As evening came on, the streets, though wanting gas, were still more animated; the shops were open, some very good ones, and the white and black throng increasing, especially the black, for the negro is preeminently a night bird.In the hotels dancing was promised--the german was announced; on the galleries and in the corridors were groups of young people, a little loud in manner and voice,--the young gentleman, with his over-elaborate manner to ladies in bowing and hat-lifting, and the blooming girls from the lesser Southern cities, with the slight provincial note, and yet with the frank and engaging cordiality which is as charming as it is characteristic.I do not know what led the Professor to query if the Southern young women were not superior to the Southern young men, but he is always asking questions nobody can answer.At the Swannanoa were half a dozen bridal couples, readily recognizable by the perfect air they had of having been married a long time.How interesting such young voyagers are, and how interesting they are to each other! Columbus never discovered such a large world as they have to find out and possess each in the other.
Among the attractions of the evening it was difficult to choose.
There was a lawn-party advertised at Battery Point (where a fine hotel has since been built) and we walked up to that round knob after dark.It is a hill with a grove, which commands a charming view, and was fortified during the war.We found it illuminated with Chinese lanterns; and little tables set about under the trees, laden with cake and ice-cream, offered a chance to the stranger to contribute money for the benefit of the Presbyterian Church.I am afraid it was not a profitable entertainment, for the men seemed to have business elsewhere, but the ladies about the tables made charming groups in the lighted grove.Man is a stupid animal at best, or he would not make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a little money for charitable purposes.But probably the women like this method of raising money better than the direct one.
The evening gayety of the town was well distributed.When we descended to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected, black, white, and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four glaring torches lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read might decipher this legend on a standard at the back of the stage:
HAPPY JOHN.
ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
COME AND SEE HIM!
Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow girl, took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by his audience.His face was blackened to the proper color of the stage-darky, and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and coat striped longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam,"the coat a swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-crowned white hat.This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle all colors in the audience amazingly.Mary, the "bright" woman (this is the universal designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing but bold yellow girl, who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and had the assured or pert manner of all traveling sawdust performers.
"Oh, yes," exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, "Happy John was sure enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking when he's not blackened up."Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety and enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a ready, rude wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence, deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering advice and correction in a strain of humor that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement.He handled the banjo and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not singing.Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in company with John, but with a cold, indifferent air, in contrast to the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.
The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic refrain :
"Mary's gone away wid de coon."
All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of darkies and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing, the laughter, the flaring torches, made a wild scene.The entertainment was quite free, with a "collection" occasionally during the performance.
What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy John of the "nigger" side of the black man as a means of low comedy, and the enjoyment of it by all the people of color.They appeared to appreciate as highly as anybody the comic element in themselves, and Happy John had emphasized it by deepening his natural color and exaggerating the "nigger" peculiarities.I presume none of them analyzed the nature of his infectious gayety, nor thought of the pathos that lay so close to it, in the fact of his recent slavery, and the distinction of being one of Wade Hampton's niggers, and the melancholy mirth of this light-hearted race's burlesque of itself.