in the hot sun. They won't be so good, | wharf (after first taking the precaution to and I'd like to buy them. What do you pocket the half-dollar), and was walking ask for the basketful?' rapidly away, when, with the same delib mer replies, he drawled out after me: "He looked down in much embarrass-eration which had characterized his forment, kicking about with his bare feet, as he presently replied, 'Maws Tom Pahma he 'low mammy poun' o' suga' fu' dese sha blackbays.' 666 'A pound of sugar! Well, but wouldn't she just as lief have the money? I haven't any sugar with me, and I'd like to have them for my dinner. Look here.' I drew out a bright silver half-dollar, and held it up to him. 'I guess she'd as lief have the money. Wouldn't she?' "His eyes began to glisten; the circulation of metallic currency was already a thing of the past in the South, and reaching out his hand at once for the coin, he grinned his entire acquiescence to the proposal before declaring: 'Lawdy, yeas, Maws Yankee Soljeh; oh, yeas, seh. But dese sha's wah times, an' sto's do'n' 'low no sulva money. Mammy glad to git Yankee money, cert'n.' "Well, then, it's a bargain. Here's your Yankee money. Now give me the berries.' "'I 'bleeged t' kyah de baskit back,' he said, as I was extending my hand for it. "The basket! I hadn't thought of that. What was I to do? I had nothing with me into which I could bestow my anticipated dessert. I glanced down into the boat. Nothing there, except a heap of regulation blankets and an oil-cloth overcoat which had been carelessly left huddled together at the bow. Oh, for a receptacle of some kind! I could not bear to relinquish those big, luscious-looking berries, I had been living on salt food for so long, and yet In my perplexity, looking about me, all on a sudden my attention was caught by the swinging sign of the little country store beyond the wharf, at the entrance of the village. I might be able to buy a bucket or a pail there. Well thought of! "Here, my boy. What's your name?' "Casa', maws.' "Well, Cæsar, I'd like you to stay here and watch this boat' (I made her fast to a stake as I spoke), 'while I go ashore to buy a pail to hold my blackberries. I'll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes at furthest. Wait here until then. Don't leave the boat on any account, and don't let any one touch her. D'ye hear?' "Ye-a-s, Maws Yankee Soljeh.. Th' ain't nobody yeah gwine to tech heh.' "Very well. I'll give you the money when I come back.' "I was not risking much in leaving the boat in his charge, after all. The whole country for miles around looked deserted. The entire male population, with the exception of a few very old and decrepit men, of whom 'Maws Tom Pahma' furnished a sample, had gone off with the Confederate army. And the women and children kept well within-doors so long as we remained anchored in sight. I soon reached the shop, where I made my purchase-a common painted wooden waterbucket-and fearing I had already loitered too long, I left the building, and was about to return at once to the gig, when I happened to spy, just outside, lurking behind a tree, the very boy whom I had left on the wharf, standing there with my basket of blackberries on his head, having followed me, I suppose, at his leisure. I accosted him at once: "What made you leave the boat? What are you doing here?' I asked, with some asperity. Mammy sont y'all to de sto' to sell dese sha blackbays." "Yes, so you told me before; but you've already sold them to me. What made you leave the boat?' I repeated. 666 "I di'n' leave no boat; I ain't been nigh de wata. I com' f'om home. Mammy sont y'all down to Maws Tom Pahma's sto'; Maws Tom he 'low poun' suga' fu' dese sha' blackbays,' he drawled, even slower than before. "Yes, I know; but you agreed just now to let me have them for half a dollar. Here's your money. Quick, I've no time to lose.' "As he still remained motionless and staring, I caught the basket from his hand, poured its contents into my bucket-he wearing the most amusing look of utter amazement and consternation the whilethen thrusting the money into his hand, I said: "Now go home, and see that your mother gets the money. I'm afraid you're "I had already climbed up the side of the a very bad boy, Cæsar.' "His eyes widened more and more, as I had seen them do on the wharf. "Dis ain't Cæsa', maws. You's mistookin. I-I's Pompey. Cæsa' done 'scape clean 'way f'om me down yond' de road f'om de gret house t' 'Banna.' "As he spoke I glanced down the length of the wharf; the boy had disappeared; and this was he, of course, beyond the shadow of a doubt. My senses could not so deceive me. And bringing my gaze to bear on his face I surveyed him sternly. Was it imagination, or did I detect a lurking expression of mischief playing about his mouth? You little rascal!' I cried, losing all patience as I concluded that I did, 'do you mean to have the audacity to persist in asserting you are not the boy I left in charge of my boat not ten minutes ago? I've a great mind to give you the rope's-end. I would do it if I had one convenient, you little liar.' "His eyes met mine for one instant; then, thrusting his knuckles into them, he began to whimper piteously: 'Dis sheh some Casa's wu'k sho', 'cla'. 'Cla' t' gracious, maws, I do'n' know nuthin' 'tall 'bout no boat. I ain't seen Cæsa'. Cæsa' done run clean 'way to de Yankees, I s'pec'; 'case, Lawd knows, I ain't seen him. Me 'n' Cæsa' favors might'ly.' "He was, for his years, such a seasoned hypocrite that I had a great mind to fall aboard of him then and there, but at that moment my glance wandered inadvertently toward the river. I caught sight of the black smoke-stack of the gun-boat we were expecting. My presence on board my own boat was absolutely necessary in the event of her arrival. I could tarry no longer, and, speeding away down the long pier, I left him still gazing after me with his eyes widely opened, astonished, and tearful. As I proceeded along it occurred to me that there might be two of them, after all, since such a youngster would scarcely have the wit to think of such a name as Pompey as a companion piece to Cæsar. Pshaw! it was only a name with which he was familiar, for, as I reached the end of the wharf where I had left him, he had disappeared. Not a sign of him anywhere, except two or three spilled blackberries. I looked all about me-down at my boat lying where I had left her, and under the wharf. Nobody in sight. So it must have been he who had followed me, and played the part of a double so well. 'The young scamp!' I muttered, as I descended into the gig and began pulling toward the river. But for my promptitude in seizing these berries he would have regularly done me; 'twas well I spied him there at the village.' "Ten minutes' easy pulling brought me alongside the gun-boat, and I presently found myself on board, with so much to do that I very soon banished all thoughts of my recent experience, since the new gunboat I had descried had now arrived within speaking distance, with the intelligence that we were to proceed together at once to Washington, via Baltimore, there to await further instructions. So we weighed anchor at five o'clock, and by ten that evening were well out of the river, with the Chesapeake Bay spread before us. "Just about that time-at ten o'clock, I mean-one of the men, occupied with some work in the vicinity of the aft cabin, came running up from below to the deck, where a party of us were seated. "There's a strange noise down below, sir; like some 'un cryin'. None of us can account for it. I've looked through and through the cabins, sir; there's no one there.' A silence. Then he added, hesitantly: 'I'm afraid it bodes no good to us, sir.' 666 666 Nonsense, Roberts!' said I, rising. "No, sir; it's true. Only listen, sir.' "A strange sound there certainly was. I could now hear it plainly. So two of us descended the ladder at once, followed by the man. The sound grew louder as we approached the officers' cabin, then suddenly ceased as I called for a light and we proceeded thither. "It was perfectly still and apparently empty when we entered, but as I walked across to the berths to begin my search I stumbled, and nearly fell over some obstacle which seemed to resolve itself into a soft warm substance with as many tentacles as a cuttle-fish, and employing them all to adhere tenaciously to my knees. Looking downward in some alarm, while I held the light aloft, the better to discover the nature of this singular impediment, I was perfectly electrified to behold the ubiquitous Cæsar, whom I thought I had left miles behind, now making a perfect Laocoon of himself as he clung with all four limbs to my legs, his head thrown back, and his big black eyes fixed with an indescribable expression on my face. It was himself, and not another. Moreover, be- | boy concluded, I surveyed him in much perplexity. I recognized him at once. "Oh, Lawdy, Maws Yankee Soljehoh, Lawdy, maws! I woan' do so no mo'. I-I gwine home t' mammy dis vay minnit.' "Which, with countless sobs and asseverations, was the only reply I could elicit. "I gwine home now,' he repeated again and again. "Go home! you little rascal. I wish you could. You're half-way down the bay now. How did you get here? Who brought you?' "[Sob, sob.] You did, maws' [sob]. "I did! Come, don't trifle with me, you scamp. I won't stand it.' 6 666 Dallam, what on earth shall we do with him?' said I, turning to my brother officer. "I don't know, indeed, unless you leave him in some asylum in Baltimore,' was the reply. 'Sending him home is not to be thought of.' "All this while Cæsar remained squatted in a forlorn little heap upon the cabin floor, gazing from one strange face to another; but as he heard those words, all at once he fetched an unearthly howl, and falling again on his knees before me, he begged me to keep him. "I know I done ben a bad boy, maws; but please, seh, jis try me. I kin wuk roun' right smaht; kin clean shoes, an' tote wood an' wata, an' wait on de kitchin. I min' you, maws, 'deed I will. I woan' nuvva run 'way no mo'.' "Well, the upshot of the matter was that, after giving a good laugh to the ridiculous and a little sigh to the troublesome side of the business, I finally consented to give him a trial, Dallam's servant kindly undertaking to begin teaching him his duties next day. "I have kept him ever since. There never was a better servant. Little chap as he was, he was with me all during the war, serving me cheerfully and well, and nev home and kindred he had left behind. "It was true, I had pulled him to the gunboat with me, concealed underneath the heap of blankets in the bow; and once arrived at the ship, after the gig was haul-er but once expressing any regret for the ed up alongside, he had probably watched his opportunity, when no one was around, and had stolen forth from his hiding-place with his berries as a peace-offering in case he should be discovered, and had made his way down into the cabin to investigate the inside of a 'Yankee soljeh boat,' as he called it, trusting to luck to find a way back to the village. The rest of his narrative was somewhat incoherent. He had become interested in the things around him, and had looked about him for some time, always taking care to creep under the shelter of the berths when he heard any one approaching. The last time he had done so it was very warm, he was tired and hungry, and-and "When he awakened it was to find everything dark and strange and lonely, and the room moving along, which latter circumstance impressed him as being so awful that he began to cry aloud, thus accounting for the mysterious sound deemed so portentous. It took a long time to elicit all this, but when at last the "Did he never see any of his home people again?" I inquired, as the Commodore paused. "Yes, he did. He went to see them four-five years ago. But I must tell you how he found them. In May, '78, fourteen years afterward, I had him in New York with me. I was going over to Jersey City on some business one morning, and was stepping down-town at a brisk pace, Cæsar following in my wake with my satchel, when my attention was attracted by an altercation going on at the front door of a shabby-looking boardinghouse opposite. The disputants were a stout burly Irishman and his wife, and a slender young negro, whose back was turned. The cause of disagreement, as I presently ascertained, was about the price demanded for lodging and breakfast, the colored man alleging that he had been induced to enter the house the evening before on the strength of a positive promise that the total sum of his accommodation should not exceed seventy-five cents. This statement was emphatically and volubly denied by the others, who demanded double the amount, referring to their printed scale of prices, and threatening to send for the police' to enforce their claim. "I done tole you I couldn' read none,' said the negro. 'Wha's use showin' me dat ah readin'?' "I saw he was evidently a countryman in the hands of sharpers; besides, there was something in his lingo which was strangely familiar; so I crossed the street, and paused on the sidewalk in front of the house, awaiting further developments. "A great deal of talking ensued, until finally the negro was fairly bullied into producing the demanded sum. I know "I s'pose I got to pay you. bett'n to come yeh 'gin, dough.' "We must see that man righted, Cæsar,' I said. 'If I don't mistake, he's from your State.' "But Cæsar did not answer; he stood as one petrified, gazing on his fellow-countryman with all his eyes. So, leaving him, I ran hastily up the steps. "Let me see that paper, if you please.' "Shure an' I'll do nathin' of the koind,' replied the Irishman, turning very red, as he crumpled his scale of prices in his hand. "You are right,' I replied. 'But I don't need it. Your sign-board here,' des TH ignating one attached to the side of the door, 'confirms this man's story in every respect. You'd better take the amount he owes you at once, or I'll send my man here after an officer, and he won't arrest the colored man either.' "The landlord muttered something about busy bodies interfering with other people's business, taking care to pocket the money, however; and I had already descended the steps, when the young negro, whose face I had scarcely seen, turning to thank me, I started back almost in consternation. He was Cæsar's very counterpart! In an instant it occurred to me who he was. 'Isn't your name Pompey?' I asked, interrupting his burst of gratitude. "Yeas, seh,' surprisedly. 'Pompey Grymes, boss.' "I knowed it-I knowed it fus' time I done yeahed 'im talk,' broke in Cæsar at this juncture, as he came forward, seizing his brother's hand, and relapsing into his almost forgotten Virginia dialect. 'Howd'y, Pompey, howd'y? Lawd bless you, my brother Pompey, I-I's glad to see you,' the tears streaming down his honest face as the two stood facing each other like the two Dromios just before the curtain drops. "I gave Cæsar a holiday that day, which he spent with his double, who was employed as deck hand on a boat plying between Norfolk and New York. And the next week the two reunited brethren proceeded together to Middlesex County to see the old people for a month, which is the longest period of my separation from him since that hot afternoon in 1862 when, like the master of the fishing-boat, I carried 'Cæsar and his fortunes.' Editar's Easy Chair. HE Easy Chair has preached more than one little sermon from the text of alleged editorial partiality. It is very difficult for the poet, or the story-teller, or essayist, who with fond parental affection naturally supposes the offspring of his brain to be a little better than other offspring, to believe that the superiority does not equally impress other observers. If the editor to whom the poet sends the verses which have been written with tears and deep emotion does not feel his heart tingling as he reads, and own the pathos and the fire, it is, in the secret judgment of the poet, because he is the victim of his prejudices, and is resolved to recognize no charm and no value except in the work of a clique of personal favorites. Were his mind not clouded with unworthy partialities, he would own that the sonnet upon a grasshopper's leg is far nobler in conception and of an infinitely subtler melody than the lines to a locust's wing. Or, again, how is it possible for any intelligent mind not to see that the story which is to-day declined is a hundred fold better than that which was yesterday accepted? "I hope that I am not vain," says Vanitas, "but I really think that I can distinguish mica from silver and gold from tinsel, and if the paper which I send is not of finer quality than any of Sainte-Beuve's-I certainly do not not even opened, much less read. For if they were, how could it happen that a contribution received on a certain day, at a certain hour, should be returned on the same day, at a certain other hour, marked with fatal precision by the post-office upon the envelope? Unavailable, indeed! It was not unavailable, but unread. Would the editor, in the midst of his vast labors, graciously pause long enough to explain this extraordinary rapidity in the consideration and condemnation of a contribution? wish to overstate the matter-why, I am pro- | would be vouchsafed even by the most scornfoundly mistaken." This is the theme of end-ful editor. But even this, it seemed, was too less variations, and when the neat and courte- | extravagant an expectation. The MSS. were ous editorial circular arrives, stating that the paper kindly offered for publication is not found available by the editor, that hapless word "available," which, of all words in the English language, seems to have been made for the very purpose of expressing the editorial decision without a suggestion of opinion upon the intrinsic value of the offering, is decried and denounced and spurned as a justly degraded outcast and criminal to be hounded through the world. "Unavailable, indeed!" cries Vanitas, with a snort of contempt," why does he not say plainly and in a manly way that he does not know me, and that he can not waste time in considering the contributions of tyros and nobodies? Unavailable! My prehistoric novel unavailable! How is American literature, for which the world is yearn-him to have been accepted, not upon its merit, ing, ever to appear, if its great works are to be suppressed by ignoramuses as unavailable ?" There was no doubt whatever that this writer sincerely believed that he had been the victim of an unfaithful editor, and that his MS. had been received, and, without reading, immediately returned. There was also no doubt that he believed a previous contribution from but through the influence of a relation. He was evidently of opinion that a magazine is edited, as an unreformed civil service is filled, by mere personal favoritism, and this particular editorial sinner should be distinctly apprised that he had been found out. But this was the editorial reply that he received: "I very well remember the MS. about which you write. The character and the incidents are fresh in my remembrance now; I could rehearse nearly every was graphic, but very far exceeded the space at my command for a short story. their treatment of contributors, but yours is the only "I have read many complaints against editors and one that I can recall which is based on the promptness It is melancholy to think of the wrath and scorn and lofty pity which these innocent circulars produce. The fact, also, that they are printed and not written is a bitter aggravation. The editor of a magazine, struggling with his vast work, planning for future numbers, engaging such articles as must be engaged far in advance, reading and considering the endless mass of contributions of every event related by you which occurred during that pekind, keeping himself familiar with the gen-riod of dreadful suspense at the agency. The story eral movement of literature, and among busy men the busiest, receives a huge MS., addressed to him by an unknown author, requesting immediate attention to the work, and a prompt opinion of its merits, and of the probable capacity of the writer and the desirability of his pursuing a literary career, and, if the MS. be declined, the reasons of the declination are desired, and directions how to obviate the objections hereafter, with such general reflections and details of counsel as may be useful to the inexperienced; but, above all, no printed circular. That would be deliberate insult and outrage. If it must be so, let the MS. be returned, but without the wanton provocation of a printed circular with its hideous "unavailable." Why should editors be put without the pale of humanity? Has there been some Dred Scott dictum against them? What tribunal has adjudged that editors have no rights which authors are bound to respect? Recently a letter of biting satire was received by one of this fraternity. It hinted that although the injustice and partiality and other wickedness of the editorial sanctum were well known, and although modest, unlaurelled, and struggling literary aspirants had little chance of fair treatment, it was nevertheless generally supposed among them that at least the mere form of opening their manuscripts would be observed, and that although they might not be actually read, the appearance of attention of the editor in the consideration of the author's MS. The MS. of your story was read within two hours after its reception. The same decision would have been reached if I had kept you waiting for weeks, but would you not with better reason have complained of the delay? For years it has been my study to keep contributors waiting no longer than should be absolutely necessary for my verdict upon their MSS. "I am not only the reader of MS. offered, but also the responsible editor of the magazine. From an experience of twenty years I have learned how entirely an editor depends upon contributors for the success of the periodical committed to his charge. From this view (and I see no other possible view for an editor to take), what motive could I have for slighting any author's MS.? "I shall be very glad to have the opportunity of con sidering other stories from your pen; but if you should again receive back your MS. within four or five days, I shall expect your thanks rather than your blame. "I am sorry that you should do your work so little credit as to suppose that a MS. of yours had been accepted through the interest of your uncle. That would have been impossible. Sincerely yours." Such a letter will do much more than many sermons of the Easy Chair to persuade contributors that the fate of their articles depends, not upon the fame of the writer or the personal favor of the editor, but upon the merit and the timeliness-in a word, upon the availability-of the article itself. The editor of a magazine is a trustee. The character |