with a peculiar smile, "I do not know that there is any law compelling a freedman to adopt his former master's name. He is without name in the law, a pure nullius filius—nobody's son. As a slave he had but one name. He could have no surname, because he had no family. He was arraigned, tried, and executed as 'Jim' or 'Bill' or 'Tom.' The volumes of the reports are full of such cases, as The State vs. 'Dick' or 'Sam.' The Roman custom was for the freedman to take the name of some friend, benefactor, or patron. I do not see why the American freedman has not a right to choose his own surname."
"That is not the custom here," said the sheriff, with some chagrin, he having begun the controversy.
"Very true," replied the chairman; "the custom—and a very proper and almost necessary one it seems—is to call the freedman by a former master's name. This distinguishes individuals. But when the freedman refuses to acknowledge the master's name as his, who can impose it on him? We are directed to register the names of parties, and while we might have the right to refuse one whom we found attempting to register under a false name, yet we have no power to make names for those applying. Indeed, if this man insists that he has but one name, we must, for what I can see, register him by that alone."
His associates looked wise, and nodded acquiescence in the views thus expressed.
"Den dat's what I chuse," said the would-be voter. "My name's
Nimbus—noffin' mo'."
"But I should advise you to take another name to save trouble when you come to vote," said the chairman. His associates nodded solemnly again.
"Wal, now, Marse Cap'n, you jes' see h'yer. I don't want ter carry nobody's name widout his leave. S'pose I take ole Marse War's name ober dar?"
"You can take any one you choose. I shall write down the one you give me."
"Is you willin', Marse War'?"
"I've nothing to do with it, Nimbus," said Ware; "fix your own name."
"Wal sah," said Nimbus, "I reckon I'll take dat ef I must hev enny mo' name. Yer see he wuz my ole oberseer, Mahs'r, an' wuz powerful good ter me, tu. I'd a heap ruther hev his name than Marse Desmit's; but I don't want no name but Nimbus, nohow.
"All right," said the chairman, as he made the entry. "Ware it is then."
As there might be a poll held at Red Wing, where Nimbus lived, he was given a certificate showing that Nimbus Ware had been duly registered as an elector of the county of Horsford and for the precinct of Red Wing.
Then the newly-named Nimbus was solemnly sworn by the patriarchal Pharaoh to bear true faith and allegiance to the government of the United States, and to uphold its constitution and the laws passed in conformity therewith; and thereby the recent slave became a component factor of the national life, a full-fledged citizen of the American Republic.
As he passed out, the sheriff said to those about him, in a low tone,
"There'll be trouble with that nigger yet. He's too sassy. You'll see."
"How so?" asked the chairman. "I thought you said he was industrious, thrifty, and honest."
"Oh, yes," was the reply, "there ain't a nigger in the county got a better character for honesty and hard work than he, but he's too important—has got the big head, as we call it."
"I don't understand what you mean," said the chairman.
"Why he ain't respectful," said the other. "Talks as independent as if he was a white man."
"Well, he has as much right to talk independently as a white man.
He is just as free," said the chairman sharply.
"Yes; but he ain't white," said the sheriff doggedly, "and our people won't stand a nigger's puttin' on such airs. Why, Captain," he continued in a tone which showed that he felt that the fact he was about to announce must carry conviction even to the incredulous heart of the Yankee officer. "You just ought to see his place down at Red Wing. Damned if he ain't better fixed up than lots of white men in the county. He's got a good house, and a terbacker-barn, and a church, and a nigger school-house, and stock, and one of the finest crops of terbacker in the county. Oh, I tell you, he's cutting a wide swath, he is." "You don't tell me," said the chairman with interest. "I am glad to hear it. There appears to be good stuff in the fellow. He seems to have his own ideas about things, too."
"Yes, that's the trouble," responded the sheriff. "Our people ain't used to that and won't stand it. He's putting on altogether too much style for a nigger."
"Pshaw," said the chairman, "if there were more like him it would be better for everybody. A man like him is worth something for an example. If all the race were of his stamp there would be more hope."
"The devil!" returned the sheriff, with a sneering laugh, "if they were all like him, a white man couldn't live in the country. They'd be so damned sassy and important that we'd have to kill the last one of 'em to have any peace."
"Fie, sheriff," laughed the chairman good-naturedly; "you seem to be vexed at the poor fellow for his thrift, and because he is doing well."
"I am a white man, sir; and I don't like to see niggers gittin' above us. Them's my sentiments," was the reply. "And that's the way our people feel."
There was a half-suppressed murmur of applause among the group of white men at this. The chairman responded,
"No doubt, and yet I believe you are wrong. Now, I can't help liking the fellow for his sturdy manhood. He may be a trifle too positive, but it is a good fault. I think he has the elements of a good citizen, and I can't understand why you feel so toward him."
There were some appreciative and good-natured cries of "Dar now," "Listen at him," "Now you're talkin'," from the colored men at this reply.
"Oh, that's because you're a Yankee," said the sheriff, with commiserating scorn. "You don't think, now, that it's any harm to talk that way before niggers and set them against the white people either, I suppose?"
The chairman burst into a hearty laugh, as he replied,
"No, indeed, I don't. If you call that setting the blacks against the whites, the sooner they are by the ears the better. If you are so thin-skinned that you can't allow a colored man to think, talk, act, and prosper like a man, the sooner you get over your squeamishness the better. For me, I am interested in this Nimbus. We have to go to Red Wing and report on it as a place for holding a poll and I am bound to see more of him."
"Oh, you'll see enough of him if you go there, never fear," was the reply.
There was a laugh from the white men about the sheriff, a sort of cheer from the colored men in waiting, and the business of the board went on without further reference to the new-made citizen.
The slave who had been transformed into a "contraband" and mustered as a soldier under one name, married under another, and now enfranchised under a third, returned to his home to meditate upon his transformations—as we found him doing in our first chapter.
The reason for these metamorphoses, and their consequences, might well puzzle a wiser head than that of the many-named but unlettered Nimbus.
CHAPTER VII.
DAMON AND PYTHIAS.
After his soliloquy in regard to his numerous names, as given in our first chapter, Nimbus turned away from the gate near which he had been standing, crossed the yard in front of his house, and entered a small cabin which stood near it.
"Dar! 'Liab," he said, as he entered and handed the paper which he had been examining to the person addressed, "I reckon I'se free now. I feel ez ef I wuz 'bout half free, ennyhow. I wuz a sojer, an' fought fer freedom. I've got my house an' bit o' lan', wife, chillen, crap, an' stock,