CHAPTER III.
THE PARSON'S ADVICE.
With heavy heart and with eyes cast upon the ground, Mrs. Piedmont walked back home after leaving Belton with his teacher.
She had intended to make a special plea for her boy, who had all along displayed such precociousness as to fill her bosom with the liveliest hopes.
But the teacher was so repulsive in manner that she did not have the heart to speak to him as she had intended.
She saw that the happenings of the morning had had the effect of deepening a contemptuous prejudice into hatred, and she felt that her child's school life was to be embittered by the harshest of maltreatment.
No restraint was put upon the flogging of colored children by their white teachers, and in Belton's case his mother expected the worst.
During the whole week she revolved the matter in her mind.
There was a conflict in her bosom between her love and her ambition.
Love prompted her to return and take her son away from school.
Ambition bade her to let him stay.
She finally decided to submit the whole matter to her parson, whom she would invite to dinner on the coming Sunday.
The Sabbath came and Mrs. Piedmont aroused her family bright and early, for the coming of the parson to take dinner was a great event in any negro household.
The house was swept as clean as a broom of weeds tied together could make it.
Along with the family breakfast, a skillet of biscuits was cooked and a young chicken nicely baked.
Belton was very active in helping his mother that morning, and she promised to give him a biscuit and a piece of chicken as a reward after the preacher was through eating his dinner.
The thought of this coming happiness buoyed Belton up, and often he fancied himself munching that biscuit and biting that piece of chicken.
These were items of food rarely found in that household.
Breakfast over, the whole family made preparations for going to Sunday school.
Preparations always went on peacefully until it came to combing hair.
The older members of the family endured the ordeal very well; but little "Lessie" always screamed as if she was being tortured, and James Henry received many kicks and scratches from Belton before he was through combing Belton's hair.
The Sunday school and church were always held in the day-school building.
The Sunday school scholars were all in one class and recited out of the "blue back spelling book."
When that was over, members of the school were allowed to ask general questions on the Bible, which were answered by anyone volunteering to do so.
Everyone who had in any way caught a new light on a passage of scripture endeavored, by questioning, to find out as to whether others were as wise as he, and if such was not the case, he gladly enlightened the rest.
The Sunday school being over, the people stood in groups on the ground surrounding the church waiting for the arrival of the parson from his home, Berryville, a town twelve miles distant.
He was pastor of three other churches besides the one at Winchester, and he preached at each one Sunday in the month.
After awhile he put in his appearance.
He was rather small in stature, and held his head somewhat to one side and looked at you with that knowing look of the parrot.
He wore a pair of trousers that had been black, but were now sleet from much wear.
They lacked two inches of reaching down to the feet of his high-heeled boots.
He had on a long linen cluster that reached below his knees.
Beneath this was a faded Prince Albert coat and a vest much too small.
On his head there sat, slightly tipped, a high-topped beaver that seemed to have been hidden between two mattresses all the week and taken out and straightened for Sunday wear.
In his hand he held a walking cane.
Thus clad he came toward the church, his body thrown slightly back, walking leisurely with the air of quiet dignity possessed by the man sure of his standing, and not under the necessity of asserting it overmuch in his carriage.
The brothers pulled off their hats and the sisters put on their best smiles as the parson approached.
After a cordial handshake all around, the preacher entered the church to begin the services.
After singing a hymn and praying, he took for his text the following "passige of scripter:"
"It air harder fur a camel to git through de eye of a cambric needle den fur a rich man to enter de kingdom of heben."
This was one of the parson's favorite texts, and the members all settled themselves back to have a good "speritual" time.
The preacher began his sermon in a somewhat quiet way, but the members knew that he would "warm up bye and bye."
He pictured all rich men as trying to get into heaven, but, he asserted, they invariably found themselves with Dives.
He exhorted his hearers to stick to Jesus.
Here he pulled off his collar, and the sisters stirred and looked about them.
A little later on, the preacher getting "warmer," pulled off his cuffs.
The brethren laughed with a sort of joyous jumping up and down all the while--one crying "Gib me Jesus," another "Oh I am gwine home," and so on.
One sister who had a white lady's baby in her arms got happy and flung it entirely across the room, it falling into Mrs. Piedmont's lap, while the frenzied woman who threw the child climbed over benches, rushed into the pulpit, and swung to the preacher's neck,
crying--"Glory! Glory! Glory!"
In the meanwhile Belton had dropped down under one of the benches and was watching the proceedings with an eye of terror.
The sermon over and quiet restored, a collection was taken and given to the pastor.
Mrs. Piedmont went forward to put some money on the table and took occasion to step to the pulpit and invite the pastor to dinner.
Knowing that this meant chicken, the pastor unhesitatingly accepted the invitation, and when church was over accompanied Mrs. Piedmont and her family home.
The preacher caught hold of Belton's hand as they walked along.
This mark of attention, esteemed by Belton as a signal honor, filled his little soul with joy.
As he thought of the manner in which the preacher stirred up the people, the amount of the collection that had been given him, and the biscuits and chicken that now awaited him, Belton decided that he, too, would like to become a preacher.
Just before reaching home, according to a preconcerted plan, Belton and James Henry broke from the group and ran into the house.
When the others appeared a little later on, these two were not to be seen.
However, no question was asked and no search made.
All things were ready and the parson sat down to eat, while the three girls stood about, glancing now and then at the table.
The preacher was very voracious and began his meal as though he "meant business."
We can now reveal the whereabouts of Belton and James Henry.
They had clambered into the loft for the purpose of watching the progress of the preacher's meal, calculating at each step how much he would probably leave.
James Henry found a little hole in the loft directly over the table, and through this hole he did his spying.
Belton took his position at the larger entrance hole, lying flat on his stomach.
He poked his head down far enough to see the preacher, but held it in readiness to be snatched back, if the preacher's eyes seemed to be about to wander his way.
He was kept in a state of feverish excitement, on the one hand, by fear of detection, and on the other, by a desire to watch the meal.
When about half of the biscuits were gone, and the preacher seemed as fresh as ever, Belton began to be afraid for his promised biscuit and piece of chicken.
He crawled to James Henry and said hastily--"James, dees haf gone," and hurriedly resumed his watch.
A moment later he called out in a whisper, "He's tuck anudder."
Down goes Belton's head to resume his watch.
Every time the preacher took another biscuit Belton called out the fact to James.
All of the chicken was at last destroyed and only one biscuit
remained; and Belton's whole soul was now centered on that biscuit.
In his eagerness to watch he leaned a good distance out, and when the preacher reached forth his hand to take the last one Belton was so overcome that he lost his balance and tumbled out of his hole on the floor, kicking, and crying over and over again:
"I knowed I wuzunt goin' to git naren dem biscuits."
The startled preacher hastily arose from the table and gazed on the little fellow in bewilderment.
As soon as it dawned upon him what the trouble was, he hastily got the remaining biscuit and gave it to Belton.
He also discovered that his voracity had made enemies of the rest of the children, and he very adroitly passed a five cent piece around to each.
James Henry, forgetting his altitude and anxious not to lose his recompense, cried out loudly from the loft:
"Amanda Ann you git mine fur me."
The preacher looked up but saw no one.
Seeing that his request did not have the desired effect, James Henry soon tumbled down full of dust, straw and cobwebs, and came into possession of his appeasing money.
The preacher laughed heartily and seemed to enjoy his experience highly.
The table was cleared, and the preacher and Mrs. Piedmont dismissed the children in order to discuss unmolested the subject which had prompted her to extend an invitation to the parson.
In view of the intense dislike the teacher had conceived for Belton, she desired to know if it were not best to withdraw him from school altogether, rather than to subject him to the harsh treatment sure to come.
"Let me gib yer my advis, sistah Hannah.
De greatest t'ing in de wul is edification.
Ef our race ken git dat we ken git ebery t'ing else.
Dat is de key.
Git de key an' yer ken go in de house to go whare you please.
As fur his beatin' de brat, yer musn't kick agin dat.
He'll beat de brat to make him larn, and won't dat be a blessed t'ing?
See dis scar on side my head?
Old marse Sampson knocked me down wid a single-tree tryin' to make me stop larning, and God is so fixed it dat white folks is knocking es down ef we don't larn.
Ef yer take Belton out of school yer'll be fighting 'genst de providence of God."
Being thus advised by her shepherd, Mrs. Piedmont decided to keep Belton in school.
So on Monday Belton went back to his brutal teacher, and thither we follow him.
Jeebus, that is a heavy yoke to bear, all outside young Belton's control, and even knowledge.
Nobody asked him if all this was ok.
