Chesnutt stories-"The Wife of His Youth" and "The Passing of Grandison"

     After reading "The Wife of His Youth" I realize that I really should pay more attention to titles.  This title explains the concept of the story, yet when I first read it, I did not take the title into account.  I think for that reason, the twist at the end of the story was so much better.
     I found the beginning of the story interesting, because it gave details about the "Blue Veins" which was to say that these people, because they had one parent who was white and one who was black, did not fit into either so called "race."  They were, however considered to be better than the "black" person because of the color of their skin.
     The story of Mr. Ryder, being older, and finally finding a love in the young Mrs. Molly Dixon is not a new concept for the time or even now.  There are plenty of stories out there of older men falling in love with a younger woman.  What was surprising was when, as he was looking at his poetry as a way to prepare for his proposal to Molly, the old woman came up and sat next to him.  The description of this woman makes her appear very old.  The woman is looking for her husband, although by the law he would no longer be her husband, yet she still searches believing that he could not possibly love anyone but her, because there love was that special.
     I found it interesting how Mr. Ryder continually tried to say that perhaps her husband was dead, etc. in an attempt to make her give up on her quest.  I thought that perhaps he was trying to prepare her for the fact that she may never find this man.
      However, as the story draws to its conclusion, we here this woman's tale and you get the feeling that everyone in that room could relate due to having family who was ripped apart due to the war and other factors.  The fact that he looks at Mrs. Dixon for an answer when he asks what the man should have done, was a huge clue that there was more to his relating this story to his friends than met the eye. 
     The very end was probably the best part of this story, because he told all of his friends that this woman was his wife and that he would honor his oath that he had taken when she was a slave and he a free man.  This showed that his honor as a man and possibly husband meant a lot to him and that he would not again abandon a woman who loved no other but him and who had even traveled the continent in search of her true love.
     "The Passing of Grandison" was so funny.  First you have Dick Owens trying to win the heart of Charity.  The way to do this is to do something heroic.  So how does he do this?  He does it by deciding to run off one of his fathers slaves.  This is where we meet Grandison. 
     Grandison appears to be a very loyal slave and he really gives no indication that he will ever leave young Dick or the estate of which he lived.  Plus he had a woman who he was going to marry and family on the plantation, so he would want to be with them, rather than be free or at least that is what the Coloniel believed.
     Dick Owens does everything humanly possible to get this slave to run away.  He takes him to New York and hopes that the free men will turn him, yet it does not work.  So he takes him to Boston and actually writes letters to the abolitionists, yet this still does not appear to work.  So he takes him to Niagara Falls where young Dick finally comes up with a plan and has Grandison kidnapped.  Dick then goes home, where he knows his father will be very angry at the loss of his 'property.'  
     Dick gets everything he wants, namely Charity's hand in marriage.  But then Grandison returns to the plantation.  Here one might think that the man is insane.  Why would someone who was free return to live as a slave?  I thought that, but I also thought that he might have an ulterior motive. 
     After a bit of time, we learn that Grandison did in fact have an ulterior motive, and that motive was to save his love and his family from slavery.  He played the old southern Colonel.  He and his family escaped to the north and when the Colonel and the sheriff catch up, it is too late for Grandison and his family are sailing up the waterway. 
     This story was funny because first poor Dick cannot get Grandison to leave or at least that is what we are led to believe and then Grandison returns and frees his family from the grasp of slavery.  It showed that just because one is a slave does not mean that they are not smart, which is quite evident in this story because he played Colonel Grandison like a fiddle!