Chapter 2

The drawback to the plantations upon the lower Roanoke lay in their liability to being flooded by the freshets to which the Roanoke was exposed. These were especially to be dreaded in early spring, when the snow in the mountains was melting. I have known freshets in March to inundate the country for miles. At one time there was not a foot of dry land upon one of the Runiroi plantations. It was upon a mild night in that month that I sat upon the porch nearly all through the night, feeling too anxious to sleep, for your grandfather, the overseer, and every man on the plantation were at the river, working upon the embankments. The back waters from the swamp had already spread over everything. This gentle and slow submersion did no great damage, when there was no growing crop to be injured; the thing to be guarded against was the breaking of the river dam and the consequent rushing in of such a flood as would wash the land into enormous holes, or "breakovers," of several acres in extent in some places, or make great sand ledges in others, to say nothing of the destruction of fences, the drowning of stock, etc. On the night that I speak of, the moon was at its full and glittered upon the water, rippling all around where dry land should have been. I sat listening anxiously and occasionally shuddering at a sharp cracking noise, like a pistol shot, and, following upon it, the rushing of water into some plantation up the river. Once in the night I heard a noise and, upon my calling to know who it was, a man replied that they had come up in a canoe to get some water. I could not help laughing; it struck me that water was rather too plentiful just then. They worked upon the dam until there was no more material to work with, water being level with the top on both sides and only a foot of standing-room at the top, so, having done all that they could, all hands took to canoes and went to their homes. That "March freshet" did incalculable damage to the whole region, but still fine crops were made that season. Your grandfather was indefatigable while anything could be done, but, having done all that human energy could, he would resign himself cheerfully to the inevitable, and his family never were saddened by depression on his part. This wonderful elasticity was most noticeable at the fearful period of the surrender and, indeed, through all the succeeding years, when this power of his, despite all of our losses and anxieties, made our life one of great happiness.

When, during the winter months, a moderate freshet meant nothing more serious than the flooding of the low grounds, it was considered rather a benefit, owing to the rich deposit left upon the land, besides the advantages gained in floating out lumber from the swamps. This March freshet caused great pecuniary loss; new dams had to be constructed at a heavy expense, and many miles of repairing had to be done to those left standing. The few days before the water had reached its height were most trying to the nerves (that is, my nerves). I believe my fears culminated upon the night that I saw the water rippling over our own doorstep and realized that there was not a foot of dry land visible for miles; by morning, though, the river was "at a stand," and by evening little spots of green were showing themselves in the yard and garden.

The word garden recalls to my memory our pretty garden, a most beautiful continuation of the smooth green yard, its many alleys bordered with flowers and flowering shrubs. It was, I own, laid out in a stiff, old-fashioned manner, very different from the present and far more picturesque style; still, it was charming,--the profusion of flowers, fed by that wonderful river loam, exceeded anything that I have ever seen elsewhere. In the springtime, what with the flowers, the beautiful butterflies, and the humming-birds, the sunny air would actually seem to quiver with color and life.

Every plantation had a set of buildings which included generally the overseer's house, ginhouse, screw, barn, stable, porkhouse, smokehouse, storehouse, carpenter's shop, blacksmith shop, and loomhouse, where the material for clothing for each plantation was woven,--white cloth for the underclothes, and very pretty striped or checked for outer garments. At Runiroi, the weaver, Scip, was a first-class workman, and very proud of his work. I often had sets of very pretty towels woven in a damask pattern of mixed flax and cotton. The winter clothing was of wool, taken from our own sheep.

The carpenters at Runiroi were Jim, the head carpenter, Austin, and Bill, who were all good workmen. Frank, "Boat Frank," as he was called, from having formerly served as captain of the old flat-bottomed scow which carried the sale crop to Plymouth, was also in the shop and did beautiful work. I was fond of visiting Jim's shop and ordering all sorts of wooden ware, pails, piggins, trays, etc.; these last, dug out of bowl-gum, were so white that they looked like ivory. Boat Frank was very proud of the smoothness and polish of his trays. Our children, with their mammy, were fond of visiting "Uncle Jim's" shop and playing with such tools as he considered safe for them to handle, while Mammy, seated upon a box by the small fire, would indulge in long talks about religion or plantation gossip. That shop was indeed a typical spot; its sides were lined to the eaves with choice lumber, arranged systematically so that the green was out of reach, while that which was seasoned was close at hand. Uncle Jim would have felt disgraced had a piece of work made of unseasoned wood left his shop. The smoke from the small fire which burned in the middle of the big shop, upon the dirt floor, escaped in faint blue wreaths through the roof, leaving behind it a sweet, pungent odor. The sun streamed in at the wide-open door, while Jim and Frank tinkered away leisurely upon plough handles and other implements or household articles.

Uncle Jim was a preacher as well as a carpenter. He was quite superior to most of his race, both in sense and principle and was highly thought of by both white and black. Upon two Sundays in each month he preached in the church and his sermons were quite remarkable, teaching in his homely way the necessity of honesty and obedience. His companion in the shop, Boat Frank, was of a more worldly nature, and wore great golden hoops in his ears and a red woolen cap upon his head, and resembled an elderly and crafty ape, as he sat chipping away at his work.

Next came the blacksmith shop, where Bob wielded the great hammer and grinned with childish delight at seeing the children's enjoyment when the sparks flew.

After the blacksmith's shop came the loomhouse, where Scip, the little fat weaver, threw the shuttles and beat up the homespun cloth from morning till night; there, too, were the warping-bars, the winding-blades, and the little quilling-wheel, at which a boy or girl would fill the quills to be in readiness for the shuttles. Scip was an odd figure, with his short legs, and his woolly hair combed out until his head looked as big as a bushel.

The dwellings of the negroes were quite a distance from the "Great House," as that of the master was called, and were built in two or more long rows with a street between. This was the plan upon every plantation. Each house had a front and back piazza, and a garden, which was cultivated or allowed to run wild according to the thrift of the residents. It generally was stocked with peach and apple trees, and presented a pretty picture in spring, when the blue smoke from the houses curled up to the sky amid the pink blossoms, while the drowsy hum of a spinning-wheel seemed to enhance the quiet of the peaceful surroundings.

The church at Runiroi was large and comfortably furnished with seats; colored texts were upon the walls, and the bell, which summoned the people on Sunday mornings, swung amid the branches of a giant oak. Both your great-grandfather and grandfather employed a chaplain. At Runiroi, he officiated only upon alternate Sundays, as the people liked best to listen to Carpenter Jim. It used to be a pretty sight upon a Sunday morning to see the people, all dressed in their clean homespun clothes, trooping to church, laughing and chattering until they reached the door, when they immediately would assume the deepest gravity and proceed at once to groan and shake themselves more and more at every prayer. The singing would often sound very sweet at a distance, although I must confess that I never sympathized in the admiration of the negro's voice.

Of course, like all other laboring classes, the negroes had to work, and of course, as they had not the incentive of poverty, discipline was necessary. They knew that they would be housed, clothed and well fed whether they earned these comforts or not; so, in order to insure diligence, reliable men were chosen from among them as assistants to the white overseers; these were called "foremen," and were looked up to with respect by their fellows. Upon every large plantation there was also a Foreman Plower, his business being to take the lead and see that the plowing was well done and that the plow horses were not maltreated. With the settled men this was unnecessary, but it was very needful with the younger hands. These colored foremen were, in their turn, subject to the overseers, who, in turn, if not found to be temperate and reliable, were dismissed. Upon well-ordered plantations punishments were rare, I may say unknown, except to the half-grown youths. Negroes, being somewhat lacking in moral sense or fixed principles, are singularly open to the influence of example; and thus it was that a few well-ordered elders would give a tone to the whole plantation, while the evil influences of one ill-disposed character would be equally pronounced.

The plantations of which I am speaking were singularly remote, being so surrounded by other large plantations that they were exempt from all outside and pernicious influences. The one or two country stores at which the negroes traded might have furnished whiskey, had not those who kept them stood too much in awe of the planters to incur the risk of their displeasure. As the town of Halifax could boast of several little stores, and was the trading post of Feltons, Conacanara, and Montrose, your great-grandfather, in order to prevent the evils of promiscuous trading, caused certain coins to be struck off, of no value except to the one merchant with whom his people were allowed to trade.

Perhaps you will be surprised to know how important to the country merchants was the trade of a plantation, so I will explain to you of what it consisted. Of course, a few of the careless, content with the abundance provided for them, did not care to accumulate, while others, naturally thrifty, amassed a good deal from the sale of otter, coon, mink, and other skins of animals trapped. Then, some owned as many as thirty beehives. One old woman, known as "Honey Beck," once hauled thirty or more gallons of honey to Halifax and back again, the whole distance (twenty-five miles), rather than take a low price for it. Besides skins, honey, and beeswax, eggs and poultry were always salable. One of my necessities in housekeeping was a bag of small change, and, as I never refused to take what was brought to me, my pantry was often so overstocked with eggs and my coops with ducks and chickens, that it was a hard matter to know how to consume them.

The beautiful white shad, now so highly prized in our markets, were then a drug. It was the prettiest sight in the early dawn of a spring morning to see the fishermen skimming down the broad river with their dip-nets poised for a catch. My opportunities for seeing them at that early hour were from my bedroom window, when I happened to be visiting the family at Conacanara. Our home at Runiroi stood some distance from the river, but the dwelling at Conacanara was upon a bluff just over the stream.

Beside the sale crops of cotton and corn, sweet potatoes were raised in large quantities for the negroes, to which they were allowed to help themselves without stint, also a summer patch of coarse vegetables such as they liked.

The regular food furnished consisted of corn meal, bacon or pickled pork, varied with beef in the autumn, when the beeves were fat, salt fish with less meat when desired, molasses, dried peas and pumpkins without stint (I mean the peas and pumpkins). I don't suppose any laboring class ever lived in such plenty.

A woman with a family of children always had the use of a cow, the only proviso being that she should look after the calf and see that it did not suffer, for your grandfather was particular about his ox teams; they were the finest that I ever saw, and were well blooded,--Holstein for size and Devon for speed and activity.

Our dairy was very pretty; it was built of immense square logs, with a paved brick floor, and great broad shelves all around. The roof was shaded by hackberry trees, and the grass around it was like velvet, so thick and green. Old Aunt Betty, who was the dairy woman until she grew too infirm, was the neatest creature imaginable; she wore the highest of turbans, and her clothes were spotless. She took the greatest pride in her dairy; for milk vessels she used great calibashes with wooden covers, and, as they naturally were absorbent, it was necessary to sun one set while another was in use. She kept them beautifully, and the milk and butter were delicious.

There was a man upon the plantation called "Shoe Joe," or "Gentleman Joe." He had, when a young man, been body-servant to his young master George, your great-grandfather's brother. I never in my life have seen finer manners than Joe's, so deeply respectful, and so full of courtesy. Notwithstanding his really fine deportment, Joe's nature was low and mean, and something that he did so offended his young master that, to Joe's great disgust, he was remanded back to the plantation and field work. In consequence of this, he always bore his young master a grudge, which, of course, he kept to himself. Once, however, he made some disrespectful speech before old Betty, who was devoted to her Master George, and this so offended her that she never again spoke to Joe, nor allowed him to make her shoes, though this last was more from fear than vindictiveness. For Shoe Joe was suspected of being a trick negro, and of possessing the power so to trick his work as to cause the death of any one wearing his products. Nothing was productive of more evil upon a plantation than was the existence upon it of a "Trick" or "Goomer" negro; and so insidious was their influence, and so secret their machinations, that, though suspected, it was impossible to prove anything, for, although detested by their fellows, fear kept the latter silent. Nothing would cause such abject terror as the discovery of an odd-looking bundle, wrapped and wrapped with strands of horse-hair, secreted beneath the steps, or laid in an accustomed path. Instantly after such a discovery the person for whom it was meant would begin to pine away, and, unless some counter spell were discovered, death would ensue. These occurrences, fortunately, were rare, but if the thing once took root upon a plantation, it wrought much evil in various ways. Joe was suspected of these evil practices, and, though a wonderfully capable man at all kinds of work, and a most accomplished courtier, was always looked upon with suspicion. His death was sudden, and the people firmly believed that he had made a compact with the devil, that the term had expired, and that Satan had met him in the woods and broken his neck. He was a tall, finely formed man, as black as ebony, and his movements always reminded me of a serpent.

Negroes, even in these days of school education, retain many of their superstitions, though ashamed to own it. One of their beliefs was that the word _you_ meant the devil's wife, and it was insulting to address any one by that word. To one another it was always _yinna_. So marked was this custom that the negroes of that section were known as the yinna negroes. This word, though, was never used toward their superiors, who were invariably addressed in the third person. Manuel was rather a common name among them; there were always two or three Manuels upon every plantation, and one was always called "Hoodie Manuel." No one could ever discover what this meant; perhaps they did not know themselves, though I am rather inclined to think that it was a superstitious observance, understood, perhaps, only by a select few. I think it must have had some sort of significance, as it was never omitted. As soon as one Hoodie Manuel died, another Manuel assumed the title, though not always the oldest.

It was not required of a woman with a large family to do field work. Such women had their regular tasks of spinning allotted to them, sufficiently light to allow ample time to take care of their houses and children. The younger women (unless delicate) left their children in a day nursery in charge of an elderly woman who was caretaker. Usually they preferred field work, as being more lively; but if one disliked it, she usually soon contrived to be classed among the spinners.

When, occasionally, I happened to go to any of the houses, often quite unexpectedly, I can assert truthfully that I never, in a single instance, saw dirt or squalor in one of them. The floors were clean, the beds comfortable, with white and wonderfully clean blankets. Everything, though very homely, with clumsy benches and tables, looked white and thoroughly clean. I remember hearing your grandfather speak of once going at breakfast time to a house to visit a sick child. The man of the house was seated at a small table while his wife served him. The table was covered with an immaculately clean homespun cloth, and coffee, in a tin pot shining with scrubbing, either sugar or molasses, I forget which, a dish of beautifully fried bacon and hoe-cakes, fresh from the fire, constituted his plain but most abundant meal.

Separation of families has ever been a favorite plea for the abolition of slavery, and I admit that in theory it was a plausible argument; and justice compels me to say that such instances, though rare, were not unknown. As a rule, however, family ties were respected, and when, through the settlement of an estate, such separations seemed impending, they were usually prevented by some agreement between the parties; for instance, if a negro man had married a woman belonging to another planter, a compromise was generally effected by the purchase of one of the parties, regardless of self-interest on the part of the owners. Thus families were kept together without regard to any pecuniary loss. Public sentiment was against the severing of family ties.

Before I close this little sketch I will tell you as well as I can the outline of plantation work.

With the beginning of a new year, the crop being all housed, the sale corn being stored in large barns or cribs on the river banks, and the cotton either being sold or kept for better prices, the plowing, ditching, and, when the swamps were full, the floating out of timber, were all carried on with great diligence. At Christmas, when all the clothing, shoes, and Kilmarnock caps had been given out to the ditchers, high waterproof boots were distributed. It was the custom to allow to every man who desired it a bit of land, upon which, in his spare time, to cultivate a small crop, for which he was paid the market price. Christmas was the usual day chosen for settling these accounts, and the broad piazza was full of happy, grinning black faces gathered around the table at which the master sat, with his account-book and bags of specie. A deep obeisance and a scrape of the foot accompanied each payment, and many a giggle was given to the lazy one whose small payment testified to his indolence. What a contrast between those happy, sleek, laughing faces and the sullen, careworn, ill-fed ones of now! In the early springtime, what was known as the "trash-gang," that is, boys and girls who had never worked, were set to clearing up fences, knocking down cotton stalks, and burning small trash piles.

I pause here to say that, the woodlands being a long distance from the quarters, the supply of fuel was a serious question, and when there was a threat of snow or increasing cold, every man would be employed in cutting or hauling a supply of fuel to the houses.

Planting time began with the middle of March. In August the crops were "laid by." The three days' holiday began with the slaughter of pigs and beeves, in preparation for the annual dinner upon every plantation. After holiday came the fodder-pulling, a job hated by all, especially by overseer and master, as the drenching dews and the hot sun combined to make much sickness. This work was never begun until late in the morning, but even after the sun had shone upon the fields, the people would be drenched in dew to their waists. Next, the whitening fields told that cotton-picking must begin, and, later on, a killing frost upon the already browning shucks sent the great wagons to the fields, where the corn-gatherers, with sharp needles tied to their wrists, ripped open the tough shucks and let loose the well-hardened ears of grain. As each field became stripped, stock would be turned in to feast upon the peas and pumpkins.

With winter came that period of bliss to the soul of Cuffee, namely, the hog-killing, when even the smallest urchin might revel in grease and fresh meat.

If eyesight permitted, I might tell you some tales of plantation doings which might perhaps amuse you, but I have said enough to give you some idea of the old Southern life. All that I have said is within bounds, but, after all, I fear I have not been able to give you an adequate idea of the peacefulness and abundance of life upon a great plantation.

GOING TO THE PLANTATION

Summer is over; the nights grow chill, and the autumnal tints, beginning to glow upon the hillsides, tell the low-country folk that the time draws near for the yearly flitting to their plantation homes. The planter, who passes the hot season amid the breezy uplands, begins to think of his whitening cotton fields, and grows impatient for the frost, which must fall ere the family may venture into the land of swamps and agues. He looks out upon the flower-beds, glowing with life and quivering in the sunshine, and listens to the incessant shrill-voiced cicada piping from the tree-tops, while the insect-drone, in the heated, languid air, seems to speak of an unending summer; but as "all things come to him who waits," so at length come the frosts to the planter.

The week preceding the departure is a busy one, embracing, along with the numberless good-byes, many important afterthoughts in the way of providing the necessities required in the isolated home, where shops are unknown. At length, however, the great boxes are closed, and stand ready for the daylight start of the wagon; the bird-cage, the basket of kittens, and the puppy are also committed by the children to "Ung Jack," the teamster, who, with the broadest of smiles, promises "little missis" and the "little masters" to take the best of care of them.

Giving the baggage a day's start, the family's departure takes place on the day following. After an early breakfast, Mammy and the younger children bundle into the big carriage, mother and the rest of the little mob follow in the _barouche_, while papa, who abhors the confinement of a carriage, follows on horseback. Although the animal which he bestrides is a noble specimen of his kind, still it must be confessed that papa does not present a jaunty appearance as he jogs soberly along; and yet, as he sits easily swaying in the saddle, there is about him a careless grace which marks the natural horseman.