Chapter 10

CAST:

Jeff Burnside—narrator, owner of "Burnside's Sausage & Bacon Co."

Jane Burnside—wife of Jeff

Mary Elizabeth Burnside—Jeff's daughter

Jeff (JJ) Burnside, Jr.—Jeff's son

Inez Arthur—substitute grandmother

Rastus—Negro employee

Martha—Negro employee, Rastus' wife

"Little" Jane—Rastus' daughter

Jonah—Negro employee

Ellie—Negro employee, Jonah's wife

Josiah—Negro employee

Mandy—Negro employee, Josiah's wife

Pierre Monde—creole employee, BBQ chef

Agnes Monde—creole, Pierre's wife

Henrietta Monde—creole, Pierre's daughter

The next two years went along pretty well. The county wuz well on its way ta recoverin' from the effects of the war, an' Burnside's Sausage & Bacon Co. wuz doin' right well, thank y'all. This wuz late 1868, an' politics had reared its ugly head. U. S. Grant wuz the Republican Party nominee for president, and one of his campaign aims was ta protect niggers from Southern White persecution. Considerin' what the Democrats had ta offer, I planned ta support Grant.

The problem wuz that the Ku Klux Klan wuz alive an' well in Missouri an' tryin' ta keep Grant from bein' elected. Since nearly all nigger men could vote and not all of the White male population could, yet, the KKK wuz tryin' ta intimidate the niggers ta keep them from votin' fer Grant. Rarely, this involved friendly persuasion, but mostly it involved physical threats against a man an' his family. The Army wuz out in force tryin' ta protect the niggers, but they wuz jus' havin' so-so luck.

I wuz getting' a lot of pressure, too, since I wuz the major employer of niggers fer miles around. I moved all of the nigger women an' chil'en inta the main house fer safety reasons. Things got kinda crowded, but I'll be damned ifen I'll let some half-assed hooligan hurt one of my friends. I organized the men into teams of armed guards ta patrol the grounds outside the fence. Everybody hated that, but there wuzn't no choice in the matter.

The Army commander wuz real sympathetic an' offered ta station troops at my property. I thought 'about the offer fer a while an' decided that we could handle any trouble, based on the luck we'd had with previous bandit raids. I didn't want ta antagonize the local White folks ifen I could avoid it, an' I wuz afraid that havin' the US Army guardin' me an' not them would lead ta hard feelin's.

We set up regular guard patrols, plus special units what roamed around on no specific schedule so that it would be harder ta sneak up on us. Fer a while, the worst thing ta happen wuz ta have watermelons an' pumpkins thrown again' the front wall of the house. It made a mess ta clean up the busted melons an' gourds, but we could live with that level of harassment. It wuz when people started firing shots at the house that I got pissed!