Thus mentally I lectured back at the Teuton as I went through the streets of Kings Port;and after a while I turned a corner which took me abruptly,as with one magic step,out of the white man's world into the blackest Congo.Even the well-inhabited quarter of Kings Port (and I had now come within this limited domain)holds narrow lanes and recesses which teem and swarm with negroes.As cracks will run through fine porcelain,so do these black rifts of Africa lurk almost invisible among the gardens and the houses.The picture that these places offered,tropic,squalid,and fecund,often caused me to walk through them and watch the basking population;the intricate,broken wooden galleries,the rickety outside stair cases,the red and yellow splashes of color on the clothes lines,the agglomerate rags that stuffed holes in decaying roofs or hung nakedly on human frames,the small,choked dwellings,bursting open at doors and windows with black,round-eyed babies as an overripe melon bursts with seeds,the children playing marbles in the court,the parents playing cards in the room,the grandparents smoking pipes on the porch,and the great-grandparents stairs gazing out at you like creatures from the Old Testament or the jungle.From the jungle we had stolen them,North and South had stolen them together,long ago,to be slaves,not to be citizens,and now here they were,the fruits of our theft;and for some reason (possibly the Teuton was the reason)that passage from the Book c'Exodus came into my head:"For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God,visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children."These thoughts were interrupted by sounds as of altercation.I had nearly reached the end of the lane,where I should again emerge into the White man's world,and where I was now walking the lane spread into a broader space with ells and angles and rotting steps,and habitations mostly too ruinous to be inhabited.It was from a sashless window in one of these that the angry voices came.The first words which were distinct aroused my interest quite beyond the scale of an ordinary altercation:--"Calls you'self a reconstuckted niggah?"
This was said sharply and with prodigious scorn.The answer which it brought was lengthy and of such a general sullen incoherence that I could make out only a frequent repetition of "custom house,"and that somebody was going to take care of somebody hereafter.
Into this the first voice broke with tones of highest contempt and rapidity:--"President gwine to gib brekfus'an'dinnah an suppah to de likes ob you fo'de whole remaindah oh youh wuthless nat'ral life?Get out ob my sight,you reconstuckted niggah.I come out oh de St.Michael."There came through the window immediately upon this sounds of scuffling and of a fall,and then cries for help which took me running into the dilapidated building.Daddy Ben lay on the floor,and a thick,young savage was kicking him.In some remarkable way I thought of the solidity of their heads,and before the assailant even knew that he had a witness,I sped forward,aiming my kettle-supporter,and with its sharp brass edge I dealt him a crack over his shin with astonishing accuracy.It was a dismal howl that he gave,and as he turned he got from me another crack upon the other shin.I had no time to be alarmed at my deed,or I think that I should have been very much so;I am a man above all of peace,and physical encounters are peculiarly abhorrent to me;but,so far from assailing me,the thick,young savage,with the single muttered remark,"He hit me fuss,"got himself out of the house with the most agreeable rapidity.
Daddy Ben sat up,and his first inquiry greatly reassured me as to his state.He stared at my paper bundle."You done make him hollah wid dat,sah!"I showed him the kettle-supporter through a rent in its wrapping,and Iassisted him to stand upright.His injuries proved fortunately to be slight (although I may say here that the shock to his ancient body kept him away for a few days from the churchyard),and when I began to talk to him about the incident,he seemed unwilling to say much in answer to my questions.And when I offered to accompany him to where he lived,he declined altogether,assuring me that it was close,and that he could walk there as well as if nothing had happened to him;but upon my asking him if I was on the right way to the carpenter's shop,he looked at me curiously.
"No use you gwine dab,sah.Dat shop close up.He not wukkin,dis week,and dat why fo'I jaw him jus'now when you come in an'stop him.He de cahpentah,my gran'son,Cha's Coteswuth."
