Part 21

From this time all was changed. Jeff, it is true, after the first two days, gave proofs that he was not converted, like the white housemaid who had learned to sweep under the mats. His sweeping and tidying were decidedly those of the sinner, and he entirely abandoned the only hard work we set him, as soon as it was out of sight from the Asylum. It was a path leading to a shallow well, which the boys had dug at the bottom of the garden. The last twenty yards or so are on a steeper incline than the part next the house, so Jeff studiously completed the few feet that were left to the brow, and never put pick or shovel on the remainder, which lay behind the friendly brow of the slope. But in all other directions, where the work was mainly odd jobs, a respectable kind of loafing, Jeff was always to the fore, acquitting himself to the best, I think, of his ability. We did not get full command of him till the arrival of a young Texan cattle-driver, who taught us the peculiar cry for the negro, by appending a high “Ho” to his name, or rather running them together, so that the whole sounded, “Hojeff!” as nearly as possible one syllable. Even the ladies picked up the cry, and thenceforward Jeff’s substitute for the “Anon, anon, sir!” of the Elizabethan waiter was instantaneous. He built a camp-oven, like those of the Volunteers at Wimbledon, and neater of construction, from which he supplied a reasonably constant provision of hot water between six and six, of course cutting his own logs for the fire. His highest achievement was ironing the ladies’ cotton dresses, which they declared he did not very badly. Most of us entrusted him with the washing of flannel shirts and socks, which at any rate were faithfully immersed in suds, and hung up to dry under our eyes. The laundry was an army tent, pitched at the back of the Asylum, where Jeff spent nearly all his time when not under orders, and generally eating an apple, of which there was always a sack, a present from some ranche-owner, or brought over from the garden, lying about, and open to mankind at large. I never could find out whether he could read. One evening he came up proudly to ask whether his mail had come, and sure enough when the mail arrived there was a post-card, which he claimed. We thought he would ask one of us to read it for him, but were disappointed. He had a habit of crooning over and over again all day some scrap of a song. One of these excited my curiosity exceedingly, but I never succeeded in getting more than two lines out of him--

Oh my! oh my! I’ve got a hundred dollars in a mine!

One had a crave to hear what came of those 100 dollars. It seems it is so almost universally. The nearest approach to a complete negro ditty which I have been able to strike is one which the Texan gives, with a wonderful roll of the word “chariot,” which cannot be written. It runs:--

The Debbie he chase me round a stump,

Gwine for to carry me home;

He catch me most at ebery jump,

Gwine for to carry me home.

Swing low, sweet chay-o-t,

Gwine for to carry me home.

The Debbie he make one grab at me,

Gwine, etc.,

He missed me, and my soul goed free,

Gwine, etc.

Swing low, etc.

Oh! won’t we have a gay old time,

Gwine, etc.

A eatin’ up o’ honey, and a drinkin’ up o’ wine.

Gwine, etc.

Swing low, etc.

This, sir, I think you will agree with me, though precious, is obviously a fragment only. It took our Texan many months to pick it up, even in this mutilated condition. But after all, Jeffs character and capacity come out most in the direction of boots. It. is from his attitude with regard to them that I incline to think that the Black race have a great future in these States. You may have gathered from previous letters that there is a clear, though not a well marked, division in this settlement as to blacking. Amos Hill builds on it decidedly, and would have every farmer appear in blacked boots, at any rate on Sunday. The opposition is led by a young farmer of great energy and famous temper, who, having been “strapped,” or left without a penny, 300 miles from the Pacific coast, amongst the Mexican mines, and having made his hands keep his head in the wildest of earthly settlements, has a strong contempt for all amenities of clothing, which is shared by the geologist and others. How the point will be settled at last, I cannot guess. It stands over while the ladies are still here, and I have actually seen the “strapped” one giving his wondrous boots a sly lick or two of blacking on Sunday morning. But, anyhow, the blacks will be cordially on the side of polish and the aristocracy. This one might, perhaps, have anticipated; but what I was not prepared for, was Jeffs apparent passion for boots. I own a fine, strong pair of shooting-boots, which he worshipped for five minutes at least every morning. As my last day in the Asylum drew on, I could see he was troubled in his mind. At last, out it came. Watching his chance, when no one was near, he sidled up, and pointing to them on the square chest in the verandah which served for blacking-board, he said, “I’d like to buy dem boots.” After my first astonishment was over, I explained to him that I couldn’t afford to sell them for less than about six weeks of his wages, and that, moreover, I wanted them for myself, as I could get none such here. He was much disappointed, and muttered frequently, “I’d like to buy dem boots!”--but my heart did not soften.

Perhaps I ought rather to be giving your readers more serious experiences, but somehow the negro is apt to run one out into chaff. However, I will conclude with one fact, which seems to me a very striking confirmation of my view. All Americans are reading the _Fool’s Errand_, a powerful novel, founded on the state of things after the war in the Kuklux times. It is written by a Southern judge, a fair and clever man, clearly, but one who has no more faith in the negro’s power to raise himself to anything above hewing wood and drawing water for the “Caucasian” than C. J. Taney himself. In all that book there is no single instance of the drawing of a mean, corrupt, or depraved negro; but the negroes are represented as full of patience, trustfulness, shrewdness, and power of many kinds.

The Opening Day, Rugby, Tennessee.

Our opening day drew near, not without rousing the most serious misgivings in the minds of most of us whether we could possibly be ready to receive our guests. Invitations had been issued to our neighbours--friends, as we had learnt to esteem them--in Cincinnati, Knoxville, Chatanooga, whose hospitalities we had enjoyed, and who had expressed a cordial sympathy with our enterprise, and a desire to visit us. We looked also for some of our own old members from distant New England, in all probability seventy or eighty guests, to lodge and board, and convey from and back to the railway, seven miles over our new road,--no small undertaking, under our circumstances. But the hotel was still in the hands of the contractor, from whom, as yet, only the upper floors had been rescued. The staircase wanted banisters, and the hall and living-rooms were still only half-wainscotted, and full of carpenters’ benches and plasterers’ trays; while the furniture and crockery lumbered up the big barn, or stood about in cases on the broad verandah. As for our road, it was splendid, so far as it went, but some two miles were still merely a forest track, from which all trees and stumps had been removed, but that was all; and the bridge over the Clear Fork stream, by which the town site is entered, had only the first cross timbers laid from pier to pier, while the approaches seemed to lie in hopeless, weltering confusion, difficult on horseback, impossible on wheels. However, the manager declared that we should drive over the bridge on Saturday afternoon, and that the contractor should be out of the hotel by Monday midday. With this we were obliged to be content, though it was running things fine, as we looked for our guests on that Monday afternoon, and the opening was fixed for the next morning. And so it came to pass, as the manager said. Bridge and road were declared passable by the named time, though nervous persons might well have thought twice before attempting the former in the heavy omnibuses hired for the occasion; and we were able to get possession and move furniture and crockery into the hotel, though the carpenters still held the unfinished staircase.

So far so good; but still everything, we felt, depended on the weather. If the glorious days we had been having held, all would be well. The promise was fair up to Sunday evening, but at sunset there was a change. Amos Hill shook his head, and the geologist’s aneroid barometer gave ominous signs. They proved only too correct. Early in the night the rain set in, and by daybreak, when we were already astir, a steady, soft, searching rain was coming down perpendicularly, which lasted, with scarcely a break, clear through the day, and till midnight. With feelings of blank despair we thought of the new road, softened into a Slough of Despond, and the hastily thrown-up approaches to the bridge giving way under the laden omnibuses, and waited our fate. It was, as usual, better than we looked for. The morning train from Chatanooga would bring our southern guests in time for early dinner, if no break-down happened; and sure enough, within half an hour of the expected time up came the omnibuses, escorted to the hotel door by the manager and his son on horseback; and the Bishop of Tennessee, with his chaplain, the Mayor of Chatanooga, and a number of the leading citizens of that city and of Knoxville, descended in the rain. In five minutes we were at our ease and happy. If they had all been Englishmen on a pleasure-trip, they could not have taken the down-pour more cheerily as a matter of course, and pleasant, rather than otherwise, after the long drought. They dined, chatted, and smoked in the verandah, and then trotted off in _gum_ coats to look round at the walks, gardens, streets, and cots, escorted by “the boys.” The manager reported, with pride, that they had come up in an hour and a quarter, and without any kind of _contretemps_, though, no doubt, the new road _was_ deep, in places.

All anxiety was over for the moment, as the Northern train, bringing our Cincinnati and New England friends, was not due till after dark. We sat down to tea in detachments from six to eight, when, if all went well, the northerners would be about due. The tables were cleared, and relaid once more for them, and every preparation made to give them a warm welcome. Nine struck, and still no sign of them; then ten, by which time, in this early country, all but some four or five anxious souls had retired. We sat round the stove in the hall, and listened to the war-stories of the Mayor of Chatanooga, and our host of the Tabard, who had served on opposite sides in the terrible campaigns in the south of the State, which had ended at Missionary Ridge, and filled the national cemetery of Chatanooga with 14,000 graves of Union soldiers. But neither the interest of the stories themselves, nor the pleasure of seeing how completely all bitterness had passed out of the narrators’ minds, could keep our thoughts from dwelling on the pitch-dark road, sodden by this time with the rain, and the _mauvais pas_ of the bridge. Eleven struck, and now it became too serious for anything but anxious peerings into the black night, and considerations as to what could be done. We had ordered lanterns, and were on the point of starting for the bridge, when faint sounds, as of men singing in chorus, came through the darkness. They grew in volume, and now we could hear the omnibuses, from which came a roll of, “John Brown’s body lies mouldering in the grave,” given with a swing and precision which told of old campaigners. That stirring melody could hardly have been more welcome to the first line waiting for supports, on some hard-fought battle-ground, than it was to us. The omnibuses drew up, a dense cloud rising from the drenched horses and mules, and the singers got out, still keeping up their chorus, which only ceased on the verandah, and must have roused every sleeper in the settlement. The Old Bay State, Ohio, and Kentucky had sent us a set of as stalwart good fellows as ever sang a chorus or ate a beef-steak at midnight; and while they were engaged in the latter operation, they told how from the break-down of a freight-train, theirs had been three hours late, how the darkness had kept them to a foot’s-pace, how the last omnibus had given out in the heavy places, and had to be constantly helped on by a pair of mules detached from one of the others. “All’s well that ends well,” and it was with a joyful sense of relief that we piloted such of our guests as the hotel could not hold across to their cots in the barracks at one in the morning. By nine, the glorious Southern sun had fairly vanquished rain and mist, and the whole plateau was ablaze with the autumn tints, and every leaf gleaming from its recent shower-bath. Rugby outdid herself and “leapt to music and to light” in a way which astonished even her oldest and most enthusiastic citizens, some half dozen of whom had had something like twelve months’ experience of her moods and tempers. Breakfast began at six, and ended at nine, and for three hours batches of well-fed visitors were turned out to saunter round the walks, the English gardens, and lawn-tennis grounds, until the hour of eleven, fixed by the Bishop for the opening service. The church being as yet only some six feet above ground, this ceremony was to be held in the verandah of the hotel. Meantime, Bishop and chaplain were busy among “the boys,” organising a choir to sing the hymns and lead the responses. The whole population were gathering round the hotel, some four or five buggies, and perhaps twenty horses, haltered to the nearest trees, showed the interest excited in the neighbourhood. In addition to the seats in the verandah, chairs and benches were placed on the ground below for the surplus congregation, behind whom a fringe of white and black natives regarded the proceedings with grave attention. Punctual to time, the Bishop and his chaplain, in robes, took their places at the corner of the verandah, and gave out the first verses of the “Old Hundredth.” There was a moment’s pause, while the newly-organised choir exchanged glances as to who should lead off, and the pause was fatal to them for the moment. For on the Bishop’s left stood the stalwart New Englander who had led the pilgrims of the previous evening in the “John Brown” chorus. He, unaware of the episcopal arrangements, and of the consequent vested rights of “the boys,” broke out with “All people that on earth do dwell,” in a voice which carried the whole assembly with him, and at once reduced “the boys” to humble followers. They had their revenge, however, when it came to the second hymn at the end of the service. It was “Jerusalem, the golden,” which is apparently sung to a different tune in Boston to that in use in England, so though our musical guest struggled manfully through the first line, and had almost discomfited “the boys” by sheer force of lungs, numbers prevailed, and he was brought into line. The service was a short one, consisting of two psalms, “Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?” and “Except the Lord build the house,” the chapter of Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple, half a dozen of the Church collects, and a prayer by the Bishop that the town and settlement might be built up in righteousness and the fear and love of God, and ‘prove a blessing to the State. Then, after the blessing, the gathering resolved itself into a public meeting after American fashion. The Board spoke through their representatives, and Bishop, judge, general manager, and visitors exchanged friendly oratorical buffets, and wishes and prophecies for the prosperity of the New Jerusalem in the Southern highlands. A more genuine or healthier act of worship it has not been our good-fortune to attend in these late years.

Dinner began immediately afterwards, and then the company scattered again, some to select town lots, some to the best views, the Bishop to organise a vestry, and induce two of “the boys” to become lay readers, pending the arrival of a parson (in which he was eminently successful); the chaplain to the Clear Fork with one of “the boys’” fishing-rods, after black bass; and a motley crowd to the lawn-tennis ground, to see some set played which would have done no discredit to Wimbledon, and excited much wonder and some enthusiasm amongst natives and visitors. A cheerful evening followed, in which the new piano in the hotel sitting-room did good service, and many war and other stories were told round the big hall stove. Early the next morning the omnibuses began carrying off the visitors, and by night Rugby had settled down again to its ordinary life, not, however, without a sense of strength gained for the work of building up a community which shall know how to comport itself in good and bad times, and shall help, instead of hindering, its sons and daughters in leading a brave, simple, and Christian life.

Life in an American Liner

It is some years since I addressed you last over this signature--indeed I should doubt if five per cent of your present readers will remember the “harvests” of a quiet (ought I to say “lazy” rather than “quiet”?) eye, which I was wont in those days, by your connivance, to submit to them in vacation times. Somehow to-day the old instinct has come back on me, possibly because I happen to be on an errand which should be of no small interest to us English just now; possibly because the last days of an Atlantic crossing seem to be so naturally provocative of the instinct for gossiping, that one is not satisfied with the abundant opportunities one gets on board the vessel in which one is a luxurious prisoner for ten days.

We have been going day and night since we left Queenstown harbour at an average rate of 18 (land) miles an hour. We are more than 1300 passengers (roughly 200 saloon, and the rest steerage), whose baggage, when added to the large cargo of dry goods we are carrying, sinks our beautiful craft till she draws 24 feet of water. She herself is more than 150 yards long, and weighs as she passes Sandy Hook,--well, I am fairly unable to calculate what she weighs, but as much, at any rate, as half a dozen luggage-trains on shore. We have had our last, or the captain’s dinner, at which fish, to all appearance as fresh as if the sailors had just caught them over the side, and lettuces, as crisp as if the steward had a nursery garden down below, have been served as part of a dinner which would have done no discredit to a first-class hotel; beginning with two sorts of soup, and ending with two sorts of ices. Similar dinners, with other meals to match--four solid ones in the twenty-four hours, besides odds and ends--have been served day by day, without a hitch, in a cabin kept as sweet as Atlantic air, constantly pumped into it by the engine, can make it.

By the way, sir, I may remark here, in connection with our feeding, that if we might be taken as average specimens of our race, there is no ground whatever for anxiety as to the Anglo-Saxon digestion, of which some disagreeable philosophers have spoken with disrespect and foreboding in recent years. There were, perhaps, ten persons whose native tongue was not English, and yet we carried our four solid meals a day with resolution bordering on the heroic. The racks were never on the tables, and we had only for a few hours a swell, which thinned our ranks for two meals; and yet when I look round, and make such inquiry as I can, I can see or hear of nothing more than a very slight trace of dyspepsia here and there. The principal change I remarked in the manners and customs on the voyage was the marked increase of play and betting on board. When I first crossed, ten years ago, there was nothing more than an occasional game at whist in the saloon or smoking-room. This voyage it was not easy to get out of the way of hard play except on deck. The best corner of the smoking-room was occupied from breakfast till “Out lights” by a steady poker party, and other smaller and more casual groups played fitfully at the other tables. There were always whist and other games going on in the saloon, but of a soberer and (in a pecuniary sense) more innocent character. There were “pools” of a sovereign or a half sovereign on every event of the day, “the run” being the most exciting issue. The drawer of the winning number seldom pocketed less than £40, when it was posted on the captain’s chart at noon. I heard that play is rather favoured now than otherwise on all the lines, as a percentage is almost always paid to the funds of the Sailors’ Orphan Asylum, for which excellent charity a collection is also legitimately made during every passage. We were good supporters, and collected nearly £70 at our entertainment, which I attribute partly to the fact that we had on board a leading American actor, who most good-naturedly “turned himself loose” for us, and that the plates at the two doors were held by the daughters of an English earl, and an (late, alas!) American ambassador of great eminence. The countries could not have been more characteristically or charmingly represented, and the charity owes them its best thanks.

There was the usual mine of information and entertainment, to be struck with ease by the merest novice in conversational shaft-sinking. Why is it that folk are so much more ready to talk on an Atlantic steamer than elsewhere? I myself “struck ile,” in several directions, one of a sad kind--Scotch farmers of the highest type going out to select new homes, where there will be no factors. The most remarkable of these appeared to have made up his mind finally when he had been told that he would not be allowed a penny at the end of his lease for the addition of three rooms he was obliged to make to his house, as his family were growing up. Have landlords and factors gone mad, in face of the serious times which are on them?

There were quite an abundance of parsons, of many denominations, and all of mark. Prayers on Sunday were read by a New England Episcopalian, and the sermon preached by a Scotch Free Kirk minister. All were men of broad views, in some cases verging on Latitudinarianism to a point which rejoiced my heretic soul, e.g. a Protestant minister in a great American western city, whose church had recently been rebuilt. Looking round to find where his flock could be best housed on Sundays, pending reconstruction, he found the neighbouring synagogue by far the most convenient, and proposed to go there. His people cordially agreed, and despite the furious raging of the (so-called) religious press, into the synagogue they went for their Sunday services, stayed there six months, and when they left, were only charged for the gas by the Rabbi. An intimacy sprung up. It appeared that the Rabbi looked upon our Lord as the first of the inspired men of his nation, greater than Moses or Samuel, and in the end the two congregations met at a service conducted partly by the Rabbi and partly by my informant!--a noteworthy sign of the times, but one at which I fear many even of your readers will shake their heads.