TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: —Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. [Illustration: “HAM STERNS, I RECKON YOU KNOW ME.”—Page 190.] OTHER FOOLS AND THEIR DOINGS, OR, LIFE AMONG THE FREEDMEN. BY ONE WHO HAS SEEN IT. NEW YORK: J. S. OGILVIE & COMPANY, 29 ROSE STREET. COPYRIGHT 1880. BY J. S. OGILVIE & CO. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE BEAN ISLAND PEOPLE 7 II. DISTRUST 28 III. THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 45 IV. LEGAL REDRESS 60 V. PREPARATIONS 74 VI. THE CLOUD THICKENS 87 VII. PORTENTOUS DARKNESS 108 VIII. MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE 129 IX. THE SITUATION 148 X. THE ATTACK 157 XI. A MASSACRE 179 XII. INCIDENTS AND PARTICULARS 197 XIII. THE SCALLAWAG 219 OTHER FOOLS AND THEIR DOINGS. CHAPTER I. THE BEAN ISLAND PEOPLE. “O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice!” —TAM O’SHANTER. IT was April, 1876, and Deacon Atwood and Captain Black were riding along the sandy highway in the sparsely settled vicinity of Bean Island, in the State of South Carolina. Though the sun shone uncomfortably hot, neither the men nor the horses they bestrode seemed anxious to escape its rays, for they traveled quite leisurely several miles, till they reached a point where the road forked. There they paused a few moments, and continued their conversation in the same low, earnest tones they had previously employed. The Deacon was fifty years of age, large, broad-chested, red-faced, with full fiery red beard and thin brown hair, which gathered in sodden, tapering hanks about his short neck and large ears; and his pale-blue eyes looked out of little triangular orifices on either side of a pyramidal nose, upon the apex of which was balanced a narrow forehead of a “quirked ogee” pattern. His hands were large and freckled, and he kept them in constant motion, like his huge feet, which seemed even too heavy for his clumsy legs. His snuff-colored suit, and the slouched hat he wore on the back part of his head, were dusty with travel.