' sholy wuz. Hit look
like ter me 'bout dem days dat you wan't no bigger dan a young
rabbit atter de hide been tuck off. You cert'nly wuz spare-made
den. I sot dar by yo' bed, en I say ter myse'f dat ef I wuz de
ole Brer Wolf en you wuz a young rabbit, I wouldn't git hongry
nuff fer ter eat you, caze you wuz too bony.
"Likewise knowed yer father when he was a child. Why, my
boy Jacob there and your father were sworn brothers- that they
were, sure, weren't ye, Jacob? "
"Ay, sure," said his son, a young man about sixty-five, with
a semi-bald head and one tooth in the left centre of his upper
jaw, which made much of itself by standing prominent, like a
milestone in a bank. "But 'twas Joe had most to do with him.
However, my son William must have knowed the very man afore
us, didn't ye, Billy, afore ye left Norcombe ? »
"No, 'twas Andrew," said Jacob's son Billy, a child of forty
or thereabouts, who manifested the peculiarity of possessing a
cheerful soul in a gloomy body, and whose whiskers were assum-
ing a chinchilla shade here and there.
"I can mind Andrew," said Oak, "as being a
place when I was quite a child. "
man in the
## p. 6949 (#337) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6949
"Ay; the other day I and my youngest daughter Liddy were
over at my grandson's christening," continued Billy.
"We were
talking about this very family, and 'twas only last Purification
Day in this very world, when the use-money is gi'ed away to the
second-best poor folk, you know, shepherd, and I can mind the
day because they all had to traypse up to the vestry-yes, this
very man's family. "
«< Come, shepherd, and drink. 'Tis gape and swaller with us
a drap of sommit, but not of much account," said the maltster,
removing from the fire his eyes, which were vermilion red and
bleared by gazing into it for so many years. "Take up the
God-forgive-me, Jacob. See if 'tis warm, Jacob. "
Jacob stooped to the God-forgive-me, which was a two-handled
tall mug standing in the ashes, cracked and charred with heat:
it was rather furred with extraneous matter about the outside,
especially in the crevices of the handles, the innermost curves of
which may not have seen daylight for several years by reason
of this incrustation thereon-formed of ashes accidentally wetted
with cider and baked hard; but to the mind of any sensible
drinker the cup was no worse for that, being incontestably clean
on the inside and about the rim. It may be observed that such
a class of mug is called a God-forgive-me in Weatherbury and
its vicinity for uncertain reasons; probably because its size makes
any given toper feel ashamed of himself when he sees its bottom
in drinking it empty.
Jacob, on receiving the order to see if the liquor was warm
enough, placidly dipped his forefinger into it by way of thermom-
eter, and having pronounced it nearly of the proper degree,
raised the cup and very civilly attempted to dust some of the
ashes from the bottom with the skirt of his smock-frock, because
shepherd Oak was a stranger.
"A clane cup for the shepherd," said the maltster command-
ingly.
--
"No, not at all," said Gabriel, in a reproving tone of consid-
erateness. "I never fuss about dirt in its pure state, and when
I know what sort it is. " Taking the mug, he drank an inch or
more from the depths of its contents and duly passed it to the
next man. "I wouldn't think of giving such trouble to neigh-
bors in washing up when there is so much work to be done in
the world already," continued Oak in a moister tone, after recov-
ering from the stoppage of breath which is occasioned by pulls
at large mugs.
## p. 6950 (#338) ###########################################
6950
THOMAS HARDY
"
"A right sensible man," said Jacob.
"True, true; it can't be gainsaid! " observed a brisk young
man - Mark Clark by name, a genial and pleasant gentleman,
whom to meet anywhere in your travels was to know, to know
was to drink with, and to drink with was, unfortunately, to pay
for.
"And here's a mouthful of bread and bacon that mis'ess have
sent, shepherd. The cider will go down better with a bit of
victuals. Don't ye chaw quite close, shepherd, for I let the
bacon fall in the road outside as I was bringing it along, and
maybe 'tis rather gritty. There, 'tis clane dirt; and we all know
what that is, as you say, and you bain't a particular man, we see,
shepherd. "
"True, true; not at all," said the friendly Oak.
"Don't let your teeth quite meet, and you won't feel the
sandiness at all. Ah! 'tis wonderful what can be done by con-
trivance! "
"My own mind exactly, neighbor. "
"Ah, he's his granfer's own grandson! his grandfer were
just such a nice unparticular man! " said the maltster.
"Drink, Henry Fray, drink," magnanimously said Jan Cog-
gan, a person who held Saint-Simonian notions of share and
share alike where liquor was concerned, as the vessel showed
signs of approaching him in its gradual revolution among them.
Having at this moment reached the end of a wistful gaze
into mid-air, Henry did not refuse. He was a man of more than
middle age, with eyebrows high up in his forehead, who laid it
down that the law of the world was bad, with a long-suffering
look through his listeners at the world alluded to, as it presented
itself to his imagination. He always signed his name "Henery"
-strenuously insisting upon that spelling; and if any passing
schoolmaster ventured to remark that the second "e" was super-
fluous and old-fashioned, he received the reply that "H-e-n-e-r-y"
was the name he was christened and the name he would stick
to-in the tone of one to whom orthographical differences were
matters which had a great deal to do with personal character.
Mr. Jan Coggan, who had passed the cup fo Henery, was a
crimson man with a spacious countenance and private glimmer in
his eye, whose name had appeared on the marriage register of
Weatherbury and neighboring parishes as best man and chief
witness in countless unions of the previous twenty years; he also
## p. 6951 (#339) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6951
very frequently filled the post of head godfather in baptisms of
the subtly jovial kind.
Ther's plenty more in the bar-
«< Come, Mark Clark, come.
rel," said Jan.
"Ay, that I will; 'tis my only doctor," replied Mr. Clark,
who, twenty years younger than Jan Coggan, revolved in the
same orbit. He secreted mirth on all occasions for special dis-
charge at popular parties.
"Why, Joseph Poorgrass, ye han't had a drop! " said Mr.
Coggan to a self-conscious man in the background, thrusting the
cup towards him.
"Such a modest man as he is! " said Jacob Smallbury. "Why,
ye've hardly had strength of eye enough to look in our young
mis'ess's face, so I hear, Joseph ? "
All looked at Joseph Poorgrass with pitying reproach.
"No, I've hardly looked at her at all," simpered Joseph, re-
ducing his body smaller whilst talking, apparently from a meek
sense of undue prominence. "And when I seed her, 'twas noth-
ing but blushes with me! "
"Poor feller," said Mr. Clark.
Tis a curious nature for a man," said Jan Coggan.
"Yes," continued Joseph Poorgrass; his shyness, which was
so painful as a defect, filling him with a mild complacency now
that it was regarded as an interesting study.
an interesting study. "Twere blush,
blush, blush with me every minute of the time when she was
speaking to me. "
"I believe ye, Joseph Poorgrass, for we all know ye to be a
very bashful man. ”
"Tis a' awkward gift for a man, poor soul," said the maltster.
"And how long have ye suffered from it, Joseph? "
"Oh, ever since I was a boy. Yes, mother was concerned to
her heart about it - yes. But 'twas all naught. "
"Did ye ever go into the world to try and stop it, Joseph
Poorgrass? "
"Oh ay, tried all sorts o' company. They took me to Green-
hill Fair, and into a great large jerry-go-nimble show, where
there were women-folk riding round-standing upon horses with.
hardly anything on but their smocks; but it didn't cure me a
morsel. And then I was put errand-man at the Woman's Skittle
Alley at the back of the Tailor's Arms in Casterbridge. 'Twas a
horrible evil situation, and a very curious place for a good man.
## p. 6952 (#340) ###########################################
6952
THOMAS HARDY
I had to stand and look ba'dy people in the face from morning
till night; but 'twas no use I was just as bad as ever after all.
Blushes hev been in the family for generations. There, 'tis a
happy Providence that I be no worse, and I feel the blessing. "
"True," said Jacob Smallbury, deepening his thoughts to a
profounder view of the subject. Tis a thought to look at,
that ye might have been worse; but even as you be, 'tis a very
bad affliction for ye, Joseph. For ye see, shepherd, though 'tis
very well for a woman, dang it all, 'tis awkward for a man like
him, poor feller. »
He appealed to the shepherd by a feeling
glance.
«Yes,
-
"Tis, 'tis," said Gabriel, recovering from a meditation.
very awkward for the man. "
« Once
"Ay, and he's very timid, too," observed Jan Coggan.
he had been working late at Yalbury Bottom, and had had a drap
of drink, and lost his way as he was coming home along through
Yalbury Wood, didn't ye, Master Poorgrass? "
"No, no, no; not that story! " expostulated the modest man,
forcing a laugh to bury his concern.
"And so 'a lost himself quite," continued Mr. Coggan with an
impassive face, implying that a true narrative, like time and tide,
must run its course and would respect no man. "And as he was
coming along in the middle of the night, much afeared, and not
able to find his way out of the trees nohow, 'a cried out, 'Man-
a-lost! man-a-lost! ' A owl in a tree happened to be crying
'Whoo-whoo-whoo! ' as owls do, you know, shepherd" (Gabriel
nodded), “and Joseph all in a tremble said, 'Joseph Poorgrass
of Weatherbury, sir! ""
wwwxxx. com
"No, no, now that's too much! " said the timid man, becom-
ing a man of brazen courage all of a sudden. "I didn't say sir.
I'll take my oath I didn't say Joseph Poorgrass o' Weatherbury,
sir. ' No, no; what's right is right, and I never said sir to the
bird, knowing very well that no man of a gentleman's rank would
be hollering there at that time o' night. Joseph Poorgrass of
Weatherbury,' - that's every word I said, and I shouldn't ha'
said that if 't hadn't been for Keeper Day's metheglin.
There, 'twas a merciful thing it ended where it did. "
The question of which was right being tacitly waived by the
company, Jan went on meditatively: -
"And he's the fearfullest man, bain't ye, Joseph? Ay, another
time ye were lost by Lambing-Down Gate, weren't ye, Joseph ? "
## p. 6953 (#341) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6953
"I was," replied Poorgrass, as if there were some conditions
too serious even for modesty to remember itself under, this being
one.
"Yes; that were the middle of the night, too. The gate would
not open, try how he would, and knowing there was the Devil's
hand in it, he kneeled down. "
"Ay," said Joseph, acquiring confidence from the warmth of
the fire, the cider, and a perception of the narrative capabilities
of the experience alluded to. "My heart died within me, that
time; but I kneeled down and said the Lord's Prayer, and then
the Belief right through, and then the Ten Commandments, in
earnest prayer. But no, the gate wouldn't open; and then I went
on with Dearly Beloved Brethren, and thinks I, this makes four,
and 'tis all I know out of book, and if this don't do it nothing
will, and I'm a lost man. Well, when I got to Saying After Me,
I rose from my knees and found the gate would open,—yes,
neighbors, the gate opened the same as ever. "
A meditation on the obvious inference was indulged in by all,
and during its continuance each directed his vision into the ash-
pit, which glowed like a desert in the tropics under a vertical
sun, shaping their eyes long and liny, partly because of the light,
partly from the depth of the subject discussed.
Gabriel broke the silence. "What sort of a place is this to
live at, and what sort of a mis'ess is she to work under? " Ga-
briel's bosom thrilled gently as he thus slipped under the notice
of the assembly the innermost subject of his heart.
-
"We d' know little of her — nothing. She only showed her-
self a few days ago. Her uncle was took bad, and the doctor
was called with his world-wide skill; but he couldn't save the
As I take it, she's going to keep on the farm. "
man.
"That's about the shape o't, 'a b'lieve," said Jan Coggan.
"Ay, 'tis a very good family. I'd as soon be under 'em as under
one here and there. Her uncle was a very fair sort of man.
Did ye know en, shepherd-a bachelor man? "
"Not at all. "
"I used to go to his house a-courting my first wife Charlotte,
who was his dairymaid. Well, a very good-hearted man were.
farmer Everdene, and I being a respectable young fellow was
allowed to call and see her and drink as much ale as I liked, but
not to carry away any outside my skin I mane, of course. "
"Ay, ay, Jan Coggan; we know yer maning. "
――――――
## p. 6954 (#342) ###########################################
6954
THOMAS HARDY
"And so, you see, 'twas beautiful ale, and I wished to value
his kindness as much as I could, and not to be so ill-mannered
as to drink only a thimbleful, which would have been insulting
the man's generosity - "
"True, Master Coggan, 'twould so," corroborated Mark Clark.
—
- And so I used to eat a lot of salt fish afore going, and
then by the time I got there I were as dry as a lime-basket-
so thorough dry that that ale would slip down-ah, 'twould slip
down sweet! Happy times! heavenly times! Such lovely drunks
as I used to have at that house! You can mind, Jacob? You
used to go wi' me sometimes. "
"I can, I can," said Jacob. "That one, too, that we had at
Buck's Head on a White Monday was a pretty tipple. "
་་
"Twas. But for a drunk of really a noble class, that brought
you no nearer to the Dark Man than you were afore you begun,
there was none like those in farmer Everdene's kitchen. Not a
single damn allowed; no, not a bare poor one, even at the most
cheerful moment when all were blindest, though the good old
word of sin thrown in here and there at such times is a great
relief to a merry soul. "
"True," said the maltster. "Nater requires her swearing at
the regular times, or she's not herself; and unholy exclamations
is a necessity of life. "
Gabriel thought fit to change the subject. "You must be a
very aged man, malter, to have sons growed up so old and
ancient," he remarked.
"Father's so old that 'a can't mind his age, can ye, father? "
interposed Jacob. "And he's growed terrible crooked, too, lately,"
Jacob continued, surveying his father's figure, which was rather
more bowed than his own. Really, one may say that father
there is three-double. "
<<
"Crooked folk will last a long while," said the maltster
grimly, and not in the best humor.
"Shepherd would like to hear the pedigree of yer life, father
- would'nt ye, shepherd? "
"Ay, that I should," said Gabriel, with the heartiness of a
man who had longed to hear it for several months. "What may
your age be, malter? "
The maltster cleared his throat in an exaggerated form for
emphasis. and elongating his gaze to the remotest point of the
ash-pit said, in the slow speech justifiable when the importance
## p. 6955 (#343) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6955
of a subject is so generally felt that any mannerism must be
tolerated in getting at it:-
"Well, I don't mind the year I were born in, but perhaps I
can reckon up the places I've lived at, and so get it that way. I
bode at Upper Longpuddle across there" (nodding to the north)
"till I were eleven. I bode seven at Kingsbere" (nodding to the
east), "where I took to malting. I went therefrom to Norcombe,
and malted there two-and-twenty years, and two-and-twenty years.
I was there turnip-hoeing and harvesting. Ah, I knowed that
old place Norcombe, years afore you were thought of, Master
Oak" (Oak smiled a corroboration of the fact). "Then I malted
at Durnover four year, and four year turnip-hoeing; and I was
fourteen times eleven months at Millpond St. Jude's" (nodding
north-west-by-north). "Old Twills wouldn't hire me for more
than eleven months at a time, to keep me from being chargeable
to the parish if so be I was disabled. Then I was three year at
Mellstock, and I've been here one-and-thirty year come Candle-
mas. How much is that? "
«Hundred and seventeen," chuckled another old gentleman,
given to mental arithmetic and little conversation, who had hith-
erto sat unobserved in a corner.
"Well then, that's my age," said the maltster emphatically.
"Oh no, father! " said Jacob. "Your turnip-hoeing were in
the summer and your malting in the winter of the same years,
and ye don't ought to count both halves, father. "
"Chok' it all! I lived through the summers, didn't I? That's
my question. I suppose ye'll say next I be no age at all to
speak of? "
"Sure we shan't," said Gabriel soothingly.
"Ye be a very old aged person, malter," attested Jan Coggan,
also soothingly. "We all know that, and ye must have a won-
derful talented constitution to be able to live so long, mustn't he,
neighbors ? "
"True, true; ye must, malter, wonderful," said the meeting
unanimously.
The maltster, being now pacified, was even generous enough.
to voluntarily disparage in a slight degree the virtue of having
lived a great many years, by mentioning that the cup they were
drinking out of was three years older than he.
While the cup was being examined, the end of Gabriel Oak's
flute became visible over his smock-frock pocket, and Henery
## p. 6956 (#344) ###########################################
6956
THOMAS HARDY
Fray exclaimed, "Surely, shepherd, I seed you blowing into a
great flute by now at Casterbridge? "
"You did," said Gabriel, blushing faintly.
trouble, neighbors, and was driven to it.
poor as I be now. "
"Never mind, heart! " said Mark Clark.
careless-like, shepherd, and your time will come.
thank ye for a tune, if ye bain't too tired. "
"Neither drum nor trumpet have I heard this Christmas,"
said Jan Coggan. "Come, raise a tune, Master Oak! "
"I've been in great
I used not to be so
"You should take it
But we could
"Ay, that I will," said Gabriel readily, pulling out his flute
and putting it together. "A poor tool, neighbors; but such as I
can do ye shall have and welcome. "
Oak then struck up 'Jockey to the Fair,' and played that
sparkling melody three times through, accenting the notes in the
third round in a most artistic and lively manner by bending his
body in small jerks and tapping with his foot to beat time.
"He can blow the flute very well, that 'a can," said a young
married man, who, having no individuality worth mentioning, was
known as "Susan Tall's husband. " He continued admiringly,
"I'd as lief as not be able to blow into a flute as well as that. "
"He's a clever man, and 'tis a true comfort for us to have
such a shepherd," murmured Joseph Poorgrass in a soft cadence.
"We ought to feel real thanksgiving that he's not a player of
ba'dy songs instead of these merry tunes; for 'twould have been
just as easy for God to have made the shepherd a loose low
mana man of iniquity, so to speak it as what he is. Yes,
for our wives' and daughters' sakes we should feel real thanks-
giving. "
"True, true,-real thanksgiving! " dashed in Mark Clark con-
clusively, not feeling it to be of any consequence to his opinion.
that he had only heard about a word and three-quarters of what
Joseph had said.
"Yes," added Joseph, beginning to feel like a man in the
Bible; "for evil do thrive so in these times, that ye may be as
much deceived in the clanest shaved and whitest shirted man as
in the raggedest tramp upon the turnpike, if I may term it so. "
"Ay, I can mind yer face now, shepherd," said Henery Fray,
criticizing Gabriel with misty eyes as he entered upon his second
"Yes, now I see ye blowing into the flute I know ye to
be the same man I see play at Casterbridge, for yer mouth were
tune.
## p. 6957 (#345) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6957
scrimped up and yer eyes a-staring out like a strangled man's-
just as they be now. "
"Tis a pity that playing the flute should make a man look
such a scarecrow," observed Mr. Mark Clark, with additional criti-
cism of Gabriel's countenance, the latter person jerking out, with
the ghastly grimace required by the instrument, the chorus of
'Dame Durden':
'Twas Moll' and Bet', and Doll' and Kate',
And Dor'-othy Drag'-gle-Tail'. "
"I hope you don't mind that young man Mark Clark's bad
manners in naming your features? " whispered Joseph to Gabriel
privately.
"Not at all," said Mr. Oak.
"For by nature ye be a very handsome man, shepherd," con-
tinued Joseph Poorgrass, with winning suavity.
"Ay, that ye be, shepherd," said the company.
"Thank you very much," said Oak, in the modest tone good
manners demanded; thinking, however, that he would never let
Bathsheba see him playing the flute.
THE GRAVE-DIGGERS
From A Pair of Blue Eyes'
A
LL eyes were turned to the entrance as Stephen spoke, and
the ancient-mannered conclave scrutinized him inquiringly.
"Why, 'tis our Stephen! " said his father, rising from
his seat; and still retaining the frothy mug in his left hand, he
swung forward his right for a grasp. "Your mother is expect-
ing ye- thought you would have come afore dark.
But you'll
wait and go home with me? I have all but done for the day,
and was going directly. "
"Yes, 'tis Master Stephy, sure enough. Glad to see you so
soon again, Master Smith," said Martin Cannister, chastening the
gladness expressed in his words by a strict neutrality of counte-
nance, in order to harmonize the feeling as much as possible with.
the solemnity of a family vault.
"The same to you, Martin; and you, William," said Stephen,
nodding around to the rest, who, having their mouths full of
## p. 6958 (#346) ###########################################
6958
THOMAS HARDY
bread and cheese, were of necessity compelled to reply merely
by compressing their eyes to friendly lines and wrinkles.
"And who is dead? " Stephen repeated.
"Lady Luxellian, poor gentlewoman, as we all shall," said
the under-mason. "Ay, and we be going to enlarge the vault
to make room for her. "
"When did she die? "
"Early this morning," his father replied, with an appearance
of recurring to a chronic thought. "Yes, this morning. Martin
hev been tolling ever since, almost. There, 'twas expected. She
was very limber. "
"Ay, poor soul, this morning," resumed the under-mason, a
marvelously old man, whose skin seemed so much too large for
his body that it would not stay in position. "She must know by
this time whether she's to go up or down, poor woman. "
"What was her age? >>>
"Not more than seven or eight and twenty by candle-light.
But, Lord! by day 'a was forty if 'a were an hour. "
"Ay, night-time or daytime makes a difference of twenty
years to rich feymels," observed Martin.
"She was one-and-thirty really," said John Smith. "I had it
from them that know. "
"Not more than that! "
"A looked very bad, poor lady. In faith, ye might say she
was dead for years afore 'a would own it. "
"As my old father used to say, 'dead, but wouldn't drop
down. '»
-
"I seed her, poor soul," said a laborer from behind some
removed coffins, "only but last Valentine's Day of all the world.
'A was arm in crook wi' my lord. I says to myself, 'You be
ticketed "church-yard," my noble lady, although you don't dream
on't. '»
"I suppose my lord will write to all the other lords anointed in
the nation, to let 'em know that she that was is now no more? "
'Tis done and past. I see a bundle of letters go off an hour
after the death. Sich wonderful black rims as they letters had
- half an inch wide, at the very least. "
-
"Too much," observed Martin. "In short, 'tis out of the
question that a human being can be so mournful as black edges
half an inch wide. I'm sure people don't feel more than a very
narrow border when they feels most of all. "
## p. 6959 (#347) ###########################################
THOMAS HARDY
6959
"And there are two little girls, are there not? " said Ste-
phen.
"Nice clane little faces! -left motherless now. "
"They used to come to Parson Swancourt's to play with Miss
Elfride when I were there," said William Worm. "Ah, they did
so's! " The latter sentence was introduced to add the necessary
melancholy to a remark which intrinsically could hardly be made
to possess enough for the occasion. "Yes," continued Worm,
"they'd run upstairs, they'd run down; flitting about with her.
everywhere. Very fond of her, they were. Ah well! "
"Fonder than ever they were of their mother, so 'tis said here
and there," added a laborer.
"Well, you see, 'tis natural. Lady Luxellian stood aloof from
'em so was so drowsy-like, that they couldn't love her in the
jolly-companion way children want to like folks. Only last winter
I seed Miss Elfride talking to my lady and the two children, and
Miss Elfride wiped their noses for 'em so careful, my lady never
once seeing that it wanted doing; and naturally children take to
people that's their best friend. "
«< Be as 'twill, the woman is dead and gone, and we must
make a place for her," said John. "Come, lads, drink up your
ale, and we'll just rid this corner, so as to have all clear for
beginning at the wall as soon as 'tis light to-morrow. "
Stephen then asked where Lady Luxellian was to lie.
«< Here," said his father. "We are going to set back this wall
and make a recess; and 'tis enough for us to do before the
funeral. When my lord's mother died, she said, 'John, the place
must be enlarged before another can be put in. ' But 'a never
expected 'twould be wanted so soon. Better move Lord George
first, I suppose, Simeon ? »
He pointed with his foot to a heavy coffin, covered with what
had originally been red velvet, the color of which could only just
be distinguished now.
"Just as ye think best, Master John," replied the shriveled
mason. "Ah, poor Lord George! " he continued, looking con-
templatively at the huge coffin; "he and I were as bitter enemies
once as any could be, when one is a lord and t'other only a mor-
tal man. Poor fellow! He'd clap his hand upon my shoulder
and cuss me as familiar and neighborly as if he'd been a common
chap. Ay, 'a cussed me up hill and 'a cussed me down, and
then 'a would rave out again, and the goold clamps of his fine
## p. 6960 (#348) ###########################################
6960
THOMAS HARDY
new teeth would glisten in the sun like fetters of brass, while I,
being a small man and poor, was fain to say nothing at all.
Such a strappen fine gentleman as he was too! Yes, I rather
liked en sometimes. But once now and then, when I looked at
his towering height, I'd think in my inside, 'What a weight
you'll be, my lord, for our arms to lower under the aisle of
Endelstow Church some day! '"
"And was he? " inquired a young laborer.
"He was.
He was five hundredweight if 'a were a pound.
What with his lead, and his oak, and his handles, and his one
thing and t'other"-here the ancient man slapped his hand upon
the cover with a force that caused a rattle among the bones
inside "he half broke my back when I took his feet to lower
en down the steps there. 'Ah,' saith I to John there—didn't I,
John? —that ever one man's glory should be such a weight
upon another man! ' But there, I liked my Lord George some-
times. "
―――
Tis a strange thought," said another, "that while they be
all here under one roof, a snug united family o' Luxellians, they
be really scattered miles away from one another in the form of
good sheep and wicked goats, isn't it? "
"True; 'tis a thought to look at. "
"And that one, if he's gone upward, don't know what his
wife is doing no more than the man in the moon, if she's gone
downward. And that some unfortunate one in the hot place is
a-hollering across to a lucky one up in the clouds, and quite for-
getting their bodies be boxed close together all the time. "
"Ay, 'tis a thought to look at, too, that I can say 'Hullo! '
close to fiery Lord George, and 'a can't hear me. "
"And that I be eating my onion close to dainty Lady Jane's
nose, and she can't smell me. "
"What do 'em put all their heads one way for? " inquired a
young man.
"Because 'tis church-yard law, you simple. The law of the
living is, that a man shall be upright and downright; and the
law of the dead is, that a man shall be east and west. Every
state of society have its laws. "
"We must break the law wi' a few of the poor souls, however.
Come, buckle to," said the master mason.
And they set to work anew.
## p. 6961 (#349) ###########################################
6961
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
(1848-)
NE evening recently the lady whom Uncle Remus calls 'Miss
Sally' missed her little seven-year-old. Making search for
him through the house and through the yard, she heard
the sound of voices in the old man's cabin; and looking through the
window she saw the child sitting by Uncle Remus. His head rested
against the old man's arm, and he was gazing with an expression of
the most intense interest into the rough weather-beaten face that
beamed so kindly on him. "
With this charming picture Mr. Joel
Chandler Harris opens the historic advent-
ures of that Ulysses of the fields, Brer
Rabbit. Uncle Remus, the raconteur of the
adventures, has a prototype on every South-
ern plantation, and his stories are familiar
to all Southerners. The art of Mr. Harris
lies in the way he has transferred their im-
palpable charm to canvas.
Before the appearance of 'Uncle Remus,
His Songs and Sayings' (New York, 1880),
the negro had figured in literature; but he
had figured for a purpose, either to illus- JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
trate a principle as in Mrs. Stowe's great
novels Uncle Tom's Cabin' and 'Dred,' or he was the stage negro
of the minstrel show- - an intolerable misrepresentation. Perhaps he
was too familiar a feature in the landscape of the Southern author
for him to appreciate his artistic value; and as for the foreigner's
conception of him, what Dr. Johnson said of the descriptive poems
of the blind poet Blacklock may very well be applied to these efforts.
"If," said Johnson, "you found that a paralytic had left his room,
you would conclude he had been carried," meaning that the blind
man had described what he had read, not what he had seen.
No such charge can be brought to the author of these inimitable
sketches. Like his own hero Brer Rabbit "he was born and bred in
a brier patch," in middle Georgia, in the town of Eatonton, Decem-
ber 8th, 1848, and his happy and adventurous youth, pleasantly com-
memorated in his On the Plantation,' was passed in the society he
XII-436
## p. 6962 (#350) ###########################################
6962
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
has made famous the world over. Uncle Remus, Mink, Sis Tempy,
Daddy Jake, were not more real personages to him than "de creeters »
they taught him to know and admire. In true American fashion, he
passed from the printer's case to the bar, but forsook law for litera-
ture, his first love,— became a member of the staff and later an editor
of the Atlanta Constitution, and the author of many books, of which
'Uncle Remus is the initial. 'Nights with Uncle Remus,' 'Rainy
Days with Uncle Remus,' 'Mingo and Other Sketches,' 'Daddy Jake
the Runaway,' and 'On the Plantation,' belong to the same series.
Mr. Harris has written other books of plantation romance and actual-
ities, that betray the charm of which he is a master, but to the vol-
umes we have named he owes his high and permanent place in
American literature.
Those who are familiar with the subject know that when Mr.
Harris chose the plantation negro, he had a character of some sub-
tlety to deal with. Like the Celt, he is a creature of extremes, care-
lessly happy one day and despairing the next; but saved from revolt
by a pathetic philosophy born of his helplessness, and also by a
sense of humor that restores his equilibrium. These peculiarities
are not so evident from his actions-for he has been suppressed by
his surroundings—as in his songs and stories, which display his poet-
ical temperament and his picturesque imagination. With the self-
confidence of the artist, Mr. Harris in portraying his character chooses
the most difficult, that is, the dramatic form. Uncle Remus, the seer
of the plantation, sits before his lightwood fire making "shuck" horse-
collars, with the "little boy" for audience, varied by occasional visits
from his satellite "Sis Tempy," or his enemy the incomparable, the
irrepressible Tildy"; and as he works at his self-imposed task, lev-
ies on the whole community for illustrations of weakness and folly.
Or like a child watching his elders, he imitates their manners and
customs, makes his shrewd comments, gives his hard thrusts, and
dispenses his deep philosophy. Only when Mr. Harris drops the dra-
matic form, as in 'On the Plantation,' 'Mingo and Other Sketches,'
and 'Daddy Jake the Runaway,' does he permit himself the luxury of
pathos, so obvious in the negro's life. When Uncle Remus or any
of his confrères is speaking in propria persona, he shows the same
reserve in displaying his deepest emotions as the wounded animal
who seeks his lair.
«
Nor is it strange that the life of the plantation negro should have
developed his mystical side. Much of it is spent alone, with only the
"creeters," between whom and the white man he occupies a middle
distance, for companions. Nor strange that like St. Francis of As-
sisi, each living thing becomes a brother and sister to him, endowed
with personality and a sentient nature. St. Francis preached to the
## p. 6963 (#351) ###########################################
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
6963
birds and the "four-footed felons," the "ferocissimo lupo d'Agobis";
and Uncle Remus, though he considers them far too wise to learn
from so poor a creature as man, endows them with all our vices
and virtues. Did not the mystics Æsop and La Fontaine the same?
But the old darky in a dim fashion does more: through them he
expresses a revolt from his own condition, and the not unnatural
desire to circumvent the master who has so long controlled him.
Not to the swift in these stories is the race, nor to the strong the
battle. The weakest, the most helpless of all the animals, the rabbit,
is the hero and the champion, and in every contest is victorious over
the wolf, the fox, the bear. Not virtue but weakness triumphs when
Brer Rabbit milks the cow, fools the fox, and scalds the wolf; not
passion but mischievousness.
With a view to edification which cannot be too sternly deprecated,
etymologists have claimed Uncle Remus and his Songs' as a con-
tribution to the Folk-Lore Society. Better can we spare him to the
natural-history societies, to which he may contribute the chapters
on 'How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Fine Bushy Tail,' 'Why Mr. Rabbit
Whipped his Young Ones,' 'Why the Negro is Black,' and 'The Use
Miss Goose Put her Hands to. ' But Mr. Harris has a higher motive
in letters than utility, we believe. His province is to charm and to
amuse.
WHY BROTHER WOLF DIDN'T EAT THE LITTLE RABBITS
From 'Uncle Remus and his Friends. Copyright 1892 by Joel Chandler Har-
ris, and reprinted here by permission of and special arrangement with
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers, Boston.
"UNC
NCLE REMUS," said the little boy one day, "why don't you
come up to the big house sometimes, and tell me stories? »
"Shoo, honey, de spoon hatter go ter de bowl's house.
Ef I wuz atter you ter tell me tales, I'd come up dar en set in
de back porch en lissen at you eve'y day, en sometimes eve'y
night. But when de spoon want anything, it hatter go ter de
bowl. Hit bleedz ter be dat-a-way. "
"Well, you used to come. "
"Des so! " exclaimed Uncle Remus. "But whar wuz you
'bout dat time? Right flat er yo' back, dat's whar you wuz.
You laid dar en swaller'd dat doctor-truck, twel I be blest ef you
had mo' heft dan a pa'tridge egg wid' de innerds blow'd out.
En dar wuz Miss Sally a-cryin' en gwine on constant. Ef she
wan't cryin' 'bout you, she wuz quoilin' at me en Marse John.
## p. 6964 (#352) ###########################################
6964
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
'Oman tongue ain't got no Sunday. Co'se, when I git dar whar
you wuz, I hatter set down en tell tales fer ter make you fergit
'bout de fuss dat wuz gwine on. I 'member one time," Uncle
Remus went on, laughing, "I wuz settin' dar by yo' bed, tellin'
some great tale er nudder, en de fus' news I know'd I woke up
and foun' myse'f fast asleep, en you woke up en foun' yo'se'f in
de land er Nod. Dar we wuz,-me in de cheer, en you in de
bed; en I'd nod at you, en you'd sno' back at me; en dar wuz
de old torty-shell cat settin' by de h'ath, runnin' dat ar buzz-
wheel what cats has got somewhars in der innerds; en de clock
wuz a-clockin' en de candle a-splutterin'; en des 'bout dat time
Miss Sally come in en rap me 'pon topper de naked place on my
head wid er thimble; en I kotch my breff like a cow a-coughin',
en den Miss Sally start in ter quoilin', en Marse John ax 'er
what she doin', en she 'low she des whisperin' ter me; en Marse
John say ef she call dat whisperin', he dunner what she call
squallin'; en den I up en groanded one er deze yer meetin'-
house groans.
"Dem wuz great times, mon," continued the old man, after
pausing to recover his breath. "Dey mos' sholy wuz. Hit look
like ter me 'bout dem days dat you wan't no bigger dan a young
rabbit atter de hide been tuck off. You cert'nly wuz spare-made
den. I sot dar by yo' bed, en I say ter myse'f dat ef I wuz de
ole Brer Wolf en you wuz a young rabbit, I wouldn't git hongry
nuff fer ter eat you, caze you wuz too bony.
