The Sport of the Gods

Fiction has said so much in regret of the old days when there were plantations and overseers and masters and slaves, that it was good to come upon such a household as Berry Hamilton’s, if for no other reason than that it afforded a relief from the monotony of tiresome iteration.

The little cottage in which he lived with his wife, Fannie, who was housekeeper to the Oakleys, and his son and daughter, Joe and Kit, sat back in the yard some hundred paces from the mansion of his employer. It was somewhat in the manner of the old cabin in the quarters, with which usage as well as tradition had made both master and servant familiar. But, unlike the cabin of the elder day, it was a neatly furnished, modern house, the home of a typical, good-living negro. For twenty years Berry Hamilton had been butler for Maurice Oakley. He was one of the many slaves who upon their accession to freedom had not left the South, but had wandered from place to place in their own beloved section, waiting, working, and struggling to rise with its rehabilitated fortunes.

The first faint signs of recovery were being seen when he came to Maurice Oakley as a servant. Through thick and thin he remained with him, and when the final upward tendency of his employer began his fortunes had increased in like manner. When, having married, Oakley bought the great house in which he now lived, he left the little servant’s cottage in the yard, for, as he said laughingly, “There is no telling when Berry will be following my example and be taking a wife unto himself.”

The men lingered over their cigars. The wine was old and the stories new. What more could they ask? There was a strong glow in Francis Oakley’s face, and his laugh was frequent and ringing. Some discussion came up which sent him running up to his room for a bit of evidence. When he came down it was not to come directly to the dining room. He paused in the hall and despatched a servant to bring his brother to him.

Maurice found him standing weakly against the railing of the stairs. Something in his air impressed his brother strangely.

“What is it, Francis?” he questioned, hurrying to him.

“I have just discovered a considerable loss,” was the reply in a grieved voice.

“If it is no worse than loss, I am glad; but what is it?”

“Every cent of money that I had to secure my letter of credit is gone from my bureau.”

“What? When did it disappear?”

“I went to my bureau tonight for something and found the money gone; then I remembered that when I opened it two days ago I must have left the key in the lock, as I found it tonight.”

“It’s a bad business, but don’t let’s talk of it now. Come, let’s go back to our guests. Don’t look so cut up about it, Frank, old man. It isn’t as bad as it might be, and you mustn’t show a gloomy face tonight.”

The younger man pulled himself together, and reentered the room with his brother. In a few minutes his gaiety had apparently returned.

Oakley nodded. Berry was looking distressed and excited. He seemed not to understand it at all.

“Berry,” the officer pursued, “you admit having deposited five hundred dollars in the bank yesterday?”

“Sut’ny. Dey ain’t no reason why I shouldn’t admit it, ’ceptin’ erroun’ ermong dese jealous niggahs.”

“Uh huh! well, now, where did you get this money?”

“Why, I wo’ked fu’ it, o’ co’se, whaih you s’pose I got it? ’Tain’t drappin’ off trees, I reckon, not roun’ dis pa’t of de country.”

“You worked for it? You must have done a pretty big job to have got so much money all in a lump?”

“But I didn’t git it in a lump. Why, man, I’ve been savin’ dat money fu mo’n fo’ yeahs.”

“More than four years? Why didn’t you put it in the bank as you got it?”

“Why, mos’ly it was too small, an’ so I des’ kep’ it in a ol’ sock. I tol’ Fannie dat someday ef de bank didn’t bus’ wid all de res’ I had, I’d put it in too. She was allus sayin’ it was too much to have layin’ ’roun’ de house. But I des’ tol’ huh dat no robber wasn’t goin’ to bothah de po’ niggah down in de ya’d wid de rich white man up at de house. But fin’lly I listened to huh an’ sposited it yistiddy.”

“You’re a liar! you’re a liar, you black thief!” Oakley broke in impetuously. “You have learned your lesson well, but you can’t cheat me. I know where that money came from.”

“I’ll go an’ see what I kin do, anyway, Kit. ’Tain’t much use, I reckon, trying to get into a bahbah shop where they shave white folks, because all the white folks are down on us. I’ll try one of the coloured shops.”

This was something of a condescension for Berry Hamilton’s son. He had never yet shaved a black chin or put shears to what he termed “naps,” and he was proud of it. He thought, though, that after the training he had received from the superior “Tonsorial Parlours” where he had been employed, he had but to ask for a place and he would be gladly accepted.

It is strange how all the foolish little vaunting things that a man says in days of prosperity wax a giant crop around him in the days of his adversity. Berry Hamilton’s son found this out almost as soon as he had applied at the first of the coloured shops for work.

“Oh, no, suh,” said the proprietor, “I don’t think we got anything fu’ you to do; you’re a white man’s bahbah. We don’t shave nothin’ but niggahs hyeah, an’ we shave ’em in de light o’ day an’ on de groun’ flo’.”

“W’y, I hyeah you say dat you couldn’t git a paih of sheahs thoo a niggah’s naps. You ain’t been practisin’ lately, has you?” came from the back of the shop, where a grinning negro was scraping a fellow’s face.

“Oh, yes, you’re done with burr-heads, are you? But burr-heads are good enough fu’ you now.”

When it was over, he looked at his companion critically through a wreath of smoke. Then he said: “For a fellow who has had for a full year the advantage of the education of the New York clubs, you are strangely young. Let me see, you are nineteen or twenty now⁠—yes. Well, that perhaps accounts for it. It’s a pity you weren’t born older. It’s a pity most men aren’t. They wouldn’t have to take so much time and lose so many good things learning. Now, Mr. Hamilton, let me tell you, and you will pardon me for it, that you are a fool. Your case isn’t half as bad as that of nine-tenths of the fellows that hang around here. Now, for instance, my father was hung.”

Joe started and gave a gasp of horror.

“Oh, yes, but it was done with a very good rope and by the best citizens of Texas, so it seems that I really ought to be very grateful to them for the distinction they conferred upon my family, but I am not. I am ungratefully sad. A man must be very high or very low to take the sensible view of life that keeps him from being sad. I must confess that I have aspired to the depths without ever being fully able to reach them.