Makers and Romance of Alabama History Part 35

A "big boy," one past sixteen generally, was given the alternative of a flogging in the presence of the school, or of downright dismissal. No respect was had for the difference between a laborious, earnest student, who might be slow of acquisition, and one who was bright and quick, though the former might be the solider of the two, and often was. School was taught according to certain arbitrary rules and not according to the principle of common sense. Most schools were therefore regarded by pupils as terrors, and not as places of mental pleasure. A "tight" teacher, as the rigid disciplinarian was called, was much in demand. Many a pedagogue would lose an opportunity to procure a school because he was "loose," or, as we would say nowadays, because he was reasonable, and not a ringmaster with his whip. No higher commendation was there than that one would flog even the largest boys. In consequence of this condition in the early school, the teacher was held in almost universal awe, with no touch of congeniality with any pupil.

In all recitations save those of reading and spelling, pupils would sit.

The spelling cla.s.ses were somewhat graded, and, in reciting, would stand in a line facing the teacher, who would "give out" the words to be spelled. Each syllable had not only to be spelled and articulated, but in spelling, each preceding syllable was p.r.o.nounced, even to the close of the word. If, for instance, the word notoriety was given, the pupil would spell n-o, no, t-o, noto, r-i, notori, e, notorie, t-y, te, notoriety.

When it would come to spelling long words, they would be rattled off with a volubility that was often amazing. It was interesting to hear words like incombustibility and honorificabilitudinity spelled after this fashion. As with a vocal fusillade, the pupil would clatter off long words, building each up as he would proceed, the teacher would stand with his head slightly careened to hear it properly done. Whatever other effect such exercise had, it gave clearness of articulation. If a word was misspelled, it was given to the next student with a "Next!" from the teacher, and if successfully spelled by the one next below him, he would "turn down" the one who failed, or, in other words, take his place in the line, sending the one who failed nearer toward the foot of the cla.s.s. Like trembling culprits the pupils would thus stand throughout the recitation, and everyone who had missed spelling a given number of words, walked mechanically up to the teacher and took his drubbing. Every cla.s.s of spellers was only a body of culprits on trial.

One of the choice pranks of those early days was that of "turning the teacher out." When a holiday was desired, and had been previously declined, a revolt was almost sure to follow. A secret conclave of "the big boys" was held, a mutiny was hatched, a fearless ringleader was chosen, the plans were laid, and the time of the real issue awaited. On the morning of the desired holiday, the young conspirators would reach the school an hour or two in advance, barricade every door and window so that none could enter, and quietly await the coming of the teacher. He would usually demand that the house be opened, when the leader would inform him that it would be done solely on condition that he would give them a holiday.

The teacher's ingenuity, tact, or physical strength was often sorely taxed by a juncture like this. It was not an easy thing to handle a half dozen or more determined boys just emerging into manhood, and those whose quiet grudge prompted a desire for a tilt, at any rate, and the teacher must either yield and thus lose his grip thereafter, or take the chance of a rough and tumble with the odds against him. The usual method of settlement was to sound a truce, and compromise on some satisfactory basis. One advantage always lay on the side of the teacher--no matter how stern or severe his method of adjustment in quelling the rebellion, he would have the moral reinforcement of the parents, but it was an advantage that might prove more than a forlorn hope, if he should attack a body of muscular country boys.

Happily, those days are gone, with some slight advantages, perhaps, over some of the present methods, but with immensely more disadvantages. At least, the tyranny and brutality of the olden days have given place to common sense.

THE CROSS ROADS GROCERY

Among the defunct inst.i.tutions of a past era in the state's history, is that of the country grogshop, which was known in those days as "the cross roads grocery," a name derived from the enterprising spirit of the keepers of such places to locate where the roads crossed, in order to catch more "trade." Many of these country saloons became notorious resorts. These places were the rendezvous of the rustics of the hilarious type in those far-off days. These rude trysting places were the weekly scenes of coa.r.s.e sports, gross hilarity, and of rough-and-tumble fights. Hither the rowdies gathered from a wide region, drank freely, yelled vociferously, and fought not a little. The monthly muster of the militia was usually in connection with one of these rural inst.i.tutions, and hither would come "the boys" for an all-day frolic. While squirrel guns and old flint and steel rifles were used in the drill, these would never be brought into requisition when the combats would usually ensue. Shooting and stabbing were far less frequent then than now, the test of manhood being in agility, strength, and the projectile force of the fist. There were bullies, not a few, and when one got sufficiently under way to raise a yell like a Comanche Indian, it was regarded as a defiant banter. This species of "sport" would usually come as the last act of the tragedy of the day.

Among the diversions of the day was that of test of marksmanship. The stakes were usually steaks, or, to use the terminology of the time, "a beef quarter." To be able "to hit the bull's-eye," as the center of the target was called, was an ambition worthy of any rustic. A feat so remarkable made one the lion of the day, and his renown was widely discussed during the ensuing week. No greater honor could come to one than to be able to win a quarter, and "the grocery" was alluded to as a place of prominent resort throughout a wide community. There were also "racing days," which was applied to foot races as well as to horse racing. There was a track for each hard by "the grocery," and in the foot races the runners would strip bare to the waist, pull off their shoes, and run the distance of several hundred yards. Brace after brace of runners would test their speed during the day, the defeated contestant having always to "treat the crowd."

This was varied, in turn, by horse racing day. Two parallel tracks were always kept in order by the grocery keeper for this equestrian sport.

Scrawny ponies that had plowed during all the week were taken on the track on Sat.u.r.day, betting was freely indulged in, the owners would be their own jockeys, and amusing were many of the races thus run.

Still another sport, cruel enough in itself, was that of the "gander pulling." A large gander with greased neck would be suspended to a flexible limb overhanging the road, and one by one the hors.e.m.e.n would ride at full tilt, grasp the neck of the goose, and attempt to wring it off, while his horse was at full speed. With many a piteous honk, the goose would turn its head here and there to avoid being seized, and it was not easy to accomplish the required feat. A given sum of money was the usual reward to the successful contestant. This cruel sport of more than seventy-five years ago was among the first to disappear from the programme of rural diversions. The reader of "Georgia Scenes" has been made familiar with this sport, which at one time was quite popular.

"Muster day," which came once each month, was usually one of b.l.o.o.d.y hilarity. The crude evolutions on the field being over, "the boys" would return to the grocery, and, after being bounteously served several times at the bar, they were ready for the fun, which usually began with a wrestling or boxing bout, in which some one who was unsuccessful would change the scene into one of an out-and-out fray. When temper became ascendant, which was not difficult under the condition of free imbibing, one violent blow would invite another, when the crowd would form a ring around the belligerents, and cries of "Stand back!" and "Fair play!" would be heard on all hands. If one interfered in behalf of a kinsman or friend, he was pounced on by another, and not infrequently as many as a dozen men would be embroiled in a fisticuff battle. Nothing was tolerated but the fist. Not even a stick could be used, though when one was down under his antagonist it was accounted lawful to use the teeth, or even to fill the eyes of an opponent with sand, in order to make him squall. When the shriek of defeat was sounded, the successful antagonist was pulled off, and some one treated him on the spot.

It was by this means that bullies were produced in those days. Sometimes a bully would come from some other region where he had swept the field, in order to test his prowess with a local bully. Bets would be made in advance, and the announcement through the region, a week or so in advance, would serve to draw an unusual crowd to the scene of pugilistic contest. A ring was drawn in the sand, and while the contest would begin in a boxing exercise, there came a time when it grew into a battle royal with the fists. The champions of different neighborhoods each felt that not only was his own reputation at stake, but that of his community. Bulls on the pastures would not fight with greater fierceness than would these rough rowdies. When one or the other would "give up," then would come a general disagreement among the boozy bettors, and the entire crowd would become involved in a general melee.

Sat.u.r.day night usually brought fresh accessions from the neighboring population, and frequently the brawls would last throughout the night.

Broken fingers, noses, well-chewed ears, and dislocated teeth usually made up the casualties of the day. Bunged and beaten as many were, they would resume their usual labor during the next week, while the scenes of the preceding Sat.u.r.day would be the subject of general comment, and the end of the following week would find them again at the grocery.

These groceries, so called, prevailed throughout the South till the opening of the Civil War, during which it is presumed that the belligerently disposed got full gratification on fields of a different type. Among the changes wrought in our social life by the war, this was not among the least. Efforts to revive "the grocery" of the "good old times" after the return of the few from the battlefields of the war, proved abortive, and thus vanished this popular inst.i.tution in the states of the South.

EARLY NAVIGATION

The rude crafts that once floated our magnificent rivers were crude and primitive enough, and were but a slight advance on the dugout or canoes of the red men. The heavy, clumsy flatboat, propelled in part by long oars used by the hand, and in part by long poles let down from the edge of the boat and by the pressure of the body urged slowly along, and by the use of grappling hooks to pull the boat upstream, were in use far into the twenties of the nineteenth century. These boats were of limited surface capacity, difficult of management, and exceedingly slow. An indication of their sluggish movement is afforded by the fact that in 1819, when Honorable Henry Goldthwaite was on his way from Mobile to Montgomery, to make the latter town his home, he was just three months on the voyage up the Alabama River. With slow movement and noiselessly, these heavy craft would be propelled up the river, and on approaching a given point the boatmen would signal their approach by firing a small cannon kept on each barge for that purpose. After the invention of the steam whistle, now so common, by Adrian Stephens, of Plymouth, England, whistles came at once into use on all American waters.

For ages these great streams had been rolling wanton to the sea, and after the occupation of Alabama by the whites, the natural advantages were readily recognized, but as nothing was then known of the steam engine, of course there was nothing left but to employ the most available craft for transportation. For a long period, only the awkward barges and flatboats were used. It may be readily seen how the introduction of steamers on our rivers would facilitate individual and aggregate prosperity, which had been so long r.e.t.a.r.ded by the slow process of navigation already mentioned.

Though Robert Fulton's first grotesque steamer appeared on the waters of the Hudson as early as 1807, and while a steamer had not yet been seen in these parts, enterprising spirits, in antic.i.p.ation of the coming use of steamboats, organized a company at St. Stephens, the territorial capital, in 1818, which company was duly authorized by the legislature of the Alabama Territory, and bore the name of the St. Stephens Steamboat Company. This was followed two years later by another, which was incorporated under the name of the Steamboat Company of Alabama, and a year later still came the organization of the Mobile Steamship Company. If it is supposed that the fathers had no enterprise in those early days, this will serve to disabuse the minds of all doubters. They were dealing in steam futures, but they were ready for the coming tide of steam progress. In due course of time, these rival organizations introduced steamers on the rivers of the state, but they were not rapid of locomotion, were at first small, rather elaborate in adornment, and afforded some degree of comfort to a limited number of pa.s.sengers. These diminutive floaters were gradually displaced by larger vessels, the number multiplied, and by 1845 magnificent packets were lowered from the decks and became "floating palaces" on our waters.

At first, a steamer was propelled by a wheel at each side, but this gradually gave way to a single wheel at the stern. The period of the career of these magnificent steamers was a brief one, lasting not more than fifteen or twenty years before the outburst of the Civil War.

Railways in Alabama were still practically unknown, and steamboat travel was exceedingly popular. On the best and finest steamers the entertainment could scarcely be excelled. The staterooms were often elegant, and always comfortable, and the tables were banquet boards. The best country produce was gathered at the landings, and the table fare was one of the boasts of the steamers. The most sumptuous carpets were on the floors of the pa.s.senger saloons, while superb furniture was alike pleasing to the eye and comfortable in practical use. The boats were constructed with three decks, known, respectively, as the lower, the middle or pa.s.senger, and the upper or hurricane deck.

During the cotton season, which extended from September to March, or about one-half the year, the boats would descend the rivers loaded each trip with hundreds of bales of cotton, and returning, would be laden with merchandise, while in both directions, there was usually a throng of pa.s.sengers. On some of the most elegant steamers were calliopes, the music of which would resound at night over many miles of territory pierced by the rivers. Nothing known to entertainment or comfort was omitted on a first-cla.s.s steamer in the forties and fifties.

Many of the landings on the rivers were located on high bluffs through which a flight of steps would lead from the summit to the water's edge, the length of which flight would sometimes exceed several hundred feet.

Alongside the uncovered stairway, was a tram for a wide car, which was nothing more than a platform on wheels, which wheels ran on two beams of wood, the surface of which was sheeted with iron. The car was operated by means of a pulley on the summit, which, in turn, was operated by a mule or horse moving in a circular enclosure. The freight from the steamer was strung along the bank below, to be cared for by the warehouse above. When cotton was to be shipped from the top of the bluff, a number of deck hands would go to the top of the steps, and each bale was slid down the tramway to the boat. The bale would be started endwise and descend with whizzing swiftness, strike the lower deck, be seized by the hands below, and put in place.

Great were the days of the reign of the steamboat! While slow, compared with later methods of travel, steamboat pa.s.sage was the acme of comfort and enjoyment. The social pleasure afforded was unsurpa.s.sed. While it would require several days to go two or three hundred miles by boat, the element of time was not so much a consideration in those leisurely days as it is now, and the regret was often that the time of the pa.s.sage was not longer. During the busy season the schedule of the boats was most irregular, and not infrequently pa.s.sengers would wait the arrival of the boat for twenty-four hours, and sometimes even longer.

It was interesting, the contention and compet.i.tion among the rival boats for freight and pa.s.senger traffic. In order to be able to advertise the popularity of a given steamer, the subordinate officers and others of the crew, would solicit pa.s.sengers at the hotels of the terminal cities, and would not only offer free pa.s.sage, sometimes, but actually offer a consideration of a small sum of money, in addition, to such as would make choice of that steamer in preference to another.

The war greatly crippled boating on the rivers, and with the rally and rehabilitation of the South from the effects of the war, the railway came on anon, and the steamers largely disappeared from our rivers.

HARRY, THE MARTYR JANITOR

Howard College, then at Marion, was burned on the night of October 15, 1854.

Dr. Henry Talbird was at the time the president of the inst.i.tution, and his nightly habit was to make a thorough inspection of the grounds and buildings, in order to see that all was well. After making his usual and uniform round on the night just named, he went to bed somewhat after ten o'clock. He had fallen into deep sleep, when he was aroused by the ringing of bells and the loud cry of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" On rushing out, he found the lower floor of the dormitory all ablaze, the fire already having begun its ascent up the stairway.

To this day the origin of the fire is a mystery. It was in the fall of the year, the weather was still warm, and there was no occasion for fire about the building. The bas.e.m.e.nt was one ma.s.s of rolling flames when first the building was reached. In a house near by, the janitor, a negro boy of twenty-three, was sleeping, and when he reached the scene, the flames were moving steadily up the stairway. He made a movement as if to plunge into the flames, when he was warned to keep clear. He replied that he must save the boys who were sleeping on the two upper floors, and did plunge through fire and smoke, and disappeared beyond.

Within a short time many of the people of the town had gathered, and the boys began to leap, one after another, to the ground. Ladders were brought into requisition to aid those on the highest floor to escape. Every student was aroused by the heroic colored janitor, and all but one had descended safely to the ground.

The young man who was still missing soon appeared at a window and was saved through the exertions of the late Dr. Noah K. Davis, late professor of philosophy in the University of Virginia, and several others.

About this time the negro boy, burnt almost bare, and raw from his burns, his hair burnt from his head, and his eyebrows and lashes gone, appeared at one of the highest windows and flung himself to the ground, about sixty feet below.

He rolled over on the gra.s.s a dead man.

His body was drawn from under the influence of the intense heat, and every effort was made to restore life, but he had been burned to death, and evidently had thrown himself from the window to prevent his body from being consumed in the burning building.

The terrible fire was now lost sight of in the attention which was bestowed on the faithful negro janitor. He had given his life for others.

The following morning, elaborate preparations were made for the becoming burial of the heroic Harry. Negro slave, as he was, he was honored with a burial from the leading white church of the town.

The building was packed with wealthy planters, merchants, lawyers, and their families to do honor to the hero of the fire.

In the funeral services leading citizens arose, one by one, to p.r.o.nounce eulogies on the dead slave.

Flowers were in profusion, and the procession to the cemetery was composed of the carriages of the wealthy. Greater distinction could not have been shown the most eminent citizen of the town.

At the grave, every possible consideration was shown, and mournfully the vast crowd turned from the grave of an humble slave. A sum of money was at once raised for the purpose of placing a high marble shaft at his grave, and in the cemetery at Marion it still stands conspicuously, with the inscriptions undimmed by the storms of more than half a century. On the front of the shaft is the inscription: "Harry, servant of H. H. Talbird, D.D., president of Howard College, who lost his life from injuries received while rousing the students at the burning of the college building, on the night of October 15, 1854, aged 23 years." On another side appears the inscription: "A consistent member of the Baptist church, he ill.u.s.trated the character of a Christian servant, 'faithful unto death.'" On still another side appears the language: "As a grateful tribute to his fidelity, and to commemorate a n.o.ble act, this monument has been erected by the students of Howard College and the Alabama Baptist Convention." The fourth side of the monument bears this inscription: "He was employed as a waiter in the college, and when alarmed by the flames at midnight, and warned to escape for his life, he replied, 'I must wake the boys first,' and thus saved their lives at the cost of his own."

Here humanity a.s.serted itself to the full. Uninfluenced by any other consideration than that a young man had proved himself a hero in a dire crisis, every worthy man and woman was ready to accord to a dead but heroic slave, the merits of his just deserts.