CHAPTER XXXI.. The Florida Crackers.

THE FLORIDA CRACKERS.

When the previous thirty chapters were in press, the conviction was forced upon me that any book which touched upon Florida without a description of its poor whites called "Crackers," would be like the play of "Hamlet" with the Prince of Denmark left out, and I gladly pay this tribute of grateful remembrance to the most unique, and the only truly contented people that I have ever met on earth.

So far forth as history enlightens us, the ancestors of these peculiar specimens of the human race were never born anywhere in particular, but like Topsy, they "simply growed."

Why these usually long, lean, lank, saffron-hued, erst-while clay-eaters have received such an unromantic name has been variously accounted for. Some say the name was suggested by the fact that when not otherwise employed, they are constantly cracking the lice which swarm in their never-combed hair; others ascribe it to the frequent cracking of their rifles and long whip-lashes as they pursue their game or drive their cattle. An ex-slave of one of them tells me that they are called "Crackers," because they are all "cracked as to their cocoanuts."

Although the faces of many of these children of nature are usually as expressionless as a cast-iron cook-stove, they are far from being as stupid as they look; for even General Jackson, "the man of blood and iron," would have won but few, if any, laurels in his campaigns against the Seminoles, had it not been for his advanced guard of the warlike "Crackers."

"Out there in history" we see him and his army, while recklessly rushing the redskins, become lost and bewildered in the vast primeval forest. Day after day, they marched, but always in a circle; and each nightfall found them near where they broke camp in the morning. Provisions failed, and hunger and thirst drove the soldiers frantic. Every night they were pelted by bullets from unseen foes; stabbed and stung by innumerable insects; death for all stared them in the face; myriads of buzzards whirled above them, anxious for their prey.

While Jackson and his men, prostrated by heat, fruitless marching and discouragement, were praying for succor, suddenly the air seemed to be filled with human forms, which to their dazed minds appeared to be angels sent in answer to their fervent petitions. Grotesque looking angels were these, swinging from limb to limb of the forest trees; but heavenly in their beneficence were the solemn-faced "Crackers," as hundreds of them dropped to the ground and fed the exhausted warriors with "hog, hominy," and water from packs strapped with their rifles to their dirty, sturdy shoulders--"'nough sight better work for angels to do than loafin' around the throne." While the feasting was in full swing, suddenly the haggard and careworn face of "Old Hickory" appeared in their midst. "Boys," said he, in his quick, incisive tones, "don't eat any more, 'twill make you sick, stow it away in your haversacks." Then, turning to the Floridians, he quietly remarked, "Gentlemen, you saved our lives; many thanks! Now we will do as much for you. Where are the Injuns?" All the tree-climbers arose respectfully, saluted, and a tall, cadaverous-looking, long-haired, coon-skin-capped leader advanced, took the general by the hand, and slowly drawled,--

"Ginrul, the red niggers air skulkin' yender to the river, waitin' to chaw up you uns tonight.

"Colonel Tompkins," came the quick command, "climb your forces to the river, pour a volley into the red-skins at sundown, yell for all you're worth, we'll do the rest."

"All right, Ginrul, we uns will be thar," and away went the "flying Crackers," facing unspeakable dangers as calmly as a child looks into the loving eyes of its mother.

Sometimes they glided noiselessly as the autumn leaves cleave the air over the pine-needle carpet of the forest, and when this was impossible on account of the bogs and morasses, which would swallow them down to unknown depths, they swung through the tops of the sighing pines until they had flanked their unsuspecting foes; then, just as the sun was setting, they struck terror to the hearts of the Seminoles by an unexpected volley from their rifles and by frightful yells,

"As if all the fiends from heaven that fell, Had pealed the banner-cry of hell."

The red-men fled in panic along the narrow isthmus between the swamps and river straight upon the ambushed army of Jackson, who mowed them down with bullets as falls the grass before the scythes. The spirits of the Indians were crushed, and the remnant of a once powerful tribe fled into the vast, to the whites, inaccessible everglades, where their descendants now live on their fertile oasis, which is cultivated by their negro slaves, who never heard of Abraham Lincoln, or his proclamation of emancipation. "Old Hickory" and his gallant soldiers have all the glory; but their heroic allies returned quietly to their huts, their "hog and hominy," as unconcernedly as if they had done nothing more important than catching a trout or shooting a quail.

The stolidity and patience of the "Cracker" is equalled only by that of "their cousins, the Indians"; I have seen one of them sit for twelve hours continuously in one place fishing without being encouraged by even a little nibble; his face was as placid as that of a mummy which he closely resembles; then suddenly he would pull in scores of trout, but with the same imperturbable composure as before.

Although almost invariably poor so far as money is concerned, owing to their love of ease, these children of nature are proverbially hospitable, and you are welcome as his guest until you eat his last bit of food unless you offer him compensation therefor; if you do that his wrath knows no bounds, as I once found to my sorrow.

I had been wandering with three other horseback riders for a day and night lost in the woods; we were hungry and tired to the verge of collapse, when suddenly up went the heads and tails of our quadruped friends, who neighed with delight, and dashed pell mell toward a huge building or rather connected aggregation of buildings which loomed up on a hill in the pines. We made the welkin ring with our saluting shouts, but there was no response, the settlement was deserted; we stabled and fed our horses in the near-by barn, and led by a Floridian friend entered the largest house. Had manna fallen to us from heaven our surprise could not have been greater; a huge table was before us covered with enormous quantities of roasted meats,--venison, quail, wild turkey, hoe-cakes and fruits galore. We fell upon the provisions like famished wolves, and when at last our "aching voids" were filled, we were appalled at the havoc we had wrought; still no hosts appeared to welcome or rebuke.

On the wide mantel was a quantity of homemade cigars from which those of us who were "slaves to the filthy weed" made selections, and on the broad piazza were illustrating the wise man's definition of a cigar, "a roll of nausea with fire on one end and a fool on the other," when the air resounded with loud reports like pistol-shots and shouts of "whoa, whe, gee," rebel yells and barking of dogs; then a multitude of cattle dashed into view urged on by a cavalcade of men, women and children. The drivers gave us only casual glances until the round-up was completed and the enclosing gates shut, when the rollicking crowd came trooping toward us, and our guilty consciences made us fearful of dire punishment for our peculations. Then a tall, long-haired patriarch saluted us with "Howdy, strangers, howdy," shook hands with us heartily, and with a wave of his hand, "my wife and children, gents," glanced at the impoverished table, when he shouted "glad you had good appetites, strangers, mother, guess you'll have to tune up some more cooking."

The whole crowd gave us a marching salute, and made the water fly in a big tub where they performed much-needed ablutions, and soon, hoe-cakes were smoking, pork and sausages sizzling, doughnuts swelling, manipulated by the many willing hands: then the whole army "fell to" the abundant feast. It was wonderful and laughable to see that crowd of sons, daughters, grand-sons, grand-daughters--fifty in number--all one family, "stow away the prog."

Each one reminded you of the Irishman's pig who was said to devour a half-bushel of boiled potatoes, and when he was outside of all that, he, himself, would not fill a two quart measure. What a clatter of dishes as the buxom girls helped mother "clear up"! Then we had fun at the milking; it required a dozen strong men to hold one kicking cow while a woman, squeezed out a little milk from the reluctant udders, though she gave down freely later when the ravenous calf took hold. If the men relaxed for a minute, up goes the irate cow's heels, away goes the pail "dowsing" the maid with the foaming milk from head to foot, anon the wild-eyed brute would down horns and charge, the milkeress takes to her heels, then a flight of lassoos, over goes the frantic animal onto her back, the ropes tighten until she was conquered and forced to "give down some of her juice." One dose of this medicine was usually sufficient for any wild cow, and forever after she would "stand and deliver in peace."

Shall we ever forget the feeding of the pigs? Oh, the wild charge they made when they saw the feed troughs filled! "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindermost;" one huge razor-back stretches himself at full length on the "dough" in his generous attempt to prevent the rest from "making hogs of themselves"; an indignant young Cracker lassoos the hind legs, and by a dextrous pull sends his swine-ship whirling and rending high heaven with his lamentations.

At last all are stuffed as full as our "grandmother's sassingers," and then reclining in the sun, they express by their contented grunts and snores, ecstatic rapture as they pile on flesh for the stuffing of their carniverous owners. Then we watched a giant Crackeress feeding what she called her "feathered hogs." With frenzied eyes, whirring wings and waring beaks, all rushed to cheat the others and to secure the whole earth, each for himself, very like many "two-legged hogs without feathers"; a hen seizes a hoe-cake of her own size and frantically rushes away in the vain hope of devouring it in peace in some sequestered nook; but argus, envious eyes are watching, and her uncles and her aunts pursue, striking with beaks and claws to rob her of her big all. It was a minature Wall Street and stock-exchange, where human hogs and foul birds of prey fight to the death to plunder their own brothers.

And now gently the night stole o'er us--

"Night, so holy and so calm, That the moonbeams hushed the spirit, Like the voice of prayer or psalm"

and until the "wee sma hours," while three generations listened intently, we swapped stories with our generous "Crackers."

Our patriarch host had been a captain in the rebel army until he had his "belly full of fight," as he quaintly termed it. His wife had blest him with an even score of boys and girls, all now living in this delightful climate, where he said, "no one ever died; they simply dried up and blowed away into the happy hunting-grounds beyond the stars." When a baby was born or a child married, this chief of the tribe "hitched on" another house, until now the one-story dwellings covered an acre of his vast lands.

He and his tribe raised on his great farm here in Bradford County everything he needed to eat, drink, or to wear: his wife and daughters spun and wove their clothing from the cotton grown and ginned on his own fields; the delicious syrup and sugar which adorned and sweetened the mountains of rye pancakes and floods of home-raised coffee, was made from the cane which was grown, and ground on his own soil. He grew his own tobacco, tea, peanuts, oranges, figs, pineapples, bananas; he fattened his cattle and hogs on his own cassava and the abundant wild grasses; his flocks of sheep "cut their own fodder," and the wool and mutton was all clear profit. This "Cracker" family was the happiest and most independent I ever saw on earth.

All around this plantation are millions of uncultivated acres where the wretches of our city slums could be equally happy if our Carnegies and Rockefellers would only loan the funds to colonize them there. The millions of dollars, now worse than wasted by our selfish millionaires? could thus soon make this earth a paradise like to that above. After enjoying this free delightful life for several days, and we were on the point of departing, I said to our host, "Captain, we have enjoyed your hospitality immensely, and I hope you will allow me to reciprocate," holding toward him a bank-note.

Instantly his eyes flashed angry fire, he shot out his fist to strike me, when a neighbor said, "Don't hit him Cap, he don't know no better, he's a Yank." "Wall Yank," drawled this six feet of fighting man, "seein' ye don't know no better, I'll let ye off this time; but I don't keep no tarvern, and when me and my family come yure way, we'll all stop with yew, that'll even it up." As I looked at the fifty yawning caverns of chewing mouths, and reflected upon the cost of feeding them in Boston for even one day, I thanked God that I had not given him my card, and we rode away amid ear-splitting cheers and waving of hands, each one of which resembled in size the tail-board of a coal-cart.

On another occasion while scouring the Florida country for lands for colonizing purposes in company with a native, the night caught us in the dense forest; our horses stumbled over immense fallen trees, the owls hooted, the wild cats screamed, the thunder roared, occasionally a pine fell splintered by the lightning, the rain fell in torrents, and we seemed destined to shiver all the long black hours supperless and comfortless, when our eyes were greeted by the cheerful light shining through the open door of a log hut; a dozen curs gave tongue and went for our legs till a sharp yell from within sent them yelping away. A genuine Cracker appeared, and seeing our dripping forms in the electric flash, he quietly said, "Lite strangers, lite, jest in time, plenty of hog and hominy." He led our tired steeds into the leanto, fed them, and ushered us into his one-room shanty, where his lank wife and a dozen children silently made room for us around a rough board table. "Mother," said the master, "more hoe-cake, more bacon," and the obedient woman "slapped" a lot of corn dough on to the blade of a common hoe which a girl held over the "fat-wood" fire until it browned; another tossed some smoked hog into an suspicious looking skillet, and soon, in spite of the slovenly cooking, we "fell to" in a desperate attempt to smother the gnawing pangs of a long-suffering appetite. Then we told all the stories we could recall or invent to satisfy the starving intellects of these lonesome denizens of the wild wood. "Come, chilluns, to bed," said our host, and they were all stacked one over the other on the one corn-shuck couch where a chorus of snores proved they were in the land of dreams.

Our host relapsed into silence and seemed to be pondering some profound problem in his mind; but suddenly blurted out, "Strangers, reckon ye haint gut any of the rale critter, have ye? no corn juice pison nor nuthin'? reckon I was born dry!" My guide in reply produced a long flat bottle of about his own size, and passed it with "try that Kunnel." There was a sound of mighty gurgling long drawn out, but finally the huge demijohn was reluctantly withdrawn from his cavernlike mouth with a joyous "Ah, that's the rale stuff, have some mother? The woman removed the snuff rag from her gums long enough to drain the dregs, and presto! they beamed upon us like twin suns.

"Strangers," ejaculated this typical Cracker, "this is the dog-gondest place ter git er drink yer ever seed. Aour caounty went dry last 'lection, and tother day er went to the spensary ter git sum fire-water er thinkin we mought be sick er sunthin, ther wouldn't let me hev it 'thout Doc's 'scripshun--went to Doc, wouldn't give me 'scripshun 'thout snake-bite er sunthin--went ter only snake er knowed on fer a bite, und the dog-goned critter sed all his bites wuz spoke for three weeks ahed. Dunno what ud er dun if you uns hedn't cum erlong. Naouw, strangers, you take aour bed, we sleep on floo."

Then he took the "kids" one by one, and set them up with their backs to the side of the shanty, and we, not daring to beard the lion in his den by declining, obeyed. The next morning we found ourselves set up alongside the children on the floor, while the old man and his wife were snoring on the bed. Verily, "For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, the heathen 'Cracker' is peculiar."