Part 25

With a broad catholicity of spirit that appears, in perspective, incompatible with the narrowness of creeds and ordinances prevalent, even among the educated Christians of that time, the “plantation preachings” held regularly during the summer at various homesteads in those parts of the county near the churches, were attended by the colored population in large numbers, irrespective of the sect to which the officiating minister might belong. It was an established custom in the Village Church that the second Sunday service should be, in summer, at the house of some neighboring planter, and held for the colored people, in particular. That the whites, within a radius of five or six miles, drove over for the afternoon service, did not alter the expressed purpose of the meeting, or the manner of conducting it.

Autumn was tardy in approach that year, and so it fell out that notice was given on the second Sunday morning after my arrival at my new abode, of “a plantation preaching to be held, at three o’clock, at the residence of Mr. Richard I. Gaines, to which all are cordially invited.”

We had an early dinner in consequence of the service. Over the dessert—the servants having been excused, that they might get ready for the “preaching”—we talked more freely of their ideas and mode of worship, than would have been kind in their presence. Among other anecdotes I related one I had had from Ned Rhodes last summer, when he had, as he reported, been “blackburying” on Sunday afternoon.

The cemetery of the colored people was then, as now, situated upon high, rising ground, overlooking the ravine separating Shockoe Hill from the adjacent country. Mr. Rhodes and a friend, in the course of a Sunday afternoon walk, were drawn to the spot by the sight of a great crowd of negroes and a string of mourning coaches.

When the two young men were near enough to the concourse to hear what was going on, they were espied by the orator of the day, who instantly soared into what his ilk admired as “dictionary English.” Upon the heap of red clay beside the grave was a tiny coffin. The new-comers agreed, in telling the story, that they had never beheld a smaller, and that the size of the pitiful little casket, wrapped with flowers, by contrast with the number of attendants upon the pompous service, set the stamp of absurdity upon the whole performance before they caught what the man was saying.

That this was in keeping with the rest, they speedily perceived. In hortatory tones that thundered to the remotest auditor, he dilated upon the uncertainty of life:

“... Even de distinguished lives of de two ‘lustr’ous strangers what has honored us by comin’ among us dis blessed arternoon, to jine in our mo’nin’. What is they? And what is we? And what is any man, bo’n o’ woman, my brethren? Up ter-day wid de hoppergrass, and down ter-morrow wid de sparrergrass! Like de flower ob de corn-fiel’, so he spreads hisself, like a tree planted by de horse-branch. Den de win’ rises and de tempes’ blows, an’ beats upon dat man—and whar is he? An’ he shan’ know dat place o’ his’n, no mo’.”

Pausing in mid-career, he touched the pathetically ridiculous box with a disdainful foot.

“As fur dis _t’ing_!” rising on his toes in the energy of his contempt—“as fur dis ’ere _itum_—put de t’ing in de groun’! _It’s too small fer to be argyin’ over!_”

Mr. Henry followed with a story of a darky, who prayed that “we might grow up befo’ de Lord, like calves and beeves of de stall, and be made _meat_ for de kingdom o’ heaven.”

Mrs. Henry had a tale of a man who prayed at a plantation-meeting at Woodfork—Dr. Joel Watkins’s homestead—that Rev. John Rice, Mr. Terhune’s immediate predecessor and a nephew of “Aunt Rice’s” husband—“might soon cease from his labors, and his works, may dey foller him!”

“After which performance,” she continued, “my uncle—his master—had a private interview with him, and forbade him ever to pray in public again.”

Then I heard that, within the two years’ incumbency of the present pastor, ten colored members had been added to the Village Church, much to the satisfaction of their owners. Among them, one Dabney and his brother Chesley, or Chelsea (I am not sure which), were prominent in all good words and works. Both could read and write, and both were skilled carpenters, who had hired their time from their master, and were working at their trade for themselves—respectable citizens in all but the right of franchise. The pastor spoke seriously and gratefully of their influence for good among their fellows, and of his hopes for the class they represented.

“Dabney is especially gifted in prayer,” commented Mr. Henry, gravely.

I did not then comprehend why his eyes twinkled, and why the others laughed. I was to know before the day was done.

The Gaines homestead was a fine old brick building, fronted by a broad veranda (we said “porch” then, in true English fashion). A spacious lawn stretched between the house and the gate. Under the trees shading the turf were ranged long rows of benches, occupied, that Sunday afternoon, by men and women from the Gaines plantation and from other freeholdings for miles around. There may have been four hundred, all told. A healthier, happier peasant class could not be found on either side of the ocean. All were clean; all were well-dressed. The younger women were gay with the discarded finery which was the perquisite of house-servants, ladies’ maids in particular.

The porch and the windows of the drawing-room were filled with guests of fairer complexion, but in demeanor and general behavior not a whit more quietly reverent. The brief invocation, the reading of the Scriptures, and the sermon were the duty of the presiding clergyman. He stood at the head of the short flight of steps, facing the dusky throng, and paying no more heed to the small audience behind him than if it had not been. It was the “colored people’s” service. In the selection of hymns the leader was guided by his knowledge of what would be familiar to them. The first went with a swing and a rush, that shook the branches above the singers’ heads, and brought down slow showers of tinted leaves upon the grass.

It was a perfect afternoon. The fields were golden brown; no frost had fallen to blacken or bleach them. Hickories were canopies of warm amber; oaks were reddening, and the maples were aglow with autumnal fires. The still air was nutty sweet.

The prayer, immediately preceding the sermon, was offered by an aged farm-hand, upon whom the leader called to conduct our devotions. His hair was pale chinchilla; his back was bent, and his thin voice quavered sadly. All the same, he voiced the petitions of every heart for strength, wisdom, and righteousness, briefly and pertinently. The sermon over, Dabney was bidden to “lead us in prayer.”

I was more than curious to hear the “gifted” brother. I had, on the drive out from the village, illustrations of his practice of introducing pointed personalities into extempore blending of supplication, confession, and adoration. How, the year before, when the smallpox appeared in the lower end of the village, Doctor Flournoy, a leading physician in the county, undertook the charge of the few cases of the dreaded disease, quarantining himself from the homes of other patients and acquaintances. In the cold weather, the second service of the Sabbath was still for the negroes. But they occupied the lower part of the church, and the whites sat in the gallery, reversing the order of the morning services. There were few in the gallery when Doctor Flournoy, peeping in at the door, thought it safe to slip into a seat in the choir-loft, which was quite empty.

Dabney’s falcon eye had descried him, and when he arose to pray he “improved” the incident:

“O Lord! we beseech Thee to bless and take care of the good doctor who has _crope_ into the gallery up yonder, ’cause why, he’s afeerd he may carry smallpox in his clo’es to some of us. Be a shield about that good man whose heart so faints for the courts of the Lord that he jes’ can’t keep away. See to it, O Shepherd of Thine Isrul! that he don’t ketch the smallpox himself!”

With all this, I was so far unprepared for what was to follow the uprising of the tall figure from the ranks of the believers, collected in the heart of the congregation, that I shrank back, out of sight of those who might have their eyes open and focussed upon me, in my seat just within a front window.

For thus held forth the man mighty in prayer, when he had disposed comfortably of the world at large and the brotherhood of saints in especial:

“O Lord! have mercy upon the hardened and hell-defying, hell-desarvin’ sinners, in these ’ere low-groun’s of sin an’ sorrow, ’roun’ about Charlotte Coate-House, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth.

“Bring ’em to mou’n as one mou’ns fer his first-born, and come a flockin’ into the kingdom, as doves to their windows, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth.

“Bless the master an’ mistis of this home, an’ pour out on ’em the riches of the heavens above, and the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth.

“O Lord! in the plentifulness of Thy mercy, bless with all manner of mercies the great and notable man of God, whom Thou hast placed over us in speritual things. Bless him in his rising up, and goin’ about, and among the sheep of his parstur’, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth.

“Bless her who Thou hast given to him to be a pardner in the lan’ what flows wid milk an’ honey, an’ in de was’ and desolate po’tions, whar no water is, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth.

“May they two live together for many a long year, like two turtle-doves in one nes’, with nary a jar between, from the rivers to the ends of the yearth!”

“A powerful figure—that of the family jars!” said my companion, when we had had our confidential laugh out, driving homeward between the hedgerows of the plantation-road and the cool depths of forest-lands. “And the only one he did not borrow from the Bible. He knows but one book.”

XXXIV

MY NOVITIATE AS A PRACTICAL HOUSEWIFE—MY COOK “GETS HER HAND OUT”—INCEPTION OF “COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD”

FIFTY years after it was written, I found among some family papers a letter from my husband to his father, dated “February 20, 1857.” His description of the cottage home in which we were now installed, as master and mistress, reads like a pastoral. He was not addicted to sentimental rhapsodies. If this were ever his style, he would have curbed the disposition to effervesce, in writing to another man. But the tone of the whole epistle is that of one thoroughly content with his home and the management thereof.

One sentence brought deep gratification to me, blended oddly with amusement and a tinge of melancholy:

“Virginia is very well and very busy. I confess to some surprise at her skill in housewifery. She seems as much at home in the kitchen as in the drawing-room, to which she is summoned many times a day to receive visitors.”

Until I read that letter, I had not meant to devote so much as a page—much less a chapter—to the crucial experiences of that novitiate in domestic lore. Now, I feel it incumbent upon me, as a duty I owe to the countrywomen I have tried to help along these lines, for forty-odd years, to lift the veil from the homely, ill-appointed kitchen in which I successfully deluded a quick-eyed, quick-witted man into believing I was mistress of the situation.

In my father’s house I was considered to have a turn, if not a talent, for housewifery. From childhood it was my delight to haunt the laundry, where the finer branches of cookery were carried on when the washing was out of the way. My mother was a very Mrs. Rundle in the excellence of her preserves and pickles. Mary Anne, the comely Indo-mulatto, was proficient in the composition of cakes, jellies, and pastries, syllabubs and creams. She liked to have me “help” her, as she put it. That is, I whipped eggs and beat butter and pounded spices, peeled fruit, topped and tailed gooseberries, when I felt like it, and kept her amused with my chatter.

At ten, I was trusted to carry the key-basket and to “give out” ingredients required for the day’s cooking and serving. At fourteen, I believed myself to be a clever cake-maker, and at sixteen, proudly assumed the responsibility of putting up preserves and pickles for the winter’s consumption, one summer, when my mother’s health obliged her to leave town in the height of the fruit season. When she came home, the stern old granddame, with whom I was rather a favorite (if she ever indulged her buckram-clad spirit in the weakness of having a favorite), informed her gentle daughter-in-law that “Mary”—as she persisted in calling me—“had kept the house so well that we had hardly missed her mother.”

It was not strange, therefore, that I took the helm of my newly launched barque with faint and few misgivings as to my ability to navigate the unknown seas that looked calm and bright from the shore.

Ours was a prosperous country parish, and liberal hospitality was the law of daily living. The Henrys vacated the Parsonage a few days before Christmas, and I went down to Richmond for a fortnight, to complete the household plenishing we had begun during the honeymoon. My sisters-in-law—with whom I was ever upon cordial terms—had lent advice and co-operation in the selection of furniture at the North. My carpets were bought in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where Judge Terhune was an old and honored resident. My mother had seen to the outfit of household linen. I smile now, in recollecting how care-free was my mood through that happy Christmas fortnight, after the receipt of a letter from the member of the firm who abode by the stuff for ten days of my holiday, apprised me of the arrival of the furniture from New Brunswick and from Richmond, likewise, that “Mrs. Eggleston and Mrs. Henry, with some other ladies, kindly insist upon having the house cleaned, the carpets made and put down, and the furniture settled in place while you are away.”

The proceedings would astound me now that I know more of humankind, and of parishes. Still more extraordinary would I consider the cool, matter-of-course way in which I received the intelligence. It was the Old Virginia atmosphere in that long-dead-and-buried time.

I did open my eyes, and break into ecstatic gratitude, when, on taking formal possession of our real home, where we had expected to live in picnic fashion upon the provisions we had laid away in baskets and trunks before leaving Richmond, we beheld the table set in the dining-room for supper, and fires alight in every room. Further search revealed that the house was in perfect order, the curtains hung, carpets down, and the larder stocked to overflowing with staples and delicacies. The cook and chambermaid hired for the year—as was the invariable custom of the “system”—were on hand, and John, the man-of-all-work, had met us at the station. Not another human creature was visible. For any evidence furnished to the contrary, by sight or hearing, the “surprise” might have been the work of benevolent pixies. My sister Alice—a girl of fourteen—would be an inmate of our house for most of the time, and study with us as heretofore. She and I ran about the house like two madcaps, after supper and until bedtime, calling out excitedly at each fresh discovery.

Two barrels of flour and one of corn-meal; two of apples and one of potatoes; a half-barrel of sugar, and other staple groceries, in divers measures, made the foundation of the abundant supply for creature wants. The upper shelves of the store-room were crowded with pickles, preserves, and all manner of conserved fruits for which the Virginia housewife was justly famed. Truly, the lines had fallen to us in pleasant places.

Excitement was renewed next morning by the appearance at the outer gate, and streaming down the walk, of a procession of colored men and women, each laden with basket, or pail, or tray, or parcel. The women bore their burdens on their heads, the men upon shoulders or in their arms. All, like the Greeks of old, came bearing gifts, and of a more perishable nature than those that loaded pantry and store-room shelves. Honey, breads of all shapes and characters; cakes, butter, and eggs; chickens, dressed for the table; sausage, spareribs, hams, and shoulders; a roast of beef; custards and puddings and mince-pies—seemed designed to victual a garrison rather than a family of three whites and three servants. To crown the profusion and add to the variety, the elegant young lawyer, Mr. Cardwell, who had figured in our bridal train, drove up through the main street, in at our front gate, and down to the Parsonage door, a cow and calf, to the unbounded delight of the village urchins who flocked at his heels up to the gate. The cow, “Old Blue,” as she was dubbed, because her color could not be more accurately described, gave the richest milk I ever skimmed. I would let no one else take care of it after one week’s experience had taught me the necessity of giving my personal attention to each department of housewifery, if I would not be cheated at every conceivable opportunity.

Thus gayly began my training in a school from which I have not yet been graduated.

My mother was a good housekeeper, and the wheels of her machine ran in smooth ruts. She had old and competent servants. I doubt if she had ever swept a room, or roasted a piece of meat, in her life. The cook we had hired from a neighboring planter had excellent recommendations. True, she had been one of the superfluous “hands” who were hired out from year’s end to year’s end, and such were not warranted as first-class workers. They were prone to become shiftless and indifferent to their work, by reason of frequent changes. Still, Emily was reputed to be a fair cook and laundress. Among the cuts of fresh meat sent in by the friends, whose consistent generosity moved me to the invention of the phrase “kitchenly-kindness,” was a noble beefsteak. I ordered it to be cooked for breakfast the second day of our incumbency.

Emily _fried_ it brown—almost to a crisp!

Five cook-books were in my just-unpacked library. Breakfast over, I sought out Miss Leslie’s _Complete Cook-Book_, and read up on beefsteak.

Two more were sent in that day from country parishioners. Next morning, I hied me surreptitiously to the kitchen before my husband or sister was awake. I bore the steak upon a charger—_alias_, a crockery platter. It had been under lock and key until then; otherwise, its fair proportions would inevitably have been shorn. The honesty of the hired hand was an axiomatic negligible quantity; and the most faithful of family servants seldom resisted successfully the temptation to appropriate to their own use an unlawful share of eatables. They were a gluttonous race, and the tenet that “taking from marster wasn’t stealing,” stood high in their creed.

I had told Emily overnight that I would show her how a steak should be cooked, and she was more than ready for me.

I had never touched a bit of raw meat before, and the clamminess of the gory cut sent “creeps” all over me. It was _very_ bloody to my eyes, and I washed it well in cold water preparatory to laying it upon the broad bottom of the frying-pan, heated and buttered, which, I had learned from another of the five manuals, was “a passable substitute for a gridiron if the young housekeeper had failed to provide herself with this important utensil.” Emily had not found a gridiron in the box of kitchen utensils unpacked before my arrival, and there was no time to look it up. The steak, dripping wet, went into the broad pan set over a bed of red coals. We cooked with wood in Old Virginia. It hissed and spluttered and steamed like the escape-valve of a balky locomotive. Miss Leslie said, “Turn it at the end of eight minutes.” The sodden pallor of the exposed side did not look right to me, somehow.

“Oh!” quoth Emily, “you is gwine to stew it—is you?”

Pass we quickly over the abhorrent tale! The steak never attained unto the “rich brown” which, according to my cook-book makers, it should display when ready for table. I turned it four times, and, with a vague idea that butter browned more readily than meat, I added a great spoonful to the juices oozing from the steak. There was a great deal of gravy in the dish when it was served, and my companions pronounced it “extremely savory.”

“But you should not have gone out into the kitchen,” demurred my husband. “Does not the cook understand her business?”

“Few of her class can do without teaching,” I rejoined, valiantly.

I had already made a resolve from which I never swerved: If my cook did not understand her business, and I understood it even less, I would not confess it. As time went on, I was to feel such test of the heroic resolve as I had never anticipated. For, as the knowledge of Emily’s ineptitude grew upon me, the conviction of my own crass and comprehensive ignorance waxed into a haunting horror. I was as unlearned as the babe unborn in everything that a practical housekeeper should know. I could not make a batch of bread, or boil a potato, or broil a chop, had my eternal welfare—or my husband’s happiness—depended upon it. As for soup-making, roasting, stewing, and boiling meats, frying and baking fish—the very commonest and coarsest rudiments of the lore in which I was supposed to be proficient—I was as idiotically void of comprehension as if I had never heard of a kitchen. How I maintained a brazen show of competency is a mystery to me at this distance from that awful trial-period. I studied my quintette of cook-books with agonized earnestness. And when I was tolerably positive that I had mastered a recipe, I “went and did it” with Squeersian philosophy. How many failures were buried out of the sight of those who loved me best, and were most constantly with me, would have shocked the frugal housewife into hysterics. My mastery of this and of that process was painfully slow, but it began to tell upon our daily fare. I got out the gridiron, and learned to cook to perfection the steaks my husband’s soul loved, and from my nonpareil of neighbors, Mrs. Eggleston, I got a recipe for quick biscuits.

To the acquisition of that particular formula, and the conversation that embedded the gift, I attribute a large measure of the success which eventually rewarded the striving unto blood, that was my secret martyrdom for half a year.

She was a “capable” housewife, according to Mrs. Stowe’s characterization of the guild. She was, moreover, warm-hearted, sensible, and sympathetically reminiscent of her own early struggles with the housekeeping problem. When I took her into confidence as to my distrust of my quintette of manuals, she laughed out so cheerily that I felt the fog lift from my spirits.

“All written by old maids, or by women who never kept house,” she declared. “To my certain knowledge, Miss Leslie has boarded in a Philadelphia hotel for twenty years. I wouldn’t give a guinea a gross for their books. Make your own! _I_ do! When I get a tiptop, practical recipe—one that I have tried for myself and proved, I write it down in my own every-day language; then I have met _that_ enemy, and it is mine!”

We were in her house, and she brought out the manuscript book in which her victories were recorded. Next, she offered to lend it to me.