“Yes, but—” Perry said. This time, Lewis interrupted him. “But me no buts. The niggers who are uppity can’t run North anymore, either; now that we’re free of the United States, they don’t want our riffraff. We always said we hated niggers running off, but it was a kind of safety valve for us. Now we’re stuck with all of ‘em, and the valve’s tied down. Do you want it to blow? Do you want to see Santo Domingos all through the South?”
“You think I’m crazy?” Perry said hoarsely. Caudell understood the catch in his voice; to a Southerner, Santo Domingo carried the same frisson of horror as violation did to a delicately reared woman. Slave uprisings, slave massacres, had always been rare and tiny in the South. But all whites knew, admit it or no, that a great rebellion could always happen…and tens of thousands of black men had learned to handle firearms in the course of the Second American Revolution.
“No, I don’t think you’re crazy, Jonas; I just think you haven’t thought the thing through, and I think Marse Robert has,” Lewis said. “Lee’s plan doesn’t hurt anybody in the pocketbook, and it gives us back our safety valve again. It gives us lots of years to figure out what the hell to do with the niggers. Vote for Forrest, and things stay just the way they are now—till they blow sky high.”
Perry didn’t answer, though the crowd had grown so quiet a whisper could have been heard. Caudell had his doubts that Lewis had convinced the burly farmer, but he’d made him thoughtful.
Into that silence, Lewis said, “Here’s one more thing: This is Lee we’re talking about. If somebody else had put this notion forward, I’d fret about it a lot more than I do. If I trust the judgment of any man on the face of the earth, it’s Robert E. Lee.”
Heads bobbed solemnly up and down, Caudell’s among them. Lee was human; he could make mistakes. Any man who’d charged up toward Cemetery Ridge wearing gray knew that—for too many, it was the last thing they ever knew. But Lee had held off the Federals in Virginia, though constantly outnumbered, and beat them and taken Washington City when the repeaters gave him a chance, had helped arrange the peace with the U.S.A. and presided over Kentucky’s joining the confederacy. If all that was not enough to deserve support, what was?
“I had a whole big speech all ready to roll out, but I don’t think I’m going to bother with it now,” Lewis said. “The only reason I can see that anyone would want to vote for Forrest instead of Lee is over slavery, and I’ve covered that as well as I know how, talking with Jonas here. When we’re talking about anything else—dealing with the United States and other foreign countries, making paper money worth what it says it is, all that sort of thing—Lee has it over him, and I think everybody knows it. A vote for Lee and Brown moves the Confederacy forward. A vote for Forrest and Wigfall holds us back. Thank you for listening to me, my friends. I’m through.”
The crowd cheered lustily, and began the chant of “Lee! Lee! Lee!” that Henry Pleasants had begun at the Forrest rally. The banjo picker and fiddler struck up “Dixie” again. Voices lifted in song. Caudell raised his with the rest. Only when he was walking back to his room did he think to wonder how fitting the tune was at a rally for a man who wanted to move, however gradually, on slavery.
Chattering like magpies, Caudell’s students hurried out of the run-down schoolhouse and scattered for their homes. It had been a long day for them; summer was almost here, and the sun rose early and set late. The only thing that helped them—and their teacher—endure was knowing that with summer came an end to lessons.
When Caudell, slower and tireder than the children, went outside, he found a black man waiting for him. “Hello, Israel,” he said. “Can I do something for you?”
“Yes, suh, you can. I wants you to help me with my ‘rithmetic, suh. I pays you to do it.” He reached into his pocket, took out a tan-and-brown Confederate five-dollar bill.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Caudell put his hands in the air. “You don’t need me, not when you work for Henry Pleasants. He’s a real engineer—he knows more about mathematics than I’ll ever learn.”
“Yes, suh, he knows it. But he knows it so good, he cain’t teach it to me: seem like he done forgot how he ever learn in the fust place, if you know what I mean,” Israel said. Caudell had to nod; he’d known people like that. The Negro went on, “But you, suh, you a schoolteacher. You used to showin’ folk what don’t know nothin’ how to do things jus’ a step at a time, like them Yankee teachers they had at the Hayti ‘cross the Trent from New Berne. An’ these here fractions, they drivin’ me to distraction. I gots to know ‘em, if I’s ever goin’ to keep Marse Henry’s books for him. Please teach me, suh.” Israel displayed the banknote again.
Nothing—not even poor dead Josephine, with her promises of sensual delights—could have been better calculated to tempt Caudell than someone standing in front of him and begging to be taught. That Israel was black worried him less than it would have before the war. For one thing, Israel was free; for another, he was already literate and had not gotten into any trouble on account of it.
That did not mean Caudell had no qualms. “If I do agree to teach you, Israel, when will you be able to come into town? Will Henry let you take time off from your work?”
Sadly, Israel shook his head. “No, suh, he sho’ won’t. I gots to work fo’ my keep. I finish all my cho’s early today so as I can get here an’ ask you. But if you wants to help me learn, I come in soon as I’m done, an’ walk back in the dark. That don’t matter none to me.”
“How many days a week would you want to do that?” Caudell asked.
“Many as you want,” Israel answered at once.
Caudell studied him. If he meant what he said, he had more hunger for knowledge than any of the regular students in the school. A full day’s work, five miles on foot into Nashville, a lesson, another five miles back to the farm, with one of those hikes, at least, and maybe both, made in the night and cutting into his sleep…
“If you really want to try, I guess we could manage three evenings a week and see how that goes,” Caudell said. His own curiosity was piqued. He wondered just how much the Negro could do.
“Thank you, suh, thank you!” Israel’s big happy grin seemed almost to split his face in two. Then he sobered. “How much you want me to pay you?”
Could he have afforded to, Caudell would have done it for nothing. He could not afford to, and he knew it, especially with the lean months of summer staring him in the face. “How does five dollars every other week sound?”
“Like a lot o’ money,” Israel said mournfully. “Reckon I gots to pay, though, if I wants to learn.”
“How much would that work out to per week?” Caudell asked, wanting to see what his new pupil already knew.
“‘Two dollars an’ fifty cents,” Israel answered without hesitation. “You ask me about cash money. I can cipher just fine. But when it’s two an’ a half barrels o’ this an’ three an’ a quarter pounds o’ that, I goes all to pieces.”
“It won’t be so bad.” Caudell did his best to sound reassuring. “Come on back to the widow Bissett’s with me. As long as you’re here, you might as well start your lessons—soonest begun, soonest done.” And, the resolutely practical part of him added, the sooner I start getting paid.
He did not take Israel up to his room. They worked on the front porch till it got too dark to see, and then for a while after that by candlelight, their heads close together. But the candles also lured bugs, until they were doing more slapping than studying. Finally Israel got up. “I better get on back, ‘fore I’s eaten up altogether.”