Part 16
"Tarepins--dat's what I got fer you, but I got a piece of my mind fer Marse George, en ez dis piece of mind mought not agree wid your temperation I reckon you better g'long in de house en sing some of dem song chunes while I's mekin' a present of de piece of mind to Marse George."
As my curiosity was greater than my fear of mental indigestion, I stayed to share with my Soldier the "piece of mind."
Uncle Tom proceeded to unfold his story to the effect that a carpet-bagger who had come to Bermuda Hundred was inciting the colored people against my Soldier and planning with them to visit us in force. He said that he was a brother of one of the same class of human wreckage who had visited our community some time before, selling to the negroes ointment that was advertised to turn them into white people. My Soldier had reported the enterprising merchant and, with Mr. "Buck" Allen and Colonel John Selden, had taken to Richmond some boxes of the ointment and some of the negroes to whom the ointment had been sold, and the "carpet-bagger" had been put in jail. His brother was now inflaming the credulous colored people with the idea that my Soldier had caused the disappointment of their ambitious aspirations.
The man who thus excited Uncle Tom's indignation and apprehension had lain in the river with his vessel for weeks, sending out his emissaries to tell the poor credulous colored people that the United States government had authorized him to promise that to every colored man who would bring him a good bridle and saddle, thereby showing his fitness for the possession, should be given a mule to fit the saddle and bridle, and that he would receive and receipt for the same every night between the hours of midnight and daybreak. So successful was this impostor that he had almost made up his load before he was caught, and there was hardly a bridle and saddle left in all the surrounding country.
While my Soldier had confidence in Uncle Tom, he did not much believe that the negroes would dare make an attack upon him. He insisted, though, that I should not run any risk, but should take our babies and go to Richmond for a few days. Finding that no persuasion could induce me to leave him, he consented that we might wait together, fearing, yet not believing, that they would come.
The third night after Uncle Tom's warning, when we had begun to hope that he had after all been misinformed, we heard a rapping at the door and then a low growl.
"That's Rufus, rapping on the door with his tail," said my Soldier. "He hears something and is warning us. Listen!"
He opened the door and the dog entered, trembling and with great tears of fear in his loyal eyes. We listened but heard nothing. My Soldier came in and shut the door.
"Lay the baby down," he said, "and take this, but keep it out of sight," handing me a pistol.
His loaded gun was resting on a bracket just above the door. Rufus stood pointing, his nose nearly touching the panel of the door. My heart seemed almost bursting from my throat and sounded in my ear like the beating of a drum. The baby smiled and dreamed aloud. While we listened tensely there came the sound of footsteps, the rolling of loose dirt and brickbats.
"Listen! They are coming around the back way and across the ruins of the old house. I hear a number of steps, but they are uncertain steps. Don't be afraid, dear; be your own plucky little self."
"I am not the least afraid," I answered, my teeth chattering and my hands trembling, "not the least, Soldier."
Rufus turned his head and looked at me as if he had heard a stranger's voice, and then, wagging his tail to reassure me, returned to a dead point. The sounds became louder and the surging wave rolled nearer.
One who has never beheld a raging sea of black faces filled with excitement and fury, wild, ignorant, brutal, some distorted with intoxication, cannot form the faintest idea of the awful sight. They threatened vengeance against my Soldier, saying that, not satisfied with fighting against their liberties, he was now trying to keep away those who would befriend them. They were led by a renegade white man who, when they reached a point where possible danger lay, retired from leadership and withdrew to a protected spot in the rear.
My Soldier stepped out on the porch and confronted the mob, who were yelling, cursing, and brandishing pistols, knives, and all manner of weapons. Looking at them for a few seconds he said:
"Boys, what does all this mean? What is all this trouble about? You don't know what you are doing. That cowardly dog there, sneaking and crouching down behind you to save his own worthless carcass, is not your friend. For a few handfuls of money he will lead you to steal, lie and kill. All he wants is what he can make out of you. Don't trust him, boys. These miserable Yankee scalawags haven't any love for you. They never owned any negroes. We who owned you are your friends. We have been brought up together and understand each other."
"Dat's so, niggers; dat's so," cried Uncle Tom, who had come up with the mob as if he were one of them in spirit. "You better listen to Marse George. He sho' is tellin' you de trufe, niggers--de gorspel trufe."
"Stand back! Stand back!" cried my Soldier, suddenly starting forth and waving both hands. "Stand back, I say!"
The negroes fell back on both sides and my Soldier went down between them to where the white renegade was cowering behind his poor, ignorant, impulsive black dupes, and, seizing him by the collar, shook him with all his force. The collar broke and the man fell to the ground. My Soldier jumped on top of him and called, "Bring me that rope!" pointing to the clothes-line stretched across the road. "Come, boys, let's tie the scoundrel!"
After they had securely bound him the General ordered some of them to pick him up and carry him to the smokehouse and lock him in, which they did with great satisfaction, their mercurial natures having now veered completely to the side of my Soldier.
"Now, boys," said he, "get into your boats and go back home, and be thankful that the bad man locked up there in the haunted smokehouse with the rats and ghosts has not made you all commit a crime, too, for which you would be sent to jail."
The reference to the spectral inhabitants of the smokehouse was, for the colored people, a sufficient bar to their possible change of sentiment and return to the rescue of their former leader. They believed implicitly in the uncanny reputation of that house and, to their view, the ghost of old Grundy, who had hanged himself from its rafters and who, as the story goes, when the flames were devouring the old colonial home within a stone's throw of it, came out shaking his fist at them, thus saving the smokehouse from the fire, was more formidable than the armies of the whole world. The next morning the sheriff took the prisoner to Richmond, where he was jailed and promptly brought to trial. He was found guilty of inciting a riot and was sent out of the country.
Uncle Tom was an old servitor of the Pickett family. He had been at Turkey Island when the mansion was burned and had contrived to save a few relics from the ruins. Among them was a medallion which had been presented to my Soldier's grandfather by La Fayette. It was set in gold, framed in blue velvet, and hung in the library under La Fayette's picture. As one of Butler's men was carrying it to the steamer the medallion fell out, and Uncle Tom picked it up and had saved it all these years. In his own logical way he explained the selection of the one to whom it should be given.
"I done studied 'bout dis 'heritance a heap, en I says to myse'f, 'Well, I gwine to give dis 'heritance to Miss Sally, kase she Marse George's wife en Marse George he is de oldest chile.' Den I says, 'No, dat ain't ret; I gwine to give it to Miss Lizzy, kase she Marse Charlie's wife en Marse Charlie is de youngest chile.' Den I says, 'No, I gwine let de wifes 'cide fer darse'fs which gwine to have de 'heritance, en I gwine to give it to de one dat treats de ole man de best.'
"So de Sunday atter dey moved down I goes 'roun' to Miss Lizzy's house en she axes me 'Howdy?' en axes me how Aunt Lindy, my ole 'oman, sagashuates. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, won't you hab a toddy?' En I say, 'Yas'm, Miss Lizzy, thanky, ma'm; ole nigger allus raidy for a toddy.' Den she mek me a gre't big nice toddy en fetches it out to me herse'f. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, don't you want sump'n to eat?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man allus hongry.' Den she fetches me out a pilin' plate of vitals. Den I say, 'Dat's Miss Lizzy's 'heritance, sho'!'
"De nex' Sunday I goes ter Miss Sally's house, en she axes me 'Howdy?' too, jest as 'spec'ful as ef I wuz de king, en den she axes me how my ole 'oman is, too, en I tells her. Den she say, 'Uncle Tom, don't you want a dram?' 'Yas'm,' I says, 'Miss Sally, de ole man allus wants a dram.' Den she say, 'Well, g'long back dar to de sideboa'd en he'p yo'se'f. Dar's de canter of ole apple jack en ole London dock; you jest go he'p yo'se'f, Uncle Tom.' Den when I comes 'long back she say, 'Uncle Tom, did you he'p yo'se'f plent'ful?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man allus does dat.' Den she say, 'Ain't you hongry?' I say, 'Yas'm, de ole man's allus hongry.' Den she say, 'Well, Uncle Tom, you must 'scuse me, but I fergot to ax you 'bout bein' hongry, so g'long back to de dinin' room en he'p yo'se'f; dar's plenty er col' ham en fried chicken en pickle oyschers en 'zerbs en t'ings. I's waitin' for de hunters to come in 'fo' I puts 'em away, so g'long back en he'p yo'se'f.' 'Name of God,' I say, 'Marse George's wife's gwine to git dis hyer 'heritance, atter all.' Yas, dat 'heritance is Miss Sally's, sho'."
From the rim of gold around this "'heritance," as Uncle Tom called it, my Soldier had made two pairs of beautifully carved bracelets, one for his brother's wife and one for his sister. The miniature was made into a pin for me, which I still have and wear, not only for its quaint prettiness and because it is almost the only relic of all those old household treasures, but in memory as well of Uncle Tom and of La Fayette's appreciation of the hospitality of old Turkey Island.
XXXIII
"GOD'S 'TISEMENT"
Upon leaving Canada we had expected to lose Annie, our faithful nurse, but she interrupted our objections to taking her with:
"Howly Fathers! an' sure an' phwat's to become of me widout the baby an' leastwise, phwat's as bad an' worse, phwat's to become of the baby widout me?"
We explained that wages were much higher in the States and that we could not afford to take her. She begged to be allowed to come at any sacrifice of her own interests, so we finally consented, resolving that she should lose nothing by her loyalty.
Annie enjoyed the journey and the visit to New York, but at Norfolk the hundreds of negro stevedores who met the New York steamers frightened her nearly to death. The few colored people whom she had seen in Montreal and looked upon as martyrs and saints were of a very different class from these. When I tried to reassure her she said angrily:
"Oh, the mother of ye that ye are, sure--being afther planning to have one of these black, howling, writhing craythurs nursing of the boy, the dirty, twisting bastes! It's meself that's afther the temptin' of Providence to be a risking of me own grown-up life among such haythens, a singin' words widout any meanin', the saints save us!"
She was praying and counting her beads.
In my father's home there had been only colored servants, and my father and brothers, the most courtly of men, could not bear to see Annie standing in their presence while they remained seated. She was not only being spoiled by their numerous courtesies and gallantries, but was embarrassed by them, feeling herself a servant equally with the colored maids.
Our second child, little Corbell, was three years old when Annie left us to marry a well-to-do farmer, a young man who, in his rural simplicity, recognized no superior. I was sorry to part from her, particularly on account of Corbell's strong aversion to colored people. After innumerable failures to fill her place a kinswoman, noted for judgment and care in the selection of her servants, sent me her own nurse until I could secure one that would please me. The nurse remained three days, when Corbell took the situation into his own hands and thus explained it in his prayers:
"Our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse because nobody else can, and because when black hands touch me my soul crawls all around inside and I get icicles and creepy things all down my back, and, oh, dear Lord, our Father who art in Heaven, I'd rather have no supper than have their black hands cut it up for me, and I'd rather be dirty as the pigs than have them wash me, and I'd rather not go out doors and see the birds and flowers and other children and things play and pick the buttercups that the policeman don't care if we pick because they grow wild, than have their big black-white eyes watching me. So, our Father who art in Heaven, please send me a white nurse quick, for Christ's sake. Amen!"
"Don't you know, my darling," I said, "that all the Southern children have colored nurses. Your mamma had one and loved her almost like a mother. God made the colored people."
"Well, then, there must have been a colored God around somewhere."
He thought that the black God must be very wicked and prayed that the dusky deity might die "and let the white God make all the people."
At that time the only servants in Virginia were colored. Finding that the child could not become accustomed to "black hands" and that his health was endangered by his efforts to overcome a weakness that seemed congenital, we advertised for a white nurse but with no success. Hearing us talk about advertising, Corbell asked God to put in a "'tisement" for a white nurse for him. He prayed for everything he wanted and asked the Lord to do things for him that his father and mother could not do, at the same time begging the Father in Heaven not to let us know that he had appealed to a higher power, lest our feelings be hurt.
We were staying at the Ballard and Exchange Hotel in Richmond. One morning as we were going out for our daily ride a beautiful woman dressed in deep mourning was standing in the hall. With a startled expression she held out her hands and my little Corbell ran into her arms, exclaiming:
"Oh, you are the dear, good God's 'tisement and you have come to be my nurse and take my 'Carthy's place. See, our mother, see! Black hands won't ever, ever make creeps in me any more, now that our Father who art in Heaven has sent the 'tisement to me."
The stranger clasped the child to her heart, kissing his golden curls and sweet brown eyes while her tears fell.
"Pardon this uncontrolled emotion, madam," she said, "and excuse me, please, for taking such a liberty with your child. I have just passed through a great sorrow and am very nervous."
I led her to our rooms where she sat with my little darling in her arms, gazing into his face lovingly and moaning, "My little angel! Oh, my little angel!" He took out his tiny handkerchief and wiped her eyes and kissing her said:
"Don't cry, 'Tisement, don't cry. Come and ride with our mother and my little brother and me and you can hold me in your lap; come, 'Tisement, come."
She rode with us, sitting beside me, holding my little Corbell.
"Why do you call me 'Tisement?" she asked.
Corbell explained that, hearing us talking about advertising for a nurse and seeing how we had failed, he had sent an advertisement to God himself, asking for just the kind he wanted, "and," he added, "I knew you were God's 'tisement as soon as I saw you."
When we returned she told me her sad story, the tragic story of a beautiful, fair, proud woman with the one black drop in her veins. All her loved ones were gone, her beautiful boy the last to leave her, and she longed for little hands to soothe away her pain. She stayed with us and her new-found charge saw only the pure white face, the delicate soft hands that touched him lovingly, and knew nothing of the dark link that held her in bondage to the past.
She was a devoted nurse, helpful and diplomatic with both children, but it was on Corbell that she showered all her pent up love. He was very fond of music and was always ready to greet the dawn with a smile and a song. Early one morning when George first opened his eyes after a night in the better world of dreams, he heard Corbell's flute-like tones in the strains of "Where, oh, where are the Hebrew Children?" The necessity of taking up the tangled threads anew filled his little heart with dismay, and with a sense of having been wronged he called out:
"Our mother, please come and make Corbell stop singing 'Where are the Hebrew Children?' I don't know where the Hebrew Children are and I don't want to know."
Mary, the faithful answer to God's "'tisement," volunteered to find the Hebrew Children and amid her suggestions of possible places in which they might be concealed, peace was restored.
Corbell was one of the most gifted of children. Not only could he sing, but he was quite an artist with the scissors, and at a very early age could cut out the most astonishing representations of birds and animals. One day after an illness I thought he had been cutting long enough and suggested to him to put up the scissors lest he become nervous and tired. Click-click went the scissors. "Wait till I get the meat part of the mule's mane right," he said. Several times I made the same suggestion, receiving the same reply, and click-click-click went the scissors. Then forgetting myself I raised my voice and commandingly called, "Put those scissors down, sir, this minute!"
Bang went the scissors across the other side of the room and with eyes flashing with indignation he cried out:
"Madam! Do you think that Aunt Mary Christ would have spoken to her little boy Jesus like that?"
"No, my darling," I said, ashamed of myself, "and I will never, never again speak in that way to you." And I never did.
It was probably the first time that the Blessed Virgin had ever been spoken of as "Aunt Mary Christ," but the claim of relationship was not surprising, as put forth by a little Virginia boy, since in the Old Dominion elderly ladies or those who were regarded with special reverence were always addressed as "Aunt."
Our nearest neighbors in the hotel were Colonel and Mrs. Parsons. The Colonel had belonged to the Federal Army and after the war had brought his family to Richmond to live. His children had some toy soldiers with which they and my two little boys would fight great battles, the Confederates and Federals being permitted to win alternately.
Mr. Davis came in one day when the star of victory shone on the Southern side.
"Hurrah, boys," he said. "I am glad I came to-day. I like to see the Confederates win."
"Wait, wait," said my little George, "and we'll let you see the Federals win."
"Ah, my little man," replied Mr. Davis in his pathetic voice, "your father and I have seen the Federals win."
Corbell was always interested in his father's fighting in Mexico. Of course Mr. Davis far outranked my Soldier in that war, but when Corbell asked, "Were you in papa's Company, Mr. Davis, or was he in yours?" rather than hold any precedence over his father in the boy's thought, Mr. Davis replied:
"If I remember correctly, we were both in each other's Company, I think, my son."
"Our mama," said Corbell, after Mr. Davis had gone, "what has Mr. Davis got in his throat that makes his talk sound so music-y?"
The summers we passed at the Old Greenbrier White Sulphur and the Salt Sulphur Springs, the hotels in both places being kept by brothers who had served in my Soldier's Division.
One season we occupied a cottage with Mr. Peabody, the great philanthropist. It was his last visit to his native land, the summer before he died. He had gone to the Springs in the vain hope of restored health. Looking for my little Corbell one day I found him in the rooms of Mr. Peabody who, with weak and trembling hands, was signing some cheques. Corbell was sitting on his knee, watching his work.
"I know what makes your hand tremble," he was saying. "Our mother told me; she says it's because of all the good things it has done for God's people."
"Your little hand does not tremble. Aren't you glad?" asked Mr. Peabody.
"I'd rather have trembly hands if they would help me to do good to all the people like yours," replied Corbell.
In the last summer of General Lee's life he was at the "Old White" taking the waters. Corbell had been ordered to drink them, too, and emphatically objected.
"Don't drink that water, General Lee," he said. "It doesn't smell good."
"But you drink it," replied the General.
"I have to; they make me," responded Corbell sadly. "You are a man and they can't make you."
"But I like it," asserted the General.
Corbell regretfully confided to me afterward:
"They call him a great man, our mama, and, oh, he likes things that don't smell good."
It was the only cloud upon his confidence in General Lee.
Coming in one day the General found the children building block houses.
"Is this the house that Jack built?" he asked.
"No, sir," replied Corbell. "That's the house that George built and this is the house that Corbell built. Jack didn't build any houses down this way."
"Don't you know the story?" asked General Lee. "'This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.'"
"Yes, sir," returned Corbell, "but it makes me feel weazley to keep on saying the 'Jack built' part."
In passing out of the dining-room one evening General Lee stopped at our table by the door. We were cracking nuts, which reminded him of the story I had told about the young man who asked for "the nut-busters." He said to Corbell:
"Your little hands are not strong enough to use these 'nut-busters.' Let me crack your nuts for you."
"No, thank you, General," replied the child. "Our mama says that we may eat all we can crack and that the squirrels don't have anybody to crack their nuts; if they did they'd eat too many, too. 'Course she don't want to hurt our hands, but she is afraid if somebody cracks nuts for us we'll eat too many and be sick."
The General said if that was the case he would not offer to crack any more nuts for little children.
I have a tender memory of a call from General Lee once when my little Corbell was very ill at the Ballard and Exchange. One morning Uncle Wash, the old colored porter, tiptoed in with a card.
"It's Marse Genul Lee, Missus," he whispered. "He come ter ax atter de li'le man, en he say he moughty sorry to hyer boutn his being so bad off. He's ret out hyer at de do'."
I went to the door and held out my hand to General Lee.
"I have heard of the illness of my little friend and have come to see him."
My Soldier got up from the side of the bed and brought a chair.
"I have come to renew my acquaintance, George, with our little man here," he said, calling my Soldier by his name, which I had never before heard him do.
He was President at that time of Washington College, now the Washington-Lee University, at Lexington, and this was the last time he was ever in Richmond.
General Lee's fondness for children made him always a great favorite with them, and he and our little Corbell discussed the Old White, its nasty smelling sulphur-water, and the many friends they had made there. Holding up his little thin hand, Corbell said:
"See, General, how wobbly my hand is. It's a heap tremblier than Mr. Peabody's was. I can write my name now, but I can't write it to do good with and to give things, as Mr. Peabody did; I wish I could. My, wouldn't I make it fly?"