“Kennesaw is only twenty-two miles away and I’ll wager you—”
“Rhett, look, down the street!
That crowd of men!
They aren’t soldiers.
What on earth...? Why, they’re darkies!”
There was a great cloud of red dust coming up the street and from the cloud came the sound of the tramping of many feet and a hundred or more negro voices, deep throated, careless, singing a hymn.
Rhett pulled the carriage over to the curb, and Scarlett looked curiously at the sweating black men, picks and shovels over their shoulders, shepherded along by an officer and a squad of men wearing the insignia of the engineering corps.
“What on earth...?” she began again.
Then her eyes lighted on a singing black buck in the front rank.
He stood nearly six and a half feet tall, a giant of a man, ebony black, stepping along with the lithe grace of a powerful animal, his white teeth flashing as he led the gang in
“Go Down, Moses.”
Surely there wasn’t a negro on earth as tall and loud voiced as this one except Big Sam, the foreman of Tara.
But what was Big Sam doing here, so far away from home, especially now that there was no overseer on the plantation and he was Gerald’s right-hand man?
As she half rose from her seat to look closer, the giant caught sight of her and his black face split in a grin of delighted recognition.
He halted, dropped his shovel and started toward her, calling to the negroes nearest him:
“Gawdlmighty!
It’s Miss Scarlett!
You,
‘Lige!
‘Postle!
Prophet!
Dar’s Miss Scarlett!”
There was confusion in the ranks.
The crowd halted uncertainly, grinning, and Big Sam, followed by three other large negroes, ran across the road to the carriage, closely followed by the harried, shouting officer.
“Get back in line, you fellows!
Get back, I tell you or I’ll-Why it’s Mrs. Hamilton.
Good morning, Ma’m, and you, too, sir.
What are you up to inciting mutiny and insubordination?
God knows, I’ve had trouble enough with these boys this morning.”
“Oh, Captain Randall, don’t scold them!
They are our people.
This is Big Sam our foreman, and Elijah and Apostle and Prophet from Tara.
Of course, they had to speak to me.
How are you, boys?”
She shook hands all around, her small white hand disappearing into their huge black paws and the four capered with delight at the meeting and with pride at displaying before their comrades what a pretty Young Miss they had.
“What are you boys doing so far from Tara?
You’ve run away, I’ll be bound.
Don’t you know the patterollers will get you sure?”
They bellowed pleasedly at the badinage.
“Runned away?” answered Big Sam.
“No'm, us ain’ runned away.
Dey done sont an’ tuck us, kase us wuz de fo’ bigges’ an’ stronges’ han’s at Tara.”
His white teeth showed proudly.
“Dey specially sont fer me, kase Ah could sing so good.
Yas’m, Mist’ Frank Kennedy, he come by an’ tuck us.”
“But why, Big Sam?”
“Lawd, Miss Scarlett!
Ain’ you heerd?
Us is ter dig de ditches fer de wite gempmums ter hide in w’en de Yankees comes.”
Captain Randall and the occupants of the carriage smothered smiles at this naive explanation of rifle pits.