Of tt)C 
 
 33niber£ttp of J^ortf) Carolina 
 
 The 
 
 Oscar William Blacknall Collection 
 
 Presented by 
 
 Shields Mallette Blacknall 
 
 C 917 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00037528577 
 
 This book may be kept out one month unless a recall 
 notice is sent to you. It must be brought to the North 
 Carolina Collection (in Wilson Library) for renewal. 
 
 Form No. A-369 
 UNCPS/46330/01.2010 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://archive.org/details/oldplantationhowOOavire 
 
< 
 
c^f 
 
 Sj&UU *^l^t£&~ 
 
 // — 
 
The Old Plantation 
 
 How We Lived in Great House 
 and Cabin Before the War 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BATTLE AVIRETT 
 
 Author of "Ashby and His Compeers," "Who Was 
 the Traitor?" etc. 
 
 F. TENNYSON NEELY CO. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 LONDON 
 
C! 
 
 
 Copyright, 1 90 1, 
 
 by 
 
 JAMES BATTLE AVIRETT. 
 

 THIS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF THE OLD PLANTER AND HIS WIFE— 
 
 THE ONLY REAL SLAVES ON THE OLD PLANTATION 
 
 OF MANY OVERGROWN CHILDREN, SERVANTS 
 
 ON THE ESTATE, FROM 1817 TO 1865 — 
 
 THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
t . '■ 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Action and reaction — ebb and flow — seem to be the 
 rule of life in its varied manifestations. Winter and 
 Summer — Seedtime and Harvest, with their death into 
 life — are in striking illustration of this rule. To the be- 
 numbing influences of that form of imperialism which 
 swept over Europe, holding down as in a vise all effort 
 at asserted individuality in citizenship, the student of 
 history and its philosophies will recollect, came slow but 
 sure reaction. Coming in form of the French Revolution, 
 it was far, very far, from being an unmixed blessing. 
 It liberated the individual from everybody and every- 
 thing but himself. This it was powerless to do, because in 
 its chaos it refused to recognize the condition precedent of 
 all healthful life. It turned a deaf ear to the great truth, 
 in its blind worship of Eeason, that Order is Heaven's 
 I first Law. A power so strong as this social cyclone, work- 
 i ing in the orbit of human weakness, could not be confined 
 ] to France. It overleaped the channel and, though strongly 
 resisted by the conservative forces of Anglo-Saxon Eng- 
 land, it has left its influence upon that virile polity which 
 had successfully withstood the mutations of centuries. 
 Intrenching itself in Exeter Hall, London^ it threw its 
 
vi Introduction. 
 
 forces across the Atlantic and fortified them in Fanueil 
 Hall, Boston. And thus it came about that it was the be- 
 numbing shadows of the French Kevolution, in itA con- 
 tempt for law, order and precedent, which left such giants 
 in the state as Mr. Webster, and Bishop Hopkins of 
 Vermont in the Church without a counteracting follow- 
 ing. Thus it was that the John Brown Eaid, called into 
 being by that bold, bad, strong book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 
 proved to be the avant-coureur of the Civil War. 
 , This fearful struggle between the two sections, North 
 and South, closed in one of its forms many long years 
 ago. Pending this long, dark period of suffering, in- 
 volving a proud people in some forms of sorrow, keener 
 far than that known to either Poland or Hungary, in the 
 manumission and enfranchisement of a race inferior both 
 from heredity and servility, the South, possessing her soul 
 in patience, has waited. Yes ! wretchedly misunderstood, 
 we have waited for the pendulum of public opinion to 
 swing around to our side of the arc. God only knows in 
 what bitterness of heart we have waited. We have waited 
 in full loyalty to the Government, both State and Federal, 
 and though in waiting we may not have grown strong, 
 yet we have waited long enough, under the inspiring ex- 
 ample and memory of the Christian Lee at Lexington, 
 Virginia, to be full of hope that the tide is now setting 
 in from the high seas of error, and that the day of our 
 vindication in the world's judgment is nigh at hand. 
 
 Men, very thoughtful men, lacking in no element of 
 manly loyalty to the powers that be, are free to assert that 
 in the reaction which has set in, erroneous views as to the 
 causes which led up to the war, as well as the facts in its 
 conduct, are giving place to the truth. The Supreme 
 Court of the country, in its appellate jurisdiction of last 
 
Introduction. vii 
 
 resort, is affirming and reaffirming the constitutional 
 doctrine of Statehood in its distinct autonomy. Public 
 opinion from the lakes to the gulf, is voicing American 
 utterance as to the superiority of the Caucasian race. 
 From ocean to ocean there is a growing recognition that 
 the tide has turned, in the steadily increasing thrift of 
 the South. And thus it would seem to be that all things 
 come to him who waits. 
 
 The writer of this book, the chaplain on the staff of 
 that matchless Cavalier, Gen. Turner Ashby, Chief of 
 Cavalry under Stonewall Jackson, has patiently waited 
 for nearly forty years to tell his own story. While envy, 
 hatred and malice ruled the hour, he well knew that it 
 would be worse than "Love's Labor Lost," to do anything 
 but wait — bide his time. He has waited until he hears 
 falling from the lips of the distinguished Senator Hoar 
 of Massachusetts largely the same arguments in his op- 
 position to the imperialism at Manila as were employed by 
 Southern .senators in the United States Senate in the 
 spring of 1861. He has waited until Colonel Henderson 
 of the British Army, in his "Life of Stonewall Jackson," 
 has placed Lee's lieutenant in the forefront of the world's 
 great captains ; and in doing so he has shown in a very 
 striking manner that the appeal, which the silence of the 
 South has slowly brought about, is largely vindicatory 
 of her men and measures. He has waited, until the social 
 conditions at the South before the war are necessarily 
 assuming the misty forms of traditions, and will presently, 
 unless rescued, become to the oncoming generations of 
 the South as mythical as much of the Roman and Grecian 
 stories. He has waited until to wait longer would be 
 treasonable to duty. Having waited long, he now writes 
 in loyalty to past generations of the South — such men 
 
viii Introduction. 
 
 * ■ 
 
 and women as those from whom sprang such pure patriots 
 as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, and that incom- 
 parable army of Northern Virginia and their comrades 
 in gray all over the Southland. 
 
 In vindicating his people from the ignorant aspersions 
 of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and kindred exhalations from a 
 distempered brain, he indulges in no criminations or re- 
 criminations. To the ex 'parte statement of this gifted 
 member of a very gifted family, he simply says what the 
 good old Common Law has said in all its wise judgments, 
 "Audi alteram partem/' — the wisdom of which legal 
 maxim is further promulged by that higher injunction, 
 "Judge nothing before the time." 
 
 The author, a University man and bred to the law, 
 has given nearly forty years of his life under the auspices 
 of the Episcopal Church. We would, therefore, expect a 
 thoughtful book from him. Born and reared to full man- 
 hood on one of the largest plantations on tidewater, 
 North Carolina, one will see that with him is the great 
 advantage of writing as an eyewitness, and not from hear- 
 say or second hand. Urged to write this book by such 
 men of the South as the late United States Senator Vance 
 of North Carolina., and encouraged therein by the Bishop 
 of Central New York and others of his Northern friends, 
 we think he has justified their appreciation of his capacity 
 for this work. 
 
 The reader will observe that he takes hold of none of 
 the many weak threads in the sensational and overwrought 
 story, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which he might well have 
 done by showing that the worst character in the book is a 
 New Englander, while the best is largely the product of 
 those social forces which Mrs. Stowe is undermining. He 
 simply tells you how the servants on his father's estate 
 
Introduction. ix 
 
 iwere treated, and unfolds, under that "treatment, the 
 gradual uplift of a pagan race to that point of high char- 
 acter which, in the judgment (?) of those in power, fitted 
 them for all the high duties of that citizenship 'so grace- 
 fully adorning such men as Chauneey Depew and Mark 
 Hanna. 
 
 In laying the scene of his recitals on his father's plan- 
 tation he is fortunate in knowing whereof he speaks, and 
 he does not intimate that the treatment of the servants 
 there was in anywise more humane than elsewhere in the 
 South. In his painstaking portrayal of the social condi- 
 tions on this plantation, of which he could write both 
 creditably and intelligently, he says : "Ex uno disce omnia." 
 
 Of all the arguments in his contention with Mrs. Stowe 
 and all her kidney, our author uses this one most tellingly. 
 He says if the system of labor on Southern estates was so 
 cruel and barbarous, if the negroes were slaves abject and 
 not servants trusted and well cared for, why was it that 
 when the Southern homes were stripped of their defenders, 
 then in the Confederate armies, the negroes did not reenact 
 the bloody scenes of San Domingo — why did they not rise, 
 with blazing torch in hand, and kill and burn? By so 
 doing, in eight and forty hours they could have broken up 
 the organized Confederate armies in front of Richmond 
 and Atlanta, whose soldiers would have rushed back home 
 to protect their wives and children. And yet, not one 
 single torch of incendiarism was kindled. If any change 
 came, the negroes of the old plantation, conscious of their 
 power, were more loyal and tenderly dutiful than at any 
 time in their history. 
 
 No! no! The truth is, as shown on these pages, the 
 institution had knit the hearts of the two races together 
 too tenderly, in the happy life on the old plantation, to 
 
x Introduction. 
 
 suggest to either race any such bloody event. The negro 
 of the South to-day knows, that when in trouble his best 
 friend is his old master or his children; and if left alone 
 by those who understand neither race at the South, he 
 would reflect this knowledge in all the relations of life 
 and the race problem of the South would be solved — not in 
 the penalties of odious lynch law, but in the displace- 
 ment of the fiendish crimes which lead up to it. 
 
 Hunter McCKjire, M.D., 
 Late Surgeon-in-Chief to General Stonewall Jackson. 
 
 Richmond, Va. 
 
THE OLD PLANTATION. 
 
 jr 
 
 -■:':■:■ : 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, 
 Bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy, 
 "Which come in the night time of sorrow and care 
 And bring back the features which love used to wear. 
 Long, long be my heart with such memories filled, 
 Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled — 
 You may break, you may shatter the vase, if you will, 
 But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." 
 
 To the carefully discriminating mind nothing can be 
 clearer than the following proposition: At Gettysburg, at 
 Chickamauga and elsewhere, every memorial stone, 
 cemented with gratitude for patriotic devotion to country, 
 which has been erected either by Government or individuals, 
 is in strong attestation of the social forces and political 
 conditions which made the armies of the United States 
 such terrible realities. 
 
 At the South in Richmond, Virginia, in Winchester, in 
 Raleigh, North Carolina, in fact all over the broad area 
 embraced by the Confederacy, every effort made to per- 
 petuate the memories of the wearers of the gray — every 
 grassy hillock in God's acre or elsewhere marking the last 
 bivouac of the men who followed Lee, Jackson and others 
 — proclaims in trumpet tones the strength of the silent, 
 subtle forces which underlay the grand struggle for 
 Southern independence, expressed in separate and distinct 
 autonomy. 
 
 It is both fitting and just that these stones should have 
 been so raised on both sides. The carping criticism which 
 would deny to either the precious privilege of honoring 
 its dead is foreign to the patriotic devotion which called 
 
2 The Old Plantation. ' 
 
 into existence those martial hosts which shook the conti- 
 nent in 1861 and '65. It is eminently natural and proper 
 that both sections, which were lately arrayed in such bitter 
 hostility, should accord to and join with each other in those 
 high and hoiy observances which perpetuate the fame of 
 those men, now rapidly becoming the property of a 
 common country. The time is nigh at hand when all 
 over this broad land the proud distinction of American 
 citizen, so nobly worn by Eobert E. Lee, Stonewall Jack- 
 son, Forrest, Hampton, et id omne genus, will cause a 
 thrill of high admiration, as well among the dwellers along 
 our northern lakes as in the breasts of those who live amid 
 the savannahs of the South. And this is so rightly, be- 
 cause naturally. It is well nigh axiomatic that a people 
 which does not cherish with loving heart the memory of 
 ancestral virtues will enrich its posterity with scant legacy. 
 i If then it be true that the memory of our dead is a 
 duty, God imposed and heaven blessed, is it not both wise 
 and profitable to analyze these social forces, which entered 
 so largely into the formation of the character of those noble 
 men, as well in the Army of the Potomac, led by Grant at 
 the close of the struggle, as those who confronted them 
 in battle's stern array for four long years, led bv Lee? 
 To the casual, careless observer there was a general same- 
 ness in high valor and devotion to duty, as seen in Han- 
 cock and Jackson and their followers. To the painstaking, 
 patient student of history and its philosophies differentia- 
 tions appear, as deep and broad as those which the care- 
 ful study of Wellington and Napoleon brings to light. 
 If it is true that the child is the father of the man — that 
 we are all of us marvelously molded by the nursery influ- 
 ences at the mother's knee — that men out in the struggle 
 with the world, in after years, are largely the product of 
 hearthstone forces in childhood, then must we seek for some 
 cause at home, in the structure of society, some one or 
 more institutional forces, characterizing the environment 
 and accounting for the difference between the people of 
 the North and South. 
 
 It will not satisfy the alert mind to say that these dif- 
 ferences in products, customs, habits, propelling powers in 
 
The Old Plantation. 3 
 
 every-day life — those subtle differences in the mainspring 
 of action — are traceable to differences in the climate. 
 There is much in this. In the economy of nature the sun, 
 with heat and light differing in varying degrees of lati- 
 tude and longitude, stamps these differences on the orange 
 groves of Florida, full of bloom and beauty, as well as upon 
 the bleak, cold fisheries on the coast of Maine. In the 
 natural world climate is self asserting and supreme. In 
 the higher forms of life, v/hen one passes into the realms 
 of those strong forces swayed by the supernatural, where 
 mind and spirit, acting either separately or conjointly, 
 leave their enduring impress, do we not meet with products 
 which deny and defy the strong influences of climate? 
 It is true that climate has much, but not all to do in 
 making us what we are. Soil and climate influence and 
 determine avocations or pursuits in life in no small degree. 
 The many and marked points of difference between an 
 agricultural and manufacturing or commercial community 
 determine largely the habits of life, modes of thought and 
 in some sense, the standards of action characterizing the 
 two people of the North and South. 
 
 At one time, in old England and elsewhere in Europe, 
 und°r. the unifying forces of one and the same environ- 
 ment, we were solidly one and the same people. When 
 the exodus from Europe began social differences had al- 
 ready asserted themselves and to such a degree that in 
 many respects the earlier settlers of New England dif- 
 fered largely from those who settled Maryland, Virginia 
 and the Carolinas. It is very difficult to satisfactorily 
 account for these differences. Climate could have had but 
 little to do with those differences which so strikingly ob- 
 tained between those men who trod the decks of the May- 
 flower and those who followed Sir Walter Ealeigh, that 
 matchless Cavalier, of whom our own Lowell, in his in- 
 scription for the Ealeigh memorial window in St. Marga- 
 ret's Church, England, has so beautifully said: 
 
 "The new world's sons, from England's breast we drew 
 Such milk, as bids remember whence we came ; 
 Proud of her past where from our future grew, 
 This window we inscribe with Raleigh's fame." 
 
4 The Old Plantation. 
 
 The Gallic civilization, repressing and depressing, until 
 at last Spain, in the loss of her American colonies, has 
 nigh disappeared from amoDg the nations of the earth, 
 tells its own story of the influence of government upon the 
 governed. If it be true, that the character of the gov- 
 ernment asserts itself in the character of its subjects — 
 if, in other words, bad laws make a bad people — we think 
 it equally susceptible of demonstration that whether the 
 word of God occurs in the constitutional charter of its life 
 and liberty or not a people's religion always expresses itself 
 in the character of their government. 
 
 So strikingly true is this that the gifted John S. Pen- 
 dleton of Virginia was once heard to say that he never 
 left his home in Piedmont, Virginia, and went as United 
 States Minister to Brazil that, after a residence of six 
 months in Kio Janiero, he was not forced to realize that 
 he was a worse man than when he left his home in the 
 United States. So much for the influence of environ- 
 ment and the subtle effects of government and religion 
 on the temper and disposition of a man. When crystal- 
 lized, these constitute his character. It will appear from 
 this line of thought that when in the early settlement of 
 this country, in the two sets of colonies of New England 
 and Virginia, marked differences were at once recognized — 
 the Puritan and the Cavalier on social lines were far 
 apart. In the former of these two orders of civilization, 
 the Puritan, there were many and marked excellences. 
 The world has rarely, if ever seen among any people a 
 higher standard of general thrift, the outcome largely of 
 their industry and frugality. The marked influence they 
 have exerted on the policy of this country, because of 
 the large wealth they have amassed, is a striking comment 
 on their methods and measures from a material standpoint. 
 Their untiring energy; their calm self-contained equi- 
 poise ; their ability at all times and under all circumstances 
 to give themselves the full benefit of their resourceful- 
 ness; in the main, the absence of both breadth of acres 
 and fertility of their landed estates; the marked intellec- 
 tuality of many of their public men, anterior to and 
 during the revolution ; the deep set influence of the leadin 
 
 rr 
 
 a 
 
The Old Plantation. 5 
 
 dogma of their religious faith as held by the masterful 
 Jonathan Edwards — these and other causes, under the in- 
 fluence of climate, made the New England civilization 
 a wonderful lever in the up-building of the young republic. 
 And yet there were some aspects in which this civiliza- 
 tion was very weak. It is in a large measure that weak- 
 ness which is always found in those conditions caused by 
 a dense population, with its numerous large towns and 
 cities, the outcome of manufacturing and commercial en- 
 terprises wrought out by energy into a marked success. 
 There is more truth than this materialistic age is willing 
 to allow in the trite old saying, "That man made the town 
 and God made the country." The various forms of social 
 distemper, with which the human race in all ages have 
 been accursed, have had their origin in those congested 
 conditions of life found in thickly settled communities. 
 The old writer was not far away from the truth when he 
 said that cities were ulcers and the smaller towns were 
 boils on the body politic. Men in closely aggregated re- 
 lations will do and dare (mostly evil things) what they 
 would scarcely think of in segregated homes. The hap- 
 piest, proudest days of the republic came to us in those 
 healthier conditions of smaller cities, with a scattered popu- 
 lation, when the pure air and healthful sunshine of the 
 country life were strong in the coinage, if not in the 
 Spartan simplicity, of those influences ; when the criminal 
 dockets of our courts were far shorter and we had no 
 penitentiaries. 
 
 The Cavalier civilization, with its centers in the South, 
 was, in many particulars, different from the Puritan. A 
 close study of history will discover the fact that it brought 
 across the ocean less of that restlessness and more of that 
 restfulness, which naturally inhere in those conditions of 
 respect for authority and precedents than was found among 
 our Northern brethren. The continuity of these condi- 
 tions accounts for the absence, in all her fair borders, of 
 those "isms" which, like wasteful and destructive parasites, 
 sap the very life out of a people's faith, both in God and 
 in each other. 
 
 One may be on the point of enquiring what was it that 
 
6 The Old Plantation. 
 
 constituted the people of the old South so especially a 
 peculiar people, and, if not strikingly zealous of good 
 works, yet enabled them to exert a strong influence in their 
 day and generation? The ready answer is close at hand. 
 The Southern people, prior to 1865, were a plantation peo- 
 ple and were patriarchal, in a sense and to a degree un- 
 known in any part of this country before or since. What 
 enabled them to lead this order of life? Largely of one 
 blood, living on large estates in thj employment of their 
 African servants, there was among them, in the absence 
 of manufacturing and large commercial centers, that free- 
 dom from restless change, which can alone be hoped for 
 in any community in the perfect absence of those sharp 
 antagonisms between Capital and Labor. At the South 
 these two mighty giants, whose wrestlings have aforetime 
 vexed governments and overturned empires, were at peace. 
 And this was so because, to put it epigrammatically, our 
 Capital was our Labor and our Labor was our Capital. 
 Hence it was, in the old South, we were enabled to present 
 that enviable condition of fixedness and stability which 
 came of families living for generations with their servants 
 on the same ancestral estates. With us our household 
 gods were not often removed and, in consequence, there 
 attached to our lares and penales that peculiar sanctity 
 and reverence, which gave rise to that blessed form of 
 friendliness, which will be long, long remembered, as the 
 old-fashioned, openhearted Southern hospitality. 
 
 The object of this volume, now in hand, is to describe 
 one of these old plantations — its occupants, white and 
 colored — the exact relations between the two races ; the con- 
 ditions under which they served each other; the character 
 of the houses in which they both dwelt; what manner 
 of food they ate; their daily duties and amusements; 
 their religion; in fine, to draw from memory a picture as 
 an eye witness, as a participant in and a creature of those 
 social forces which made the old South a power in the 
 land. Gladly would I draw such a truthful, detailed and., 
 minute picture, as will teach the young people of this and 
 .oncoming generations, both in the ISTorth and South, what 
 
The Old Plantation. 7 
 
 manner of men and women lived south of the Susque- 
 hanna river prior to the late war between the States. 
 
 This, to the writer, in his old age, will be a labor of love. 
 Here and there he may seem to dwell on some feature of 
 his recital with great minuteness. If so, it is because 
 in no portion of the world has there ever been, or will 
 there ever be again, such happy social conditions as for- 
 merly existed in the old South on the old plantation. 
 
 Were it not that the present writer has peculiar advan- 
 tages in treating his subject — himself in every fibre of 
 his organism, mental, moral and physical, the creation, 
 the outcome of the plantation life — he might draw back 
 and remain silent in the presence of the deep prejudice 
 and painful ignorance still in existence against the in- 
 stitutional life of his people. However, he must write. 
 He must tell his own story and put forth a friendly, if it 
 be a weak hand, to rescue from oblivion the story of 
 the old plantation life. It is now to many people very 
 nebulous, and will soon become so very misty as to be 
 mythical. He is prompted to write in vindication of his 
 own people, in the knowledge of the fact that on a large 
 plantation, with hundreds of servants, his father and 
 mother were the only two slaves upon it. Years ago the 
 writer's old friend, the distinguished late Senator Z. B. 
 Vance, that wonderful tribune of the people, urged him 
 to do what he is now attempting — saying that only the 
 product of plantation life could tell the story authentically, 
 as an eye witness, and not writing from hearsay or second 
 hand. 
 
 Recently the writer has received letters from President 
 Alderman, and ex-President Battle of the University of 
 North Carolina, as well as from such distinguished citizens 
 of the South as Dr. Hunter McGuire of Virginia ; Messrs. 
 Graham Daves, James A. Bryan, Oscar W. Blacknali, 
 Generals William H. Cheek, and Julian S. Carr; Rev. 
 Doctors Hufham and Yates of North Carolina — all urs;m£ 
 him to carry his book on to completion. Obliged, after 
 a ministry of nearly forty years, to take some rest, in 
 consequence of failing health, the writer hopes he has 
 elected wisely to rest by changing his labor. He wishes 
 
8 The Old Plantation. 
 
 most heartily that he were younger and could bring to the 
 discharge of these high duties the verve and elan, the vigor 
 of more meridian powers ; but, if much younger, he would 
 have missed the boon of a plantation education under 
 the purer and happier days of the Republic, when citizen- 
 ship at the South was happily exempt from those .sadden- 
 ing forms of change and decay which, in these latter x 
 days, have come from bad politics and worse statesman- 
 ship growing out of a cheapened and debauched ballot. 
 It saddens one to attempt to realize how depressed our 
 own Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson and Madison 
 would become could they come back to the once familiar 
 scenes, which they glorified by their high type of patriotic 
 devotion, and witness for themselves the painful decadence 
 of citizenship, as well at the North by reason of foreign- 
 ism as at the South because of the Ethiopian ballot. 
 
 And yet we must not despair of the Republic. In no 
 country, in the world's history, have the vital forces been 
 quite so strong as in these United States. There is a 
 virgin freshness, combined with a masculine strength, in 
 this young land of ours which will not tolerate the bane- 
 ful forms of pessimism, and which, if not inspiring, at least 
 suggests that he is the true friend of the country whose 
 form of optimism urges one to work on, to hope on, for 
 the best. We are far too young as a people to have so far 
 crystallized in habits and views (which if wrong) as to be 
 beyond the reach of remedy. We older Southern people 
 are proud of and thankful for the blessed days of the old 
 South. We will endeavor to teach our offspring to cher- 
 ish the memories and emulate the virtues of the ante- 
 bellum civilization. Full well we know that no portion of 
 human history has been more ignorantly misunderstood 
 or painfully misjudged than the slaveholding era of the 
 South. It has been more bitter than defeat itself to 
 realize with sickening certainty the fact that until re- 
 cently we have been denied the privilege of setting the 
 world right in the matter of the causes which led up to, " 
 as well as the conduct of the struggle, whose epitaph the 
 major part of Christendom would write in the words: 
 "Lost Cause." Second, sober thought, governmental ex- 
 
The Old Plantation. 9 
 
 periment in heretofore untried suffrage problems — the 
 cold hard facts of nearly four decades in our history — are 
 bringing on marked changes in the opinion of very many 
 thoughtful people. Some of the very best thinkers, men 
 enlightened by the culture of the philosophies of history, 
 are already declaring that it was only in the matter of 
 physical force and results that General Lee surrendered 
 to General Grant. That in the matter of Caucasian su- 
 premacy and statehood to us of the South it was not a 
 lost cause, because: 
 
 " If lost, 'twas false ; 
 If true, it was not lost." 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States, by recent 
 decisions, is maintaining the doctrine of the States with 
 separate autonomy. Public opinion, North and South, is 
 so dealing with the vexed race problem as to emphasize 
 the supremacy of the white man. The signs of the times 
 are hopeful, when, though sad the necessity, Senator Hoar 
 of Massachusetts, in antagonizing imperialism at Manila 
 and elsewhere, is using largely the same arguments which 
 Mr. Jefferson Davis employed in justifying the action of 
 the South in 1860 and J 61, in the Senate of the United 
 States, just prior to the secession of the Southern States. 
 
io The Old Plantation.' 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 When" one crosses out of the little State of Delaware 
 into the historic commonwealth of Maryland, looking to 
 the south and west, there stretches away before him a mag- 
 nificent domain. Temperate in climate, diversified in soil, 
 richly embellished with hill and dale, in many respects 
 it is unequaled by any in the world. It is traversed by the 
 Alleghany and Blue Ridge mountains, with foothills which 
 gradually lose themselves in the sea coast counties, and 
 is watered by such beautiful rivers as will come to mind 
 when you think of the Potomac, the James, the Roanoke, 
 the Savannah, the Alabama, the Rio Grande and the lordly 
 Mississippi. These rivers drain large valleys and water 
 sheds, whose soil in many portions rivals the fertility of 
 the Nile. This section is blessed indeed by a loving Prov- 
 idence in those innumerable medicinal springs, whose 
 waters are given for the healing of earth's diseased chil- 
 dren. Surely when one has familiarized himself with the 
 picturesque valley of the Shenandoah, in dear old Virginia ; 
 or has allowed his eye to sweep over the blue-grass region 
 of Kentucky ; or has drunk in the beauties of that famous 
 cloudland country in the vicinity of Asheville, in western 
 North Carolina — where the laughing waters of the beau- 
 tiful French Broad (mirroring the forms of the grandest 
 mountains east of the incomparable Rockies), go on their 
 way rejoicing to tell it out to the sunlit Gulf of Mexico — 
 that here, in the old Southland, is the Eldorado of the 
 world. Surely when one has done this he feels like ex- 
 claiming, as does the Neapolitan when he looks upon 
 
The Old Plantation. IX 
 
 Naples, "Behold this fair land and then die, for there 
 is nothing more beautiful to be seen on earth." 
 
 It does not lie in the province of these short annals 
 to indulge in any elaborate description of this famous 
 section of our country, which has proven such an impor- 
 tant factor in the rapid development of our young repub- 
 lic. And yet, common justice demands that something 
 should be said of its wonderful products, notably so of its 
 splendid product of noble men and fair women, which has 
 put the world in love with the very finest type of Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization. Think of her forests, under the shade 
 of whose oaks the Druids might worship, and under whose 
 widespreading beech trees Virgil's fair Amaryllis might 
 have been wooed and won. Think of her grand old hick- 
 ories, graceful ashes, and above all those lordly pines, in 
 whose branches the wind is ever sighing out the lullaby 
 of old ocean ; her magnificent magnolias, from whose flow- 
 er-swayed branches, our incomparable mocking-bird, night 
 and day, is pouring out his roundelay of love, in notes 
 sweeter far than these of the Oriental nightingale. 
 
 Time fails one in telling fully of the wealth, both of 
 the useful and the beautiful, which a beneficent Creator 
 has given us in these widespread forests of the South. 
 Would you speak of flowers? Nowhere on God's green 
 earth does the rich, blushing rose (that century-scep- 
 tered queen of lovely Flora) reach higher perfection than 
 in the flower gardens of Ealeigh, North Carolina, or in 
 those of Pensacola, Florida. All of our Southern flow- 
 ers, which represent those exact adjustments of heat and 
 light involved in the higher ranges of color and perfume, 
 find here their fullest requirements. Would you speak 
 of fruits? Think of the luscious Georgia peach, the 
 vermeille on whose cheek equals that of the lovely damsels 
 who pluck and eat them ; the melons, the apples, the pears, 
 the nectarines, the figs, the apricots and the luscious 
 grapes, equal to Eschol's clusters, and her oranges as well — 
 in fine, of all her fruits ; and while your mouth waters say 
 that nature in dear old Southland has done her best. 
 Would you like nuts with your coffee after dinner? We 
 have walnuts of both varieties, the pecan, the hickory nut, 
 
12 The Old Plantation. 
 
 and the more delicate scaly or shell bark, the famous pea- 
 nut, and even the delicate, dainty, little grass nut of the 
 well appointed Southern garden. 
 
 Would you know how it comes about that the cuisine of 
 Baltimore and New Orleans is the wonder and delight of 
 the world? Associate in your mind the fact that "all 
 flesh is grass" with a fine sirloin of blue-grass beef in the 
 South and the noble saddles of Southdown mutton (fatted 
 on this same grass and flavored by browsing the sheep on 
 the budding twigs in our mountain lots), and you will 
 cease to wonder why both New Yorkers and Philadel- 
 phians go to the White Sulphur and Capon Springs of 
 Virginia, not only to rest, but to laugh and grow fat as 
 well. 
 
 Would you tell me that the perfection of fish is found 
 in the markets of Southern Europe, or to be had at Del- 
 monico's in New York, or in Boston? This is not so. 
 Grant that the wealthy people of the large Northern 
 cities demand that the "pick" of the Chesapeake or Albe- 
 marle "catch" shall be carried to them. The power of 
 wealth is very great, but it cannot control nature. The 
 fine shad and other varieties are carried, but in the car- 
 riage they lose their finest flavor, and thus the millionaire 
 feeds, in some sense, upon stale fish. When you have 
 eaten the planked shad in full view of the lovely Chesa- 
 peake Bay, or have been so fortunate as to enjoy the pom- 
 pino, that perfection of the Gulf waters, at the old Saint 
 Charles in New Orleans, you will understand how kindly 
 in her dispensations dear old dame nature has been, and 
 still is, to her sunburnt, unconventional Southern chil- 
 dren, far away from Gotham and "the hub of civilization," 
 so called. Before passing away from the Southern prod- 
 ucts, let us not forget her canvasback duck nor her dia- 
 mondback terrapin. We will not discount that miracle 
 of delicate flavor and toothsomeness, the oysters of our 
 Southern waters, the perfection of which is claimed in 
 the "Broad Creekers" and the "New Biver catch" of the 
 North Carolina market. At the South, notably so in 
 those blessed days before the flood of 1861 and 1865, our 
 very finest product was the old-ffeshioned ham of the 
 
The Old Plantation. 13 
 
 Southern plantation. More time would be required than 
 can be given it in the description of those conditions 
 which lead up to this time-honored, ancestral essential to 
 a good dinnner in its full excellence. In the old South 
 no dinner was in any sense complete without that lordly 
 dish, which always confronted the mistress of the planta- 
 tion at the head of the table, after the soup and fish had 
 been discussed. Later on we will take a slice out of that 
 old ham. Just now we must go on. 
 
 The old South was essentially a people of plantations, 
 as distinguished from farms. Of cities there were but 
 few, and these not strikingly large. Baltimore, New Or- 
 leans, St. Louis and Charleston were among the largest; 
 and while there were other smaller cities and towns — in 
 wealth, in political power, in social influence, the most 
 attractive feature of our life — the strength and the charm 
 were in the country. This was so because the South was 
 strikingly an agricultural people. From the greater fix- 
 edness and certainty of their possessions, in broad acreage 
 and numerous servants, few of her people had been stung 
 by the gadfly of millionarism, more poisonous than the 
 asp which sucked the blood from Cleopatra's purple veins. 
 They were content to enjoy the profits from producing 
 their various staples of cotton, rice, sugar, tobacco, naval 
 stores and lumber; they were content to live and let live; 
 in doing but very little to build up their commerce or 
 manufactories, but allowing others to transform their 
 products for the markets of the world and thus grow 
 rich. 
 
 Pending this long period of unwritten agreement be- 
 tween the North and the South, the former producing 
 largely and the latter manufacturing the products of the 
 United States, all Europe stood in wonder at the rapid 
 development in both sections. The perfect comity between 
 the two demonstrated to the world, in far more forceful 
 form than dear old iEsop embodied it in his striking fable 
 of the bundle of sticks, that "in union is strength." 
 Saddening indeed is the fact that during a period of na- 
 tional dementia sullen sectionalism sapped the Union of 
 strength to such a degree as to almost make the once fair 
 
14 The Old Plantation. 
 
 young republic the laughing-stock of the world. Fortu- 
 nately reaction supervened in the return of that brother- 
 hood, which indeed is the procuring cause of our present 
 colossal proportions. 
 
 Having already glanced at the extent of territory em- 
 braced in the old South, with her varied agricultural prod- 
 ucts, her untold riches in climate and soil, her vast re- 
 sources in forest wealth and inexhaustible mines of coal 
 and iron, together with those rich contributions both of 
 comfort and wealth which her waters gave as they teemed 
 with life, there is something still which must be said of 
 the richest of all her gifts to national wealth — her popu- 
 lation — the men and women who dwelt upon their ances- 
 tral estates. 
 
 The time is past for any defense of African slavey — 
 an institution which some say cannot be defended. But 
 it must be allowed that its practical working at the old 
 South among our ancestors was such, in the language of 
 Mr. Henry Grady, "as to challenge and hold our loving 
 respect." In no time in the history of our race has there 
 ever been seen a peasantry so happy, and in every respect 
 so well to do, as the negro slaves of America. We are to 
 indulge in no criminations or recriminations as to who 
 introduced them into this country. We are not now to 
 inquire who they were who held so tenaciously to the 
 carrying trade of these poor pagans and (in many cases) 
 cannibals from the coast of Africa, through the ports, first 
 of the colonies and then of the United States, into the 
 landed estates of this country, North and South. We are 
 not now to tell it out to the world, that family secret of 
 ours, as to ivliat was the basis of some of the largest for- 
 tunes still in existence among us. We shall be silent as 
 to what portion of this country was represented in Con- 
 gress by those favoring the extension or the abolition of 
 the slave trade. We do not propose to allow our family 
 soiled linen to be washed in the front yard of the world's 
 unfriendly criticism. ~This would argue the absence of good 
 taste and gentle breeding and might provoke an unpleas- 
 ant state of affairs. But, guarded as we may be in keeping 
 our family secrets, it is both curious and profitable, if some- 
 
The Old Plantation. 1$ 
 
 times humiliating, to note how murder will out. Lynx- 
 eyed history is both persistent and insistent in gathering 
 up and gazetting facts. Among the ancients Cupid was 
 represented as blind, while Justice always wore a bandage 
 over her fair eyes. In this electric age history coura- 
 geously and successfully insists upon having her telescope 
 for long ranged views of the truth, while she will not be 
 denied her microscope for more minute investigations. 
 
 We are quite willing to leave the position which our fore- 
 fathers at the South occupied on this social question to the 
 solemn, God-fearing utterances of history. We would 
 simply say that the civilized world stood amazed at the 
 social conditions at the South during the eventful years 
 of 1861 and '65. These slaves (so called) — these servants 
 — during that time with loving fidelity guarded the homes 
 of their masters, absent in many cases with those armies 
 that barred their way to freedom. This condition of 
 affairs has been so happily (because forcibly, truthfully) 
 presented by a distinguished son of Georgia, Mr. Grady, 
 that extracts are here made from his brilliant, brave- 
 hearted paper. 
 
 "If f Uncle Tom's Cabin' had portra}^ed the rule of slav- 
 ery at the South rather than the rarest exception, not all 
 the armies that went to the field could have stayed the flood 
 cf rapine and arson and pillage that would have started 
 with the first gun of the Civil War. Instead of that, wit- 
 ness the miracle of the slave, in loyalty to his master, clos- 
 ing the fetters upon his own limbs — maintaining and de- 
 fending the families of those who fought against his free- 
 dom- — and at night, on the far-off battlefield, searching 
 among the carnage for his young master, that he might lift 
 the dying head to his breast and bend to catch the last 
 word to the old folks at home ; so wrestling in the meantime 
 in agony and love that he would lay down his life in his 
 master's stead. History has no parallel to the faith kept by 
 the negro in the South during the war. Often five hundred 
 negroes to a single white man, and yet through these dusky 
 throngs the women and children walked in safety, and the 
 unprotected heme rested in peace. Unmarshaled, the black 
 
:6 The Old Plantation. 
 
 battalion moved patiently to the fields in the morning to 
 feed the armies their idleness would have starved, and at 
 night gathered anxiously at the great house to hear the 
 news from master, though conscious that his victory made 
 their chains enduring. Everywhere humble and kindly. 
 Everywhere the bodyguard of the helpless. Everywhere 
 the rough companion of the little ones. The silent sentry 
 in his lowly cabin. The shrewd counsellor. And when 
 the dead came home, a mourner at the open grave. A 
 thousand torches would have disbanded every Southern 
 army, but not one was lighted. When the master, going to 
 the war in which slavery was involved, said to his slave, 
 ( 1 leave my home and loved ones in your charge/ the ten- 
 derness between the man and master stood disclosed. Its 
 patriarchal features were revealed." 
 
 The Southern people are daily thanking this golden- 
 mouthed son of Georgia for this and many other matchless 
 utterances in Boston and New York, as well as for his 
 daily teaching at home, in which he taught each section 
 by no false position, but by simply presenting the truth 
 in naked majesty, to love each other back into lasting peace. 
 Would God had spared him a few more years in his bright 
 and beautiful life, to have beheld with his own eyes the 
 fine fruitage of his well-nigh divine teachings, inspired 
 by the matchless example and vicarious suffering of Lee 
 at Lexington, Virginia, whom his father loved and followed 
 in the Southern army confronting Grant. 
 
 Mr. Grady is right. It is simply impossible for any 
 Northern man, with his hired servants, to comprehend the 
 facts of the patriarchal relation between master and serv- 
 ant, with its friendliness and sympathy of the old planta- 
 tion life. 
 
 If one spoke the truth of the regime, in painting the 
 picture of the servants on these estates, trusted because 
 open hearted, sympathetic and full of innocent gossip and 
 comradeship, he was once accounted either as a dreamer or 
 as one who drew on his fancy for his facts. But, thank 
 God, this day is passing away. As well under the shadow 
 of Exeter Hall, London, as that of Fanueil Hall, Boston, 
 
The Old Plantation. 17 
 
 on both sides of the Atlantic, the representatives of the 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization are reaching out for the truth 
 in a way and to a degree that happily characterizes the 
 closing years of the nineteenth century. 
 
 We wish to speak of those social forces which were so ac- 
 tively at work in the South before the war. There must 
 have been some immense force in them to work out such 
 remarkable results, although beleaguered within their own 
 area by the suspicion and the hostility of the outside world. 
 What are the facts? Numerically inferiol to the North 
 for the first sixty-four years of the republic, the South fur- 
 nished the President for fifty-two years. When Great 
 Britain undertook to drive us from the high seas, before 
 our beard had grown, the South, in the United States Sen- 
 ate, forced the war of 1812, with only five Northern sen- 
 ators aiding her. Who commanded our armies at the 
 battle of New Orleans? General Andrew Jackson, a 
 Carolinian. Who were in the lead, when Louisiana, with 
 more than one million square miles of territory, was ac- 
 quired? Do we not owe the acquisition of Florida to the 
 same source ? Who opposed the war with Mexico, by which 
 the vast empire of Texas and New Mexico, together with 
 California, were added to our country? Northern states- 
 men. Who built the first important railway in this 
 country? Public spirited and wealthy men in Carolina. 
 Where was the first college for girls built but in dear old 
 Georgia, which sent the first steamship across the ocean 
 from the beautiful little city of Savannah ? In the world 
 of beautiful nature around us who has gone as deep in 
 her secrets among the birds of the air as our own Audu- 
 bon? Who has given the commerce of the world such 
 rich instruction in the laws of the winds and the tides 
 and currents of old ocean, mapping and charting them, 
 as Virginia's gifted son, Matthew Fontaine Maury? High 
 up on the roll of the world's great surgeons whose names 
 stand higher than those of Sims and McDonald? To 
 whom in the dark valley of the world's great suffering 
 are we so much indebted as to Crawford Long of Georgia ? 
 Whence come John Marshall and Roger Taney, to contest 
 .with Judge Story of New England the highest honors and 
 
1 3 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the proudest fame on the Supreme Court Bench of the 
 United States, but from their Southern homes? Who 
 emulated, if they did not surpass, Daniel Webster in the 
 United States Senate, with magnetic thrill and irresist- 
 ible, inexorable logic? Mr. Clay of Kentucky, and Mr. 
 Calhoun and Mr. Hayne of South Carolina. 
 
 "Head their history in the nation's eyes," 
 
 swaying senates and prolonging the life of the republic ! 
 These were a part (and only a part) of the rich contri- 
 butions which the old South gave to the young nation in 
 trust for the world. And while she was active in doing 
 so much for the whole country she was amassing a wealth 
 which, per capita, was greater than that of any other por- 
 tion of the Union, save, perhaps, that of little Rhode 
 Island. In 1861, if the erring sisters had been allowed 
 to go in peace, was not the disturbing question of the hour : 
 Whence is to come national revenue? Had not this very 
 consideration much to do with the policy of coercion? 
 
 "Thus," said Mr. Lincoln, "if we allow the Southern 
 States to depart from the Union, where shall we get the 
 money with which to carry on the Government?" 
 
 Those of us who have survived our fondest hopes in 
 many directions are warranted in fearing that the goose 
 which laid the golden egg has been killed. Certainly 
 this matter of finance is one of the vexed problems now 
 confronting us; certainly it does appear that the world 
 or at least our part of it, is not growing wiser as it grows 
 elder, in many departments of most useful information. 
 But to resume. Let it be said that the presentation of 
 the above facts, embodying the rich contributions to na- 
 tional greatness in most vital, essential particulars which 
 were made by the old South, is very gladly presented. In 
 justifying our ancestral pride it emboldens us in acquaint- 
 ing our children with their rich inheritance, and thus 
 serves to keep erect among us high standards of duty to 
 self and country. It disproves and forever disposes of 
 the loose assertion that the Southern civilization, shadowed 
 by and the product of the institution of slavery, was in- 
 capable of high achievements and largely inferior to that 
 
The Old Plantation. 19 
 
 j 
 
 of our Northern brethren. It further shows that these 
 Caucasians dwelling on the plantations of the old South, in 
 their guardianship over the millions of negroes on their es- 
 tates must, in the main, have treated their servants very 
 kindly. How else can you account for the absence of crime 
 during the war and the presence of such fine forms of mu- 
 tual kindness among the older persons of both races, as we 
 know exists to this day ? It can be emphatically declared, 
 and is often exemplified, that we at the South, the old 
 plantation people and their descendants, do love the race 
 that held the plow which made the corn that fed the cows 
 which gave the milk that we drank in childhood. It 
 is painful to know how difficult it is to induce those for- 
 eign to our condition fully to realize this as a fact, but we, 
 and the negroes themselves, know that it is so ; and we, for 
 the present, must be contented. More light is coming 
 in. Booker Washington in Alabama, and others like him, 
 will go on vindicating the truth of what has been so ad- 
 mirably said on this point by such thoughtful, discriminat- 
 ing men of the South as the late ex-Senator Vance of 
 North Carolina and Mr. Henry Grady of Georgia. 
 
 Before leaving this subject it must be allowed one to say 
 in regard to the state of society in the South before the 
 war, that the social conditions in the same community 
 have largely changed. It is said of Mr. Webster that in 
 introducing that charming, typical Southerner, the Hon- 
 erable George E. Badger, United States Senator of North 
 Carolina, to one of his Boston friends, he employed these 
 words : 
 
 Hon - . Rufus Choate: 
 
 "Dear Sir — Permit me to introduce to you the Honorable 
 George E. Badger of North Carolina, your equal and my 
 superior. Yours truly, Daniel Webster." 
 
 Thus you will see that in this representative South- 
 erner Mr. Webster recognized the rich product of the 
 South. Yes, say what you may of it, there was an en- 
 gaging race in the chivalry that tempered even quixot- 
 ism with dignity, in the piety which saved master and slave 
 alike, in the charity that boasted not, in honor held above 
 
so The Old Plantation. 
 
 estate, in the hospitality that neither condescended nor 
 cringed, in frankness and heartiness and wholesome com- 
 radeship, in the reverence paid to womanhood and the in- 
 violable respect in which woman was held, the civilization 
 of the old slave regime in the Sonth has not been surpassed 
 and perhaps will not be equaled among men. 
 
 Whence came these fine conditions ? We of the old South 
 cannot be blamed (for we are not wrong) in saying that, 
 as there was no hurry among us in those days, no need 
 of haste, men took time to be truly conservative and 
 fastened the taproot of their every-day life deep down into 
 the soil which was pressed by the foot-prints of George 
 Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Henry, and such 
 others as gave dignity and honor to American citizenship. 
 These worthies were all slave holders, as were Scott and 
 Taylor, and a whole host of others whose devotion to the 
 institutional life of this country gives lustre to many pages 
 of American history. 
 
 But it must be borne in mind that the limited space of 
 this volume demands that we hurry on and drop this vein 
 of thought for the present. Yes, drop this vein of thought ; 
 not, however, in the sense illustrated by this anecdote. 
 The proprietor of the leading hotel in Savannah, Georgia, 
 ordered old Pompey to bring up on his shoulder from the 
 wharf to the hotel a large sea turtle. Po? ipey was obeying 
 the order, as with bent shoulders he made his way up the 
 street, the turtle kicking out with his four feet in as many 
 directions. A ventriloquist on the opposite side of the 
 street took in the situation and undertook to have some fun 
 at the old darky's expense. In the most sepulchral tone 
 he could possibly command he threw his voice over the 
 street and, as from the poor turtle, asked, "When is you 
 gwine to drap me?" Instantly, as the turtle went down 
 with a tremendous crash upon the hard pavement, jarring 
 him as though he had been struck by the tail of a whale, 
 the old darky called out, "Fse gwine to drap you right 
 now," and away he went at the most rapid rate, with coat 
 tails flying out as danger signals, in superstitious fright and 
 flight. In the childlike simplicity of the old plantation 
 negro how much there is both amusing and attractive. 
 
The Old Plantation. 21 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the South the crops were so various that in no season, 
 however disastrous to some, was there ever a marked failure 
 in all. Each one of these staples had its own peculiar belt 
 or habitat, requiring different modes of culture and special 
 adaptation of soil and climate for its highest perfection. 
 Thus, in the fine wheat lands of Maryland, Virginia and 
 Kentucky, one never saw a field of cotton or sugar cane. 
 Yet all of these crops were the products of the same labor, 
 and while there were peculiar features in the plantation life 
 of the Gulf States' planters, yet there was such a general 
 sameness that in minute description of an estate in North 
 Carolina one furnishes a satisfactory account of them all. 
 In the older States of the South, notably so in Virginia 
 and the Carolinas, there was a more pronounced form 
 of the patriarchal features of the system than was found 
 in the younger States, where the commercial features of 
 the institution more largely obtained. It was not an 
 unusual condition of affairs in the older States that the 
 servants employed came down with broad acreage from 
 father to son for generations. These older States were 
 more influential in giving character to the younger com- 
 munities of the old South. It was notably so in 1837 
 and afterwards, because the tide of emigration set out from 
 the Potomac and James Rivers' Valley about that time. 
 We shall select a plantation in North Carolina, the de- 
 scription of which will best illustrate the most health- 
 ful forms of the relation of master and servant. 
 
 Wherever the uplift of education has been felt there 
 
22 The Old Plantation. 
 
 is some one spot where the well-nigh magical influence of 
 home has asserted its power. Some one spot there is to 
 us all where the sky is a little bluer, where the grass 
 is a little greener, where the light of the stars is a little 
 softer, where the song of the birds is sweeter and the 
 south-west breezes of the early spring are much softer; 
 while the perfume of the flowers is far sweeter — in fine, 
 where heaven is a little nigher. That spot of earth is 
 one's own home. It is the presence of the mother there 
 that consecrates it. It may not be especially attractive to 
 others, but it is all the world to you. 
 
 The plantation selected for description here is the au- 
 thor's old home and the home of his forefathers for genera- 
 tions. Many in North Carolina, in breadth of acreage 
 and varied attractiveness, may have been of greater mar- 
 ketable value and far more desirable. The author knows 
 this best and thinks it a fair type of the old plantations 
 of the South, and, therefore, for various reasons, it has 
 been selected as the scene of the recitals, descriptions, 
 events and conditions of life embodied in the life on 
 Southern estates before the years of 1861 and '65. It is 
 situated in the old county of Onslow, named for Sir 
 Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the British House of Commons. 
 The plantation was known as "The Eich Lands" and was 
 situated immediately on the old stage-road which led from 
 New Berne to Wilmington, two old colonial towns, about 
 one hundred miles apart, in the tide water section of the 
 blessed old State of North Carolina. This estate lay on 
 the west side of a very remarkable stream known as New 
 River, which had its source and outlet in the same county. 
 From its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean up to a short dis- 
 tance from the village of Jacksonville, the county seat, 
 the beautiful body of water, known as "the river," was, 
 in truth, in breadth, in depth, and other particulars verv 
 like an arm of the sea. Rarely, if ever, has the eye of 
 man elsewhere drunk in the beauties of nature as so 
 strikingly presented by this lovely estnary or bay. Some- 
 thing like it is to be seen along the St. Mary's River in 
 lower Maryland. Some of the views of the Hudson re- 
 mind you of it. All in all, however, the writer has never 
 
The Old Plantation/ 23 
 
 seen anything quite so beautiful. It was some twenty 
 miles in length and several miles in breadth, with an ex- 
 panse of water strikingly lovely. 
 
 One must take into consideration the fact that this 
 beautiful body of salt water constituted the abundant 
 storehouse of nature, from which were taken some of the 
 most valued features of table comfort and luxury. Its 
 waters teemed with the various varieties of fine fish found 
 in this latitude, among which were the mullet, the sea 
 trout, the sheepshead, the flounder, the croaker or pig 
 fish, with others not a few. These fine fish were there in 
 great abundance. In their season were to be had many 
 varieties of water fowl, ducks, wild geese and swans. The 
 ducks were very numerous and of the varieties found in 
 that famous storehouse, the Chesapeake Bay. Never in 
 this country has the writer tasted a more delicious break- 
 fast dish than the blue winged teal of these waters, while 
 the blackheads, mallards, and the variety which we call 
 the canvasback were found in large numbers. Rich and 
 abundant as were all these contributions to the planter's 
 comfort, none surpassed the shellfish found so abundantly 
 where this beautiful inland salt lake joined the sea. The 
 oysters were larger and fatter than the celebrated "Blue 
 Points" of the New York market, and in delicacy of 
 flavor quite equaled the "Morris Cove" specimen of the 
 Philadelphia Club House. The writer married a Virginia 
 girl and has often feasted on the fine oysters of the Nor- 
 folk and Suffolk markets (and they are certainly very 
 fine), but, apart from prejudice or predilection, he is 
 free to say that the "New River" oyster of the old plan- 
 tation days in all the finer forms of delicacy and flavor 
 were the equals of any bivalves he has ever enjoyed. At 
 Delmonieo's in New York or at the old Hygeia at Old 
 Point Comfort nothing of the oyster family surpassed 
 them. The very largest and fattest oysters in the country 
 are to be had in the Mobile and New Orleans' markets. 
 These graced the beautiful tables of the old St. Charles 
 and St. Louis of the latter city in the good old ante- 
 bellum days; but, while they were as large as the hand of 
 the Creole beauties at the table and as white with fat as 
 
24 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the snowy arms of these beautiful women, the}' lacked 
 the peculiar, dainty, salty flavor of the "New River" 
 oyster. They were much larger, much fatter, these ton- 
 seceurs of the Gulf waters, but were far too fresh, lack- 
 ing in saltiness, and this for a very obvious cause. The 
 large inland seas, the Alabama and Mississippi rivers, 
 poured such quantities of fresh water into the gulf as to 
 lower the standard of saltiness of this oyster's habitat; 
 but though in return they brought down such myriads 
 upon myriads of animalcule as to make these oysters of 
 the Gulf as long as an ordinary knife of the tea table, as 
 broad as a man's four fingers and looking like great strips 
 of white pork, yet they were not comparable in flavor to 
 the New River oyster of the North Carolina markets. 
 In addition to these toothsome oysters of this remarka- 
 ble river, there was an inexhaustible supply of crabs, both 
 stone and soft shell, while clams, scallops and shrimps 
 were to be had for the taking. In addition to the above 
 named comforts, which, in the good old golden days be- 
 fore the war had become to the planters and their families 
 actual indispensable necessaries, both the bathing and 
 sailing were most excellent. The writer goes back in fond 
 recollection to many sunny hours of the charming sailing 
 or yachting parties over these beautiful waters, as fair and 
 lovely as those in the Bay of Naples. In these we were 
 often joined by the charming people of Col. Edward Mont- 
 ford's family or those from Paradise Point, in both of 
 which such sweet hospitality obtained. 
 
 The soil along the shores of the lovely inland lake, while 
 lacking in the greater fertility of the plantations higher 
 up the river, was most kindly in many of the wise be- 
 stowments of nature, and the planters lived in great com- 
 fort and luxury. The strong, beating tidal pulse of old 
 ocean had not the power to force its sway higher up lse r \V 
 River than just below Jacksonville, the county seat. Here 
 the tide ended. Higher up the river, narrowing rapidly, 
 you came to some of the finest agricultural country in this 
 State. In the center of this lovely section, on the west 
 bank of the river, in the form of a horseshoe in the bend 
 of this beautiful stream, lay the far-famed "Rich Lands" 
 
The Old Plantation. 7 25 ^ 
 
 estate. As it lay there with its broad, fertile acreage, 
 embellished here and there with the largest hickory trees 
 the writer has ever seen, it stretched away on either side 
 of the stage road running from Wilmington, fifty-eight 
 miles away, to New Berne, just forty-two miles distant. 
 This road, running from north-west to south-east in al- 
 most an air line for something over two miles, cuts this 
 estate in two parts of almost equal extent. The writer 
 loves to shut his eyes, close his ears, go back in fond 
 memory, and think of it as the most beautiful plantation 
 his eye ever feasted upon. Some of the estates in the 
 Mohawk Valley are very lovely, and lovely homes on fine 
 farms are to be seen in the far-famed Shenandoah valley 
 of Virginia. 
 
 The American may be justly proud of his country, 
 capable of furnishing such landed estates as are to be 
 seen in the blue-grass country of Kentucky and the more 
 fertile sections of Alabama, in the canebrake country be- 
 tween the Alabama and Tombigbee Rivers. These are all 
 very fine, as is that far-famed section of Bayou Teche in 
 Louisiana. But this plantation of which we are speak- 
 ing — in all the elements of fertility, lay of the land, readi- 
 ness of renovation, variety of products, proximity to mar- 
 ket, freedom from wasting diseases, the ease with which a 
 fine table could be maintained winter and summer, the 
 excellence of its roads, its inexhaustible forests of fine 
 wood, hard and soft — in the judgment of those entitled 
 by both education and travel to an opinion in such matters 
 was, in the early fifties, under the management of the 
 proprietor, the father of the present writer, one of the 
 very finest estates in the South. The reader will con- 
 cur, when we go into details. It embraced more than 
 twenty- five hundred acres of arable land, while to the 
 west and south, adjoining, there extended a magnificent 
 domain of more than twenty_ihousand_ acres of heavily 
 timbered land, comprising the turpentine orchards of this 
 estate. The plantation proper was almost as level as a 
 parlor floor, save where one beautiful stream, Chapel 
 Run, cuts its way through the fields as it went on its 
 way with sparkling waters to the river. The geological 
 
26 The Old Plantation/ 
 
 formation was that of limestone, not the hard, granite- 
 like, blue limestone of the Shenandoah valley; this was 
 the softer gray limestone, easily disintegrating, and from 
 its rich percentage in the carbonate of lime, when applied, 
 readily restoring fertility to the soil, reduced by heavy 
 cropping. The beautiful stream spoken of, Chapel Eun, 
 fed by innumerable springs, some of them in view and 
 others hid away in its banks and bed, was a bold, strong 
 creek, spanned by several rustic bridges, ornamented 
 by vines, which were a very great convenience in going to 
 and from the plantation work, and notably so in harvest- 
 ing the crops. Its head waters were strong, unfailing 
 springs, a little west of the plantation, out on the east- 
 ern fringe of the turpentine orchard. The writer, in 
 boyhood, on Saturdays and other holidays was never so 
 happy as when fishing in its glassy pools, as limpid as 
 Lake Killarney in old Ireland. They abounded in small 
 though very delicious fish of the perch family, commonly 
 called pan or the breakfast fish of the planter's table. 
 
 Do you see that fine old beech tree standing on the bank 
 of this stream, just before it disappears and goes into 
 its subterranean channel, which some convulsion of na- 
 ture has made for it ? What a splendid old tree it is ! 
 How stately its trunk, how umbrageous its branches, how 
 smooth its white bark? What rough, hieroglyphic signs 
 are those, well-nigh grown over now, but once cut deep 
 into the soft bark of this lovely tree, as the young fisher- 
 man stopped his sport and with pocket knife engraved 
 the following letters, "E. P. F. ;" while higher up, the 
 work of an older brother, could be read the unmistakable 
 initial letters of one of dear old Carolina's beautiful 
 daughters, "A. E. C. D." Thus we see that Cupid was 
 busy then with the sons of the old planter. Those who 
 wore the names outlined by those initials have passed away, 
 but to him who alone survives, the younger brother, the 
 present writer of these pages, their sweet memory will 
 outlast the famous old beech tree and will go on with him 
 into etemit} r , forever blessed. Do you see that large 
 persimmon tree standing out there in the open field, 
 some hundred yards or more from the banks of the creek ? 
 
The Old Plantation. 27 
 
 Yes; why do you ask the question? Because it has con- 
 nected with it some high fun of possum hunting, with 
 dear old Ben and his dogs, "Battler" and "Spunk." 
 Maybe it would be well to stop my plantation reminiscences 
 for a little while and give you a sure enough possum 
 story ? What do you say ? I do not know how the reader 
 will like it. In these times of the bicycle and the fame » 
 of Newport and Narragansett Pier, times have so changed. 
 Nevertheless, here goes for the possum story. Those who 
 prefer to do so can skip it and indulge in reading one of 
 Zola's elevating (?) stories. 
 
 On one of the Carolina plantations before the war lived 
 an old darky named Hannibal, commonly known as 
 "Uncle Han," whose proud fame as a possum hunter or 
 a trapper was well known on the plantations on both 
 sides of the river. He was very lucky with "varmints," 
 as the negroes said. On this particular occasion he had 
 gone to his trap and found that it had been robbed, but 
 he set it and carefully baited it and went to another trap 
 higher up the creek. Here he was delighted to find he 
 had caught a fine large animal, well fatted on persimmons, 
 which the early frosts had mellowed and sweetened. In 
 less time than is required to tell of it he had, with one 
 blow of his axe, cut down a young ash and with the pos- 
 sum's tail held fast in the split of the stick, thrown over 
 his shoulder, he was making his way home, to reach which 
 he was obliged to pass by a little country store where 
 whiskey was sold. Uncle Han's joy over the prospect of 
 the oncoming feast was so great that he could not pass 
 that store without stopping both to wet his whistle and 
 to fill his "tickler." Thus supplied, homeward he went 
 and, though it was late, he soon had the possum on a 
 spit before a roaring fire. Now and then the old man 
 would wet his whistle from the contents of that bottle. 
 Soon, between the heat of the fire, the soothing influence 
 of the whiskey and the day's work, he was deep down in 
 an old split-bottomed chair, fast asleep. Aunt Rachel, his 
 wife, had gone to bed some time before. Still the old 
 man slept on. A little blue-black negro in the neighbor- 
 hood, named Henry, worried the very life out of Uncle 
 
28 The Old Plantation. 
 
 Han by robbing his traps, and other deviltries. He hacf 
 gone to the old man's trap that very night and saw from 
 the hair still sticking to it that Uncle Han had been 
 lucky. He followed on. He came to the old man's cabin 
 and, through a crack in the wall, he took in the situation. 
 There was the fat possum roasting away before the fire; 
 there sat, or rather half way reclined, Uncle Han in his 
 chair, pretty far gone from the effects of his frequent 
 drinks, fast asleep. Henry's mouth was just watering 
 for some of that possum, but still he waited. All was 
 quiet as the grave, save an occasional snore from the old 
 man. After a time, when the odor of the roasted possum 
 told the young darky that all things were ready, he 
 softly opened the door, tiptoed to the fireplace, took down 
 the possum, and at the table ate and ate and ate until 
 fully satisfied; then, to add insult to injury, he took a 
 little of the possum's fat and with his finger gently 
 smeared it on the old man's lip, who was far gone with 
 whiskey and sleep. Then the little blue-black imp of 
 mischief went out of the house as quietly as he could 
 and, taking a good sized chunk of wood, he swung it high 
 into the air, giving it such a turn that it came down with 
 a tremendous "k'fram" on the old man's roof. It was 
 a fearful noise in the dead of the night. The old man, 
 fearfully startled from his sleep, sprang up from his 
 chair, about half asleep and more than half drunk, and 
 called out, "Hello ! Hello ! Eachel, old woman, whar's 
 my possum?" and then, his tongue touching the possum 
 fat on his lip and sucking it for its verysavoriness, he began 
 again, "It tas' like possum; it mus' be possum; it surely 
 am possum. I'll tell yuh w'at's de truf 'bout dis, old 
 woman, I mus' hav' eat dat possum in my sleep; but I 
 tell yuh w'at's de fac', if I did, and I mus' hav' dun it, 
 it lies li'ter on my stumac' and gives me less satisfacshun 
 dan any possum eve' I eat befo' in all my bo'n days." 
 To which the old woman, Aunt Eachel, wisely replied. 
 "Stop talkin' 'bout yo' possum, yuh ole fool yuh. Put 
 out de li'te an' com' to bed; it's mos' day and yuh is 
 drunk, dat's what yuh is." 
 
The Old Plantation. 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On either side of the stage road from Wilmington to 
 New Berne, as it passed through, the plantation, were 
 well kept fences of the old-fashioned zigzag or Virginia 
 style. In alternate corners of the fence were planted 
 fruit trees, not of the short lived, modern, grafted or 
 budded varieties, but trees grown from seed in case of the 
 peach and cherry, and from the scion where the apple tree 
 was desired. The result was that the trees planted in 
 the early part of the century in some cases were bear- 
 ing fruit in the early forties. Here and there, as good 
 taste or convenience might suggest, the stately black wal- 
 nut and hickory and an occasional mulberry tree had 
 been allowed to stand. Here and there, when in full 
 foliage, the dark leaved persimmon trees were dotted about 
 the twelve or thirteen fields into which this large plan- 
 tation was divided. The theory of the proprietor was 
 that as the stock congregated under these persimmon trees 
 to eat the fruit their shade did not lessen the productive- 
 ness of the fields where they stood. Certainly, with their 
 deep, dark green foliage and symmetrical outlines, they 
 gave much beauty to the landscape. Grandfather and father 
 in their holding of these ancestral acres, evinced much wis- 
 dom in guarding their lovely trees and protecting the 
 forests from vandal waste. It would have been far bet- 
 ter for the landed estates of the South if the timber, espe- 
 cially the hardwood, had been more carefully guarded and 
 economized. 
 
30 The Old Plantation. 
 
 It was the custom of the proprietor to cultivate the 
 fields on either side of the road on alternate years. At 
 convenient distances from each other, large barns and 
 cribs for the safe storage of the crops had been built, 
 surrounded ordinarily by broad shelters and enclosed sheds 
 for the comfortable stabling of the cows and sheep at 
 night and for the feeding of the horses and mules at noon 
 in the busy months of the year. Some of these barns 
 were old and so constructed as to allow a four or six mule 
 team to drive in with grain or forage and, after the load 
 had been deposited, to pass out through the opposite dou- 
 ble door. Connected with these barn yards there were 
 closely fenced stock yards for the better management of 
 the cows, sheep, hogs and colts of the plantation. These 
 were well furnished with pumps or wells, affording an am- 
 ple supply of water for the stock, which, however, the 
 servants were not allowed to drink, as they were strongly 
 impregnated with limestone of such quality as to render 
 the water unhealthy for man, but which the animals could 
 drink with impunity. The water which the servants 
 drank was brought out in large casks mounted on wheels 
 and was served to them in gourds or calabashes from 
 wooden cans made by the plantation coopers from cedar, 
 cypress or juniper wood, with which the estate abounded. 
 By subterranean sinks or natural wells in this limestone 
 formation the fields were admirably drained and the 
 ditches were comparatively inexpensive. As you ap- 
 proached the river, where the land was undulating, there 
 were numerous marl beds which had been worked for 
 many years, and which in their rich deposits yielded 
 the much desired lime for agricultural purposes. Some 
 of them afforded in abundance a marine deposit as high 
 as seventy-three per cent, in carbonate of lime, with 
 traces of magnesia and phosphoric acid. If you examine 
 this specimen carefully you will find parts of the skele- 
 tons of sea animals, fish, crabs, turtles, etc. These bones 
 account for the rich phosphates contained in the marl, 
 
 "What crop of dark, rich green is that which you 
 see along the western slope of those hills, and far out 
 into the bottom of that two hundred acre field?" 
 
The Old Plantation. 31 
 
 "That is the far-famed black-eyed pea of the South, 
 the substitute for clover, which the long, hot summers 
 of the South preclude from the crops of this plantation." 
 
 "What noise is that we hear over in that direction?" 
 
 "That's the song of the boys on their light carts hauling 
 the marl to be scattered broadcast over the crop of peas, 
 which you see is just going into bloom, the height of its 
 exuberance, when it will be turned under good and deep, 
 with a .sweep chain connected with the plow to force 
 the peas down, so as to be reached by the plowshare. This 
 is the preparation for the wheat crop. Yes, the pro- 
 prietor, while not numbering wheat among the staples 
 of his plantation, always produces enough for home con- 
 sumption and his seed for the next year." 
 
 "What other crop is that growing down there just 
 along the river bank?" 
 
 "That's our rice crop. You observe the acreage is not 
 large and yet there is plenty and to spare for all the 
 plantation requirements." 
 
 "What small birds are those rising up from the rice 
 fields in such large numbers as to almost darken the 
 view ?" 
 
 "They are the famous rice birds of the South just now 
 holding their high carnival, attacking the rice crop just 
 as the grain is going into its milky state." 
 
 "What means that discharge of firearms, with reports 
 so loud and long sustained as to suggest a body of in- 
 fantry ?" 
 
 "That's old Uncle Amos and his band of helpers shoot- 
 ing these birds to protect the crop from these dainty little 
 enemies. Have you ever eaten a rice bird?" 
 
 "Not that I know of. I have eaten the sora or the 
 reed bird, killed in the Valley of the Patuxent in Mary- 
 land, and it is certainly very delicious. So far as I know, 
 it may be the famous ortolan." 
 
 This conversation took place between the older son 
 of the planter and his college mate from Princeton, a 
 charming young gentleman from Maryland, who had come 
 home with the young Carolinian to enjoy a week or two 
 
32 The Old Plantation. 
 
 of hunting and fishing and other forms of fine fun and 
 frolic on the old plantation. 
 
 "Wait until breakfast to-morrow," said my brother 
 John, "and when you have eaten our rice bird, fat as 
 butter, bones and all, you will never brag again of your 
 sora, of your ortolan, of your famous reed bird, for I tell 
 you, Tom Bowie, that this bird of the Carolinas, fatted 
 on rice in the milky state, is the most delicate, tooth- 
 some food I ever tasted." 
 
 "Let us now turn our faces homeward, for we have 
 fully two miles to ride and the afternoon is far spent." 
 
 As these two young gentlemen, mounted on horseback, 
 turned the heads of their horses away from the river 
 they came up with an old negro, "Uncle Daniel," riding 
 in a cart drawn by a mule, well laden with corn in the ear. 
 The old man is on his way to one of the feeding stations 
 to give some twenty-five or thirty bullocks their evening 
 meal. These are being fatted for the early winter markets, 
 and had you time, reader, to inspect them closely you 
 would find fine specimens of the Durham breed of cattle, 
 of the large size and of admirable fattening properties, 
 of which the proprietor was very proud. 
 
 "What is that more than half grown servant doing 
 over there to the left of us?" 
 
 "We will ask him. Fred, what are you doing?" 
 
 "I'm penning the sheep, sah." 
 
 Yes, every night the flocks of sheep, of which there 
 were several, numbering in all some three or four hun- 
 dred, were carefully penned, for the double purpose of 
 making manure in their well-littered folds, protecting 
 the grown animals from the ravages of the dogs, and 
 from the fox's known fondness for the lambs of the flocks. 
 As one comes from the plantation proper and crosses the 
 creek, on ascending the hill on the south side one enters 
 one of the most beautiful avenues of cedars in this section 
 of the State. It stretches away to the gate leading into 
 the large grounds surrounding the mansion and embrac- 
 ing its curtilage, in length some half-mile and breadth 
 some forty feet, as level almost as a dining room table. 
 
 Who are those four men — servants — we meet at the. 
 
The Old Plantation. 33 
 
 brow of the hill ? Two of them are between fifty and sixty 
 years of age, one is a shade older and the fourth is about 
 thirty-five years old. The old man mounted on a blood 
 bay mare, with black mane, tale and legs is Uncle 
 Philip, the next in authority to the proprietor on the 
 whole plantation. The youngest of the four is Cicero, 
 the coachman. Observe him, if you please, as with all 
 the air of a trained jockey he jauntily sits in the saddle. 
 Did you ever see a more beautiful animal than that? 
 You will not wonder when told that his dam was a Sir 
 Archy mare, Vashti, the celebrated Tar River filly, and 
 well known on the American turf. She "let down," or 
 strained a tendon running against the famous old horse 
 "Boston" on Long Island course. His sire was Trustee, 
 the father of Fashion. The other two servants are Uncle 
 Suwarro, named for a famous Russian general, and the 
 trusted foreman of the plowmen of the plantation, while 
 the small blue-black negro is Uncle Jim, the foreman of 
 the hoe force of the plantation. Why are they so much 
 excited? The large bell on the estate has struck the 
 hour of noon, and as it is Saturday everybody is called off 
 from work till Monday. This has been the custom of 
 the plantation for a long, long time. No work after 
 twelve o'clock on Saturday, unless it be during the harvest 
 season. 
 
 You observe those marl carters have all come in and 
 there is an air of excitement on the faces of all the serv- 
 ants you see. What is up ? There's a horse race on foot. 
 Uncle Philip and Cicero are to try the speed of their re- 
 spective horses and these two old foremen have come 
 up the avenue to give them a fair start, while Robert, 
 the blacksmith, holds the purse of ten dollars, which is 
 the wager on this occasion. Harry and Ben are the 
 judges. Presently you hear, in trumpet tones the word 
 "Go," and off they speed along the whole length of the 
 avenue, through the open gateway of the enclosure as 
 rapidly as the horses can put their feet to the ground, 
 both running under whip and spur. Cheer after cheer 
 rends the air as Cicero's friends claim the victory, for 
 the judges rule against old Uncle Philip, who yields as 
 
34 The Old Plantation. 
 
 gracefully as he can, but who "cusses" a little and then 
 rides in, puts up his horse, opens his little store and 
 proceeds to gather in the six-pences and shillings, with 
 which to make the purse for another race with that 
 "skillet headed nigger," Cicero, as in anger and contempt, 
 the aristocratic old man calls his adversary of the plan- 
 tation turf. 
 
The Old Plantation. 35 
 
 \7 1 
 I 
 
 
 ; 1 
 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 We have had a glimpse of the sports and pastimes of 
 the servants in the ante-bellum days on this old estate. 
 We have seen that there were joyous breaks in the days 
 of labor, which made their plantation, not only an abode of 
 much comfort but a scene of marked beauty in its well 
 cultivated fields and other features of telling thrift. Be- 
 fore we go very far into the details of the lives of these 
 dusky sons and jia^ghters of_ toil, we shall devote an 
 emtre chapter to the amusements "" m which the old planter 
 encouraged them to indulge. We shall see with our own 
 eyes that if the prosperity of the South was the natural 
 result of systematized labor, one feature of the system was 
 the recognition of the fact that the highest forms of 
 usefulness and efficiency in life are only reached in the 
 judicious unbending of the bow of labor. The question 
 is often asked, "Is it not well nigh as important that 
 people in all the relations of life should be properly 
 amused, as that thev should be fed?" The institution 
 of the various public games among the ancients answered 
 this question to the satisfaction of the pagan mind, while 
 the elaborate and painstaking opening up of the beau- 
 tiful parks in our modern cities, with widespreading groves 
 and lovely views of miniature lakes with laughing cas- 
 cades, all at great cost to the public, voices the wisdom 
 of the nineteenth century civilization on this subject. 
 Surely the old planter was wise in amusing as well as 
 feeding and sheltering his servants. 
 
 Before going any deeper into this narrative, while yet 
 
/ 
 
 36/ The Old Plantation." 
 
 we are on horseback, let us ride up this broad avenue 
 of lovely elms and see what lies beyond. You observe 
 it leaves the great public road just before you reach the 
 large gate through which Uncle Philip and Cicero dis- 
 appeared a moment ago at the close of the horse race. 
 This avenue, some four hundred yards in length, is about 
 forty feet in width and, leading due east, it gradually ap- 
 proaches the old mansion on the crest of an eminence. 
 This gives the dwelling and its curtilage almost perfect 
 drainage, so important in a flat or level country. As we 
 ride along this avenue, on the left and right are two of 
 the orchards of this estate, while still further on the 
 right is a large number of buildings of various sizes 
 and adapted to various uses. This large assemblage 
 of houses is known as the "quarter," or the village, 
 in which the homes of these many servants stand. 
 But }^ou see we are at the end of the avenue and 
 just in front of us is the gate of the front yard of the 
 writer's old home. Before entering it let us give up 
 our horses to Cain and George who will take them 
 to the stables for us. We can walk in now. Before doing 
 so let us stop a moment or so and admire those fine 
 trees, native to the soil, equidistant and at the same 
 angle from the corners of the front piazza. Do you see 
 those two noble old beech trees with trunks almost as 
 large as a flour barrel and as symmetrical as if the then 
 popular landscape gardener, Downing, had grown them 
 to suit his beautiful taste? What monarchs they are and 
 how comfortable the seats at their base, constructed of 
 undressed hickory shoots. What splendid tree is that 
 just at the front gate of the side yard sloping away to 
 the little stream at the foot of the hill just north of where 
 we stand? That is a pecan tree. 
 
 Let us stand there a moment or two and take in the 
 outline of the planter's dwelling. You see it is a very 
 large house. Yes, inclusive of the piazzas it is just sixty 
 feet square, three stories high, built of the best North 
 Carolina pine and weatherboarded with fine j^ellow poplar. 
 It stands on brick pillars about five feet above ground, 
 jnth. no suggestion of cellarage, so as to avoid every sem- 
 
* 
 
 The Old Plantation. 37 
 
 blance of dampness. Why did not the old planter, with his 
 abundant means, build it of brick? He is far too wise 
 for that. In a damp climate brick is not the material 
 for the construction of healthy homes. The planter's 
 ancestry found that out to their deep sorrow long years 
 ago, when in the settlement of New Berne, at the junction 
 of the Neuse and Trent rivers, brick were employed for 
 building purposes and many of the old Huguenot fami- 
 lies suffered terribly, burying their dead from diseases in- 
 cident to life in brick houses, in a damp, warm, malarial 
 climate. So you see the house is of wood, but of such 
 wood as the modern house builder never finds in these 
 days. It is the very best of the original forests, carefully 
 selected and seasoned in such manner as to preclude wind 
 shakes, seams or cracks. The truth is these old planters, 
 except in a fox hunt or deer chase, were not of the order 
 of men to hurry about anything, and least of all in the 
 selection of material in the construction of their fine old 
 homes. 
 
 We must hurry up and describe this old mansion, for 
 there are many things of interest to be told about it, 
 and supper will be ready before you know it. Come, let 
 ,, us enter the old home. This piazza extending all around 
 the house, first and second stories, is about twelve feet 
 in breadth; and you observe the windows, of large size, 
 open down to the floor. Well, the front door is wide 
 open. 
 
 "Why do you lift your hat as you enter?" 
 
 "I do so in reverence of what I know is within." 
 
 "Yes, full right you are." 
 
 This old roof tree shelters the spot sacred to the very 
 finest forms of old-fashioned Southern hospitality, the 
 decadence of which we have witnessed to a saddening de- 
 gree since 1865, but which still lingers here and there 
 in the South; not, however, of the order which challenged 
 the admiration of all who felt the touch of our lares and 
 penates in the good old plantation days. The hallway, 
 running the whole depth of the house, is very broad, and 
 the two sets of stairways are correspondingly broad and 
 of easy pitch or grade, to compensate in some degree for 
 
38 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the modern elevator. You observe as you pass along the 
 hall you are met by another hall just as broad, cutting 
 the one by which we enter at right angles. Another fea- 
 ture of these broad halls is that quite as much money is 
 judiciously expended in furnishing them as in any other 
 part of the old home, while hammock-hooks suggest an 
 indefinable comfort of a hot day, and book shelves tell 
 you that the old planter's life consisted not in "bread 
 alone," but that books entered largely into the life on one 
 of these noble old estates. \ Here and there, beside the hat 
 or cloak stands of fine old mahogany, you observe the pol- 
 ished horns of the patriarchs of flock and herd fastened se- 
 curely under the old pictures gracing the walls. As yo u 
 just now entered the large folding front door to your right 
 hand, through that heavy door of oak finish, you enter the 
 large parlor, with its piano, violin and guitar cases, and 
 such bestowment of fine taste and ample means, in rich 
 old furniture, with oil paintings and f-> lb carpets and 
 rugs as you would expect to find in the planter's home. 
 The south-east corner room was tiie bedchamber of my 
 father and mother, while across the hail was the nursery, 
 and opposite the parlor was the family living or sitting 
 room. In the two stories above were the rooms peculiarly 
 devoted to the comfort of the daughters of the planter 
 and the guests of the family. The attic rooms were de- 
 voted to the storage of bedclothing, cedar chests for 
 woolens, trunks and such other features of a well ap- 
 pointed family. As you pass out of the large hall, run- 
 ning north and south across the broad piazza, you enter 
 into another piazza in front of the large dining room 
 opening back to one of the largest kitchens you would be 
 likely to meet, with every convenience of closets for china 
 and storerooms numerous and spacious. 
 
 Stop a moment. [Look at that capacious kitchen fire- 
 place, broad enough to take in logs of wood six feet long 
 and with old-fashioned crane for swinging the large pots 
 on and off, as the old cook might like, with its smooth 
 hearth running the whole width of the chimney and 
 back three or four feet into the room. Why is this hearth 
 so broad ? For two reasons. First, it guards against 
 
The Old Plantation. 39 
 
 the danger of fire; secondly, on its broad area, in small 
 ovens and tin kitchens, are carried to perfection some 
 of the finest forms of good cooking of savory dishes for 
 which this era of plantation life is so justly celebrated^ 
 What hooks are those driven into the bricks just below the' 
 broad shelf or mantelpiece? They are employed when a 
 wild turkey or a roast of venison are there cooked, basted 
 meantime with vinegar and lard or butter, being con- 
 stantly turned around so as to present no one side too 
 long to the roaring fire as to burn the meat, while the 
 metal dish underneath catches all the juices as they are 
 distilled by the great heat from the roaring fire. What 
 large block of wood is that standing between the windows 
 on one side of the kitchen, about three feet in diameter 
 and four feet high? That is where the old cook beats 
 her famous biscuit, which are the most delightful of all 
 breads. Defying and despising both baking powder and 
 soda, the old-fashioned Southern beaten biscuit is the 
 very nonpareil of breakfast or supper bread, equally good, 
 hot or cold, in its flaky lightness. The French cooks of 
 neither New York nor Paris have ever been' able to equal 
 it. In very truth it surpasses the famous Vienna rolls 
 of the Washington City club houses. In their highest 
 perfection they have sadly disappeared, witTithe old tur- 
 baned cooks of the old plantation regime, who mastered 
 all their secrets. Later on we shall sample old Aunt 
 Patty's beaten biscuit but we must hurry out of the 
 kitchen, for we have much to see before we go down to 
 the quarter. 
 
 Standing on the kitchen piazza and looking east to 
 your left and in front, there is an area in form of a 
 quadrangle about one hundred feet on each side. In the 
 center of this area is a well of water, supplied with a 
 pump, well sheltered and with vines of honeysuckle trained 
 to the sides. What houses are those with broad shelters 
 facing south and west on this area ? These are the smoke 
 houses, three in number, in which the hams of five hun- 
 dred hogs are cured annually. Those other houses are 
 what are called the flour house, the coffee house and the 
 large storehouse for groceries, etc ? In the rear of thg 
 
 
40 The Old Plantation. 
 
 smoke houses are smaller houses for the storage of pota- 
 toes and oysters in the shell. These delicious bivalves are 
 kept in a dark room and are so well fed with meal stirred 
 into salt water as to be scarcely able to stay in their 
 shells. Unfortunately, however, they will lose their 
 flavor after a few days, showing clearly that we cannot 
 compete with nature. Just in the rear of these houses, on v 
 the brow of the hill, so as to be kept perfectly dry, are 
 the various and spacious houses for poultry of all kinds, 
 as well as the stately peacock, the strutting old turkey 
 gobbler, the guinea fowl, the several varieties of ducks 
 (the muscovy, the puddle and the English) and the ordi- 
 nary barnyard fowl or chicken. They are all here in this 
 yard of two acres or more, well fenced in, secure from the 
 egg-sucking cur of the negro quarter, as well as from mink 
 or weasel at night. 
 
 Coming out of the poultry yard, let us go through the 
 east gate of the area on which stands the large pump above 
 described. To your left, through the gateway, let us 
 enter and see if you ever saw a more beautifully appointed 
 vegetable garden? In extent about an acre, it embraces 
 in its various products all that you may wish to find, from 
 the delicate tropical egg plant to the more commonplace 
 cabbage. Here they all are. You need not wonder at 
 the delicious vegetables found in such great abundance on 
 the planter's table. Coming out of the garden what build- 
 ings are those off to the left? The first you see are the 
 weaving rooms, in which are manufactured all the fabrics 
 with which the servants of the plantation are clothed, 
 including the woolen goods for winter and those cf cotton 
 for the summer. Those other houses you see down yon- 
 der, six in number, are where the house servants are 
 quartered. 
 
 There live dear old Aunt Pheribe and her husband, 
 Uncle Daniel. In the next house live Cicero, the coach- 
 man, and his wife Eliza. In the next dwell Handy, 
 the dining room servant, and the laundress, Jane, with 
 her family of girls, who are maids to the young ladies. 
 Off to the south of the mansion, and separated from it 
 by a large flower garden, is an enclosure of two acres or 
 
The Old Plantation. 41 
 
 more devoted to almost every variety of small fruit. 
 Here were grown some of the very finest melons that 
 ever graced a Southern breakfast table and the corn for 
 the table that made such fine fritters. 
 
 A description of this old home would not be complete 
 were you not told of the use to which that large enclosure 
 west of the chicken yard is put. Why is the fence so 
 high? Why are those pieces of timber driven so far 
 down in the ground, the ends of which you see projecting? 
 Come, go with me to the gate for a moment and we will 
 see. Here they come — Staver, Nimrod, Fashion, Venus, 
 Starlight, Little Jolly and all the twenty or more of 
 splendid fox hounds — eager and anxious to dash by you 
 and hurry away to the woods for the chase. Is not that 
 a splendid Irish setter there? Did you ever see a more 
 beautiful animal in your life than that coal black pointer, 
 black as night except one white toe? Beautiful names 
 they have — Inez for the pointer, Don for the setter. The 
 tall fence and the spiling driven into the ground now ex- 
 plain themselves. This is the dog kennel, with all its 
 appointments for comfort and health for one of the best 
 packs of hounds found in North Carolina. Why does the 
 old planter keep those fine bucks in the kennel with the 
 dogs? It is to familiarize the dogs with sheep and thus 
 prevent many a worry on the hunt. As we expect to 
 follow these dogs in a fox chase we will now leave them 
 and inquire for what purpose those comfortable looking 
 cottages up there on the hill are put? They were built 
 by the old planter when his sons became large enough to 
 go out to parties at night, so that they would not disturb 
 their mother when they came home late, often accompanied 
 by their young friends. We might spend an hour or so 
 very pleasantly in the old flower garden, looking at the 
 rich products of the fine taste of the mistress in this 
 department; but who is this coming up the walk with 
 rather stately step and, as he approaches, greets the two 
 young gentlemen as they come out of their offices? This 
 is an A.M. of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and 
 who afterwards stood conspicuous among the Presbyterian 
 divines of the State, as well for his broad learning as his 
 
42 The Old Plantation. 
 
 deep spirituality. Would you know his name? This is 
 the Eev. James Melsey Sprunt, as fine a type of a man, 
 intellectually and morally, as ever blessed two young 
 Southerners in the capacity of tutor. Before this volume 
 is finished we hope to see him again, as he sits around the 
 hearthstone of the old home of a winter's night and with 
 kindling eye and the sweetest of voices reads aloud Shake- 
 speare, the Waverley novels, Dickens, Bulwer, and others 
 authors of world wide fame. 
 
The Old Plantation. 43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Thus you have had a bird's-eye view of the planter's 
 home, so far as that portion in which he lived is concerned. 
 Let us go down to the quarter and both inspect and de- 
 scribe the buildings in which the servants lived, and then 
 we shall the more intelligently observe what fine speci- 
 mens of health are presented by both the men and wo- 
 men of this estate. But you appear to be fatigued and 
 maybe we had better defer this until Monday, for to- 
 morrow will be Sunday, and the old planter insists upon 
 everybody going to church? We will go in pres- 
 ently and enjoy the evening breeze on the south piazza as 
 it comes from the sea, for, though in an air line we are 
 some twenty miles from the ocean, regularly at this sea- 
 son of the year we get the cool, moist breeze, with its 
 salty taste, as God sends it to us, by His great laws which 
 govern the winds and the tides. The horses are ordered 
 for 10:30 to-morrow morning (you said you preferred the 
 saddle to the carriage, did you not?) and now for a little 
 chat on the piazza and our supper, and then some music 
 or, if you prefer it, we will ride over and see if those 
 girls came up from Wilmington to the neighboring plan- 
 tation. 
 
 Just then a gentleman some fifty-five years of age made 
 his appearance. You cannot mistake him. The age and 
 the conditions which produced him have passed away, and 
 yet he lives in the memory of all who have ever seen him. 
 This particular representative of that noble type of South- 
 ern life, the old-fashioned country gentleman, was some* 
 
44 The Old Plantation. 
 
 what above the average height and size, about five feet 
 eleven inches tall and weighing some hundred and sixty- 
 flve. He was not strikingly handsome, but with the class 
 of face suggested by that of the old German Field Marshal 
 Von Moltke. With an ease of manner betokening gentle 
 breeding, his marked characteristic was that peculiar type 
 of manliness which came to a long line of progenitors liv- 
 ing much in the open air. It was singularly attractive. 
 His voice was that peculiar to the genuine sons of the 
 South, soft, yet strong and singularly flexible, with marked 
 emphasis given to the softer vowel sounds. His hair, orig- 
 inally jet black, was now tinged with gray, and from the 
 large, soft blue eyes there was an expression of such ten- 
 derness as you always associate with a devoted husband . 
 and kind father. There was a compression of the lip, in- 
 dicative of much will power, while the other features be- 
 tokened the presence of so much that was notable and 
 lovable, it would ever warrant one in thinking of this old 
 planter as of such fine stamp, that while 
 
 "His enemy could do no right, his friend could do no wrong." 
 
 Near by him sat his other half, the blessed woman 
 whom he had led from the neighboring county to grace 
 his home and bless his life with that more than talismanic 
 power which God has given to women in the bestowment 
 of that far-reaching unselfishness which is constantly sug- 
 gesting the Virgin's Son, and which is at once the source 
 and secret of her strength and influence. Married in 
 the early part of the century, so close and happy had been 
 their married life that the blessed work of mutual assim- 
 ilation had gone on to such a degree, that in many re- 
 spects they were strikingly alike. To this marriage came 
 the gift of nine children, four of whom had died in in- 
 fancy or early childhood, leaving now two sons, the pres- 
 ent writer and an older brother, and three daughters. 
 The oldest daughter had married a Wilmington gentle- 
 man, gave birth to a lovely little girl and then fell asleep, 
 when we placed her in the "God's Acre" of her fathers. 
 Soon thereafter the second sister married Dr. W. W. D. 
 of Wilmington, and leaving two sons, went into the Great 
 
>i 
 
 The Old Plantation. 45 
 
 Beyond to join her loved ones in the Paradise of God. 
 But this is not a volume of genealogy. The above family 
 events have been given in order that in proper connection 
 may be stated a peculiarity of the old planter. One of 
 the conditions of the marriage of these daughters was 
 that the husband was not to take the wife away from the 
 old home. The dear old father said, with telling pathos, 
 that the family was too small, the acreage on the estate 
 was far too great, and that the old mansion was far too 
 large to allow of any colonizing. So we all dwelt there 
 together, with cares, duties and responsibilities so di- 
 vided out as to suggest the presence of no drone in the 
 large hive. 
 
 But it is the supper bell we hear and after this meal, 
 you remember, it was suggested that we should ride over 
 to the neighboring plantation and see the girls of the 
 old planter. We shall not describe this charming meal, 
 because in another chapter we are to tell at length of 
 the cookery, both in the great house and in the cabin. All 
 went the next day and heard a most excellent sermon, 
 in the commodious church, so arranged as to allow the pres- 
 ence of a large number of the servants. You would have 
 been delighted to have seen how smart and tidy these 
 servants were, as they appeared in their part of the 
 church building, dressed up in their Sunday go-to-meet- 
 ing clothes, reverently kneeling to worship that God, un- 
 known to the poor pagans in Africa from which their fath- 
 ers came. Sunday afternoon was passed in various ways. 
 Some of the servants interchanged visits on the home plan- 
 tation, or, furnished with written permits, went to see 
 their friends on the neighboring estates. Some went out 
 to the lake to bathe, riding the horses they worked dur- 
 ing the week, in order to give both themselves and the 
 horses a good bath in this beautiful sheet of limpid water. 
 Ten o ? clock at night found all of this large family com- 
 fortably established at home, ready for the refreshment of 
 a night's healthy sleep, except those men servants who had 
 married on the adjoining plantations, where they had gone 
 on Saturday afternoon. These came in time for the as- 
 sembly call, rung about sunrise on Monday morning, 
 
46 The Old Plantation. 
 
 We will get the most satisfactory view of the quarter 
 by beginning at the east end of the principal street and, 
 as we go along, carefully observing right and left. This 
 street the negroes called Broadway, and broad it was sure 
 enough, as in width about seventy feet it ran almost due 
 east and west for a long distance. The houses, separated 
 about fifty feet from each other, were built up some 
 distance from the driveway, with footpaths running along 
 in front of them. Some of these were of cypress logs closely ■ 
 joined together and made perfectly tight with mortar, 
 with hog or cow hair worked in it to make it stick in 
 the crevices. They varied in size, as did the frame 
 houses which were scattered here and there; the larger 
 ones were given to the larger families for greater com- 
 fort and healthfulness. In size the average house was 
 about thirty feet in length by twenty- two in breadth, 
 and was divided into two rooms downstairs — one the 
 cooking and living room, the other the family sleeping 
 room — while the upstairs was similarly divided. Nearly 
 all of these were furnished with good brick chimneys and 
 ample fireplaces. In warm weather the cooking was done 
 out of doors under an improvised bush shelter. Fre- 
 quently both the front and the back of the houses were 
 protected by shelters wider far, and, for their purposes, 
 a great deal more comfortable than the modern veranda. 
 In the rear of the house was the family back yard, with 
 its henhouse and its plot of ground for a garden, with 
 which each home was supplied. The provident families 
 were never without vegetables, and notably so did the long 
 stalked member of the cabbage family known as the 
 "coliard" abound, which, when well frosted, was both 
 esculent and savory to their appetites, well whetted by 
 a life in the open air and its perfect freedom from care 
 and responsibility — those twin murderers of happiness 
 in human life. 
 
 Come, go in one of the cabins, as many will insist on 
 calling the homes of the servants on the old plantation. 
 You will see they differ among themselves. Some are 
 as neat and tidy as the wife and mother who meets you at 
 the door and with graceful courtesy and kindly greeting 
 
The Old Plantation. 47 
 
 invites you in; respectfully, yet warmly, inquiring about 
 the white folks at the "great house — Ole Marster and 
 Mistiss and Marse John and Marse Jeems and Miss 
 Car" line." If you go in the sleeping room you will find 
 that the prevailing bed is made of the long gray Spanish 
 moss, with which the swamps to the east of the planta- 
 tion abound. This moss they boil and pick with their 
 ringers, stuffing their bedticks with it, so as to make a soft 
 and springy bed. They draw their quota of blankets 
 every winter from the plantation stores and, what with 
 their quilts and comforters, which they make themselves, 
 and the abundance of excellent firewood, there is no suf- 
 fering from cold, such as comes to mind when you think 
 of the white tenement sufferers in New York and other 
 large cities. It is not stated that there are equal com- 
 fort and cleanliness in all these forty homes and more. 
 Some of these servants are constitutionally neat and 
 thrifty; others again will discover, in many ways, the 
 fact that their mothers and fathers taught them by ex- 
 ample to neglect order, system and the laws of cleanli- 
 ness. 
 
 In the matter of health and consequent usefulness 
 the planter, through his foreman, insisted upon a rigid 
 police of each house every week, with such penalties as in 
 his judgment conduced to a high standard of cleanliness 
 and health, as well in the house as about the clothing. 
 In the center of these buildings and just in the middle 
 of the broad street, at the point of junction with a cross 
 street, was the town well, with abundant supply of po- 
 table water. The streets were well shaded by long rows 
 of fine elms and maples, while in the back yard is grown 
 in many cases, the mulberry tree, whose abundant sup- 
 ply of fruit is so useful to Aunt Polly in feeding her 
 chickens and ducks; nor is it despised by her children. 
 
 There are two or three features about the quarter of 
 which mention must be made. In the garden of each one 
 of these homes is a pig pen, in which two fine hogs are raised 
 each year by the most thrifty of the servants. Where 
 do they get the grain with which to raise and fatten these 
 pigs? The head of nearly every family has his patch of 
 
48 The Old Plantation. 
 
 ground, in which he grows corn, peas and cotton, or any 
 crop he prefers. When does he work his crop? On 
 Saturday afternoon or by moonlight, if he likes to do so, 
 instead of going coon hunting. So yon see, that Sambo, 
 drawing his rations, has meat to sell, and "Ole Marster" 
 always allows him to take his "crap" to town in the large 
 wagons, which invariably go to NewBerne justbef ore Christ- 
 mas to do the plantation trading. Besides this, the old 
 planter always stands ready to purchase anything market- 
 able — eggs, chickens, ducks and wild fruit (whortle- 
 berries and currants) with which the woods abound in 
 their season. You must not think for one moment that 
 all the servants on the old plantation have all these things 
 to sell. They do not. Only the thrifty ones; and the 
 rule was, almost without exception, that those who were 
 most faithful in the performance of plantation duties 
 were industrious and frugal in their own little mat- 
 ters. 
 
 Let us speak of the laws of sanitation, which were 
 rigidly enforced. Twice each year these homes, inside 
 and outside, were carefully whitewashed. Once each week 
 the yards were carefully inspected and all rubbish and 
 garbage, under penalty, were placed on that compost heap 
 you see there near the garden fence, heavily covered 
 with marl, rich in lime, to decompose or sweeten any 
 putrescent matter and thus keep the premises seemly and 
 healthy. Again, do you see those oblong iron deposi- 
 tories, mounted on posts, enclosed in boxes, filled with 
 earth along the sides and underneath? What are they 
 and to what purpose are they given? Those large, iron 
 troughs, six feet and more in length, four feet wide and 
 some ten inches in height, are the old salt vats employed 
 in the making of salt, by evaporation of sea water in the 
 the war of 1812, when the British embargo closed our 
 ports to the West India salt. The old planter has pur- 
 chased a number of them and mounted them as you see. 
 They are filled with the resinous residuum from his tur- 
 pentine distilleries, commonly known as dross, every after- 
 noon during the sickly or malarial season: and when set 
 to blazing, as they are every evening about twilight, three 
 
The Old Plantation. 49 
 
 purposes are served. First, they flood the village or 
 quarter with strong light; secondly, they infuse the fumes 
 of cooking turpentine in the air and thus purify it ; third- 
 ly, they destroy myriads upon myriads of mosquitoes and 
 thus sweeten the sleep of these dusky toilers. You 
 observe they are placed all along the streets and four of 
 them are seen, two in front and two in the rear of the 
 mansion. It was indeed a beautiful sight, that of these 
 burning masses all ablaze at once, lighting up the truth 
 of the old planter's love for his children and his servants 
 in thus protecting their health. 
 
 You observe that especially comfortable looking house, 
 just across the street from where we are standing, and 
 the other next to it ? Those are the homes of two of the 
 foremen on the plantation; Uncle Jim with his wife, 
 Aunt Patty, live in one, and Uncle Suwarro and Aunt 
 Eachel occupy the other, with their respective families. 
 What is that suspended high up in the air, just there be- 
 tween those two houses? That is the old plantation bell 
 which, in the hands of Uncle Jim, regulates the move- 
 ments of the servants, calling them to and from labor 
 and telling out the hours for the various duties. Whose 
 cabin or home is that just behind that large tree — "Pride 
 of China/' I think you call the variety? That is Grand- 
 daddy Cain's home and where his wife, my dear old 
 "Mammy Phillis," lives. The old man you see there in 
 the shade of the tree, hackling corn shucks for mattresses, 
 is the patriarch of the whole plantation. He is quite old, 
 but as he gets up and walks towards the door of his 
 house and takes a drink of water out of a gourd, do you 
 observe what a splendid specimen of a man he is — how tall ? 
 How magnificently develo}3ed in his heyday he must have 
 been ! When younger he was the plantation miller for 
 many years, and for honesty and fidelity there was no 
 servant on all the river estates whose reputation was more 
 enviable. His word was as good as his bond, and no man 
 of all the thousands who during the long years of his 
 service brought grain to my grandfather's mill ever sus- 
 pected him of dishonesty on either side. In his old age 
 he is now one of the several stock feeders on tjie estate^ 
 
50 The Old Plantation. 
 
 and } r ou can see him presently as he goes down to the 
 barnyard to get out his mule and cart and starts out to 
 salt the cattle and feed the mares and colts. He is a 
 devoted member of the Methodist Church, as many of the 
 servants are. He holds his family prayers night and 
 morning, rejoicing with many others in the hope of eternal 
 life through the Blessed Nazarene. When the present 
 writer was a boy he heard a good joke on the old man, 
 illustrating his racial fondness for possum. This is the 
 plantation version as given by my factotum, Cain, his 
 grandson. 
 
 "You sees, suh, dat granddacldy was a-holdin' his fam- 
 ily prayers one nite, arter he done swung up a mity big 
 fat possum fo' de fiah. It was Sa'ddy nite, suh, an' de 
 possum was a-roastm' for the Sunday dinner. De ole 
 man he prayed and he prayed, suh, spang 'til I tho't he 
 neber was gwine to quit ; and he prayed on and he prayed 
 on. All of a sudden he stopped rite short and he snuff'd 
 de air and called out, 'Philis, ole woman, sure's yuh is 
 bawn dat possum is a-burnin ? up. Why doan' yuh turn 
 dat possum, ole woman, and dat mi'ty quick/ An 7 he 
 went on a-prayin' and arter a while, suh, he busted out 
 'amen V Surely, Marse Jeems, I wuz mi'ty glad to hear 
 him say amen, for I was mi'ty tired, suh; but I was afeard 
 to go to sleep, fur if I had I know'd granddaddy would 
 have wore me out to a frazzle. He was dat 'ticular, suh, 
 of his prayer. Suah as you is born, Marse Jeems, he 
 duz iov' possum all de same." 
 
 AVe shall hope to see Granddaddy Cain again before 
 this volume closes — this Fidus Achates of the old plan- 
 tation. 
 
The Old Plantation. 51 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Let us take this cross street, running out of Broadway 
 into what the servants call Chestnut street. What strik- 
 ingly large building is that which fronts us as we go on 
 in our rambling walk of observation? That is what is 
 called, in the parlance of the plantation, the gin house 
 or the cotton gin. You observe it is very large and three 
 stories in height. To what use is it to be put? You see 
 it is surrounded on all sides by a deep shedding; in this 
 first shed room are kept the large family carriage, sulky, 
 buggies and light wagons, some from the celebrated fac- 
 tory of Cook in New Haven, Connecticut, and several 
 others from Dunlap in Philadelphia. The old planter 
 prided himself on the cost and elegance of his vehicles, 
 and that beautiful family carriage, finished in silk, did 
 not cost him less than a thousand dollars, with fine, silver- 
 plated harness to correspond. With the large, steel-gray 
 horses purchased in Baltimore it makes up an outfit so 
 exactly suited to her taste that the mistress would not 
 take twenty-five hundred dollars for it. There is a well- 
 appointed harness room, some of the very best of Concord, 
 New Hampshire, work. Ah, these old planters and their 
 families had the very best the markets of the world could 
 afford. The large shed room on the east is known as 
 the pork house, where the meat rations of the estate are 
 kept, at the great doorway of which they are served or 
 dealt out by weight on alternate Saturday afternoons. 
 On the north side of the main building, in a commodious 
 Well lighted shed room, is where the carpenters, four in 
 
52 The Old Plantation. 
 
 number, ply their most useful industries. On the west 
 side you have two rooms, one in which Virgil, the painter, 
 keeps his paints and oils; the other is where the various 
 stores of hardware, nails, bolts, screws, etc., are kept. 
 What octagon-shaped house is that out in the yard? 
 That is the cotton screw or compress, where the cotton 
 and wool are baled for market. That stairway out there 
 to your left leads up to where the cotton is kept before 
 it is ginned, and that small room there is where old 
 Santy mends the harness, and half soles the shoes of the 
 servants. You observe in it the only stove on the es- 
 tate? Why is this? This stove is used to keep the 
 old cobbler's wax ends so warmed as to be pliable in the 
 coldest of weather. You see, in the various and multi- 
 form appointments of his large estate, the old planter 
 does not forget anything. Well, we must go on. What 
 buildings are those down there in that little ravine, with 
 the large gum trees growing near by and those beautiful 
 willows fed by the moisture of the small streams, which 
 constitutes the drainage of the quarter? These are the 
 quarters of perhaps the most useful and at the same time 
 the most interesting servant on the estate; that is Eob- 
 ert, the blacksmith, and that Hercules of a man near by 
 is Washington, who wields the ponderous sledge hammer 
 as though it were a toy. Look at the splendid muscle in 
 those brawny arms, as he and his chief are keeping time 
 with their hammers on the blazing iron on the anvil. 
 Indeed it is an anvil chorus, and how the sparks do fly 
 all over the smithy, but they are well protected by their 
 ample leather aprons. What is Eobert doing now? He 
 is putting a set of steel plates on that beautiful saddle 
 horse out there in the yard. Does he work in steel too? 
 Yes, he served his apprenticeship when a youth under one 
 of the best artisans in the city of Richmond, Virginia. 
 So you see there is skilled labor on this estate as well as 
 in Lowell, Massachusetts. That large room on the left 
 is where Caesar, the wheelwright, makes and repairs the carts 
 and wagons. As we ascend the hill from this ravine, on 
 that broad level are many houses. To what uses are they 
 put? Some of them are barns and cribs for the storage 
 
The Old Plantation. 53 
 
 of grain and forage; others again are large wagon sheds 
 and others still for the comfortable stabling of one hun- 
 dred and fifty horses and mules that are required on this 
 estate. Those out there are for the comfort of the milch 
 cows and the five yoke of oxen. Over there in a more 
 modern building are kept the fancy or pleasure horses 
 of the family, while lower down, in a separate lot or in- 
 closure with high fence all around, are the stables for the 
 two fine stallions, "John Kichlands" and Crackaway," 
 the latter a valuable present from one of the old planter's 
 dearest friends, William B. Meares, Esquire, of Wil- 
 mington; the former the colt of Vashti, the celebrated 
 Sir Archy mare sired by imported Trustee, the father 
 of the world-renowned Fashion, the empress of the Amer- 
 ican turf. Do you hear that fearful noise down there 
 — a sort of combine of foghorn and trombone? My 
 sakes ! what an unearthly racket that is ! It's the bray 
 of old "Dosy," the jack, sire of many of the best mules 
 on the plantation. Do you suppose the notes of Balaam's 
 animal were either as deep or long drawn out? Never. 
 The seer would have been deaf as well as blind in the 
 angelic interview. But the disciples of the higher criti- 
 cism must answer your questions satisfactorily on this 
 point. Whose quarters are those in the center of the 
 quadrangle on which faces so many of these buildings? 
 Those are rooms known as the storehouse, in one of which 
 dear old Ben sleeps, and in which are kept the saddles 
 and bridles, the riding outfit of the family. How com- 
 plete this saddlery is ! Where does it come from ? Most- 
 ly from the fine shops of Nashville, Tennessee, and one or 
 two there are of the English Shafter pattern, bearing the 
 London trademark. In this other larger room are kept 
 the shoes, blankets and hats not yet distributed to the 
 servants, while back in there you will find hoes of vari- 
 ous patterns, from the narrow bladed rice hoe to the 
 broader cotton hoe, rakes, shovels, axes, pickaxes, spades, 
 pitchforks, wagon whips, collars large and small for horses 
 and mules. What small room is that with long table and 
 drawers, well supplied with hooks inserted in the wall. 
 That is Ben's inner sanctuary or where the keys of the 
 
54 The Old Plantation. 
 
 whole plantation, on both sides of the creek, are securely 
 kept under his faithful eye. It would try our patience 
 to stop long enough to count them all, but this faithful, 
 honest darky knows and keeps them all in his safe cus- 
 tody, while he is always ready to saddle you a horse if 
 you wish to ride out on horseback, or on that long bench 
 cut a hamestring for Suwarro's use among the plowmen. 
 We shall see Ben again before our work is done, for you 
 must know him better. He is the embodiment of hon- 
 esty with some of the queer African freaks, in its racial 
 fondness for dress of bright coloring and fancy materials. 
 In other words, Ben is the dude of the plantation, the 
 Beau Brummel of his race, and so you will pronounce 
 when you see him dressed up in his best bib and tucker 
 for the plantation Christmas dinner, the description of 
 which is yet before us. Dear old Ben ! Blessed old 
 Ben ! He is gone long ago where the good darkies go ! 
 How the writer wishes he had a good likeness of him 
 with which to embellish these pages, for a nobler spirit 
 never breathed the breath of life. Across the river of life 
 in the Great Beyond, Ben, I wave my hand to you; yes, 
 I kiss my hand to you and hope soon to have long, long 
 talks with you of the good old plantation days, when we 
 will thank God that my people taught your people to 
 know and love the Christ, the King. 
 
 There are some other things before us and we must 
 hurry on. Let us go back to the old mansion, and in the 
 description which we would leave of it let us insert two 
 or three features of the outhouses, and just one on the 
 interior of the house. Let us go upstairs and on the back 
 piazza, which you observe is without roof, and see what 
 Edith and Kate, the maid servants of the writer's sisters, 
 are doing. They are helping Handy, the dining room 
 servant, to bring up large trays of fruit — peaches, pears 
 and apples — to be dried up there, where nothing will dis- 
 turb them in the hot rays of the sun. What fruit is 
 that of deep blood color? That is the wild plum of the 
 plantation and those trays over there are full of whortle- 
 berries and wild currants. All of this wild or unculti- 
 vated fruit has been purchased from the young servants 
 
The Old Plantation. 55 
 
 of the estate, gathered by them in the adjoining wood- 
 land stretching far away to the south. The storeroom 
 was thus well supplied with delicious dried fruit, and 
 in the winter pies, tarts and dumplings came in as a part 
 of the dessert. As we go downstairs in the hall near the 
 old planter's bedroom door what large enclosure of black 
 walnut is that so like a handsomely finished wardrobe? 
 That is the gun case or closet. Let us look in. Do you 
 see that large double-barreled gun in the center there? 
 That is the gun from a London manufactory (not Joe 
 Manton's, but of very fine workmanship) and, you ob- 
 serve, heavily mounted with silver, with two sets of bar- 
 rels to the same stock, a larger set for the larger game of 
 bear and deer, while the smaller is used for wild turkey, 
 partridges, squirrels and other smaller game. This is the 
 planter's special property, while in the half-dozen other 
 guns you will find such as will please almost any one, 
 likely to use them. Besides the shot guns, there are two 
 or three rifles of different calibre, and one other gun of 
 large bore and great weight manufactured at the United 
 States arsenal, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and es- 
 pecially adapted to plantation purposes. 
 
 On the line of the fence dividing the poultry yard 
 from the dog kennel, on the slope of the hill, do you ob- 
 serve that brick house partly embedded in the hillside? 
 That is the most complete dairy or springhouse in this 
 section of the State. Take down that calabash or gourd 
 and dip down into that deep basin of crystal water which 
 wells up in the center. No limestone there. Pure free- 
 stone or soft water and deliciously cool and very pota- 
 ble. Those troughs all around the sides of the dark, 
 cool room are for the pans of milk. Let us count them. 
 One, two, three and so on to twenty-four pans of milk. 
 How yellow and rich it looks while the cream is coming 
 to the top. Here come the milkmaids now. Do you ob- 
 serve, as they come through the side gate en route to the 
 dairy, with what ease and apparently with what security 
 they balance those large milkpails filled with milk, on 
 their heads and without touching them with their hands? 
 What is the secret of their ability to do this? Perfect 
 
56 The Old Plantation. 
 
 health and strength, with long training from childhood 
 up, running through generations, it may be from the 
 jungles of Africa. 
 
 "How many cows are you now milking, Aunt Abby?" 
 "'Bout twenty-five, suh." 
 "What do your cows eat now?" 
 "Dey's on the secon' crap of rice now, suh." 
 Thus with twenty-five cows to milk and those fed on the 
 second growth of the rice field, after the crop has been 
 harvested, you will quite understand both the quantity and 
 quality of the milk and butter which graced the old 
 planter's table. 
 
 The object of the proprietor of this estate was to pro- 
 duce, as nearly as possible, everything consumed, as well 
 on the plantation proper, as in the turpentine orchards. 
 Thus the large number of casks of spirits of turpentine, 
 as well as the thousands of barrels of resin, which were 
 sold each year in the New York market, produced the 
 monied income of the estate. The ordinary yield of corn 
 was about thirty-five hundred barrels, with a large quan- 
 tity of forage in fodder belonging to this crop, and they 
 were nearly all consumed on the estate. Aside from the 
 large number of beeves butchered on the estate, there were 
 annually a large number sent to the market, while five hun- 
 dred hogs every winter went to the shambles, providing the 
 meat rations of the whole plantation. These furnished 
 a supply of hams for the planter's table, in number so 
 great that they went over from year to year, so that on a 
 highday or a holiday it was not an unusual thing to have 
 a ham on the 'table seven years old. The writer is en- 
 titled to an opinion on the subject of hams, and he here 
 ventures to say that not even the Smithfield ham of Vir- 
 ginia nor that of Westphalia in Europe surpasses those 
 which found their deep russet color in the green hickory 
 and corncob smoke of the old plantation smokehouse. The 
 flocks of sheep, both those on the plantation proper and 
 those under the care of the white tenants in the turpen-.. 
 tine orchards, yielded a fine supply of lambs in the spring 
 of the year to go with the green peas of the early garden, 
 with plenty of mutton throughout the year; while in the 
 
The Old Plantation. 57 
 
 wool, both for home use and the markets, there was no 
 little profit. Just here let it be observed that among 
 those ill informed upon subjects upon which they do no 
 little talking, and but little well informed thinking, the 
 idea is common that there was little or no care taken in 
 the selection of the breeds of farm animals on the Southern 
 estates. It is true that the "razor-backed" hog was seen 
 running at large and sometimes as wild as the country 
 in which they were found. At the same time, on this 
 estate and many others there were several improved 
 breeds of swine, the Essex, the Poland China, the Jersey 
 Eeds, the Little Guinea, the Chester Whites, and that per- 
 fection of a farm animal of its kind, the Berkshire. The 
 proprietor gave particular attention to the breeding of the 
 Merino and Southdown sheep, while among his herds of 
 cattle could be found as fine specimens of Durham and 
 Devon breeds as one might care to see. This you must 
 remember was before the introduction of the Alderney, 
 Jersey or Guernsey from those small islands of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Among other products of this estate were large crops 
 of the black-eyed pea, that Southern substitute for clover, 
 and with this advantage to the pea, in that it was both 
 grain and forage; some eighty or a hundred bags of cot- 
 ton, with rice, tobacco and sorghum for home use. One 
 can quite understand that when all the crops of this estate 
 had been carefully harvested and the hog-killing or 
 butchering season was over, with the era of "hog and hom- 
 iny" fairly ushered in, there was a reign of such an abun- 
 dance of good things as demanded with full warrant the 
 observance of Christmas, that blessed queen of all the plan- 
 tation highdays and holidays, to which justice in nowise 
 could be done until at least a full week had been allowed 
 for this high tide of enjoyment, in both great house and 
 cabin, to expend its force, finding its ebb on January 
 second, when all entered on the duties of the new year. 
 You may be upon the point of asking what were the ra- 
 tions of food and clothing which went regularly to the 
 servants on this estate, and of what did the rations con- 
 sist? You shall have the answer. These people worked 
 
58 The Old Plantation. 
 
 faithfully and they should have been warmly clad and 
 abundantly fed. And so they were. The rations were 
 issued by weight on alternate Saturday afternoons. To 
 each servant there was issued for these fourteen days 
 a half bushel of cornmeal and seven pounds of the very 
 best mess pork, with his potatoes, rice and sorghum, to- 
 gether with his twist or roll of tobacco. The bread ra- 
 tion was often not drawn, but the money equivalent paid 
 at market rates, which ordinarily were fifty cents for 
 meal and forty cents per bushel of potatoes. The cloth- 
 ing was all spun, woven and made on the plantation. The 
 work by which this was done was the outcome of the most 
 perfect system in any department of the plantation in- 
 dustries. The hum of the spinning wheel, the noise of 
 the loom, with the stirring whiz of the weaver's shuttle 
 (all accompanied, many times, by the melody of plant: - 
 tion songs) "Way Down on de Swannee Kiver," "Carry jV > 
 Back to Ole Berginny," "Massa's in de Cole, Cole Gromr 
 and many others which will grow into eternity with bless^ 
 memory as the writer crosses over and meets his demi- 
 sable friends, could be heard from January to Decem- 
 ber. 
 
 The clothing of so many servants required a great 
 'deal of systematized labor. The dyeing process was sim- 
 ple. The barks from the forest trees, the red oak, the 
 poplar and dogwood, furnished the coloring, which was 
 carefully set or fixed by old Aunt Daphne, by the judicious 
 use of copperas and alum. This gave a serviceable brown- 
 ish gray which rarely faded either in the woolen or cotton 
 goods. Those bright red bars, about the width of your 
 little finger, in the dresses of the young women and girls 
 you see there fitting them so snugly, are the outcome of 
 cochineal, known as "de turkey red"' (and red it was) 
 which gives delight to African eyes — just as scarlet 
 as that seen in the uniform of the British soldier of 
 revolutionary days in "76 and thereabouts. To each 
 servant were allowed three full suits of clothes annually, 
 with plenty of wool and cotton allowed the wives and 
 mothers for as many pairs of socks and stockings as they 
 required. Three pairs of shoes, one pair of blankets, 
 
The Old Plantation. 59 
 
 one wool and one straw hat went annually with each ra- 
 tion. To those who were much exposed to bad weather, 
 such as the drivers of. the mule teams and ox-carts, warm 
 overcoats, often weather-proof, were issued. The men 
 employed in ditching, and Uncle Amos, who did nothing 
 but hunt and "'stroy varmints' 7 from year's end to year's 
 end (making the best wages of any servant on the es- 
 tate, because he killed so many eagles, coons and an oc- 
 casional bear, with untold numbers of squirrels, black 
 and red fox and the gray or cat squirrel), were given 
 heavy brogan boots. The hides and skins from the sheep 
 and cattle slaughtered during the year were exchanged 
 for shoes and the leather needed for harness purposes by 
 Brown & De Eossett, the commission merchants in New 
 York, to whom was also consigned the wool for which in 
 exchange we received hats and blankets. 
 
 Thus cared for, we greatly doubt whether any European 
 peasantry or the lower element, the farm laborers of Eng- 
 land's population, or any factory element of either Old 
 or New England fared as well as did the servants em- 
 ployed on this Southern plantation, under the practical, 
 judicious and humane system which has been outlined on 
 these pages. In maintaining this proposition I indulge in 
 no misleading theories or distempered speculation. I 
 discard the vaporing of all sickly, maudlin sentimental- 
 ity when I say that no laboring population was ever bet- 
 ter housed, better fed, better clothed or more humanely em- 
 ployed, as a rule (in which self-interest asserted itself, and 
 where does it not assert itself?) than were the servants 
 on this old estate of my father's. Would you ask what 
 there is to justify this assertion? The answer is close at 
 hand. Facts substantiated by figures. Statistics. You 
 say that statistics are misleading. Yes. One can lie by 
 figures, as seen in watered stocks in Wall street and else- 
 where, but figures of themselves will not lie. 
 
 The rapidity with which the servants on the Southern 
 plantation increased in number, say from 1810 to 1860, 
 just a half century, for the sake of round numbers, is 
 proof conclusive that the general laws of health must have 
 been in the main largely obeyed, and the conditions of 
 
60 The Old Plantation. 
 
 numerical increase in families must have been complied 
 with, else the several hundreds of thousands of dusky 
 forms of African laborers, at the close of the first dec- 
 ade of this century would not have grown into the mil- 
 lions which we all know were found south of the Sus- 
 quehanna in 1865. From a general statement let us 
 pass to a specific, well emphasized demonstration of the 
 truth in this matter. On this plantation dwelt two mar- 
 ried couples — Henry with his wife, Daphne, and George 
 with his wife, Emelene. Thev must have been married 
 in the late twenties. To the former couple were born 
 thirteen children, boys and girls, twelve of whom they 
 reared to full adult age. To the latter were born eleven 
 children, of whom ten reached manhood and womanhood. 
 In other words the increase of twenty-two servants from 
 the parentage of four persons. This is an increase of 
 more than four hundred per cent., and tells us its own 
 story of kind treatment. Nor have we any ground for say- 
 ing that these were exceptional cases, when we remem- 
 ber that to-day in the South there are whole Congres- 
 sional districts in which the negroes far outnumber the 
 whites. Nor yet can anyone (save he who has been 
 misled by Mrs. Stowe's ex 'parte, and therefore unfair, 
 statement in "Uncle Tom's Cabin") say that the recital 
 of facts, figures and conditions on these pages is not a 
 fair picture of the old plantation life. Doubtless in Vir- 
 ginia on the James River estates, in South Carolina on 
 the Wade Hampton plantations, and elsewhere in the 
 South, there were many instances of even more humane 
 treatment of the servants than is given here. 
 
 But we will go into no elaborate argumentation. The 
 day for that is over. What we want are facts, and we 
 are meeting Mrs. Stowe's statement, not by argument, but 
 by cool, dispassionate facts. What do you say to the por- 
 trayal of an element of African character in the form of 
 an anecdote? Nothing pleases me more. 
 
 Well, it was a week of Christmas. Of several large 
 gobblers, already fat, which had been put up in the large 
 fattening coop to be flavored by the peanuts so abundant, 
 one was missed. It created quite a stir. Handy, who 
 
The Old Plantation. 61 
 
 fed the poultry, was excited, half mad and half fright- 
 ened, in view of the consequences. Report was made to 
 Uncle Jim, Suwarro and Ben, and close search was had. 
 At last, so close was the search for the fine gobbler which 
 was to grace "ole MarsterV' Christinas dinner table that 
 he was found hid away in old Cupid's ash barrel. Re- 
 port was made and arrest ensued, with incriminating 
 facts. The old darky sent for his Marse John. His 
 young master appearing, the following conversation en- 
 sued: 
 
 "Come, now, Uncle Cupid, tell the truth about it; 
 the whole truth, mind you, old man, and nothing but the 
 truth. Are you sorry or not that you stole that turkey ?" 
 
 The old darky's racial fondness for turkey going into 
 the background, under the shadow of his fear of penalty 
 and in his great confidence in his young master, he called 
 out: 
 
 "Marse John, you ax fo' de truf, doan' yo'?" 
 
 "Yes, Uncle Cupid, the whole truth." 
 
 "Well, now, suh, yo' see I can't say so mi'ty much 'bout 
 bein' so 'ticular sorry I tuk dat turkey; but 'fore Gord, 
 suh, young marster, I'se mi'ty sorry I was co'ch." 
 
 "That will do, Ben, let him go, he has told the truth. 
 Don't steal any more turkeys, old man. Go home, now, 
 and I will always stand by you when you tell the truth, 
 for you certainly have told the truth this time — not so 
 very sorry you took the master's turkey, but mighty sorry 
 you were caught." 
 
 With loving laughter in his old eyes, Cupid went on to 
 his home rejoicing, while Ben and the other servants 
 laughed most heartily at the old man's straightforward 
 honesty of speech, if not of act. 
 
62 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 As we are about to enter on the description of the 
 forest wealth of this estate — the turpentine orchards of 
 the plantation, on which was expended by far the larger 
 part of the labor and from which the revenue was mainly 
 derived — it will be well if we pause just long enough here 
 to make the full acquaintance of Uncle Philip, the man- 
 ager of this department. In many respects, he was the 
 most remarkable person of his class the writer has ever 
 known. He was now about sixty years of age, of small 
 stature, a genuine blue-black, as active as a boy of sev- 
 enteen, and as quick in his motions as the beautiful horse 
 Selim, which he rode. This animal was the joy and pride 
 of the old man's heart, and ranked next in the old African's 
 affection to his old master, for whom he bore a love which 
 was the outcome of a close relation running through their 
 lives. Philip had come down with the plantation from 
 the planter's father. In childhood and boyhood, and in 
 fact thus far in life, they had really been boon companions, 
 together learning to swim, to ride, to handle firearms, and 
 thus learning to know and to trust each other in a way 
 and to a degree that few persons, if any, thinking of the 
 institution of which their close relation was the product, 
 can at this late day quite understand. 
 
 To both Fred Douglas and Booker Washington, in point 
 of advantage given them by education, this noble old 
 servant must necessarily have yielded ; but he was very 
 little, if any, inferior to any man, white or colored, the 
 writer has ever known, in all that is understood by keen 
 
The Old Plantation. 63 
 
 active mother wit and strong common (or rather uncom- 
 mon) sense. Outside of his small family there was no 
 one of a very large acquaintance whom the old planter 
 loved more tenderly or trusted more implicitly. Thor- 
 oughly illiterate, really not knowing a letter in the book, 
 he was fully equal to all the details of his large and im- 
 portant trust. His memory, naturally strong and tenacious, 
 by constant use and honest trust in it, served him in- 
 stead of memoranda, and his verbal report of the week's 
 work which went on the plantation books regularly every 
 Saturday afternoon, was both full and accurate. With- 
 out him the proprietor would have been sadly at sea, in 
 his full knowledge of all connected with his department. 
 
 What was very remarkable in his case was that, in his 
 full fidelity to his master, he did not compromise the 
 respect and good will of his fellow servants. Among his 
 own race he was the most universally popular servant on 
 the whole estate, and had there been set up here a little 
 Dominion of Dahomey, Uncle Philip would have been 
 chosen king by universal acclaim. One can quite under- 
 stand how such a servant should have been very much 
 petted, but no indulgence seemed to spoil him. Do you see 
 3'onder house standing at the close of what the servants 
 call Broadway, in that cluster of elm and maple trees? 
 That is Uncle Philip's house. Let us enter it. In the 
 first room you find shelves and hooks and racks around 
 the walls. What do they mean? This is the old man's 
 little storeroom. He was so absorbed in his devotion to 
 his master's interests, so fully cut off thereby from the 
 many little ways of making money for himself accorded 
 the other servants, that he was allowed the privilege of his 
 little store, where he kept a slender stock of staple goods 
 — coffee, tea, sugar, cheese, cakes, peanuts, calico and home 
 brewed beer (ginger and persimmon), with which he drove 
 his little trades with his fellow servants ; in lieu of monev, 
 often taking coon, rabbit, and squirrel skins as a circulat- 
 ing medium. 
 
 One would have been surprised to know how much money 
 in the course of a year the old man took in. The writer 
 when a boy would often exceed the allowance of pocket 
 
64 The Old Plantation. 
 
 money from his mother. On the Southern plantation 
 the rule was that the sons drew their pocket change from 
 their mother until they were sent off to school, when the 
 father became the son's banker. Often and ever, when 
 out of money, the writer would borrow from Uncle Philip, 
 who always insisted on a note given with a formal seal, 
 at ninety or one hundred and twenty days after date, lie- 
 member, the old man did not know the boyish hand- 
 writing from Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was a matter 
 of trust, pure and simple. Invariably, a few days before 
 the note fell due the old man would approach the maker of 
 the note, with the most respectful suggestion: 
 
 "Marse Jeems, you dun forget dat little paper of yourn, 
 isn't you?" 
 
 Unless the writer wished his father to know of this 
 transaction he had to stir around, get up the money 
 and settle with his devoted old creditor, who insisted 
 on payment of principal and interest, but who would 
 immediately renew the loan if desired. It has always 
 been a matter of mystery to me how he could figure 
 up his interest so accurately, and yet I never knew 
 him to make a mistake. This incident is here given 
 that one may see the generous confidence and loving 
 relation of the old plantation life betweeen master 
 and servant. If the writer meets with Mrs. Stowe in the 
 next world he intends to acquaint her with much that did 
 not appear in her ignorant compend of anger, hatred and 
 malice — that avant-coureur of the John Brown raid which 
 was the skirmish line of 1861 and ? 65 — that period of 
 national dementia which, in its bitter and bloody antag- 
 onism to the law and order both of Holy Scripture and 
 the Constitution, argued that prolongation of the godless 
 French revolution. We shall now go on to the lake and 
 acquaint the reader with the turpentine orchard and the 
 distilleries of the spirits of turpentine and resin con- 
 nected with this estate. Catherine Lake was the largest 
 of a chain of seven or eight small lakes which 'we find iij 
 the midst of the twenty-two thousand acres of splendid 
 pine trees embracing the turpentine orchards of this estate, 
 This lake was about a half mile in length and from a quar- 
 
The Old Plantation. 65 
 
 ter to three-eighths of a mile in breadth, in many places 
 quite deep and in some places covered over with the pads 
 of water lilies, in season very beautiful with their large 
 white flowers. There was neither visible outlet nor inlet. 
 It must have derived its bountiful and uniform supply 
 of crystal water from hidden springs. It contained a large 
 supply of small fish of the perch family, with a great 
 many small turtles, or as the negroes called them "tar- 
 rapins." In the winter season large droves of wild duck 
 came from the rice fields and elsewhere to roost here. 
 Come, get into this sail boat, and from yonder little island 
 we will get a full view of the old planter's possessions 
 on the south bank of this lake, and we will have a long, 
 long talk about this branch of the plantation industries. 
 Those large columns of black smoke you see issuing from 
 those tall chimneys are from the two large distilleries you 
 observe there, while that windmill drives the force pump 
 which furnishes the large quantities of water required in 
 the distillation of some hundreds of barrels of crude 
 turpentine consumed daily. The process of distillation 
 of spirits of turpentine for the world's markets is so like 
 that of the distillation of whiskey and brandy that we do 
 not regard it necessary to go into details. In that large 
 cluster of houses near by you will find the cooper shops 
 and the large sheds for storing the barrel timber. Do 
 you hear that merry ringing out of voices, in tuneful time 
 to the coopers' adzes and drivers, as they force the hoops 
 home on these barrels, used in the shipment of the white 
 resin to New York and Boston? From each cooper were 
 required forty-two barrels each week, and so easy was 
 the task and so skilled were the best of them that they 
 could readily enough make over and above their task from 
 eight to ten barrels per week extra. Thus Dave and Sam 
 and the other coopers had from eighty cents to a dollar 
 in change to spend at Uncle Philip's store or to do what 
 they pleased with on Saturday afternoon. Near by is 
 the glue house, where the casks used in the shipment of 
 the spirits of turpentine were made good and tight; and 
 there is the large and airy stabling for the numerous mules 
 used in the heavy transportation of the crude turpentine 
 
66 The Old Plantation. 
 
 to the distilleries, as well as in hauling the manufactured 
 article to the landing on the river some six miles away. 
 
 That comfortable looking home out there to the left 
 is the summer house of the old planter, far away (some 
 three miles) from the malaria that may be lurking around 
 and the mosquitoes buzzing about the old mansion of the 
 plantation proper, which we have already visited but only 
 partly described. 
 
 An elaborate description of the coastal forest region of 
 the South will not be here attempted. Suffice it to say that 
 in the large area of the western part of the State of North 
 Carolina, together with the Piedmont and coastal re- 
 gions, are embraced more than three-fourths of the acre- 
 age of the whole State. The revenue in timber, lumber 
 and turpentine products has been variously estimated at 
 from thirty-five to forty millions each year. Into these 
 twenty thousand and more acres connected with this estate 
 which we are describing let us at once enter with Uncle 
 Philip, and we will listen while the writer is describing 
 the mode by which these millions on millions of boxes are 
 inserted into these large yellow pines, out of which the 
 crude turpentine is taken to go into these distilleries 
 for the world's market. The planter's New York market 
 is largely regulated by the relation of supply and demand 
 in the Liverpool and other European markets. 
 
 When you are about to take up a body of pine forests 
 and reduce it to the culture of turpentine, what is the 
 first thing you do ? 
 
 "Listen, Uncle Philip, and see if I inform the reader 
 correctly." 
 
 "Yas, suh, dat I will, Marse Jeems." 
 
 Well, the first thing you do is to burn over the wood, 
 so as to throw them open by destroying all the under- 
 growth possible. Then the box cutters come, some twen- 
 ty-five or thirty in number. In the late fall and all 
 through the winter, when the sap is flowing more slug- 
 gishly, and when the cutting into the tree seems to 
 injure them least, they are very busy. These splendid 
 axemen come with their long, narrow-bladed, highly tem- 
 pered axes, which are made by the blacksmith, Robert, 
 
The Old Plantation. 67 
 
 on the plantation. They make seven or eight deep inci- 
 sions in the shape of a crescent or new moon, about five 
 5 inches above the ground, obliquely down into the tree. 
 Then they hollow out behind these incisions towards the 
 heart of the tree, and presently you will see how skill- 
 fully these axemen with their ringing strokes will com- 
 plete one of these smoothly finished pockets or boxes as 
 they are called. Then they corner them, as they call it; 
 that is, they will smoothly notch these pockets at the cor- 
 ners, so as to cause the flow of the sap from the edges 
 towards the center. How many of these will they insert 
 into each tree ? Some four or five. This depends on the 
 size of the tree. You must be careful not to overbox the 
 tree — in failing to leave a space as broad or broader than 
 a man's hand of untouched bark between the boxes — so 
 that the sap will have plenty of room for free and rapid 
 flow. What is the estimated capacity of the box? About 
 a quart or a little over is the regulation size. How many 
 of these in a day's task for each man A good axeman 
 will readily cut one hundred and twenty-five daily, will 
 have finished his seven hundred and fifty by the middle 
 of the afternoon on Friday, and have the remaining part 
 of the week for himself. Thus your thirty hands will 
 have finished in one week twenty-two thousand, five hun- 
 dred? Yes. How many of these constitute a week's 
 task for a good hand ? Twelve thousand, five hundred are 
 accounted a fair work for an average man to chip, or open 
 the pores of each box, once each week. What do you 
 mean by chipping? Each man is furnished with a tool 
 called a roundshave, which is of finely tempered steel, 
 in the shape of a small knife, round and bent like your 
 forefingers curved from the second joint, about an inch 
 and a half in width, with a shank about seven inches 
 in length to fit in a wooden handle. With this sharp 
 instrument he scores horizontally just above the box or 
 pocket and thus keeps the pores open and the sap running 
 freely into the box. If the winter is an open or warm one 
 the insertion of the box will have set the pine to bleeding 
 so freely as to fill the box by the tenth of April. If so, 
 another set of hands come with their dippers and buckets, 
 
68 The Old Plantation; 
 
 dip out the boxes and fill their buckets, which they empty 
 into barrels dropped at convenient places here and there 
 ' by negro boys with their mule carts. These the carters 
 bunch or gather together, so as to expedite the work of the 
 wagons in hauling them to the distilleries, after they 
 have been headed up by a cooper. Thus the work of chip- 
 ping goes on without interruption each week, from about 
 the fifteenth of April until the fifteenth of September — 
 about five months — while the dippers go from one task 
 or allotment of boxes to another, and so on regularly 
 through the working season of five months. Each one of 
 these dippers will dip out and fill four barrels daily, 
 or twenty-four in a week. He will get through with his 
 task on Friday; and on Saturday, by pushing on with his 
 work, he will make from forty to sixty cents for himself. 
 You will observe that by this plan of operation each crop 
 will be reached by the dippers some four times each 
 season, giving the planter from his orchard as many 
 partial harvests each year, which to one understanding 
 the judicious use of his money is a marked advantage over 
 the cotton, sugar, tobacco or rice crops. When the nights 
 begin to turn cool and the sap ceases to flow you will find 
 that on the face of the box (the space between the chipping 
 or the opening of the pores and the pocket or box) there 
 will be a deposit of turpentine not unlike the whitest wax. 
 This is the turpentine which has been hardened by the 
 air. Into a box on four short legs at the base of the 
 tree this deposit is scraped off and mixed with the con- 
 tents of the pocket, and finds its way to the distilleries. 
 
 This closes the active operations of the year, which gen- 
 erally come about the first of November, when these labor- 
 ers can be taken in to work on the plantation, opening 
 ditches, clearing new ground or put to cutting other boxes 
 in the virgin pines, if the planter wishes to extend his 
 crop of boxes each year. The average chipper from 
 his crop in five months will produce about five hundred 
 barrels of about thirty-two gallons each, so that the sixty 
 servants will in that time make about thirty thousand 
 barrels, leaving some six months of the year to be em- 
 ployed, either in the extension of the turpentine orchard 
 
The Old Plantation. 69 
 
 0.. in farm work, as the planter may elect. By joining 
 these two industries, the orchards and the plantation, mak- 
 ing the latter the full feeder of the former, yon will 
 readily understand how it is that the plantation can be 
 kept, with its fine fencing, trim hedgerows, well worked 
 roads, largely like a garden. How long will the average 
 pine tree continue to yield its sap as above described? A 
 crop of boxes will continue profitable for ten or twelve 
 years. Is the tree worthless after that time? No. It 
 yields fine wood, excellent lumber, but not the best — as 
 largely drained of its essential oil in the turpentine ex- 
 tracted it cannot be as valuable for timber purposes as the 
 untapped tree — yet in the markets of this country and 
 Europe still valuable ; notably so when not exposed to the 
 weather but used for inside work, as in framing, flooring 
 and ceiling. Then, too, many of these pines, after they 
 have been cultivated for years, are cut out and from them 
 are extracted the tar and pitch of the markets of the 
 world. Do you regard these turpentine orchards, worked 
 as indicated above, as profitable? One would think so 
 if one would look at the account of the planter with his 
 commission merchants in New York. You will see that 
 his income is about sixty thousand dollars per annum, 
 without reference to the yearly increased value of stock, 
 lands and servants, which are by no means inconsiderable 
 items or features of this steadily increasing wealth of the 
 planter. Are the servants of the turpentine orchards 
 generally healthy? There are no laborers in the world 
 more so. The balsamic properties, which the pine tree 
 is constantly distilling in the air, seem to counteract any 
 poison from malaria. What water do they drink? Here 
 and there are small but clear streams of running water 
 all over these large tracts of pine-covered lands, and if 
 the servant is out of condition you will see him take the 
 joint of the ordinary reed, which he carries in his pocket 
 for that purpose, kneel down at the base of a pine tree 
 and slake his thirst from the rain water which has been 
 caught in the box or pocket, impregnated as it is with 
 the turpentine. This reaches and regulates his liver and 
 .keeps him healthy. 
 
70 The Old Plantation. 
 
 As compared with the other staples of the South, what 
 do yon regard as the most serious drawback or disadvan- 
 tage of the planter's turpentine interests? The laborers, 
 and notably so the drippers, are employed in large, wooded 
 tracts of country, out of range of anything like close 
 oversight and must be stimulated to their best work, 
 as well by premiums for best crops as by so regulating 
 their work that a portion of each week is their own to do 
 as they please with. It is very different on the cotton, 
 sugar, tobacco and rice plantations. The great disad- 
 vantage in the crop, however, is that the distilleries, the 
 spirits of turpentine, the resin, and in fine the whole plant 
 and its yields are so combustible that no insurance com- 
 pany, domestic or foreign, will insure the property. The 
 only protection against fire that can be had is to police the 
 premises as thoroughly as possible. How is this done? 
 By placing here and there all over the orchards double 
 log cabins for the families of some twenty or more white 
 men. These people occupy these cabins free of rent, with 
 as much land as they choose to cultivate, which rarely 
 extends beyond a garden and truck patch, the men fishing 
 and hunting by day and night, while the women hoe the 
 little crops and raise poultry, the children gathering 
 whortleberries and wild currants. These men are re- 
 quired to do three things ; first, they are to guard the 
 orchards from fire, and if a small fire occur, as it often 
 does in the summer time by lightning striking and ignit- 
 ing a resinous pine tree, they and their families must 
 extinguish it. If it gets beyond their control they are 
 to blow horns, summon the neighboring tenants and, send- 
 ing all around for help, fight the fire fiend until it is put 
 out; secondly, they must once a week salt and care for the 
 herd of cattle and drove of sheep belonging to the pro- 
 prietor, carefully penning the sheep at night so as io 
 protect them from the dogs, wildcats and bears, which are 
 found in those large tracts of unbroken forests. Thirdly, 
 they must look out for the planter's honey bees, and when 
 the cold weather sets in they must take the honey and 
 carry it into the mansion for the use of the planter's 
 family. They are obliged, under contract, to turn out 
 
The Old Plantation. 71 
 
 when summoned to work the roads of the estate. These 
 tenants find a ready market for all the game, poultry and 
 berries they will carry into the plantation. Sometimes 
 they spend a whole lifetime in this dwarfed but important 
 relation to the proprietor. They form a distinct element 
 in the organism of this large landed estate. They never 
 mingle with the more thrifty white people, while the 
 negroes on the estate look down upon them, calling them, 
 most disdainfully, "poor white trash." Under the old 
 regime this was the people who were unhappily affected by 
 the plantation system, because they lived in the presence 
 of and close contact with servile labor and lived and died 
 with an emphatic protest against the decree which forced 
 them to work. From this class all through the coastal re- 
 gion, during the late Confederacy, sprang what was called 
 the "buffalo," who cast in their lot with the federal troops 
 as soon as any lodgment was made. They have not yet 
 died out from among us, but still live, utterly contemned 
 by the better class of whites and distrusted by negroes. 
 
 "Well, Uncle Philip, how does this account agree with 
 your view of it?" 
 
 "It's mi' ty nigh rite, Marse Jeems ; youse made it nifty 
 plain to dis old darky." 
 
 "Well, what does that heavy smoke mean over there, old 
 man ?" 
 
 "Why, suh, Harry, the distiller, is lettin' off his heavy 
 charge of rosun and dat is de smoke yo' see, suh. Marse 
 Jeems, it's about twelve o'clock, suh, and I must be gwin- 
 ing." ' 
 
 So to the mainland we go, and when about half way, 
 where the water is quite deep, and we see the tall bodies 
 of the large pines standing all around the rim of the 
 lake, not unlike the palisades on the Hudson River, Uncle 
 Philip takes a long tin bugle and giving a full blast upon 
 it wakes up the echoes far and near, which come back to 
 us in wave sounds very deep and at times very sweet. 
 Reaching the shore, the writer goes around to a secluded 
 cove and, in the crystal waters of the lake, enjoys a de- 
 lightful bath, with a good, long swim, after an old- 
 fashioned dive from the spring board with which tlri§ 
 
72 The Old Plantation: 
 
 deep pool is furnished. After the bath he is joined by 
 the old planter at lunch, where some of the lake fish are 
 discussed, together with a cup of Maria's best coffee and 
 the eggs, fried to a turn on both sides, followed by a plate 
 of wild currants and cream. Just such a lunch for all the 
 world as would make a Southern man*s mouth water, 
 even if he were at Harvey's in Washington or at Del- 
 monico's in New York. 
 
The Old Plantation. 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 At lunch it is agreed upon that we go some four of five 
 miles south of the lake, for the double purpose of inspecting 
 a road which is being opened in that part of the orchard 
 and of salting the sheep and cattle. When he is mounted 
 you will be struck with some features of the planter's 
 outfit. You observe what a fine rider he is, as like a cen- 
 taur he sits that beautiful horse of his, gliding along 
 in that perfection of gaits, the fox trot of the Southern 
 saddle horse, so easy, so undulating as scarcely to move the 
 dear old gentleman in his firm seat. What is that tied 
 so securely to the back of his saddle ? That is a wallet of 
 stout, homespun cloth, in one section of which, were you 
 to inspect it, you would find a number of ready-made 
 wooden wedges of different sizes, with which to wedge up 
 the gates of the plantation if one of them should be found 
 not to swing easily on its hinges, while in another depart- 
 ment you would find strips of leather in the shape of both 
 throat-latches for the bridle and hamestrings as well, 
 with a number of "nubbins" or small ears of corn for any 
 pig or heifer which he may meet with in his ride. What 
 is that buckled, in its leather case, so securely to the bow 
 of his saddle? That is his keen-edged hatchet, which, 
 with splendid silver-mounted, double-barrelled shotgun, 
 constitutes his outfit. Do you observe how large and deep 
 are the skirts of his beautiful Nashville saddle? Why 
 are they so large? To protect his limbs from the sweat 
 of his horse. Do you observe that beautiful broad- 
 brimmed Guayaquil straw hat he is wearing and how. 
 
74 The Old Plantation.' 
 
 nicely gloved he is, while you must be struck with the 
 highly polished steel spurs he is wearing? How sharp 
 the rowels are. Those spurs are polished every morning 
 by his body servant, "Buck," as regularly as are his boots. 
 Thus mounted the writer thinks that not even General 
 Joe Johnston or Wade Hampton or Ashby himself were 
 finer riders. As he calls out to Buck to follow on with his 
 sack, partially filled with salt, tied-behind him on his mule, 
 we ride along together, talking of crops, the weather and 
 politics with that absence of reserve and that peculiarly 
 tender abandon characterizing the relation of the old 
 Southern planter and his children, for there was no aloof- 
 ness of bearing here. Though the years have run into 
 decades since that bright portion of his life, and the blood 
 runs rather sluggishly in his old veins, yet, with blessed 
 retrospect, the pulses of life quicken and he finds him- 
 self calling out to himself, 
 
 "Would I were a boy again." 
 
 What large spaces are those on the right and left of the 
 road leading away to the south-west? They are two of 
 the small prairies or meadows, of seventy-five or a hun- 
 dred acres each, with which these turpentine orchards 
 abound, in many cases without a single tree of any size 
 upon them. Their conformation is that of a large, shal- 
 low saucer, thickly set with a variety of wild grasses and 
 embellished by myriads of lovely wild flowers, among which 
 are the scarlet Indian pink and the dwarfed honeysuckle, 
 while the air is redolent with the perfume of the wild 
 vanilla, giving out its odor, as its leaves are bruised by 
 the feet of the cattle and the sheep grazing out there as 
 you see. How fine is the effect of these beautiful meadows, 
 hedged around by those tall, stately, forest sentinels, those 
 magnificent yellow pines of dear old Southland, by all odds 
 the most useful of all the trees in the American forests ! 
 On all these meadows, many in number, on this estate, you 
 might readily graze two or three thousand cattle ; thus it is, 
 with the fine winter pasturage of the salt marshes, there 
 is not a month in the year in which the old planter could 
 jiot have from his own shambles fine beef and mutton, 
 
The Old Plantation. 75 
 
 These wild grasses heie are often very tall and luxuriant, 
 coming up in height to your feet in the stirrup, as ono 
 rides along to yonder ridge where the salt is given the 
 cattle in long wooden troughs, around which in droves 
 they have already gathered m eager expectancy, for they 
 have already sniffed the salt in Buck's big bag behind him 
 on the mule, as salt is indeed the savor of life. 
 
 We had already reached the center of the larger meadow 
 on the left when the conversation ceased, as is often the 
 case when one is in sweet communion with nature, as 
 here in one of her loveliest moods — the meadowlands 
 crowned with their rich product of natural grasses, the 
 honey bee busy in gathering her nectared sweets from 
 the myriads of wild flowers blooming in such rich pro- 
 fusion all around, the only sound heard the lowing of the 
 kine and the plaintive bleating of the sheep — in Indian 
 file we were making our way towards the salting ground, 
 with the old planter in the lead and Buck bringing up the 
 rear, when, as sudden as a bolt from heaven and as quick 
 as thought, there rang out on the air, "Bang ! bang P 
 What does it mean? We had come upon two fine deer. 
 Approaching them to the leeward they could not smell us, 
 the footfall of our horses' feet being muffled by the lush 
 grass they could not hear us, while their cover was so 
 deep they could not see us, and we had come bluff up 
 on two old bucks, when, with his fine aim and long 
 ranged gun, the planter had covered them both before they 
 could get out of range. Startled as they sprang up, they 
 had fled in opposite directions but all to no purpose, for 
 before they had reached the cover of the pine forests down 
 they both went, when my father turned and called out 
 in strong tones, 
 
 "Got them both, son, by George!" 
 
 And so he had, for in less time than is required to tell 
 of it the sharp blade of the pocket knife had passed over 
 the jugular of both, and Buck's face was radiant with de- 
 light as he called out: 
 
 "Shure as yo' is bo'n, Marse Jeems, ole marster is 
 de bes' shot in Norf Ca'liny." 
 
 The cattle were soon salted, and the smaller of the two 
 
76 The Old Plantation. 
 
 bucks was secured behind the saddle of the planter with- 
 out any difficulty. When it came to tying the other 
 buck on the negro's mule we had no easy task, for, whether 
 or not it comes from close association with each other, 
 both negroes and mules are afraid of the dead. Finally 
 we succeeded after much coaxing and, the last resort 
 in such cases, blindfolding the mule. All the way home 
 Buck was kept in a state of fear lest the mule should 
 "roach"' his back, which is the asinine mode of putting 
 his muscles in such fearful battery as would have landed 
 with fearful force Buck, saddle, deer and all promis- 
 cuously on the breast of mother earth. Thus laden 
 with fine venison our gait was indeed a slow one. How- 
 ever, we soon struck the main road about a mile from the 
 homestead, where we overtook a long line of wagons 
 heavily laden with lumber from the planter's saw mill 
 at the lake. These wagons en route from the landing, 
 where they had carried their heavy freightage of spirits 
 of turpentine and resin, had stopped at the distilleries 
 and were on their way home with lumber for the uses 
 of the plantation. Early next morning Buck, on mule 
 back, was dispatched with a large old-fashioned basket 
 (woven on the plantation of the pliant splits of white 
 oak) in which choice roasts and steaks of venison were 
 carried to the planters' wives of the neighboring estates, 
 with a kind note from him whose fine marksmanship we 
 have witnessed. 
 
 These interchanges of such courtesies were quite com- 
 mon among the plantations before the war. Dwelling 
 among their own people, remote from the towns, the old 
 planter and his family were largely dependent for so- 
 ciety upon their neighbors; and in those blessed arcadian 
 days, before prurient materialism had laid such baneful 
 hold upon our population, social life at the South had 
 taken on such fine forms as to make it the admiration 
 of all who came in contact with it. It was then that 
 citizenship at the South rose to its high water mark, 
 possessing those who wore it with such social charms and 
 buttressed on such high integrity, long before the dark 
 days of "credit mobilier," as to make it very influential 
 
jThe Old Plantation. 1 77 
 
 all over the land. But these days have passed away. 
 "Times change and we change with them/' said the old 
 pagan. The era of cui lono philosophy, with its cognate 
 of "Honesty is the best policy/' is upon us now, wrapping 
 around our lares and penates its certificates of stocks in 
 such transforming and deforming manner and results, as 
 well-nigh to hide them out of view. It was during these bet- 
 ter days of the republic that from the South were furnished 
 to the nation such statesmen as King of Alabama, Badger 
 of North Carolina, Beeves of Virginia, Keverdy Johnson 
 of Maryland, Crittenden and Breckenridge of Kentucky, 
 and a host of others so noted for high courage and deep 
 insight into the genius of republican institution — allied 
 with such fine forms of statesmanship and such incor- 
 ruptible integrity — as to constitute them and others like 
 them the very guardians of the country. 
 
 We have spoken of the hospitality of the South. Let 
 us close this chapter by an incident, which will serve the 
 purpose of its illustration, bringing out some of the cus- 
 toms of the planter's family, while shedding some light 
 upon the characteristics of the servants who dwelt at that 
 time so happily in their freedom from care and responsi- 
 bility, with their old master, under the vine and fig tree 
 of his ample and loving provision. Under a charter from 
 one of the Charleses there came from old England before 
 the Eevolution of the American colonies a large band 
 of Scotch people, who settled in the upper Cape Fear 
 section of North Carolina. Their descendants are still 
 there and embrace among their unnumbered "Macs'' some 
 of the very best citizens of the old State. Of course, in 
 coming from Scotland they brought with them that na- 
 tional fondness for letters and those peculiar religious 
 dogmas which constituted them old-fashioned Presby- 
 terians, pure and simple. Holding their religious faith 
 with the tenacity of Moslems they, by well directed mis- 
 sionary work, sought to introduce it into other parts of 
 the State. Informed at home by the young and well 
 educated Scotchmen, who had gone down as teachers in 
 the families of the planters in the tidewater country, both 
 of the wealth there abounding and of the absence of any 
 
yS The Old Plantation. 
 
 and all allegiance to the Westminister catechism, with 
 their characteristic zeal they sent their missionaries down 
 there to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes of 
 Zion in this neglected part of the State. In the old county 
 of Onslow, in which the scene of this incident is laid, there 
 was not a single organized congregation of Presbyterians. 
 Of course a missionary was sent here, a noble representa- 
 tive of his high and holy faith he was, combining great 
 pastoral activity with such powers as a preacher and 
 allied with such purity and simplicity of life, as enabled 
 him in his marked popularity and extended usefulness to 
 preach the word of God to crowded congregations. He 
 was very popular, and nowhere more so than at the home 
 of the writer's father, where he was always a most wel- 
 come guest. On one of his many visits to the old home, 
 after family worship one night, he was shown to his cham- 
 ber by Handy, the dining room servant, who, with a pair 
 of slippers under his arm and the old-fashioned candle- 
 stick with spermaceti candle in it in the other hand, 
 lighted the holy man of God up to the prophet's cham- 
 ber. After entering the room Handy waited some little 
 time for the divine to draw off his boots, that he might 
 take them downstairs and polish them for the next day's 
 use. There stood the negro waiting for the boots. The 
 clergyman, utterly ignoring the presence of the boy, in that 
 absent mindedness often found in those whose sweetest 
 pleasure is in close communion with dead men in their 
 books, proceeded to pour out a little water in a goblet; 
 then, standing before the mirror, with great dexterity, he 
 unshipped an eye and placed it in the goblet. This un- 
 familiar, uncanny scene shook the nerves of the negro very 
 severely ; yet, thoroughly trained to obedience, he held 
 his ground. But when, standing before the looking-glas~, 
 the Scotch parson proceeded to take out a set of false teeth, 
 Handy could stand the performance no longer. Dashing 
 down the slippers, and waiting no longer for the boots 
 nor for anything else, he rushed down the stairway and 
 never stopped until he landed in the kitchen, where, out 
 of breath from the rapid gait whereby he emphasized his 
 fearful fright, he called out to the old cook as best he 
 
The Old Plantation? 79 
 
 could with his short breathing, "A'nt Patty, dat, dat, 
 dat dar preecherman upstairs farely takin' hisself all to 
 pieces." Said the old cook, "You'd bettah go bac ? and 
 git him boots, yuh fool nigger." "No, ma'm, I wouldn't 
 go up dem sta'rs to-nite fur his boots full ob money." 
 Nor did he go until the daylight of the next morning gave 
 him the full assurance that there were no ghosts or hob- 
 goblins, in the form of a preacherman, to do him harm. 
 
 Ah, these blessed old plantation servants, with all their 
 fine forms of beautiful devotion to duty, how very super- 
 stitious they were; and yet not at all more so than the 
 corresponding class in the older civilizations of Europe. 
 After all is not human happiness hindered rather than 
 promoted by that excess of one-sided education which in 
 unfettering the intellect so enchains the heart and its 
 sweet affections as to eliminate from the problem of 
 human life those factors of reverence and docility which, 
 in the blind worship of cold Egoism, is wrecking the faith 
 of the world? 
 
 ,- 
 
go The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 So much is there to be said of the old plantation life 
 to those who discover any interest in the manners, cus- 
 toms and other formative influences of the ante-bellum 
 Southland, that we may have tarried too long in the de- 
 scription of the turpentine orchards. Yet this can scarcely 
 be so to those who are both proud of and interested in 
 their ancestors. French novels may come in by the score 
 (bringing in such brain products as those of Zola, and 
 others cf his stamp), and by their prurient realism may 
 impair the purity of our lighter literature. Clubs may 
 be organized for the discussion of such authors as Mrs. 
 Humphrey Ward and others of her stamp, but the healthy 
 Anglo-Saxon mind is so strongly attached to the masters 
 of the British classics that we may rest secure in the 
 possession of the writings of Thackeray, Scott, Bulwer (in 
 his better days and purer works) and the incomparable 
 Dickens, in their fine influence over our children. In 
 America it will be a long, long time before our own Fen- 
 imore Cooper ( delighting, in his "Leather Stocking Tales," 
 to tell us of the Indian summer, that honeymoon of the 
 year, in which one loves to recall the names of those who 
 made nature a great white throne where men might kneel 
 or dream or worship) will have failed to influence the youth 
 of our land. And this is so, not because he was a delineator 
 of nature, so much as because he keeps us in loving touch 
 with the past and its blessed traditions and influences, so 
 potent in the coinage of a splendid type of genuine man- 
 hood. We believe that, in keeping our children well in- 
 
The Old Plantation/ 81 
 
 formed of their ancestral virtues we shall furnish them 
 with the most healthv corrective of, much, in the last 
 quarter of the nineteenth century's electric social condi- 
 tion, which to the mind furnished and strengthened by 
 the philosophy of history must present itself as most 
 enervating and harmful in many ways. Therefore it is 
 that this book is written; that the effort is made to pre- 
 serve pure and inviolate the annals of the Southern peo- 
 ple, at such a time as they were fortunately possessed of 
 a record of their own ; when in their own pure homogeneity 
 they challenged the admiration of all who knew them in 
 their sunlit God-kept homes. We have, in part, de- 
 scribed the old plantation and its many servants, telling 
 how they lived — their homes, their rations of good, healthy 
 food and the warm clothing they wore — we have seen in 
 all this much to confirm the opinion that no peasantry in 
 the world were ever more comfortably provided for than 
 they were when they had humane masters. Humane the 
 great majority of the old plantation masters were, not- 
 withstanding the sickly creation of Mrs. Stowe's distem- 
 pered fancies. These people on these estates were the 
 property of the planter, with full warranty of Holy Scrip- 
 ture for their possession, if the unanswered letters of the 
 late Bishop Hopkins of Vermont to the late Bishop Potter 
 of Pennsylvania prove anything. The Supreme Court 
 of the United States so adjudged, until the Constitution 
 was overridden in the triumph of sectionalism, with its 
 irrepressible conflict of tfc higher law" with the basic prin- 
 ciples of the Federal Constitution. Beside all this (and 
 no man has ever answered the argument of the Bishop of 
 Vermont, that remarkable prelate, who never lived a day 
 among or drew a dollar from the Southern people) these 
 planters were amenable to the laws of self-interest and 
 common sense, which alike forbade the abuse and ulti- 
 mate destruction of their own property. Neither Jay 
 Gould nor Mr. Bonner thus treated their fast trotters. On 
 the contrary they nourished them with the tenderness 
 given their own children. 
 
 ( Something must now be said of the hours of planta- 
 tion work. Uncle Ben brought a long blast on his horn 
 
82 The Old Plantation. 
 
 from the window of his own room after the day had 
 broken. This was the signal for the three men servants 
 to come down from their quarters and feed all the ani- 
 mals, horses, mules and oxen, to be employed that day on 
 plantation work. After which these same men went to 
 the well near the gin house and filled the several large 
 casks mounted on wheels with healthful water, so that 
 when the assembly bell rang at Uncle Jim's cabin about 
 sunrise the plowmen might take this potable water across 
 the creek for the wants of the day. Meantime all had 
 breakfasted. At sunrise the assembly bell rang out long 
 and loud; then the servants, under the direction of the 
 foremen, who had received their orders the night before 
 from the planter in his office at the mansion, filed out in 
 order and went their way to the day's work ; the forty plow- 
 men following their leader, Uncle Suwarro, and the larger 
 number of hoemen and women, boys and girls, were led by 
 their foreman, Uncle Jim. "Gee ! Whoa ! Back !" What 
 does that mean? Uncle Harry and the other ox cart 
 drivers are yoking up their oxen, and presently you could 
 see the five or six ox teams filing out of the big gate as 
 up the cedar avenue they went. Faithful old Harry had 
 his orders for the day's work, in hauling rails for a line of 
 new fence, or to repair an old line, or in large loads of 
 marl or other plantation work. By this time Uncle Jack, 
 with five other drivers of the six mule teams, was cracking 
 his long wagon whip as with one line over his fine leader 
 he drove out of the gate en route to the lake and the work 
 in the orchards. Cicero and Henry were busy now in 
 feeding, grooming and watering the various pleasure 
 horses, knowing which were to be in use this morning, 
 while Aunt Abby and Emeline were to be seen making 
 their way up the hill with buckets of foaming milk to the 
 dairy. The bellows in the blacksmith shop began to puff 
 and blow as Robert and Washington ranged themselves 
 for the day's work, and the hammers and the saws in 
 the carpenter shop told that George, Virgil and Jim were 
 at work. Thus was it that by the time the breakfast bell 
 at the great house had rung this hive of industry was buzz- 
 ing, each and all at their own work. No unnecessary 
 
The Old Plantation. 83 
 
 noise, no confusion, but all in the quiet order with which 
 each had gone to his own work, showing what the discipline 
 of a superior mind over servants could and did accom- 
 plish. 
 
 After breakfast, if you would like to do so, we will 
 ride out and see what these servants are all about. How 
 shall we go? Shall we ride or drive? The large plan- 
 tation is so laid out with fine wagon roads that we can go 
 in the light carriage through all the fields. Well, then, 
 we'll drive. So after breakfast off we went, with Cicero 
 driving a pair of light horses to a wagon purchased in 
 Wilmington, Delaware, and known as the "jumpseat sur- 
 rey" — that is, a vehicle so finished that you could unfold 
 the seats and carry four persons, while from its light 
 structure it was intended ordinarily for two people. Those 
 are two fine horses, and admirably matched they seem 
 to be, but of small size. Tell me something about them. 
 These horses are a cross between the wild ponies, found in 
 large numbers on the long, narrow islands flanking the coast 
 of North Carolina, and that large fine stallion, "Crack- 
 away," you see the groom leading back to his stable after 
 having given him water. This cross makes a very service- 
 able animal for light use, taking their high mettle from 
 the thoroughbred sire and the tough endurance from the 
 wild dam. You see they do not lack speed (let them go, 
 Cicero), and off we go at a rapid rate up the broad, smooth 
 road until we reach the barnyard on the opposite side of 
 the creek, about three-fourths of a mile away, when we 
 get out of the carriage, and attention is drawn to the 
 various appointments for the distinctive breeding of the 
 several kinds of hogs. We never saw finer specimens of 
 the Berkshire, with his small, pointed ears, broad shoulders, 
 short, thick-set head, small, tapering legs, and prevalent 
 white and black spots about the size of the palm of your 
 hand. This fine hog, thoroughly bred and carefully fatted, 
 accounts for the superiority of the planter's fine old 
 hams. Over there in those breeding pens you observe 
 the old planter has his Essex, Chester whites and Jersey 
 Reds, but none so fine as the Berkshire; while, more for 
 the sake of variety than for intrinsic value, he keeps a 
 
84 The Old Plantation. 
 
 few of the little Guineas, which to the hog family is 
 largely what the bantam is to the ordinary breed of fowls, 
 trim and trig, but never large. You will quite under- 
 stand the size and fine quality of those fine oxen you saw 
 this morning if you will go with me over to those stock 
 lots and look at that fine Durham bull. Did you ever 
 see a nobler specimen? He was shipped from the valley 
 of the Connecticut Eiver when a calf and is now fully 
 grown, about seven years of age. In that other lot near 
 by is another fine animal of the Devon or Shorthorn 
 breed. He was presented to the old planter when a calf 
 by his very dear friend, the Honorable William S. Ashe, 
 M.C., and sent from one of the largest stock farms in 
 Maryland. Thus you see how particular and fortunate 
 in the selection of his stock the proprietor of this estate 
 has been. But the morning is wearing away and we have 
 only time just now to take a look at those brood mares 
 and the colts by their sides in that large pasture lot on the 
 opposite side of the road. Do you observe how flat their 
 legs are, what small, pointed ears they have, how sharp 
 in their withers, how short and close their coupling, what 
 large, full nostrils, and how red the lining is, and, with 
 all these points of a thoroughbred, what long and grace- 
 ful necks they have, with their thin manes, small pastern 
 joints and very small fetlocks? Again, you see that 
 sorrel is the prevailing color, and that while evidently they 
 are all of them high spirited, yet how docile they are and 
 how they love to be petted, as they eat these lumps of sugar 
 from the writer's hand. These seven colts are the foals 
 of the celebrated Trustee, the sire of Fashion, the em- 
 press of the American turf. They are the pride of the 
 planter's heart, among all his possessions of blooded ani- 
 mals, and justly so, for they look already, 
 
 "As though the speed of thought were in their limbs." 
 
 In this large pasture field, extending on both sides of 
 the creek, with great boulders of detached limestone rock, 
 you observe how rough and broken the land is? Why is 
 this? Not accidentally, but designedly; because the pro- 
 prietor was taught by a very successful stock raiser in 
 
The Old Plantation. 85 
 
 Kentucky always to select rough, hilly ground for his 
 mares and colts, in order that the latter, in growing up, 
 may have the finer development of muscle. This is so, 
 doubtless, on the same principle, that the Scotch high- 
 lander is far better developed physically in his rough moun- 
 tain home than is the Hollander in his flat country along 
 the Zuyder Zee. Well, here we are at the carriage again. 
 Let us drive on. What are all those people doing over 
 there among those vines ? They are giving the large crop 
 of sweet potatoes their last working, before they are laid 
 by. You observe they are hilling them up, after they have 
 cut off many of the vines to the length of eight or ten feet. 
 The vines thus cut off they will place in those open furrows 
 on the top of those long ridges you see over there, and by 
 putting a hoeful of earth eighteen or twenty inches apart 
 these vines will take root and make the crop of seed pota- 
 toes for another year — "slips" as they are called, not 
 growing much larger, if any, than a man's thumb, but 
 plenty large. What varieties of the potato are planted 
 here? Generally the yam for the table and the Spanish 
 for stock purposes, as the former abound in saccharine mat- 
 ter, while the latter is far more prolific in its yield. Why 
 is the potato planted in long, narrow strips, not wider 
 than seventy-five or an hundred yards? In order the 
 more readily to fence them off in small lots when feed- 
 ing them to the fattening hogs in the early fall of the 
 year. You observe what system, what method, with their 
 rationale, obtain on this plantation in its various crops. 
 You see we have at length reached Uncle Suwarro, with his 
 large force of plowmen. Here they come through the 
 beautiful green corn, just now coming into what they 
 call the bush, before it begins to shoot and tassel; that 
 is, before it begins to show the outline of the ear begin- 
 ning to form or to blossom out with its pollen, with which 
 to fructify the ear of corn. Let us see what they are do- 
 ing? You observe here in the upland, in rows more than 
 a half mile long, in some of the fields the corn crop is 
 planted with its stalks in hills four and a half feet apart 
 each way. The old foreman, in his shirt sleeves and 
 broad brimmed straw hat, woven by his wife or daughter 
 
86 The Old Plantation. 
 
 out of the oat straw of the plantation, is abreast of nine- 
 teen others, throwing the earth with their plows well up 
 to the corn, leaving a mellow bed into which the vigorous 
 plant shoots its lateral roots, as well for nourishment as 
 to enable the stalks to withstand the autumnal gales, 
 which are sure to come about the equinox and which 
 would otherwise lay the crop flat on the ground, thus 
 causing much of the corn to be lost. Following these 
 plowmen, what are those twenty half grown boys and 
 girls doing? The}^ are planting the black-eyed pea crop, 
 which you will see later on, is a very important 
 one. Do you observe that large gourd, looking like a 
 small basket, which each one of these young negroes 
 is carrying on his left side, supported by a leather strap 
 across the right shoulder? In these are carried the seed 
 peas, and as they pass a hill of corn you observe that 
 with a quick and a regular motion of the right hand hold- 
 ing a charter (made out of a bit of axmrd neck with a 
 short handle) they drop from twelve to fourteen of these 
 peas in the furrow just opened and directly opposite the 
 hill of corn. The twenty plowmen following after, split 
 out the middles of these rows, covering the peas and still 
 hilling up the corn. Now when this field of corn is cross 
 plowed and treated in exactly the same way, the result 
 will be that the hill of corn, generally of two stalks will 
 be the center of a quadrangle, with a hill of peas at each 
 one of the four angles. You will quite understand the 
 proprietor of this estate, when, in speaking of the value 
 of his pea crop, he says, that it more than pays all of its 
 own expense and that of making the large corn crops. 
 To what use is the crop of peas put? First, when the 
 crop is ripe they are gathered in large hamper baskets and 
 carefully stored away, and in the winter and early spring 
 they are fed in large quantities to the sheep and milch 
 cows, for they are both grain and forage. Many of the 
 finest are carefully put away for the seed of the ensuing 
 year. In the richest portions of the plantation many are 
 cut down with scythes and dried and stacked for the oxen 
 and mules. Thus when all this has been done and the 
 corn has been gathered out of these fields, the large num- 
 
The Old Plantation. ' Sj 
 
 ber of hogs, upon which the planter is dependent for 
 the meat rations of his people, are turned in to glean these 
 fields of the shattered or ungathered corn by day and 
 are turned in on the sweet potatoes by night. In addition 
 to this, this practical old planter plants in each field of 
 com some five or six acres of peanuts, or ground peas for 
 his hogs. These nuts are full of oil and they serve to 
 put the oncoming animals of the planter's shambles in 
 the finest possible condition for the table. You can quite 
 understand the value of the pea crop, more valuable by 
 far than either the crimson or white clover, with just 
 this one disadvantage, that it is an annual and must be 
 regularly renewed, while the clover is a perennial plant. 
 Well, we have reached the point at the nick of time. It 
 is just twelve o'clock and in a minute or so, as soon as 
 he reaches.the end of his row, you will hear the long-drawn, 
 mellow notes of the dinner horn, as Uncle Suwarro blows 
 it long and loud, calling his band of sixty laborers, with 
 their animals, from labor to refreshment. My sakes ! 
 What unearthly racket is that we hear? It is indeed a 
 hybrid of sound between a trombone and a fog horn ! 
 Whence does it come? It's the braying of forty mules, 
 as they signal their joy on hearing the well known call to 
 dinner. No more work for them now. Not another row 
 will they plow until they have been taken out of harness, 
 taken to the nearest feeding station and given water and 
 feed. Meantime let us see what these negroes, these 
 ''slaves" of the old plantation, are to have from the baskets 
 for their midday meal. The nooning hour in the summer 
 time ordinarily lasts from twelve o'clock to two p.m., so 
 that both servants and animals may have ample time for 
 food and refreshment. The animals have all been fed, 
 and here and there, under the grateful shade of the splen- 
 did old black walnut and hickory trees, small fires have 
 been kindled. Soon 'the air is laden with the appetizing 
 odors of the large strips or slices of fat mess pork, which 
 to the average negro is far more welcome than either beef- 
 steak or mutton chops. This cooking process of theirs 
 furnishes in their frying pan a plentiful supply of savory 
 gravy, which they thin down with water. Into this they 
 
88 The Old Plantation? 
 
 put their corn meal, which they stir until fully cooked and 
 allowed to brown. Sometimes they will chop up the young 
 onions, leaves, bulb and all, into this "cush," as they call 
 it. In place of the onions they sometimes introduce the 
 watercress from the bank of the creek. This, with their 
 meat and bread and such vegetables as their gardens 
 afford, gives them an abundant and nourishing meal. 
 After this they sometimes indulge their fondness for sweets 
 from the black bottle of molasses or sorghum, an abun- 
 dance of which is produced on the plantation. Then to 
 both men and women come the indispensable pipe and 
 tobacco, or to the men the quid or "chaw" of this wonder- 
 ful weed, all home grown in full abundance. After this 
 they will either rest under the trees or join in pitching 
 quoits, which they call "quakes," or in playing "five corns." 
 This latter game with them takes the place of the old 
 Roman game of dice. They take five grains of corn, large 
 and plump, hollow out the heart or kernel, and, with 
 \lieir hands for a dice box, seek to throw all five of the 
 grains of corn in such dexterous way as to bring down on 
 the ground with all the hearts uppermost; the party first 
 scoring twenty-five points wins the game, as they throw 
 alternately. Sometimes they will play the game of "mum- 
 ble peg," or they will engage in a game of ball, in the 
 throwing or batting of which they discover as much dex- 
 terity in some cases as can be found on the modern base- 
 ball ground. Sometimes the older women can be seen 
 busy with their plain simple sewing or knitting ; while the 
 men are engaged in putting a bottom in a chair, employ- 
 ing either corn shucks, the stems of the wild flag or splits 
 of white oak. Many of them are busy in making baskets, 
 some of large size, used in gathering the cotton crop and 
 for various other plantation purposes, and others smaller 
 and of more delicate texture, for key baskets or for gath- 
 ering up the eggs from the poultry yard. In all of these 
 little industries they may not show the skill of the In- 
 dians in their work sold to tourists at Niagara Falls, 
 but they certainly do display no little dexterity. The most 
 industrious among them send their wares to New Berne 
 or Wilmington, by the servants who drive the market 
 
/The Old Plantation: 89 
 
 wagons, and thus in the course of the year they gather 
 in quite a nice little sum of money. It must not be 
 forgotten, in estimating the slender income of these sim- 
 ple-hearted;, unconventional servants of the old planta- 
 tion, that they pay no rent, settle no doctor's bills, have 
 naught to do with either grocer or butcher, and are free 
 from the rapacity of the modern undertaker. In many 
 respects the advantages of the servants on this plantation 
 over those white slaves employed in the factories of both 
 Old and New England was very marked, and in no re- 
 spect more emphatically so than in the perfect exemption 
 of the old plantation servant from the carking care and 
 killing responsibility of the white laborers, telling so 
 fearfully in their heavy bills of mortality and the very 
 slow ratio of increase. So say statistics. At two o'clock 
 the old foreman calls everybody from refreshment to 
 labor and off they go to their afternoon work, until such 
 time as will allow them to get to the quarter before the 
 night sets in, allowing plenty of margin for the careful 
 currying and grooming of their horses and mules. With 
 the old planter it was a faithfully observed plantation 
 maxim that the free and regular use of the currycomb and 
 brush on all his animals, winter and summer, was more 
 than equal to a fourth meal in keeping them up to a high 
 standard of usefulness. 
 
90 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 The regular plowmen did not feed their animals either 
 at night or in the morning. This was done by a detail of 
 three servants, made each week by Uncle Ben, and under 
 his watchful eye the stock. were all well cared for. The 
 work on the plantation varied with the season, both as 
 to its character and activity. While the crops of tobacco, 
 rice, sorghum, cotton, wheat, oats, rye and corn were to 
 be planted, cultivated or harvested, in every department of 
 the plantation work there was marked activity. When the 
 harvests were over there was a decided relaxation of 
 energy, and yet the more sheltered and less exacting in- 
 dustries of the winter went on regularly and systematic- 
 ally. As has already been stated, there was no work for 
 the master done on the plantation (except in harvest sea- 
 sons) after twelve o'clock (noon) on Saturdays. My father 
 was fully convinced that in this judicious mode of en- 
 couraging his servants in this half holiday each week, 
 in all departments of the large and complicated indus- 
 tries of the plantation, he accomplished far more in 
 five and a half days of labor than he could have done 
 by the steady grind, grind of six unbroken days of toil. 
 With him it was not only "that a merciful man is merci- 
 ful to his beast," but that a wise and thrifty master was 
 kind to and considerate of his servants. To put it on the 
 low plane of economics, leaving humanity and philan- 
 thropy out of view, it paid well to feed well, to house 
 comfortably and to work judiciously the race which Anglo- 
 Saxon civilization was gradually lifting up from the 
 
The Old Plantation. 91 
 
 paganism in which English, New England and Spanish 
 ship owners found it on the coast of Africa. The writer 
 is about to close this chapter upon the various employ- 
 ments of the servants on the plantation and would gladly 
 introduce an incident of his own life connected with that 
 of dear old Uncle Jim, the foreman, as we have seen, of 
 the force of hoemen on the estate. 
 
 Long, long years ago, in the late forties, when the writer 
 was a mere slip of a boy, he obtained permission from his 
 mother, as he often did, to go fishing with Uncle Jim, 
 taking with him his boy, Cain, as was his habit. In this 
 portion of the South there was an unwritten law by 
 which the boy child born on the plantation nearest the 
 birthday of the young master was his, and as the two came 
 along together through childhood, boyhood, and all along 
 through manhood, they were closely associated, having 
 taken their first lessons together in riding, swimming, 
 fishing, boat sailing, and in the various employments of 
 outdoor life. Thus they were inseparable, while there 
 was a blending of influences each upon the other, com- 
 ing from that irresistible law of assimilation from close 
 association; the Caucasian, from the very law of nature 
 because the stronger of the two civilizations, exercising 
 the stronger and more formative influence and shaping 
 and moulding the weaker. It was said on the plantation 
 that Cain walked and talked like "Marse Jeems." Of 
 this much there was no doubt, on Sundays and other 
 holidays the young African dressed like the young master, 
 for had they not the same tailor ? Yes, except that Cain's 
 use of the clothing was second-hand, and yet they fitted 
 him so nicely when he was fully dressed up he would sing 
 out most enjoyably, with his fine, rich voice: 
 
 " When I go out to lemonade v 
 
 I dress so fine and gay 
 I'm ' 'bleeged' to take my dog along 
 To keep the gals away." 
 
 And surely at such times, in his even-tenored, unevent- 
 ful life, Cain was the happier of the two; for while he, 
 had not "a million a minute and expenses paid," he had 
 
92 The Old Plantation. 
 
 all of his expenses paid, and cared nothing because he 
 knew nothing of the misery of millionairism. Vander- 
 bilt may have had a more showy and expensive body ser- 
 vant, but never one more faithful, more affectionate and, 
 in simple role of duty, more efficient than this young 
 African. Well, the time has come for this Saturday after- 
 noon fishing excursion and off we go, with Uncle Jim 
 carrying his own fishing rod and Cain taking his own and 
 that of the young master, who comes along with his light 
 double-barreled shotgun, so as to be ready for any squir- 
 rel, mink or otter which may be found. Cain gives a 
 keen whistle for "Nat," the water spaniel, and soon we are 
 down at the river bank, with plenty of angle or fish 
 worms in small gourds around the two servants' necks, 
 well stoppered with bits of corncob in lieu of corks. Uncle 
 Jim said that the moon was right and that the wind 
 was blowing from the right quarter for good luck. The 
 old fellow cautions us to be very quiet, "as the fish doan' 
 want no progicin' 'bout dem when dey is a-takin' dar 
 meals." So we were as quiet as mice and the hooks were 
 well baited with angle worms, the old man spitting on 
 his bait for luck before he noiselessly dropped his hook 
 in the water at the roots of a large cypress tree, among 
 some chunks of wood held there by the eddy in the bend 
 of the river. Well, we had not fished long before a pecu- 
 liar grunt of satisfaction was heard and the whirring noise 
 of a fishing line in the water, with the cork out of sight, 
 told its tale of fine game fish at hand. It was a scene 
 for a painter, that of Uncle Jim as, with every feature of 
 his fine old ebon face keenly alert, he saw his tackle, 
 rod and line, all standing the strain given them by a 
 three-pound beauty of a fresh water trout. No amateur 
 on Lake George, in New York State, nor even that ex- 
 President of the United States, Cleveland, so far famed 
 or rather notorious, for antagonizing the simplicity and 
 honesty of the band of Galilean fishermen, ever landed 
 his game with more ease, grace or joy than did this sim- 
 ple-hearted, born sportsman. 
 
 "Marse Jeems, wa'n't dat splendid? Be mi'ty still. 
 His mate is dun gone in dar, and Fse bound to ketch him. 
 
The Old Plantation." 93 
 
 Cain, yuh fool nigger, yuh, why doan' yuh keep less 
 noise ?" 
 
 Quiet was restored and the fishing resumed. After a 
 few moments the writer's cork was carried with great ra- 
 pidity out of sight and he was drawing away on his rod 
 with no little energy, while his line was cutting the water 
 with a swishing sound, when the old fisherman called 
 out: 
 
 "Gib 'im line, Marse Jeems, gib ? im line; doan' pull 
 'im so hard, suh. You'll broke your line, shuah as yuh 
 is bo'n." 
 
 The writer obeyed the instructions of the old fisher- 
 man, who, to his great relief, gently took the rod out of his 
 hand and presently landed a very large eel. Whereupon 
 he called out: 
 
 "Kun here, Cain; run here, Cain; run here quick; 
 fetch a stick and hit 'im ha'd as eber yuh can ; not on de 
 haid, dat ain't any way to kill 'im. Hit 'im on de tail, 
 hit 'im on de tail, you fool nigger yuh, as ha'd as yuh 
 kin." 
 
 After repeated blows on the eel's tail, which I shall 
 always think was his head, Cain replied: 
 
 "He dun ded now, Uncle Jim," whereupon the old man 
 took out his pocketknife and soon cut out the hook which 
 the eel had voraciously swallowed with the bait. 
 
 Very soon thereafter the faithful old darky pulled up 
 his line and moved off to other fishing grounds, saying 
 half aloud and to himself: 
 
 "'Tain't no use a-fishin' heah no mo', Marse Jeems. 
 Luck is all gone. Let's move down de ribber, for when 
 yuh ketch one ob dese damn eels, Marse Jeems, he bustes 
 up yer luck." 
 
 We went on down the river to other fishing grounds, 
 and as we were moving along old Jim's conscience be- 
 gan to upbraid him for swearing in my presence, when 
 in serio-comic tone of voice he inquired if I thought 
 "cussin' dat eel was de same as sw'arin'." 
 
 By the time we reached the next place where we were 
 to try our luck the old man's mind was fully at rest on 
 the point he had raised and we betook ourselves to our 
 
94 The Old Plantation. 
 
 sport with such success that long before the sun had set 
 we had a very fine string of fish, the old man catching by 
 far the greater quantity, while Cain and I helped to 
 swell the number of small fry. About this time we heard 
 the ringing report of a rifle and soon Uncle Amos, the old 
 sportsman, came in sight with quite a large number of 
 squirrels and a brace or two of summer ducks, his con- 
 tribution to the planter's table. It was not long after this, 
 as we were making our way back home and had reached 
 the gate of the back yard, when Uncle Jim asked me to 
 get my mother's permission to let me come around next 
 morning and see just how nice the fish were when Aunt 
 Patty cooked them in her way. My mother consented, 
 so, as I had done often before, next morning about eight 
 o'clock I made my way to the old man's cabin, and such 
 a breakfast as I did eat. His good old wife had gotten 
 down her best "chaney," white with blue rimming, while 
 the cloth on the table was as white as snow, and the floor 
 spotlessly neat with its heavy sprinkling of white sand. 
 
 "Breakfas' is ready, Marse Jeems; set up, suh, and 
 jus' he'p yo'se'f." 
 
 And this I did most certainly — to fish that were cooked 
 to a turn, gashed and well sprinkled with corn meal and 
 fried in the gravy of the mess pork, while the eggs were 
 brown on both sides and such corn bread as vou never 
 see in these days, with excellent coffee, as clear as amber, 
 settled with the shells of the eggs. When ample justice 
 had been done this excellent meal I arose to go, for I 
 knew that neither of these faithful souls would touch a 
 morsel as long as I was in the house. Just as I was 
 about to say "Good morning" to them the old man said: 
 
 "Marse Jeems, is yo' in mi'ty big hurry dis mornin'?" 
 
 I told him no. 
 
 "Jus' wait a minit, pleas', suh." 
 
 Whereupon the old man went into the bedroom and, un- 
 locking his wooden "chist," which served the purpose of 
 a trunk, he took out something which he brought into the 
 front room. I saw it was a small gourd and nearly 
 filled with salt. He turned to me and, in a very solemn 
 voice said: 
 
The Old Plantation? 95 
 
 "Marse Jeems, dis ole nigger is gittin' pow'rfu' ole 
 an' I jes' want to ax one little faber ob yuh." 
 
 "Very well, Uncle Jim, what is it? I'll do it if I 
 can/' I said. 
 
 This seemed to give him no little relief. With strength- 
 ened voice he said: 
 
 "In dis heah gode, Marse Jeems, is dis heah piece of my 
 year, dat yo J doan' see up heah/'' pointing to the miss- 
 ing part of his right ear. "Yon see, suh, some time back 
 I got in a fite wid dat nigger, Frank Henderson, and he 
 dun bit off dis heah year yuh see in dis heah gode ob 
 salt. Now, suh, Marse Jeems, if yuh is de longest liber, 
 and I jes' nose you gwine to be, I jes' want you, please, 
 to promis' me dat yo' will see dis heah year put in de 
 coffin 'long wid me when I am ded. Tvase, suh, 'fore 
 Gawd, I do'sn't want to be walkin 7 de goldin streets ob 
 Heben wid one of my years dun' bit off." 
 
 Here the old man broke down and could go no further, 
 terribly distressed at the idea of being disfigured with one 
 ear gone (or the better part of it) forever in Heaven. 
 As I withdrew I promised him I would do as he requested. 
 Alas, alas, the golden ties which bound us together so 
 closely and so tenderly were rudely broken by the stern 
 arbitrament of war. I greatly fear the dear old man was 
 put away in his coffin without the comfort of carrying 
 with him both of his ears to the general resurrection. 
 Thus you see how carefully educated the old man had been 
 by his old mistress in the doctrine of a bodily resur- 
 rection. 
 
 - 
 
 -'■• 
 
96 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Some years had elapsed since the incidents of the last 
 chapter. Over and often had the present writer enjoyed 
 the companionship of Uncle Jim and Uncle Amos in their 
 forays after fish and squirrels, taking his lessons in the 
 various forms of woodcraft from these faithful ones, so 
 willing, so capable of imparting them. He had also been 
 carefully taught by Cicero, the coachman, how to hold the 
 reins in driving, in such manner as, by the simple turn 
 of the wrist of the left hand, the spirited team of ponies 
 could be safely and (as the writer began to flatter him- 
 self) gracefully driven, while the right hand was free 
 to hold the whip, with its bow of pink ribbon tied about 
 half way on the staff. To the two sons of the planter 
 the faithful teacher and companion, the cultured, scholar- 
 ly young Scotchman, the A.M. of the University of 
 Edinburgh, Scotland, whose acquaintance we have already 
 made, had given such faithful instruction at home as, 
 with their rapid growth, made it necessary that they 
 should be sent away to school. Pending the years of 
 faithful scholastic guardianship we had come to love 
 our master of the schoolroom, who devoted himself to 
 us in many ways. In many respects he was among the 
 most winsome, lovable persons whom the writer has ever 
 met. With a face of fine intelligence, a voice naturally 
 sweet, his vowel sounds in conversation or reading were 
 singularly effective, and at times surcharged with such 
 telling pathos as, for example, in reading aloud the 
 "Heart of Midlothian," or some other of the blessed 
 
The Old Plantation. 97 
 
 products of Sir Walter Scott, during a winter's evening 
 around the blazing hearthstone of our happy home, would 
 wet our young eyes with tears in loving sympathy with 
 the annals of dear old Scotia. The name of this intel- 
 lectual, pure minded, warm hearted young Scotchman 
 was the same as that by him borne in the after years of 
 his high distinction and marked pre-eminence among the 
 divines of the South — Rev. James Melsev Sprunt, D.D. /H&Wx 
 He has been gathered unto his fathers, but before he 
 went away from among us, by the purity of his life, 
 his ripe and full scholarship — but above all and in all, hj 
 his loyalty to God — he had so fully impressed his person- 
 ality upon his pupils, such as the present Clerk of the 
 North Carolina Supreme Court, Col. Thomas S. Kenan, 
 and the Eev. J. D. Hufham, D.D., pastor, pastorum, in 
 the Baptist church, and many others, as has enabled them 
 to honor God in serving their fellow men right royally. 
 We shall never hear his rich, rolling Scotch voice again, 
 in this life, as with rhythmic melody he read to the con- 
 gregation "Guide Me, Oh, Thou Great Jehovah/' but 
 we hope to hear it again, with all his old pupils gathered 
 around, in that blessed "house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the Heavens." This tribute to the memory 
 of one so worthy has been paid, not only because it is 
 eminently due him, but to show also how careful the old 
 planters of the South were in the selection of the teach- 
 ers of their children. The elder brother of the writer 
 went from his home to Princeton College in company 
 with quite a number of young men from the neighbor- 
 ing town of New Berne. This town was so named in the 
 latter part of the seventeenth century by its founder, 
 Christopher Baron de Graffenreid, in memory of his former 
 home, Berne, in Switzerland. The writer went to the 
 famous preparatory school in Orange County, North Caro- 
 lina, kept by Mr. William I. Bingham, and since kept 
 up by his descendants, on a high plane of great usefulness 
 in developing the scholarship of the South. We were 
 both at home now, accompanied by several of our class- 
 mates, who were spending the vacation with us. The old 
 home was full of young company, as our sisters had 
 
98 The Old Plantation. 
 
 brought home with them some of their fair young school- 
 mates from St. Mary's School for Young Ladies, Kaleigh, 
 North Carolina. This remarkable institution was then, 
 as now, perhaps the most popular school in the South. 
 As well to welcome as to gladden our guests from a dis- 
 tance some of our special friends, boys and girls, had come 
 out from Wilmington and New Berne, as they often did 
 when the country was particularly inviting in its leafy 
 and flowery pride; or in winter time, when the wild 
 turkeys were ripe and the oysters were fat. One can quite 
 understand to what height of real pleasure and loving 
 forms of genuine enjoyment this carnival of old-fashioned 
 fun and frolic should have risen in the old home in 
 those blessed eld days, before the flood of 1861 and 1865, 
 under those conditions. It is true we had no bicycling 
 parties then. What need, pray, had we for them, when 
 the young people of that day had still their ancestral 
 fondness for horseback riding — when the young ladies 
 had not broken down and destroyed their gracefulness 
 of carriage, but walked along corridor and through broad 
 hall in all the mazes of the quadrille, Lancers and Scotch 
 and Virginia reel with their peculiar grace of body, con- 
 stituting them indeed the embodied poetry of motion? 
 It would be very hard to say what sort of parties were 
 not enjoyed by this half score and more of young people 
 then gathered at the old home. Look out from the front 
 piazza to the left at the horse block. What young couple 
 is that about to mount those two beautiful horses for the 
 ride out to the sulphur springs three miles away? Wait 
 until the family carriage and the lighter ones have been 
 packed full of young people for the same delightful des- 
 tination. 
 
 "Come, Buck, hurry up and get off as soon as you 
 can, with your big hamper basket of lunch; and fill your 
 wagon full of those largest watermelons and canteloupes 
 down there in the spring house." 
 
 "Yas, suh, Marse John ; dat I will." 
 
 Well, all things are ready and off we go, as merry a 
 party as ever kept time to music or read their destinies 
 in each other's soft eyes; making the air vocal with the 
 
The Old Plantation. 99 
 
 strains of fine melody, as the words of "Annie Laurie" 
 went forth from the young people all along the line of 
 mounted couples and from those in the carriages, which 
 had joined the party at the main entrance — all en route 
 to the sulphur springs. These six or eight carriages 
 full of bright, sunny faces untouched by cares or tears, 
 as yet, with that peculiar, chaste toilet of the Southern 
 girl, with their broad sunbonnets shading a type of 
 beauty (in many cases) so marked as to have touched the 
 heart of sternest anchorite. Six or eight couples on horse- 
 back were keeping the regulation distance from each 
 other, so that no one should suffer from dust or shadow 
 of molestation in any form; while in the rear came the 
 two or more wagons laden with dinner enough for a 
 company of infantry, as well as melons, peaches, pears 
 and baskets of Scuppernong grapes. Even now at the 
 close of the nineteenth century, with all its multiplied 
 cares and vexations of electric life, what an inspiration 
 there is in youth. But to have been young in the dear 
 old Southland in the fifties — no one but he who can 
 speak of such joys as a blessed participant ought to be 
 allowed to speak of them except in the reverent language 
 of "Our fathers have declared it unto us what noble 
 works thou didst in their days and in the old time be- 
 fore them." A quick drive of three miles brings us to 
 the spring, though we stop a few minutes to see if EH 
 and Sam with their fiddles (colored people did not play 
 the violin in those days, they played the fiddle), Virgil 
 with his flute, Frank with his banjo, Caswell with his 
 triangle and Peter with his castanets had gone on. We 
 were not detained long at the lake, for we found a dat 
 Marse John and GVge had rid on ahed." Eeaching 
 the rendezvous, at the foot of quite a declivity for this 
 flat country, we find in this spring one of the very strong- 
 est fountains of medicinal water in this state. It breaks 
 out from the side of a hill, in a volume of crystal water, 
 about ten feet deep and as many in width, forming a deep 
 basin, in which might float with perfect ease two or three 
 pilot boats such as they employ in going to sea across 
 the bar at Beaufort Harbor. Ah, dear old spring, what 
 
too The Old Plantation. 
 
 blessed memory, what Heaven recorded association, what 
 fine forms of sweet hospitality cling to thy name ! On 
 the east bank of the purling little stream, which flows away 
 from this bay of water, is a space cleared of all under- 
 growth, around the semi-circular rim of which arc lined 
 the fifteen or twenty carriages and a number of Con- 
 cord wagons. In the center of this space there has been 
 erected a platform about twenty-five feet square, while 
 at one end is a stand with seats for the "musicianers," 
 as Buck insists on calling them. Here and there, scat- 
 tered about on the ground, with a thin layer of pine straw 
 underneath, are buffalo robes, skins of wild animals, 
 rugs and afghans, with such an array of cushions taken 
 from the carriages as to suggest an Oriental siesta. The 
 maid servants, who have come out in the lunch wagons, 
 are very busy, rolling lemons on the hard seats of the 
 wagons stripped of their cushions. Out on the edge of 
 the woods where the horses have been hitched to vonnff 
 trees, but at a safe distance, have been kindled two or 
 three fires, on which are placed the boilers brought in 
 thoughtful reference to that delightful beverage, coffee, 
 which the Southern cook brews in its highest perfection. 
 Up the ravine some quarter of a mile away, the large 
 party of young people have gone on one of those sug- 
 gestive, rambling, philandering expeditions, to look for 
 the old empty basin, from which one night, this fine spring 
 near is said to have disappeared and broken out where 
 in all of its limpid purity it is still flowing on. There 
 is a legend about this old spring — that it belonged to a 
 close fisted old man, who allowed himself to be annoved 
 by the many visitors who came for miles around to en- 
 joy the water. The old curmudgeon boarded it up tight 
 and fast with a close fence ten feet in height. One night 
 the old man went to sleep the possessor of this spring, 
 thus secured to him without annoyance. JSText morning 
 he awoke, but his spring had gone from him and his 
 meanness forever. While the young people were gone 
 on their ramble various dispositions for the pleasure of 
 the party had been made by "Marse John" and the car- 
 riage drivers. Grapevines, as long as necessary and larger 
 
The Old Plantation. tot 
 
 than your thumb, had been cut away from the large trees 
 and with them were constructed primitive swings ; cushions 
 had been arranged with packs of playing cards on the 
 central one, suggestive of whist, old maid, seven up, crib- 
 bage and the like ; while backgammon boards were brought 
 out from the wagon. Here they come — here they 
 come. 
 
 "Eli, let us have a little music right away !" 
 "Yas, suh, dat we will, wid all ple'sur', suh." 
 Soon the air was vocal with the suggestive notes of the 
 old-fashioned dance music of: 
 
 "Hush, Miss Betsey, doan' you cry, 
 Your sweetheart will come by and by; 
 When he comes he'll come in blue, 
 To let you know his lub am true." 
 
 And then the chorus, in which the fine voices of the 
 negro musicians would ring out in perfect time with 
 the instruments: 
 
 ' ' Sheep shell corn by the rattle of his horn, 
 Send to the mill by the whip-poor-will." 
 
 As the inspiring notes of the sable orchestra reached 
 the ears of the party/ now returning from their ramble 
 (in such suggestive subdivisions of two and two) they 
 certainly did quicken their pace, for this band of happy 
 youths knew what it ail meant. They knew all the signs 
 of the dance and all about it, in those days, when it was 
 not unusual to see three generations of the same fam- 
 ily in the same set; when the healthful mind and con- 
 science recognized the fact that the majority of people 
 commit forty times more sin with their tongues than 
 they do with their toes; when the blessed differentiation 
 was made between "piosity" (as Bishop Williams of Con- 
 necticut happily expresses it) and piety — between good- 
 ishness and godliness. Can you think of a young par- 
 tridge learning to run in the grass wet with the morning 
 dew? Can you think of a young duck being taught to 
 swim? Then you are in the frame of mind to be taught 
 how and where the young people of the South learned 
 to dance, and ride on horseback. Under the laws of he- 
 
io2 The Old Plantation. 
 
 rcdity, these accomplishments came to them in the nursery. 
 The present writer remembers learning to read and to 
 write, but he does not remember learning to ride his 
 pony or to dance. But what are we doing? This is not 
 the time to indulge in an essay. Listen to old Eli's 
 voice, as he sways his body in unison with his deep in- 
 terest in what now engages him, calling out in a strong 
 voice : 
 
 "Pardners for de fus' cowtillion." 
 
 How rapidly the set fills up ! How strange it is that the 
 same couples that came down the ravine together just 
 now appear together on the platform ! Ah, as Eli draws 
 the long notes on his instrument and calls out, "honers 
 to yo' pardncrs," what graceful curtsies, what stately 
 (but not stiff) bows are those, flinging contempt on the 
 cold, icy, mechanical forms of the modern german, as 
 "For'ard fours" starts the couple on the round of the old- 
 fashioned cotillion of the better days of the republic. 
 Watch the features of that sweet-hearted young Carolinian, 
 who is not in this set, but is biding his time and waiting 
 his turn, as by the glow in his eyes he is calling out in 
 his poetic soul : 
 
 " On with the dance, let joy be unconfined, 
 No sleep till morn, when youth and beauty meet 
 To chase the glowing hours with flying feet." 
 
 Set after set is danced and no indication of fatigue. 
 You might just as well endeavor to fatigue an Arabian 
 courser as one of these young gentlemen in the dance. 
 You might as well try to break down with fatigue a fair 
 mtelope of the plains as one of these beautiful girls. 
 Ah, children of a happy day, with whom no coming 
 events casts its dark shadow before, go on, go on with 
 your blessed round of innocent joy — the cloud no big- 
 ger than a man's hand, and yet flecked with blood, has 
 not yet cast its shadow across your bright pathway ! And 
 as they dance on, with couples resting, not because they 
 are fatigued but to give others their places, what are 
 Buck and his Marse John doing, pray? They are be- 
 ginning to take the melons out of the cool pool of the 
 
The Old Plantation. 103 
 
 spring water, in which, in large sacks, they have been 
 held down by long poles fastening them to the bottom. 
 This seems to be the signal for dinner. Yes, but what 
 rumbling of wheels is that we hear ? 
 
 "B'ess ma lif an' sol an' body, honey," one of the 
 servants calls out, "if it ain't old Marster and ole Mis- 
 tiss dun driv^ out to spen' de da' in honor ob Marse 
 John's burfda'." 
 
 That was the state of the case. Presently the maids 
 sweep off the platform, which is soon covered by snow 
 white table linen, and then how rapidly all the appoint- 
 ments for an excellent dinner are made — with knives 
 and forks and snowy napkins and, in fact, everything 
 necessary — none will doubt, save those ignorant of the 
 fine service and good taste of the old plantation dining 
 room servants, who were out to-day in numbers to have 
 the pleasure of making "Marse John berry happy on his 
 burfda'." ISTo attempt to describe that dinner will be made. 
 Suffice it to say that cold meats — ham, lamb, beef, chicken 
 and venison, with tomatoes and such vegetables as could 
 be served cold, and all that anyone could desire — were 
 there in such abundance as left no one present, servant 3 
 and all, even to dear old faithful Buck, with any sug- 
 gestion of an aching void, but in such plenty as to sug- 
 gest, yes, exemplify: 
 
 "One continued feast of nectared sweets, 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns." 
 
 After the melons had been cut, true Southern fashion, 
 lengthwise into halves, with a spoon, they were greatly 
 enjoyed, as each person industriously betook himself to 
 this delicious Southern fruit. After the decks were cleared 
 dancing was resumed. Nothing would do with the young 
 people on such a red letter day as that of the birthday 
 of their eldest son but that father and mother should 
 join in the first set after dinner. One could readily 
 see how these two dear old people had not been neglected 
 in the matter of polite education in the early part of 
 their lives. Eight merrily did these two dear old folks 
 enter into the pleasures of the young people, "in their 
 
IC4 The Old Plantation. 
 
 hands all around/' "swing corners," "forward four/' and 
 "promenade all," in such a manner as to reflect credit 
 on their old French dancing master in the first dec- 
 ade of the century. Besides this they have been in the 
 habit of brightening the home life by joining with their 
 children in all the innocent pastimes of the nursery. 
 At the South dancing was among them. Martin Luther, 
 in the sixteenth century, taught the people of Germany 
 to elevate the morals of their children by making their 
 homes happy. The short criminal dockets of that fa- 
 vored land clearly indicate how singularly successful that 
 remarkable man was. So say Marlitt, in his novel of 
 "Gold Elsie," and others. As to everything on this earth 
 there must be an end, so after an hour or more of de- 
 lightful enjoyment everything was packed up, horses were 
 hitched and saddled, and this party of light-hearted folk 
 made their way homeward singing out in loud, clear and 
 sweet voices the Canadian boat song "Bow, brothers, row." 
 Just as the hunter's full moon, coming up through the 
 tall trunks of the fine old pines east of the old home, was 
 beginning to flood the whole landscape with that touch 
 of unearthly beauty peculiar to our Southern latitude, 
 on our left, as we were driving up the front entrance, 
 from the arbor of a Scuppernong grapevine were heard 
 the sweet notes of the mocking-bird pouring out his 
 roundelay of love to his mate, rejoicing over their young 
 brood. Very soon we heard the deep voice of old "Don," 
 the faithful Newfoundland. Just then a young gentle- 
 man from Wilmington, in full sympathy with this charm- 
 ing scene, evidenced his appreciation in clear, rich musi- 
 cal voice: 
 
 "'lis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark, 
 
 Bay deep-mouthed welcome, as we draw nigh home ; 
 'lis sweet to know there is an eye that marks our coming, 
 And grows brighter when we come. 
 But sweeter than this, than these, than all, 
 Is first and passionate love ; 
 It stands alone, like Adam's recollectita of his fall." 
 
 Just then the young couple we saw riding away on 
 Horseback this morning cam© up. Tkej were singularly 
 
The Old Plantation: T io5 
 
 i. 
 /-■■■- a 
 
 silent, notably so the young gentleman, who, after as- 
 sisting the young lady to dismount, made his way in 
 silence to my brother John's room. Left alone, he caught 
 up a pen and in the intensity of his deep feeling showed 
 clearly how busy the blind little god, Cupid, had been that 
 day, as he wrote: 
 
 " Who breathes must suffer; who thinks must mourn; 
 He alone is blessed who ne'er was born." 
 
 He went out for some purpose, and soon thereafter 
 our brilliant young neighbor, Tom Wilson, entered the 
 room. He saw the paper with the above lines lying on 
 the writing table, the ink still wet, left there in the 
 writer's unconscious abstraction, and wrote currente ca- 
 lamo. 
 
 "Not so; all good men rugged paths have trod, 
 And suffering renders man more worthy God." 
 
 Thus ended an old-fashioned field day with its band of 
 most interesting Southern youth. The question will come 
 up, "Where are they all now ?" and echo, for answer, gives 
 back in sepulchral tones, "Where! Oh, where?" 
 
io6 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 With his house full of young company, the old planter 
 and his wife the next day planned an excursion to the 
 seaside, commonly known, in the parlance of the coastal 
 South, as a "pony-penning ;" in full preparation for which 
 he dispatched a trusted servant with a letter to Mr. Eobert 
 McClane, the old Scotch host at Swansboro, the little 
 seaport in the south-east corner of the good old county 
 of Onslow, some thirty miles away, asking him to have 
 sail boats in readiness to take the party through Bogue 
 Sound to Beaufort, suggesting that it would add to the 
 pleasure of his guests if he himself would go along, and 
 would he be pleased to see that every detail was in perfect 
 order? The day intervening was spent by the young 
 people in the manner customary on the large estates — in 
 fishing, hunting, riding and driving, while some time was 
 expended by the young ladies in helping the mistress, 
 their hostess, with work on a silk quilt already in the 
 frame. In the evening the young people of both sexes 
 who had been invited to join the excursion dropped into 
 tea without ceremony, and the time passed away most 
 delightfully until the hour for retiring came, with games 
 of whist, dancing and music, and by some in those sus- 
 picious rambles about the flower garden that suggest 
 the lines of the English poet, when he said in a note to his 
 lovely sweetheart : 
 
 " Too late I stayed, forgive the crime, 
 Unheeded passed the hours, 
 For noiseless falls the foot of time 
 When it only treads on flowers," 
 
The Old Plantation/* T io7 
 
 Next morning, after a good old-fashioned breakfast, 
 amply supplied with transportation for themselves, serv- 
 ants and luggage, through the unvarying kindness of the 
 neighboring planters, the large party were off to the 
 seaside, the accomplished wife of a young planter gladly 
 going along as chaperone. The road led over a very 
 level country, with little or no sand in the roadbed. Thus 
 in six hours from the time of leaving, that is about the 
 middle of the afternoon, the party w r ere kindly received 
 by old Bobby McClane at his sweet hostelry, where din- 
 ner was soon served, and long before sunset we were 
 embarked for the run by moonlight down the Sound to 
 the seaside. The wind was fair and strong enough to carry 
 us rapidly, with the tide all right, over this beautiful 
 sheet of water, flowing in ample breadth for fine sailing, 
 like a land locked lake, with the narrow Bogue banks 
 between us and the ocean. What mirth provoking anec- 
 dotes, what rich voices in fine old song, of the "Irish 
 Emigrant's Lament," "Make Me No Gaudy Chaplet," 
 "Way Down on the Suwanee Biver," and others, with 
 guitar, violin and flute. What mirth provoking and at 
 the same time engaging badinage, as our fine boats were 
 cleaving their way through the phosphorescent, moonlit 
 waters, the present writer will not attempt to tell, but 
 they are all deeply engraven on memory's tablets, there 
 to endure as long as she is faithful to her sweet trust. 
 One, however, may be quite sure, 
 
 "When young eyes look love to eyes that speak again, 
 And all goes merry as a marriage bell, " 
 
 that one has reached that sweet era in life, when silence 
 is golden. It s is long after midnight, after a glorious run, 
 without an accident of any kind, that the gruff voice of 
 old Csssar Manson, captain of one of the fine boats, the 
 Etta Duncan, rang out, as we stood away from where 
 Morehead Citv now stands, across the lovely Beaufort 
 harbor. 
 
 "Haul aft the mainsheet and let her come about." 
 
 "What light is that on our right bow?" 
 
 "That is the light of the Fort Macon lighthouse and 
 
log The Old Plantation?, 
 
 the one here away on the weather bow is at the Atlantic 
 Hotel." 
 
 "Let her come around/' 
 
 And in a short time the voice of our kindly host, Mr. Pen- 
 der, was heard at his wharf, welcoming old Bobby McClane 
 who had come along with the party. In a few minutes 
 we were all stowed away in comfortable quarters, all 
 ready for us, for had not the old Scotchman sent ahead 
 and given mine host of the Atlantic ample notice of our 
 coming? I wish, reader, you could have seen that sup- 
 per, which the Edgecombe hospitality had so abundantly 
 provided or, better still, if only we could partake of it 
 now. Fish, oysters, clams, scallops and crabs, all of the 
 rich products of salt water, with that remarkable and 
 best sauce of all, salt water appetite, which "waits upon, 
 good digestion." Will you believe it, at eight o'clock 
 the next morning breakfast was not only ready but we 
 were ready for breakfast, young ladies and all? By ten 
 o'clock all the dispositions for the trip to the Banks had 
 been made, but the weather showing up rather rough, 
 it was deemed most prudent that the ladies should remain 
 at the hotel. Off we went in quite a large centerboard 
 craft, in nautical classification known as a "lighter," the 
 significance of which term this deponent sayeth not 
 for to some of the Piedmontese and mountaineers on board 
 (we had not gone far when it became exceedingly rough) 
 in fact to many of our largely increased party, the de- 
 pression of spirits attendant on sea-sickness was anything 
 else than a lighting up of joy. The writer remembers 
 well that on this "pony penning" expedition were two 
 persons who later in life became distinguished— Honorable 
 Thomas L. Clingman, afterwards United States Senator 
 of North Carolina, and Mr. Edmond Ruffin of Virginia, 
 the latter of whom it is said fired the first gun at Fort 
 Sumter. It is generally doubted whether either of these 
 gentlemen ever became quite as sick of secession and its 
 sequela as they became that day, in a most moving way, 
 of the loblolly motion of boat and sea and air — of earth 
 and heaven. What a fiend is this sea-sickness ! Well, 
 here we are in just the position to get a good view of the 
 
jThe Old Plantation/ 109 
 
 large crowds assembled to witness the penning of these 
 ponies. The island is a long, narrow one, of the many 
 which flank the coast here, and which from Hatteras, 
 north and south, render navigation so dangerous. Many 
 think these ponies are the increase of horses which es- 
 caped from settlers in colonial days. The diminished size, 
 constituting them ponies, is the outcome of interbreed- l 
 ing and the short rations of coarse marsh grass without 
 grain. The fisherman and others who own these islands 
 pen the ponies twice each year, at which time the colts 
 are branded and a sale takes place. Among the many 
 driven into these pens (led along through the gap of 
 a decoy, in the shape of an animal already domesticated) 
 one can find almost any color desired. Some of them are 
 well shaped, requiring only the good feed and careful 
 grooming they will get as companions of the young peo- 
 ple on estates inland, and, in some cases, in the Pied- 
 mont and mountain counties. The average price is forty 
 dollars; indeed it is said that this is the fixed price, as 
 corn and fodder cost nothing here and the owners refuse 
 to accept a smaller amount. The penning is over with 
 all of its chaffering and bargaining, with all the kicking 
 and biting and vicious squealing of these unbridled ani- 
 mals; the purchasers have supplied themselves and we 
 are quite ready to go. Although the weather was rough, 
 very rough, nothing of special note occurred on the home- 
 ward voyage. Our friends at the hotel in Beaufort had 
 quite enjoyed the day with its trip to old Fort Macon, and 
 the fine fishing on the wharf, while some of the party had 
 enjoyed that luxury even greater than the far famed 
 Turkish bath — a splash in the wild, wild waves of old ocean 
 as they come tumbling in on the fine beach of this charm- 
 ing seaside resort. Next morning, bright and early, our 
 boats were brought into requisition and we made fine prog- 
 ress on our homeward trip. Beaching Swansboro after 
 a delightful run, the carriages were soon made ready and 
 we were en route for the old plantation, which we reached 
 in good time, after a delightful jaunt which lived in the 
 memory of all who made up this party of joyous, sunny- 
 hearted youths of a generation passed away. We knew we 
 
no The Old Plantation. 
 
 violated no law of hospitality as we drove up the "broad 
 avenue of the old homestead singing, at the top of our 
 voices, "Home Again From a Foreign Shore," for were 
 not the lights still burning in the old home and in the dear 
 hearts of the old father and mother? Alas, alas, these 
 blessed lights have gone out forever, and the darkness 
 following is so great as to blind with tears the eyes, rapidly 
 misting over, of the author as he pens these lines. Hail 
 and farewell, blessed ones of the past ! Hail and fare- 
 well ! 
 
The Old Plantation. Ill 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 We all regard it as part of the good fortune which in 
 those days seemed to wait upon youth that flaming hand 
 bills and immense posters of a circus and menagerie were 
 abroad in the land at that time, and that the old Eobinson 
 and Eldred people of the sawdust and trapeze would soon 
 delight our community. Everybody far and near was dis- 
 cussing the oncoming circus, with its telling opiate to con- 
 science, that fine study of natural history commonly known 
 in church circles as a menagerie, with no suggestion of 
 enjoyment in the circus (?). Through Uncle Philip and 
 the foremen on the plantation, orders had been given 
 for a full holiday in every department of the industries 
 of the estate. Even Uncle Amos, the plantation Nimrod, 
 had been told that ole Marster had bought a ticket for his 
 whole family, black and white, and that the roll would be 
 called by Marse John in front of Ben's house at ten 
 o'clock, on the ringing of the assembly bell. Ben had 
 been ordered to have transportation in readiness, con- 
 sisting of all the wagons and carts from the lake, together 
 with everything of like order on the plantation. It was 
 scarcely necessary to give an order that everybody should 
 appear in their best clothes, for the racial pride of our 
 servants, not to say anything of their family or planta- 
 tion pride, would be very sure to suggest this. At this 
 late day one can scarcely appreciate the strength of fam- 
 ily pride among the servants on one of the best managed 
 plantations of that day. So strong was it that, in case of 
 a marriage of one of their number to a servant belonging 
 
U2 The Old Plantation, 
 
 to a family not the social equal of their master, you 
 would be sure to hear some harsh criticisms from the blue- 
 black aristocrats, reprobating such conduct in terms so 
 strong as to make its occurrence infrequent. Aunt Dinah 
 with an emphatic toss of her turbaned head, and a tinge 
 of bitter scorn in her voice would say: 
 
 "Dat nigger, Sam, gwine to fling hisself 'way anyhow; 
 marryin' dat common nigger gal, Mary Jane. Her white 
 folkses ain't no quality nohow fur nothin'." 
 
 In political campaigns, especially for the local or county 
 officers, where these people, as elsewhere, had neither voice 
 nor vote — when party strife ran high, and high it did 
 run, in those days of joint discussion — one would have 
 been amusingly surprised to have witnessed their deep in- 
 terest in politics, often wagering as high as a half dozen 
 coon skins on the result of the election. No one ought to 
 be surprised when told that most of these servants on those 
 manorial estates were old-fashioned Whigs; for was not 
 the institution of slavery a strong breakwater, protecting 
 in its conservatism the South and the country against 
 any forms of anarchical radicalism? 
 
 Be this as it may, circus day came around and every- 
 body was ready for this high carnival of fun and frolic. 
 The writer heartily wishes that you and he, kind reader, 
 could go back and witness the gathering of the "fam'ly," 
 at the time appointed, when the loud notes of the assem- 
 bly bell rang out all along Broadway and Chestnut streets, 
 while the servants began to gather in the large area just 
 to the right of Ben's house. The writer witnessed it but 
 cannot describe it. And yet (as the wagons, ox carts and 
 horse carts are falling into line and Uncle Philip, mounted 
 on Selim, is discharging the important duties of mar- 
 shal, in ordering the women and children to mount the 
 vehicles, whose bottoms have been heavily covered with soft 
 wheat straw) you must take time to look at Ben a few 
 minutes. Did you ever see anyone quite so happy as he is 
 to-day with his best clothes on? Look at that tall fur 
 hat (it was before the common use of the silk hat), and 
 notice his proud movements, as with pride in his mien and 
 £tep, he takes a big bandanna handkerchief out of the 
 
The Old Plantation. 113 
 
 depths of his long-skirted, claw-hammer coat pocket. His 
 coat is of blue broadcloth, with metal buttons almost as 
 large as a half dollar, and just as bright as chalk and 
 friction can make them, while his black pants and canary- 
 colored waistcoat, with bright colored stockings encased in 
 patent leather shoes, make up his outfit entire, except 
 that flaming red cravat. Ah, never was there a happier 
 "nigger" on earth than faithful Ben, whom his Marse 
 John had just dressed up in a suit of his own clothes; 
 nor will his joy and gladness be surpassed when the mil- 
 lennium comes. Here come the carriages full of fresh- 
 hearted young people from the great house, with ole Mar- 
 ster and ole Missus, and the young people on horseback, 
 with Handy driving the baggage wagon full of maid serv- 
 ants, and the old gardener. Marse John, riding on that 
 beautiful sorrel, with that fair and graceful young lady, 
 superbly mounted, led the way, followed by as happy a set 
 of devoted servants as ever gladdened the hearts or enriched 
 the purse of a typical young planter. On they go, some 
 four or five miles away, to the little hamlet of Upper Eich 
 Lands, across the river on the road towards the old town 
 of New Berne. 
 
 Without accident to anyone of the large party, safe 
 arrival is made on the circus ground. My sakes ! what 
 a crowd. It would appear as though the whole of the upper 
 part of Onslow and the lower part of Jones counties were 
 here to-day. Such crowds of people, white and negroes, 
 the air ringing out with the loud guffaws of laughter, 
 rich and deep; such instances of marked attention from 
 the ebon beaux to the dusky belles; such a flow of big 
 "bookionery" words as were then and there employed, with 
 certain other forms of speech, not so loud nor so articu- 
 late, yet fully understood; for who has ever yet mistaken 
 Cupid's dialect ? Ah, Ben was in his glory that day, and 
 so was Uncle Philip; while if you could have seen my 
 man Cain, "gallivanting" with Julia and Edith, the 
 house maids, you would have regarded him as in a frame of 
 mind truly enviable ; for there are certain forms of earthly 
 happiness just as contagious as whooping cough or measles. 
 Well, the doors are open and the plantation people are filing 
 
114 The Old Plantation. 
 
 past Marse John, who is standing by the door-keeper, 
 keeping his tally to see that all entitled (and no more) 
 under the family ticket are allowed to go in. My sakes ! 
 what a revelation to these hundreds of dusky toilers did this 
 entrance make. Talk no more to me of Aladdin's lamp ! 
 These children of Africa had entered another world. 
 Happy ! That is not the word. Simply enchanted. If 
 you could have seen Buck's eyes when the band of music 
 (trombone and all) broke forth you would have said, as 
 their white eyes rolled around in ecstacy, "Happier is he by 
 far to-clay than if he were eating 'possum' and Waters.' " 
 They roamed around the large pavilion, looking at the vari- 
 ous animals — elephants, camels, bears, hyenas, tigers, leop- 
 ards, rhinoceros and others, and you would have observed 
 that all the ox cart drivers were together. There they were 
 — Harry, Isaac, Handy, Tom and Sam — obeying the un- 
 written guild-law of human life. On they went leisurely 
 until they reached the place where stood the giraffe. 
 There they stood as if chained to the spot by the paralyzing 
 power of dumb admiration. There they stood and looked 
 and looked, until at last old Handy, rolling his big "chaw" 
 of tobacco in his cavernous mouth and shooting a sharp 
 elbow in among Harry's short ribs, called out, with a 
 loud laugh: 
 
 "Look heah, nigger, how do yuh t'ink dat ting (point- 
 ing to the giraffe) ebber git up when he dun git down. 
 His hind legs am so much shorter dan his fore legs?" 
 
 This was a poser. They could not compass the an- 
 swer. At which they laughed and laughed, moving on at 
 the same time with the crowd until they came to the 
 corner where the monkeys were chained on the top of the 
 cages of the larger animals. Here again they stopped. 
 They gazed in silence at these connecting links (as some 
 affirm) between the two orders of animal life. At last, 
 when the laughable grimaces of one of the monkeys broke 
 the spell of their dumb amazement, old Handy the wit 
 of the party, spoke up: 
 
 "'Yuh see dem monkevs up dere? Dev is mi'tv cuirisum 
 critters enyhow ; dat big monkey up dere, way bac' in yon- 
 der, dat fellow, Isaac, is yo' cFuble fust cussin, and he's 
 
The Old Plantation; 115 
 
 mi'ty like yo' enyhow. He's got lots ob sence, ? s much 
 sence ? s a nigger — an' — an' — he kin talk, too. Duz yo* 
 know why he don't talk? 'Case he jes' fairly 'nos' ef he 
 talks de white fokeses set him to work rite away — dat's 
 why he cloan' talk." 
 
 Well, after this colloquy between these two old darkies, 
 and half an hour or so had been allowed for the inspection 
 of all the animals, the time came for the ring master 
 and the clown to perform their part — the trained dogs 
 and the acting elephant, the bareback riders, the various 
 astounding feats of acrobats, with the man who wound 
 himself up in his somersaults, and all that is so familiar 
 to those who remember with pleasure this hour and more 
 of abandon to the enjoyment of the circus, it was announced 
 by the ring master that the celebrated lion tamer would 
 now appear in his world-renowned act of driving the mag- 
 nificent Libyan lion, Nero, in his chariot. There im- 
 mediately followed a breathless silence, and none were 
 more attentive or silent than the hundreds of servants, 
 who were drinking in everything with eyes, ears and open 
 mouths. Presently the lion tamer entered Nero's cage 
 with his whip in his hand, ready to harness up this mon- 
 arch of the forest, when, to the dismay of all who heard 
 it, there was a suppressed angry growl from the lion. 
 The keeper, nothing daunted, advanced toward the ani- 
 mal, careful to keep his back to the door by which he 
 had entered the cage, with his keen, magnetic eye fastened 
 upon the sullen king of the jungle. No one knows what 
 caused it, whether it was the presence of so many serv- 
 ants, suggestive to the lion of his home and freedom in 
 Africa or not, but in a moment there was a deep roar from 
 Nero and a half spring toward the keeper, and the rat- 
 tling as of a link or two of an iron chain fastened to the 
 end of a club, with which the keeper struck the lion with 
 great force between the eyes, followed by a fearful 
 growl from the infuriated animal. Just then some one 
 called out: 
 
 "He is killing his keeper, he is breaking out; he is 
 breaking out !" 
 
 In all your life you never saw such a scene. In less 
 
n6 The Old Plantation. 
 
 time than is required to tell of it there was the most fear- 
 ful confusion confounded. Crash, crash, crash went the 
 seats ; rip, rip went the canvas ; as the panic-stricken crowd, 
 not standing on the order of their going, tore their way 
 through the large tent out into the open air. Anywhere, 
 any way to escape; as some one crazed with fear called 
 out in tones unmistakable: 
 
 "De lion is loose ! De lion is loose ! Lord hab mercy ! 
 Lord hab mercy !" 
 
 My sakes, what a scene. Fortunately the white peo- 
 ple were not so much crazed by fear. The negroes were 
 wild, and it is said that in their rapid, crazy flight some 
 never called a halt until they had crossed the river, in 
 their fearful, crazy hurry to get home. Among those 
 who led this wild flight was poor Buck, who never after- 
 wards could bear to talk of the circus. He had enough, 
 and much preferred the coon hunt as his mode of en- 
 joyment. It turned out that while this incident broke up 
 the performance, the lion had been so stunned by the 
 blow as to enable the keeper to escape. Not many months, 
 however, after this noted event in the simple annals 
 of the plantation the newspapers announced that Nero 
 had killed his foolhardy keeper out in Indiana. We all 
 reached home in safety, and as we sat down to dinner 
 many were the jokes told and incidents related. The 
 truth demands that, all-in-all, the second edition of the 
 circus, while discussing a good dinner, was far more 
 enjoyable than the one in the morning, with its dangerous 
 fiasco and ludicrous stampede of the African race from 
 the circus for home and safety. The old planter gave 
 his servants, however, a delightful day, notwithstanding 
 this amusing episode. 
 
The Old Plantation. 117 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 We have seen that the proprietor of this estate sought 
 successfully, to secure rather a willing than enforced obe- 
 dience to the rules and regulations of the plantation. 
 This he did by a wise system of rewards for high useful- 
 ness in special cases, and by a kind and well-nigh paternal- 
 oversight over all his servants. Eecognizing the fact that 
 these people were his property, the regime was one of un- 
 broken kindness, with the fact clearly certified that dis- 
 obedience invariably brought its own penalty. Kind, 
 yet firm, his servants were fully conscious of the fact that 
 certainty rather than severity of penalty was the active 
 deterrent to disobedience. On a large plantation like 
 this the system or order was the outcome of established 
 laws, which were well known to his people from cradle- 
 dom in the great majority of cases. In the earlier part 
 of his life, following the example of many planters around 
 him, he had employed white overseers ; but as he went on in 
 life's lessons of experience and wisdom he found that with 
 this white element around him there devolved upon him 
 the double labor of managing the overseers as well as the 
 servants. From the lower class of whites, not the lowest, 
 the overseers of the South were recruited. Out of sym- 
 pathy with the negroes, they were simply and solely white 
 drivers, in contract with the planter, the practical work- 
 ing of which relation was, that for the first year it was 
 the planter's estate, the second year it was a joint stock 
 establishment — in the estimation of the overseer — who 
 acted the third year as though the planter, plantation and 
 
ixS The Old Plantation.^ 
 
 all belonged to him. Coming from that element in which 
 morale was largely lacking, it was ascertained that they 
 could not be relied upon for the most healthful forms of 
 discipline and good, wholesome government on the plan- 
 tation. Therefore it was that for many years on this 
 estate the system of colored managers or foremen had dis- 
 placed the less reliable order of overseers. This was found 
 in many respects to be far preferable, and notably so in 
 that it maintained the closest privity of relation between 
 the planter and his servants. In one sense they were all 
 servants together ; and to the most sensible of the servants 
 it soon became apparent that, in those close bonds of confi- 
 dence and interest, the old master and the old mistress 
 were indeed the veriest slaves on the estate, in those severe 
 exactions of time, patience and watchful energy, with 
 affection supplied by them to those whom they could not but 
 recognize as so many overgrown children. Hence it was 
 that Uncle Philip was commissioned as next in authority 
 to the planter, while Uncle Jim, Uncle Suwarro, Ben and 
 Cicero, each had their department, with their full share of 
 discipline and responsibility, all centering in the owner of 
 the estate. In all the relations of life no system to which 
 man puts his pitchy fingers has been found perfect, while 
 experience has taught that the management of the planta- 
 tion, with its better crops, fewer instances of punishment 
 and more harmonious working of the negro, the foreman 
 regime was a marked improvement over the white over- 
 seer. In those days the curse of the plantation life was 
 in the constant temptation of the servants, coming from 
 the hurtful influence of small stores, kept by the lower 
 class of whites. These people were ready, by night, to 
 carry on a system of demoralizing barter, taking at their 
 own price articles stolen by the servants, to wit, corn, 
 poultry, pigs; in short, anything the negro might carry 
 in his bag, in any sense marketable ; in exchange for which 
 mean whiskey or other articles at high prices to compen-,. 
 sate for the great risk they took, were sold to the servants. 
 Those dens, while exceedingly harmful, were ordinarily 
 short lived in the hands of any one of these midnight 
 enemies to the planter, who kept in his pay a spy on the 
 
The Old Plantation. 119 
 
 movements of the lawless negro traders. Few such cases 
 went to the courts. 
 
 For mutual protection all the planters were closely 
 banded together. As soon as well grounded suspicion fell 
 upon one of these establishments the keeper was waited 
 upon by several of the planters. A fair price was offered 
 in cash for his few acres and storeroom, and such em- 
 phatic notice to get out was given as suggested a coat of 
 tar with a full ruffling of feathers. Within the designated 
 forty-eight hours the man had decamped, bag and baggage, 
 for he had a very healthy regard for Judge Lynch and the 
 consequences of a trial in that form. Sometimes a year 
 or more would elapse before another one of these dead- 
 falls with its harmful nuisances sprang up, only to be 
 abated in the same manner above indicated. Short lived 
 as any one of them was, yet they were very annoying to 
 the planter, while they were a prolific source of trouble 
 to the servants. It may be well to say in this connection 
 that while corporal punishment was resorted to in the 
 maintenance of discipline, it was infrequent and never so 
 severe as the same mode of punishment in the navy of the 
 United States or any other well ordered Government at 
 that time. The more frequent mode of punishment was 
 the curtailment of special privileges on Saturday after- 
 noon and close, solitary confinement in the "lockup," as 
 the servants called the small jail in the third story of 
 the gin house. When any one of the servants insisted on 
 incorrigible disobedience and none of the ordinary modes 
 of punishment seemed to do any good, after every other 
 expedient had been exhausted, he was sent away to that 
 Botany Bay in the lower Mississippi valley, to work on 
 the cotton plantations of that section of the South, where 
 the commercial features of the earlier days of the insti- 
 tution had been in some sense revived, and where, in conse- 
 quence, the patriarchal features, as seen in Virginia, Mary- 
 land and the Carolinas, had gone somewhat into abey- 
 ance. 
 
 So much for the discipline, penalties, punishment and 
 restraints, which obtained on this estate. Something 
 must be said in regard to the care of the health of the 
 
120 The Old Plantation? 
 
 servants. If one could have seen the large number of 
 children under ten years of age on this estate, satisfactory 
 answer would have been given to many questions which nat- 
 urally enough arise in this connection. The almost daily 
 visits paid by my mother to the bedside of the mothers 
 of these children for a month (never less) after their 
 birth; the facts of the food for them being carried from 
 the planter's table thrice daily by Eliza, special maid to 
 ole Mistiss; the regular visits of the plantation physician, 
 a regular graduate in this case of either the University 
 of Dublin, Ireland, in the person of the elder Dr. 
 Duffy, or of the University of Pennsylvania, in the case 
 of Dr. Christopher Whitehead, can account for the, 
 larger number of children coming on rapidly, to go to 
 the plantation or turpentine industries when sufficiently 
 old, than you would certainly find among any peasantry 
 in the world. 
 
 These facts, which are carefully brought out, will ex- 
 plain the rapid increase of the African race in the South 
 prior to 1865 ; while the absence of these conditions since 
 then, together with the baneful effects on the negroes of the 
 South, coming from their close herding together in the 
 towns and villages, have told on the comparative ratio of 
 increase and healthfulness of the two periods. Leaving 
 all questions of humanity and philanthropy out of view, 
 the great majority of the Southern planters took good care 
 of their servants, sick or well, precisely for the same reason 
 that the farmers in the Genessee Valley in rTew York 
 took special pains and went to adequate expense in the 
 preparation of their fine wheat lands — because it paid to 
 do so. 
 
 One may be interested to know something of the various 
 amusements on the plantation. These sunny-hearted 
 children of the equator, mercurial in their temperament, 
 of ordinarily excellent health and, in their relation to the 
 old planter, largely exempt from the "What shall I eat? 
 What shall I wear?-' carking cares of every-day life, were 
 happy in their relations to the old master. To some, 
 the problem of amusement or occupation out of labor 
 hours may be thus stated: Eli given his fiddle, Sam with 
 
The Old Plantation. 12 1 
 
 his banjo, and a room well sanded, twenty feet square, 
 with Julia, Kate and fifteen or twenty others of the plan- 
 tation girls, dressed up to kill — what time or cause had 
 the beaux of the estate to inquire into the prices of any- 
 thing to eat or to wear ? Again, around at dear old Grand- 
 daddy Cain's house in the evening, with old Harper, the 
 Baptist preacher, or Daniel, the Methodist exhorter, in 
 fine voice or tune, with everything to urge them to the 
 full enjoyment of a decided counterblast to the "double 
 shuffle," "pigeon wing," or "reel," going on under the 
 inspiration of Eli's fiddle, what, it may be asked, did they 
 lack to their fullest enjoyment but the enlargement of 
 all those spiritual privileges at the "sociashun" or the 
 camp meeting, to which they were looking forward so 
 joyously after harvest. 
 
 It was somewhat amusing to see in how many par- 
 ticulars the manners and customs of the planter's fam- 
 ily were copied by their servants, so faithfully do we 
 all show the power of environment. Did my mother 
 have a silk quilt in the frame and invite some of her 
 neighbors to assist her in finishing the same, in a short 
 time a similar gathering at Aunt Daphne's or Aunt Peg- 
 gy's might be seen during the long winter evenings, with 
 the possum supper and a dance — with such peals of joyous 
 laughter one might hear from this band of happy, well 
 fed, well housed people. Then again, aside from the 
 coon and possum hunts, there were many games, into 
 the mysteries of which, down at the quarter, the planta- 
 tion servants were inducted by the house servants of both 
 sexes. They pitched quoits, ran foot races and played 
 ball. With them a famous game was "bull pen," and 
 still another was "rolly-bolly," in the playing of which 
 many a young darky would receive a good rousing lick 
 with the ball if he happened not to make good his distancce 
 from the set of holes in the ground. All were allowed 
 to go fishing and some of the most careful, trusted ones 
 went squirrel hunting while as a boy many and many 
 a time did I take lessons from Caswell, as he taught me 
 how to twist "bre'er rabbit" out of a hollow log or tree. 
 One of their favorite amusements was that of breaking 
 
122 The Old Plantation. 
 
 a yoke of young steers or oxen. High fun it was when, 
 with their tails tied together, these young bullocks would 
 run away and clear themselves of the cart, young darkies 
 and all, until at last, wearied out by a band of these young 
 Africans, "Bock" and "Jake" would "jest 'habe demseFs 
 jes' lik' t'other oxens." My sakes, what fun they would 
 have in breaking in a colt, be the same mule or horse ! All 
 these young Arabs would want was "Marsters 'mission," 
 with a good stiff bit and plenty of plow line. Fall after 
 fall might come, but they would persevere until they would 
 break down the young animal's spirit, and then how happy 
 they would be. Very frequently they would guard against 
 the mules' racial disposition to buck by using a Bedouin 
 bit and a wooden martingale. Thus outfitted they were 
 not long "in brokin' dis heah mule." And yet with all 
 these modes of spending their time, many of them would 
 occupy themselves in the cultivation of their own crops 
 and gardens ; or else they might be seen with a large bundle 
 of white oak splits or a basket of corn shucks making 
 baskets, foot mats or horse collars. 
 
 My observation of the negro leads me to think that he 
 was, under the old regime, a far more industrious mem- 
 ber of the family than he has been represented by many 
 to have been. As we read in the Bible, "like priest like 
 people," so an industrious planter was ordinarily blest 
 with energetic and thrifty servants. It has been said so 
 often that by many it is believed — if the average negro 
 on the plantation bore no malice, he was essentially lack- 
 ing in gratitude. The writer is the product of the social 
 forces of the old plantation clays and can well claim an 
 opinion on the subject in question. The negroes that I 
 knew and closely observed for largely over a quarter of 
 a century, being in daily association with them, differed 
 largely from that generation of their race that has come 
 on since the war. The former, under the close associa- 
 tion that was slowly yet surely elevating his race, was 
 fully alive to the strong forces of gratitude, and showed 
 too that he was wrought upon (and who is not, I would like 
 to inquire?) by passion, by hate and by malice as well. 
 The later products of the race, except in a few instances, 
 
The Old Plantation. 123 
 
 have been steadily depreciating in all the finer elements 
 of gratitude, truth, honesty and industry. This is so neces- 
 sarily. They have been from force of circumstances, 
 chiefly political, directly antagonized to those from close 
 association with whom there had been an imparting of 
 much that was gradually lifting them up from paganism. 
 Largely over a million of them had become members of 
 the different Christian bodies in the South prior to 1861, 
 and worshipped regularly with their owners around the 
 same altars when God's holy day came around. On the 
 estate here treated of they were mostly members of the 
 Baptist and Methodist Churches. Nearly all of the older 
 settled servants here belonged to one or the other of these 
 two bodies while not a few of the younger ones were re- 
 joicing in the comfort of that faith, touching the sim- 
 plicity of which a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not 
 err therein. The local colored preacher attended funerals 
 on the plantation, burying their dead in the simple little 
 "God's Acre," set apart and religiously observed for that 
 purpose. It was indeed a very rare occurrence for the 
 name of one of the old plantation servants to appear on 
 the criminal docket of our courts. Alas, alas, in these 
 days it is the younger generation, the product of the en- 
 forced forms of liberty before they were ready for it, which 
 claims the attention of the State's prosecuting officers and, 
 after conviction, who swell the ranks of our overrun peni- 
 tentiaries. The old-fashioned colored man to this day is 
 not of the class whose lawless and brutish conduct brings 
 on him the swift and unrelenting fate of fiends. 
 
 But this is neither the place or time for either ar- 
 gument or disputation. These have remorselessly passed. 
 Yet upon many of the most thoughtful men of the country, 
 it has already dawned as a frightful truth that if the 
 sweeping manumission of the race was a mistake, their 
 wholesale indiscriminate enfranchisement was a crime. So 
 says the late United States Senator, Ingalls. We shall 
 leave both crime and criminals of both sections of a com- 
 mon country to the avenging nemesis of history and hurry 
 on with our recital of facts and incidents. 
 
124 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 For some weeks prior to a plantation wedding there 
 was always more or less of a buzz of comment, sometimes 
 kind and just as often unkind. The turbaned African 
 Mrs. Grundy would pass both the parties to the marriage 
 in sharp review and settle whether Ben was "de nigger 
 for dat gal, Fanny, to marry/' Even there, as in the far 
 more conventional circles, there was a self-constituted 
 high court of propriety, from whose opinion there was no 
 appeal. Well, it is all fixed. Ben is to marry Fanny. 
 "Ole Marster and ole Mistuss hab dun bin axed fur dere 
 'mission/' Old Uncle Harper, the colored minister, has 
 been notified. Supper (and such a supper) has all been 
 arranged "in de white fokeses' kitchen." The groom, full 
 of joy, has been in the hands of Marse John, and his wed- 
 ding suit of clothes has been pronounced all right; while 
 the young ladies of the family have given Fanny any- 
 thing and everything necessary (from their full and well 
 appointed wardrobe) to make out a becoming outfit for 
 this dusky bride. Have you never noticed how deep, how 
 general, the interest is in all brides? Pitiable indeed 
 is the nature that is not wrought upon by the sweetest 
 S}^mpathies and deepest interest in a woman, be she black 
 or be she white, who has reached that pivotal point in 
 her life, so full of mystery as to infuse an air of almost 
 solemn reverence about all brides. The ceremony was per- 
 formed in the large dining room of the family after the 
 usual supper hour. There stood the old negro preacher, 
 dear old TJncle Harper, with his book in his hand, properly 
 
The Old Plantation." 125 
 
 dressed up in a suit of black broadcloath, given him long 
 years ago by old master, with his high white collar, strongly 
 wrapped around by a broad white necktie, which was reach- 
 ing for the base of his ears. Did you ever see such spec- 
 tacles in your life, with such large glasses, broadly rimmed 
 around by an alloy of metals commonly know as brass 
 — very heavy and scoured very bright. All the white fam- 
 ily were there with packages in their hands, presents for 
 the bride. The broad veranda was full of servants, while 
 some could not obtain standing room there and were stand- 
 ing out in the yard. The families of the bride and groom 
 were invited into and ranged around the dining room, 
 leaving ample space for the bride and groom. Presently 
 from the keys of the piano sounded the joyous notes of 
 the wedding march, as the tapering fingers of Miss Ee- 
 becca, fresh from St. Mary's School, gently yet artistically 
 touched the same. There was a deep hush of deeper ex- 
 pectancy, when in walked Ben, with Fanny modestly 
 leaning on his arm. Not even Chauncey Depew, with 
 his mirror-studied airs and graces, could have been more 
 imposing than his much beloved brother Ben on this oc- 
 casion; while the daughter of Jay Gould could not have 
 borne herself with more becoming grace or modesty than 
 did our African bride. Standing before Uncle 
 Harper in mute expectancy, the old man lifted up his. 
 rich, mellow voice and asked: 
 
 "Who gibs dis 'oman to dis man?" when the bride's 
 father said: 
 
 "I doz." 
 
 Ben bowed very profoundly to him and said: 
 
 "I t'ank yuh, Uncle Peter, I curtenly doz." 
 
 Then the old preacher said: 
 
 "Ben, will yuh be mi'ty kin' an' good to Fanny?" 
 
 "I curtenly will, suh." 
 
 "Fanny, will yuh lub Ben an' 'bey him an' sarve him 
 all de days ob yuh life?" 
 
 "I will," modestly yet firmly said the bride. 
 
 "Let's pray," said Uncle Harper — and such a prayer. 
 
 It was a trifle too long, maybe, for the tinsel trappings of 
 a like occasion among the gold-knighted dudes and sapphire- 
 
126 The Old Plantation. 
 
 gartered immaculates of the "Four Hundred" of New York; 
 but, as the simple-hearted tide of sweet petition went forth 
 from that humble man of God, black as he was, methinks 
 the angels hard by the throne of mercy and love caught 
 up the words of that prayer, welling up in simple faith 
 from the heart of that dusky old preacher, and in after 
 life brought back full answer to the same in blessed bene- 
 diction. As the full and hearty "amen" was uttered, 
 the deep response of "amen ! amen ! amen !" was heard 
 from more than a hundred servants whose ancestry in the 
 jungles of Africa knew naught of God or of matri- 
 mony. 
 
 "Stand up ! stand up !" said the old preacher, and 
 taking their hands in his, he joined their right hands 
 together, saying: 
 
 "Dem what de Lord hab j'ined together is married. 
 I bounces dat Ben and Fanny is man and wife, amen. 
 Salute yer bride, bro'ther Benjamin." 
 
 The report which followed may not have been so loud 
 as that of a cork from a bottle of old Heidsic champagne, 
 but it was loud enough to show that Ben had obeyed and 
 it bore witness to the fact that Ben had saluted his bride. 
 Such a salvo as it was. Then came the supper in the 
 kitchen for the bridal party, while ample refreshment was 
 passed around among the servants on the piazzas and in 
 the yard. But not one morsel of cake or drop of 
 homemade Scuppernong wine did the old preacher or 
 bride or groom partake of until "de ole marster and all 
 de white folkses" had been generously served. Then came 
 the feast, attended by such flow of fun and frolic, fol- 
 lowed by the dance at the quarter, when Eli's fiddle and 
 Frank's banjo were enthroned in all their high power 
 over these old-fashioned servants, on that old-fashioned 
 plantation, in those old-fashioned days, before the flood 
 of constitutional amendments — when Uncle Harper and 
 the bride and the groom were just as happy as the day 
 was long. 
 
The Old Plantation. 127 
 
 Yr 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The checkered incidents of the old plantation life, as 
 stored away in the cells of memory, clearly indicate the 
 wisdom of the composers of our well-nigh divine liturgy, 
 when, in one of the collects of the old Book of Common 
 Prayer, human life is referred to under the striking ex- 
 pression of "the changes and chances of this mortal life." 
 Darkness follows light, as does sorrow come so close after 
 joy, that man, 
 
 "That pensioner on the bounties of an hour, 
 Vibrates like a pendulum betwixt a smile and a tear." 
 
 Soon after the marriage which we have just attended 
 came the funeral of little George, a fine lad about twelve 
 years of age, the son of the old ox cart driver, Harry, 
 we last saw at the circus. His death came so suddenly 
 as to cast a pall more than ordinarily deep upon every- 
 body on the plantation, from the old planter down to the 
 present writer, the playmate of the dead boy. Even dear 
 old Buck was sadder far than anyone had ever known him 
 before. The suddenness with which death came to this 
 bright-faced young servant had much to do with the deep 
 sorrow which went over the whole plantation. As in the 
 elemental forms of society it is not infrequently the case 
 that the very strongest hold is had upon the truth, so is 
 it that upon the untutored Indian, the illiterate African, 
 the unexplained and inexplicable mystery of death comes 
 with greatest force. With them it is indeed a fearful 
 reality, with no effort made to explain it away. The 
 
128 The Old Plantation. 
 
 death came about in this way, making an impression on 
 my young mind, then a mere boy, which a half century 
 \ of the stern activities of life has not done away with. This 
 boy often went fishing with me — carried my bait, gourd, 
 and "toted" the string of fish for me. It was in the autumn 
 when the corn was ready for the early harvest. His father 
 was driving an ox cart heavily laden with corn, and George 
 was sitting on the load, piled up high and kept in place 
 by broad boards on each side. Thus you will see he was 
 mounted high up above the ground. It was about half an 
 hour before sunset when his father, in driving through 
 one of the plantation gates en route home, whipped up 
 his oxen and came through the gate rather hurriedly, 
 passing over a piece of scantling between the two gate 
 posts, occasioning a very severe jar to the load. The boy 
 was thrown from the top of the load of corn with great vio- 
 lence to the ground, and in falling lost his life. He was 
 thrown with his head under him, and it seems the lateral 
 motion of the cart gave a twist or doubling up of his 
 body, which brought the whole weight of his body down 
 on his neck and broke it. In a moment, in the twink- 
 ling of an eye, this young African had gone on across 
 the bourn from whence neither Aristotle nor Lord Bacon 
 have returned to bring back any intelligence of the Vast 
 Beyond — illimitable, ever mysterious. Decades have run 
 into each other and a half century has passed since with 
 young, tearful eyes and s}mipathetic heart, myself a boy, 
 at the supper table that night I listened to my father 
 giving the family a recital of the facts as obtained by him 
 from the poor, heart-broken father. There was more than 
 the moistening of eyes that night as my father told us 
 how Uncle Harry brought the body of his dead child for 
 a mile or more, across the creek, in his own arms, down 
 the avenue to the playground and home of his boy, lay- 
 ing it in* the lap of his mother, resting it on her warm, 
 motherly heart. We were told how he was put into a 
 hot bath and all the restoratives known to his profession 
 were used by the plantation physician ; but all, all in vain, 
 for his neck was broken, and George was dead. 
 
 It was the first time in my young life that I stood so 
 
The Old Plantation. 129 
 
 squarely confronted by this icy messenger which men call 
 death, and I have never forgotten the deep impression 
 it made upon me. My mother had not yet returned from 
 Uncle Harry's house, where her motherly instinct had 
 carried her, in sympathy for her stricken servant. As 
 she gave us her version of the terrible grief of the mother 
 and the other children we all broke down, while Handy, 
 the dining room servant, hurried out, wailing as he went. 
 Late into the night the voices of those who were keeping 
 watch over the dead could be heard singing their mourn- 
 ful songs, and it was very late before sleep came to any 
 of us, so deeply moved were we by this sad occurrence. 
 
 Next morning, Virgil and Jim, the carpenters, were 
 ordered to make a coffin, while Uncle Suwarro gave orders 
 for opening the grave in the little "God's Acre," appro- 
 priated to the burial of the servants. In those days, of 
 less hurry than these days, it was regarded as unseemly 
 to bury the dead until the third day — one full day inter- 
 vening between the death and the burial. On the third 
 day all the dispositions for the burial had been made; 
 the servants from the orchards and the lake, with all the 
 plantation people and some kinspeople from the neigh- 
 boring plantations, were all there. A very large assem- 
 blage it was, so still, so awestricken and, withal, so rev- 
 erent and so full of sympathy. Ah, how true it is, that 
 one touch of genuine sorrow makes us all akin. The 
 pall-bearers were from the boys on the estate, about 
 George's age, and maybe a little older. I well remem- 
 ber I felt as though I would have liked to be one of them 
 — for death is such a leveler of all class and caste dis- 
 tinctions that the grave is a veritable republic. Had not 
 my own mother incited me to deep sympathy with 
 these dusky dwellers in the dark valley and shadow 
 of death? Had I not seen this blessed woman at- 
 tended by her maid, Eliza, steal quietly out of the sit- 
 ting room and, as she bade her servant take up her silver 
 waiter, on which was a cross of beautiful white flowers, 
 make her way to the quarter? Ah, a very Evangel she 
 appears to me now — what a very angel of God does this 
 mother appear to her own boy, gray-haired though he 
 
i^o The Old Plantation. 
 
 3 
 
 may be, as she seems to bear in her gentle hands the two 
 milk-white doves, as it were, of Charity and Eeligion — 
 going on her way to touch the hearts of these dusky, sor- 
 rowing ones, servants though they be, with the more than 
 magic wand of woman's sympathy. 
 
 Well, Uncle Harper is there, ready to warn all of the 
 suddenness of death and to comfort, in his simple way, 
 those hearts which were bleeding. He did so from the 
 words, "And Jesus wept." Were not the occasion one 
 of such touching sadness and the presence of death so awe 
 inspiring, one might be tempted to reproduce some fea- 
 tures of this sermon in the dialect of the old preacher. 
 But the proprieties of the occasion sternly interdict any- 
 thing of the kind. Suffice it to say that while the old 
 man's utterances were fully in keeping with the solemnity 
 of the occasion, and more than once his old eyes were 
 the outlets for the welling over of his loving old heart, 
 he at no time ranted or was betrayed into any of the more 
 objectionable forms of emotionalism. In his simple, 
 artless way, he showed that he had a strong, vigorous hold 
 on the keystone of the arch overspanning eternity, the 
 blessed doctrine of justification by faith in the lowly 
 Nazarene. Then came the singing of that wonderful, 
 soul-anthem, "Jesus Saviour of my soul" — and such voices, I 
 such melodv ! The scene will never be forgotten, through 
 the deep impression made upon my boyish mind at the 
 grave, as the body was being lowered, by all joining the old 
 preacher in singing that favorite plantation funeral 
 hymn : 
 
 " Hark, from the tomb a mournful sound, 
 Mine ears attend a cry ; 
 Ye living men come view the ground 
 Where you must shortly lie. " 
 
The Old Plantation. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Since the days when there fell from the lips of the 
 old Hebrew prophet the inquiry of God's people, "Is not 
 this the wheat harvest to-day?" there has ever been, with 
 an agricultural people, a peculiar interest in those glorious 
 days of autumn, commonly known as harvest. Poets 
 have sung of the joys which properly belong to it, so 
 blessedly answering the hopes of those who have known 
 the inspiration of the early and the latter rain; while, in 
 sweet communion with nature, they have felt the chemic 
 forces of the sunshine and the dew. The whole planta- 
 tion was ever glad at this ingathering season. All were 
 very husj in the preparation for winter, storing away most 
 industriously for this less active portion of the year. On 
 yesterday active preparations were going on for the pleas- 
 ure of the guests of the family, who had now but a few 
 days more before a general breaking up of this band of 
 youth — some to go back to Princeton, some to return to 
 Bfc. Mary's school, and others either to Chapel Hill, the 
 State University or to their homes in Wilmington or New 
 Berne. 
 
 The vacation was about to close. Such a vacation of 
 fun and frolic had it been. Uncle Amos had been ordered 
 to make the necessary preparations for a rather exciting 
 hunt for wild hogs in the White Oak Pocoson, which lay 
 to the north-east of the plantation, about five miles away 
 and across the river. This heavily timbered swamp, of 
 many thousands of acres, drained by the white Oak River, 
 was the habitat of much large game, while it was the 
 
132 The Old Plantation. 
 
 rendezvous of many hogs which had strayed away from 
 the plantations and, growing wild, had largely multiplied. 
 So the hunt for wild hogs was on and there was a bustling 
 activity, in the preparation of guns, ammunition, and 
 a plentiful supply of provisions for both man and beast. 
 Well, here they go, Uncle Amos in his large mule cart, 
 with a large hamper basket of food for the hunters and 
 grain for the animals, while "Old Bet," as he called 
 the old large-bore plantation gun, was carefully stowed 
 away and his four dogs followed behind. These dogs 
 were half hounds and half bull terriers, showing on more 
 than one occasion their peculiar fitness for this order of 
 sport. The old planter, with his two sons and four other 
 young gentlemen (guests) were well mounted, and as they 
 rode off, each with gun and some with bowie knives, fol- 
 lowed by Buck on his mule, they suggested passages 
 in the border life of the "Scotch Baiders/ on their foravs 
 for English cattle along the border, in the days long ago. 
 As they passed through the barn yard six mule wagons, 
 horse carts and ox carts were busily employed in hauling 
 up the corn still in the shuck, and already a large pile of 
 the golden grain had been brought in from the fields pre- 
 paratory for an old-fashioned corn shucking, which we 
 hope to attend. Nothing of special importance tran- 
 spired en route, to the hunting grounds, on reaching which 
 the horses were carefully picketed and left in charge of 
 Buck. Uncle Amos called his four dogs to him, patted 
 them lovingly, and in the superstition of his race spit 
 on the head of each one and made a cross mark on the 
 ground, all for luck, then ordered them in for the hunt, 
 himself following as rapidly as the dense undergrowth 
 would allow. On came the party of young hunters, with 
 the old planter in the lead. 
 
 What splendid old forest trees are these ! What stately 
 cypress and sweet gums ! How dense the undergrowth of 
 sour wood and holly, interlaced in some places by the lux- 
 uriant growth of the yellow jessamine, while the bamboos 
 and the cat briars ran here and there and well-nigh every- 
 where, in their rich luxuriance from the alluvial virgin 
 soil. They make but slow progress, as every now and then 
 
The Old Plantation. 133 
 
 some of these city hunters are thrown to the ground, 
 with the foot caught in these vines. Still they persevere. 
 On they go. What sound is that ? 
 
 "Dat is ole Jube's voice," says the old black Nimrod, 
 as he cries out, "Harky, harky, Bob ! Harky, Saffo ! Go 
 to 'im, Pluck." 
 
 Presently it was clear that some game was nigh, for by 
 this time all four of the clogs were hurrying on the trail, 
 causing the woods to ring out with their deep-mouthed, 
 musical voices. The hunters pressed on, the old darky 
 gliding along at their head in his mastery of woodcraft, 
 and his old face lit up with all the joy of the chase. Still 
 the cry from the dogs comes back deeper and deeper. 
 Again the old darky calls out : 
 
 "Look for 'em, boys ! Find 'em, boys !" The pursuit 
 continues. After about a quarter of an hour's pursuit, 
 when the depths of this pocoson had been reached, Old 
 Amos called out in strong, full voice: 
 
 "Ole Marster, dat's no hog! Dat's a b'ar." 
 
 The well-trained ear of the old hunter had caught the 
 angry snarl of SanVs voice and unerringly he interpreted 
 it. At this announcement everybody's expression changed. 
 Faces flushed and eyes kindled in high excitement. Uncle 
 Amos was in his glory, for, much as he loved the coon 
 hunt and the pleasure of sneaking along through the 
 grass to kill the bald eagle, watching with keen eye from 
 his eyrie in the top of a tall, dead cypress, his chance of 
 swooping on a lamb or a pig, "de b'ar hunt" was his 
 highest earthly enjoyment. Still the cry of the dogs goes 
 on! The notes become harsher and harsher, deeper and 
 deeper, and the old hunter knew his faithful dogs were 
 pressing their quarry closer and closer. On went the 
 pack, on came the hunters ! Splendidly did these young 
 gentlemen bear themselves. Were they not on their met- 
 tle ? The angry cry of the dogs comes back in such short, 
 snatchy notes as to tell Uncle Amos what to do. 
 
 "'Zamine de guns," he called out. 
 
 Thereupon there was a quick examination of the guns, 
 lest the caps may have fallen off the tubes, for it was 
 before the day of breechloaders. 
 
134 The Old Plantation. 
 
 <C\ 
 
 f Is yuh re'dy?" he cried out, and with a thrilling ring 
 of his voice he cheered on his dogs. Then he rushed on, 
 but presently stopped, as he heard the yelping cry of one 
 of his dogs. With no effort to conceal his anger, he cried 
 out: 
 
 "Dam' dat b'ar; I'll git eben wid 'im yit." 
 
 Pressing on, he soon came in sight of Saffo prostrate 
 at the foot of a large white oak, which, partially uprooted, 
 had been bent over by some fierce gale of the equinox 
 at such an angle as enabled the bear to find safety from 
 the dogs some thirty-five or forty feet up the reclining 
 trunk. My sakes ! What a pandemonium of fury and 
 noise, as the dogs bayed deep and heavy at the foot of 
 the tree, with their mouths foaming with white saliva 
 and their eyes bloodshot from hot anger. By this time 
 the hunters were all up. Hear the old darky, as in 
 short, quick sentences he indicates the mode of attack. 
 
 "Dese dorgs mus'n't git kilt ! Ole Marster, you shute 
 in behin' de fore shoulder ! I'll put a lode in his back ! 
 Marse John, you an' de odder ge'mins fire into him as he 
 falls ! 'Tain't no use shuting him in de hed — lied harder 
 dan a nigger's." As agreed upon, the party of the younger 
 hunters had ranged around the tree at convenient dis- 
 tances for effective fire. The bear, well up the tree, the 
 trunk of which he was hugging with a strong, instinctive 
 grasp of his wild nature — looking around with his big 
 eyes, and mouth wide open, full of dangerous teeth, as 
 the dogs would bay at him in loud and fierce notes, was 
 growling savagely. Presently Uncle Amos and his mas- 
 ter, at the signal given, fire as agreed upon. The loads 
 evidently took effect but failed to kill him. As he was 
 falling the old darky fired again and with deadly aim, 
 for as the four clogs seized him he was unable to make 
 any fight. The old man called out, 
 
 "Dat las' lode, Marster, dun de wurk, suh. He's dun 
 ded." 
 
 Thus the old hunter saved his dogs, for in bruin's 
 deadly clutch some of them would have been killed. In 
 a thrice his keen-edged knife was passed across the throat 
 of the bear and a large stream of blood flowed freely, 
 
The Old Plantation. 135 
 
 which the dogs lapped in their hate of their lifeless enemy. 
 What was to be done in getting the animal to the cart? 
 He was far too heavy for them to drag his body out to 
 the point where the horses had been left. The plan was 
 soon agreed upon. Marse John and Uncle Amos were 
 to return for the mule and cart lines, while the other 
 hunters would take a course with the dogs around to the 
 left, hoping still to find some of the wild hogs. After a 
 time the party returned with the mule and soon the hind 
 legs of the bear were closely tied together and slowly, 
 yet successfully, the mule dragged the bear out of the 
 pocoson. While waiting for the other members of the 
 party to come up to the rendezvous, several sharp, ringing 
 reports of the guns well around to the left, with the bark- 
 ing of the dogs, assured Uncle Amos, "dat sum game 
 is up." Mounting the mule, he made his way in the 
 direction of the firing. He had not gone very far before 
 he met his old master, who told him that the dogs had 
 run into a herd of wild hogs and, bringing them to 
 bay, the young hunters had fired into the game, killing 
 one and wounding two others. The old hunter's blood 
 was up. He rode on as quickly as he could and pursuing 
 the wounded hogs with the dogs, by well directed shots 
 dispatched both of them before the dogs were allowed to 
 close in the deadly fight. The kind-hearted old Nimrod 
 succeeded thus in protecting his dogs which he valued 
 very highly. The large boar and two sows were dragged 
 to the cart in the same manner that the bear had been 
 brought out. Soon the cart was well loaded with game 
 and when the sun was about an hour high, the party of 
 hunters rode on ahead, leaving Uncle Amos and Buck 
 to bring up the rear. About nightfall the two servants 
 drove up to the backyard gate, when everybody came out 
 of the mansion to take a look at the bear, while Robert 
 and Washington had been called upon to dress the ani- 
 mal, assisted by two or three other servants. 
 
136 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Meantime everything was in readiness for an old- 
 fashioned plantation dinner, to be followed by an oyster 
 roast in the kitchen about ten o'clock that night, with 
 dancing coming between the two. As was often the case 
 in those days of unrestrained hospitality, some of the 
 young people from the neighboring estates drove over, 
 and together they enjoyed the oyster roast as those royal 
 entertainments were only seen in the old South. It was 
 yet in the early days of October, and the oysters were 
 not at their best, but had not the month of September, 
 with the letter "r" in it, already passed; and were not 
 oysters good in any month of the year that employed the 
 mystic letter "r" in its spelling? That was the rule im- 
 memorial, dating far back in bivalvular history. We 
 have already been in the old kitchen, Aunty Patty's sanc- 
 tum sanctorum, where many offerings were made through 
 this dusky priestess that would satisfy even Epicurus 
 himself. Well, Handy and Buck had piled the logs good 
 and high, and the strong blaze had begun to take serious 
 hold on the wood, when a large iron grate, with railing 
 around some four inches high, was placed on the top 
 of the burning logs. Presently in came two servants 
 with as many oysters as they could well carry piled 
 up in a large basket. While waiting for the grate to 
 become thoroughly hot, Handy and Eliza had set the 
 table in the dining room with special reference to an 
 oyster supper. To each plate (with it oyster knife and 
 fork) was placed a crash oyster napkin, in which to 
 
The Old Plantation. 137 
 
 hold the hot bivalve. There were no chairs placed at 
 the table, but in the place of the chair sat a large bucket 
 for the shells — for no one ever sits down on an occasion 
 like this to enjoy the oyster at its best. Presently, when 
 everything under the eye of Handy, a most excellent 
 dining room servant, had been put in apple pie order 
 Buck rang the bell, and on Eli stopping the music in 
 the hall in walked, two and two, as merry-hearted a party 
 of young people as town and country could produce. As 
 they move into the dining room what occasions those 
 merry peals of laughter but the enjoyment of some joke 
 of a bad scare or hard fall connected with the hunt for 
 wild hogs that turned out to be a genuine bear hunt? 
 It was quite clear that some of these young gentlemen 
 were making history this morning in their falls, as many 
 an older and distinguished man in politics has done 
 since then — for example, Grover Cleveland. My sakes, 
 what is that Handy and Buck are bringing in in that 
 large wooden tray (well-nigh four feet in length) piled 
 up high and wreathed all around with smoke, as from 
 the cave of Tartarus ! Ah, those are the genuine ISTew 
 River oysters roasted a la plantation. The tray is set in 
 the center of the table, equidistant from every point of 
 attack. Hear the ringing musical voice of my elder 
 brother as he calls out: 
 
 "Have at them in good style ! Let us all set to, as if 
 we were not ashamed of what we are about. Miss Nannie, 
 let me open you some oysters ?" 
 
 "No, I thank you, I can manage them myself with 
 this thick crash napkin, and besides I do not care to 
 let you see how many I eat." 
 
 On the opposite side of the table hear this bit of table 
 talk: 
 
 "What is that, Mr. Davis, I hear you say about, 'Wo- 
 men, like moths, are often caught by glare/ when you 
 are caught by a red-hot oyster?" 
 
 Here the laugh rang out all along the table while 
 joke after joke went the rounds, as everybody was enjoy- 
 ing the oysters and the bread and butter, with those tempt- 
 ing homemade cucumber pickles. Ah, that hot coffee, 
 
138 /The Old Plantation. 
 
 strong as aqua fortis and toned down with genuine 
 cream! It was a beverage fit for the Oriental houris. 
 But certain it is we do not intend to discuss the supper 
 any further, and right sure are we that it is foreign to 
 our purpose to report how often the tray was replenished 
 or how many bucketsful of shells were borne out; for is 
 not this the table of the writer's father, and true polite- 
 ness forbids anything more being said on this subject, 
 on the plain principle of the following incident: 
 
 When the Honorable Joseph H. Bradley (who after- 
 wards became the Nestor of the Washington City Bar and 
 greatly distinguished himself as counsel for the late un- 
 fortunate State's prisoner, Mrs. Surratt,) was a young 
 man and a candidate in Montgomery County, Maryland, 
 for the State Senate, in his canvass one day he was in- 
 vited to dine at the home of one of his friends, who in- 
 vited him to the sideboard, and there, opening the de- 
 canters of brandy and whiskey, deliberately turned his 
 back on his honored guest and walked to the door, leaving 
 him, unmolested by his presence, to help himself. Mr. 
 Bradley used to say that this was the most polite act 
 he had ever witnessed; and, while he had dined with Mr. 
 Clay and Mr. Webster, he had never seen genuine polite- 
 ness in finer form. 
 
The Old Plantation. 139 
 
 , -4 
 
 CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 There was a time in the history of the Eoman people, 
 when it was truthfully said in that vast empire that all 
 roads led to Eome. There was a time in the old Southern 
 plantation life that all the roads on the estate led to 
 the corn house. It was, indeed — either in its fullness 
 or emptiness — that the faithful nursing mother of the 
 muscle and brawn was shown to be really and truly the 
 corn house, which was so regularly drawn upon in the 
 general thrift of all forms of domesticated animal life 
 on this large estate. This is illustrated by a common say- 
 ing among the servants, when the writer was a boy, 
 "Nigger make de eo'n; hog eat de eo'n and nigger eat 
 de hog." Thus, the corn-crop was indeed an indispensa- 
 ble feature, for without it there was no "hog and 
 hominy," no well-kept horses or mules, no crowds of fat, 
 slick, blue-black, little darkies, swinging on the gates, 
 happy as the day was long, singing in their sweet, cheery 
 voices, in melody surpassing the children in the olive 
 groves of Italy, "I Wish I Was an Angel." The im- 
 portance of this cereal on the estate cannot well be over- 
 stated. Hence, every year, some six or seven large fields 
 were given to the production of large crops of this im- 
 portant grain, far more valuable than cotton, sugar, rice, 
 tobacco, or all the other farm products of this planta- 
 tation. One can now quite understand that large pile of 
 corn, yet in the shuck, so disposed in front of the large 
 corn house and cribs, in semicircular form, as to suggest 
 a fortification — a breastwork against the attacks of hunger 
 
140 The Old Plantation. j 
 
 in all the oncoming months until the golden harvest came 
 again. How busy all the transportation of the estate 
 must have been to have brought together so many hun- 
 dreds of barrels of corn from the several fields adjacent ! 
 Yet here it is. Some two hundred and fifty feet or more 
 in length must it be, as in form it sweeps around semi- 
 circularly, from one entrance and another to the barn 
 yard, while in height it was some four and a half feet, 
 and in width some fourteen or sixteen feet. How 
 smoothly this immense mass of food has been raked over 
 by cunning hands, and thus made readily susceptible, 
 by measurement, of very exact divisions into two equal 
 parts. Why divide it? Because, in response to a re- 
 quest of the servants, "ole Marster gwine to gib a corn 
 shucking ter-nite, and Buck and Cain dun bin sent 
 round on de mules to gib de impertashuns to all de na- 
 bers." As Ben thus answers the question, you must ob- 
 serve that his manner indicates no little excitement. 
 This is so because the three great high feasts on the plan- 
 tation are "Crismus hog killing and corn shuckin' " — 
 the first an immovable one, while the last two are mova- 
 ble feasts in the African almanac. Pending any one of 
 these notable events in plantation life, everybody is more 
 or less excited and thoroughly occupied. What are Uncle 
 Philip and Uncle Jim doing now ? With a tape-line they 
 are making an honest, fair division of that immense 
 corn pile, as nearly equal in bulk and barrels as these 
 well-trained eyes and hands can make it. They have 
 now agreed upon the dividing line, and look how carefully 
 they fasten it down with a long pole laid across the corn 
 pile, held firmly in its place by strong stakes driven firmly 
 into the ground. Old Master is called for and he says 
 the division is just and fair, and that settles it. The 
 estimate is that there are about seven hundred and fifty 
 barrels of corn in that immense pile, which lies there 
 like a big boulder of food which a wave of God's loving 
 providence had swept across the pathway of these sunny- 
 hearted sons of toil. Busy, very busy, are several of the 
 servants in preparing the supper, which always follows. 
 Beef, mutton and pork are in that happy process of plan* 
 
The Old Plantation. 141 
 
 tation cookery known as barbecue, and are in great abun- 
 dance. Such quantities of bread, wheat and corn, with 
 bushels of sweet potatoes and great baskets of pies and 
 cakes as to require a full staff of these natural born cooks. 
 The carpenters are erecting the simple but substantial 
 tables, and Aunt Daphne is unrolling yard after yard 
 of homemade white cloth to serve as table covers. Well, y 
 all the necessary preparations are going on under the 
 eye of the "ole Mistuss," whose judgment with these people 
 is oracular; for this is the fortieth harvest which she 
 has celebrated in her married life. She has learned from 
 the old planter that some two hundred and fifty servants, 
 not counting the women and children, must be fed, and 
 this without stint. As the day grows older and the prep- 
 arations continue, you observe that the servants are be- 
 ginning to arrive from the orchards and the lake. Some 
 are busy making their "shucking pegs" of seasoned hickory, 
 while the more fortunate have hunted up the iron or steel 
 ones which they used last year, and maybe for ten years, 
 The shucking peg is a sharpened spike about five inches 
 in length, fastened at the center to the forefinger by a 
 bit of buckskin on the right hand. With this they dex- 
 terously rip open the shuck from the ear of corn held 
 in the left hand, thus saving their finger nails and facili- 
 tating the shucking process to a remarkable degree. The 
 dexterity and rapidity with which they strip off the shuck, 
 to one who never witnessed it, are simply incredible. 
 About sunset the assembly bell rings and the servants 
 assemble in front of Ben's house in the barn yard. Here 
 they come, swinging along with that easy motion of body 
 so expressly indicative of good health. No rheumatism 
 here this evening; no stiffness of joints, no aches, no pains. 
 Even old Handy walks along like a boy, while Buck and 
 George are larking around, determined to have all the 
 fun that is possible. Here they come ! Here they come ! 
 And the cry is still they come ! 
 
 "My sakes ! whay'd all dese nigers com' f'om enyway ! 
 Dey fa'riy darkins de yerth ! dey shu'ly duz !" said Uncle 
 Amos as he came up, taking oft his hat. "Ole Marster, 
 $er's plenty ob 'visions fo' de hole country to eat/' 
 
142 The Old Plantation. 
 
 What are those men doing there? They are drawing 
 up two or three of the wagons in position so that from 
 them, as from a stage, "all de white fokeses can jes' 
 hab dere fun at de co'n shuckin'," says old Peter, who 
 is attending to this feature of the preparations. 
 
 While this is going on, you see some forty or fifty wo- 
 men, boys and girls, some with baskets and others with 
 rakes, getting ready to rake back the shucks from the 
 feet of the men and carry them to those tall rail pens 
 where they will be carefully packed away for the winter 
 feed of the cattle. After half an hour or more has passed, 
 waiting for the latest arrivals of reinforcements, whose 
 deep, rich voices you can hear now coming in several direc- 
 tions from the plantations around, every note of which is 
 full of that peculiar joy so well known to the African ear, 
 and which can come from none other than the old plan- 
 tation darky's throat, — well, here they all are at last 
 and, before anything else is done, they must all pass in 
 review before the old master, because there are some 
 servants on the adjoining estates that he will not allow 
 to attend pleasure makings of any character on his plan- 
 tation. They are the disreputable darkies of that por- 
 tion of the county and regarded as unfit associates for 
 his servants. He takes his position on the steps of Ben's 
 house, and with hats off the procession files by. Presently 
 Uncle Philip announces that Isaac and Arnold are the 
 two chosen captains; whereupon there is a great yell 
 of approbation. These two young men then begin the 
 division of the hands, after a most novel plan to you, 
 dear reader, who have never attended a corn shucking. 
 By this time a dozen or more half grown boys come for- 
 ward, their pine torches flaming with bright light, and 
 the scene becomes weird and very animated. Here stand 
 the two captains, and splendid specimens of youthful 
 vigor they are. Here comes Uncle Jim, and as he walks, 
 up he takes a knife out of his pocket, saying to the cap- 
 tains : 
 
 "Dis is fur de furst ch'ice ob de shuckers," and with 
 that he throws the knife in the air calling out, "Cross 
 or pile?" to which Isaac must make an answer. If he 
 
The Old Plantation. 143 
 
 says "cross," and the knife on the ground shows a metal 
 bar on the uppermost side of the handle, Isaac wins on 
 that throw, and vice versa. Then Uncle Jim addresses 
 Arnold on the same conditions he applied to Isaac. The 
 captain who wins the best two out of three or who first 
 guesses twice right has the first choice of hands, and you 
 may be sure they guard their rights almost religiously. 
 Then the choice goes on, each captain choosing his fol- 
 lowers until they have gone through the whole number 
 of two hundred and fifty hands or more, each man, as his 
 name is called, ranging himself behind his captain. Then 
 the captains resort to the arbitrament of the cross and 
 pile, as before seen, in the choice of the two halves of the 
 corn pile. The victorious captain, with two or three of 
 his most trusted followers, will then carefully walk over 
 the whole pile of corn, closely inspecting it, so as to hit 
 upon that half which, in his judgment, has the less num- 
 ber of barrels to be shucked, thus making way for victory. 
 After he has decided, he keeps his counsel until they have 
 had a word or two from the old master, in the way of 
 caution against bad temper or any tricks which may serve 
 to irritate or make their adversaries angry. Then, with 
 as much solemnity as any old Greek would employ in 
 consulting the Delphic oracle, the two captains come 
 out to the dividing line of the corn pile, shaking hands 
 in perfect silence, everybody around them as silent as 
 the grave, make a cross on the ground, and spit on it for 
 luck. Then, as if shot from as many Parthian bows, 
 the two captains call their respective followers to them 
 and the corn shucking is on in all its glory. Such noise, 
 such confusion, such bantering, such boasting, until the 
 two captains settled themselves down at the base of the 
 dividing line, marked by the long cypress pole, along 
 which they must shuck through the pile in such a way 
 as not to cause the pole to fall over on either side. The 
 scene which now ensues simply beggars description. Dear 
 old Sir Walter Scott, who has delighted the Anglo-Saxon 
 reader of Waverley in his matchless description of the 
 Tournament of Ashby de la Zouche, would fail in its 
 portrayal. The gifted author of Ben Hur succeeding 
 
144 The Old Plantation. 
 
 in his chariot race would not attempt it. The author 
 has seen hundreds of men wild with excitement at big 
 fires in large cities — as a young lawyer, when politics ran 
 high in the joint discussion of the old Southern cam- 
 paigns, he has witnessed how far excitement would sweep 
 men away in wild fury — but these were white men and 
 less emotional than these three hundred Africans ranged 
 around this pile of corn. While the corn shucking is 
 going on and these men are warming up fully to their 
 work, let us look into those wagons over there. The 
 young people from a number of the adjoining estates have 
 come over to enjoy the fun of the corn shucking and the 
 pleasure of the company in the dance, etc., at the great 
 house. It is quite a large company of both sexes you 
 see there mounting up into those wagons, and you may 
 be sure they are having a blessed good time, if laughter 
 and jokes betoken an abandon to fun and frolic. Hear 
 them as they begin to wager, here a pair of kid gloves, 
 there a handsome driving whip or a silver dog whistle, 
 or this and that and the other, on the corn shucking. My 
 sakes ! what a chorus of magnificent voices is that we hear 
 as the air is rent with the songs of these corn shuckers. 
 Hear them for a moment as they sing away, the ears of 
 corn nvinar towards the corn house as thick as snowflakes 
 in a storm, while the shucks are raked away in the oppo- 
 site direction. Each company seems to have its own leader 
 of songs while all the others will join in the chorus. In all 
 your life did you ever hear such fine voices — some as clear 
 and strong as Kent bugles and others as soft as a German 
 flute. Mark you, the women and the boys and girls are 
 all joining in the chorus. Hear them as the leader, in 
 a clear, strong voice, calls out : 
 
 "Massa is in de grate house countin' out his money, 
 
 Chorus: Oh, shuck dat co'n an' trow't in de ba'n, 
 Mistis in de parler eatin' bred an' honey, 
 
 Chorus : Oh, shuck dat co'n an' trow't in de ba'n, 
 Sheep shell co'n by de rattle of his ho'n, 
 
 Chorus: Oh, shuck dat co'n an' trow't in de ba'n, 
 Send to de mill by de whipperwill. 
 
 Chorus: Oh, shuck dat co'n an' trow't in de barn." 
 
The Old Plantation. 145 
 
 And then a hundred voices would ring out half a dozen 
 times or more, repeating the chorus until the leader would 
 again call out: 
 
 ' ' Ole Dan Tucker he got drunk, 
 Chorus : 
 Fell in de fiah an' kick'd up a chunk, 
 A red-hot coal got in his shoe, 
 An' oh, lawd me, how de ashes flu." 
 
 And then the full chorus half a dozen times over. 
 The truth is, the scene in all its varied features simply 
 beggars description, and while this is in no wise descrip- 
 tive of it, it may serve to give the reader some idea of 
 what a full round of melody we would have, when, as was 
 often the case, fully three hundred voices would swell out 
 in the chorus. Meantime the work went on, and the 
 deeper they went into the great pile of corn the higher 
 would rise their excitement, and the deeper and richer 
 their voices in simple-hearted songs. Some of these were 
 descriptive, others simply recitative, in the conduct of 
 which some of the leaders were quite gifted — making up 
 the song as they went along. Frequently it was that 
 plantation incidents, events in the community or the 
 personal peculiarity of some servant would be brought 
 out by the leader in giving a cue to the chorus which was 
 to follow. No pile of corn, no body of men, could stand 
 up long under such telling work. And yet it went on 
 for two hours or more until the fastest shuckers had gone 
 through the pile and were now about-facing, when the ex- 
 citement as they neared the close of the race deepened every 
 moment. Stop your talking in the wagon for a moment 
 or two ! Listen to those short, quick, nervous cries as 
 they call out, in quivering energy, "Oh, shuck dat co'n 
 and trow't in de ba'n." They show clearly that the race 
 is about to close. Presentlv as the victorious side winds 
 up the race, you would have thought that a cyclone had 
 broken loose, from the way that a cloud of shucks were 
 thrown up in the air, in token of their victory. Two or 
 three of the strongest of the company then caught up the 
 victorious captain on their shoulders and bore him away 
 in triumph to the old planter to be crowned as the victor, 
 
146' The Old Plantation.' 
 
 amidst such shouts and cries of joy as you, dear reader, 
 have never heard unless at an old-fashioned plantation 
 corn shucking. Corn shucking, not corn husking. 
 White people husk corn, negroes shuck it — wonderful dif- 
 ference between the two processes is there — quite as much 
 as between the white man playing on his violin and the 
 negro playing on his riddle. What a proud negro cap- 
 tain Isaac is, as his "ole marster" crowns him with a new 
 hat, shakes his hand, drops a five-dollar gold piece in it 
 and tells him to take the other captain by the hand and 
 invite him and everybody else to go up to supper. This 
 he does, and such a crowd and such a supper — plenty and 
 to spare for every man, woman and child there, with 
 Uncle Philip as master of ceremonies, directing Handy, 
 Cain, George and Buck to "wate on dem comp'ny niggers 
 fus', after dey dun gib de two captains plenty ob sup- 
 per an' lots ob good coffee." 
 
 In the earlier part of his life the old planter's custom 
 had been to give them plenty of whiskey, but far too many 
 fights and far too much blood were the outcome of the 
 whiskey. He substituted, in the latter days of his life, 
 the best of coffee for whiskey. After everybody had fully 
 enjoyed their well deserved meal, and, in fact, every 
 feature of the corn shucking, there followed some fine 
 singing of the good old plantation songs, among which 
 were "Old Dog Tray," "Marster's in de Cold, Cold 
 Groun'," "Carry me Bac ? to Ole Berginny," and a half 
 a dozen or more of those old-fashioned songs, when all 
 would go to their homes, not for "de nite," because it's 
 "mos' de broke ob day." 
 
The Old Plantation. 147 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 There has ever been to the mind of man more or less 
 of mystery about the night. To the illiterate of all races 
 this has always been expressly so. The mind of the plan- 
 tation darky before the war, was no exception to this 
 rule. They illustrated the great truth, operative among 
 all classes and conditions of men, that education holds 
 the only torch whose bright rays serve to dispel the dark- 
 ness incident to our journey through life. 
 
 These people, dwarfed by the ignorance of ancestral 
 environment, were the subjects of many superstitions. 
 They believed fully in all the distorted creations of the 
 supernatural. They held firmly to the sway of witches 
 and recognized the full and often fell power of "conjur- 
 ers" of their own race. At night they were overmastered 
 very often by their abject terror of ghosts and goblins. 
 The hooting of an owl in the dead hour of the night, or 
 the crowing of a cock near the doorway of their little 
 homes in the daytime, the crackling of the burning 
 brands on their hearthstone, the passage of a squirrel or 
 rabbit along their pathway, the failure to go out of the 
 house by the same door you entered, and many other 
 incidents of their lives, were omens of good or evil, as 
 they had been taught by their ancestry in Africa to in- 
 terpret them. Up to the date of the events of these pages 
 this race, benumbed by ignorance and fettered by super- 
 stition, had not been sufficiently long subjected to the 
 uplifting of association with superior civilization to be 
 fully freed from the sway of these hurtful forces. Fitted 
 
1 48 The Old Plantation" 
 
 or not as they may have been for any other form of 
 manumission, their subsequent history clearly attests the 
 fact that they have not been sufficiently freed from them- 
 selves to be clothed, in safety, with the finer forms of 
 American citizenship. 
 
 But it is foreign to the object of these pages to present 
 a disputation on the vexed and vexatious race problem in 
 the South. Fortunate, most fortunate, will that man 
 be, who may clear away the difficulties of the situation 
 and speak peace to the American people on this subject. 
 To his memory a grateful people would rear a monu- 
 ment, even more colossal than that already built to 
 symbolize their love and gratitude to that great slave 
 holder, George Washington. Dropping this subject with 
 the comforting assurance that there is a divinity which 
 shapes the ends alike of individuals and nations, let us, 
 dear reader, go and see these plantation people engaged 
 in some of their other pastimes and amusements. While 
 in some sense there was a round of labor from January 
 to December, there were many breaks in it — many sea- 
 sons and various occasions of what was to these servants 
 fine fun and high frolic. We have seen how much they 
 enjoyed the corn shucking and how fully they could aban- 
 don themselves to the circus or horse race; yet we greatly 
 doubt if anything could or did take the place with the 
 old-fashioned darky of the veritable coon hunt. With 
 them, indeed, the possum hunt was a delectation, associ- 
 ated as it ever was with the high feast of "taters an' 
 possum graby;" but after all it was a low form of mere 
 pot hunting. When, however, the darky went out coon 
 hunting his finest forms of energy and cunning were neces- 
 sarily called out in coping with that "varmint," which 
 so often baffled his woodcraft. The difference between 
 possum and coon hunting was this — the negro hunted the 
 former for food, while he gloried in a coon hunt for the 
 sport, the excitement in which the fight between his fa- 
 vorite dogs and the coon was exciting and enjoyable, far 
 more so than that of an Englishman contending on a 
 race course, for the Derby Cup. The relations of the 
 dog and the coon ever involved a mystery, which the 
 
The Old Plantation. 149 
 
 darky has never been able satisfactorily to solve. As 
 a boy on the old plantation, the writer has often had it 
 thus propounded by his own body servant, Cain: 
 
 "Marse Jeems, how doz yuh splain dis: Ole Boss kin 
 whip a possum ; a possum kin whip a coon, an' den de coon 
 kin turn rite 'roun' an' whip de dorg. How yuh splain 
 dat? 'Fore Gawd, dat is mfty quar' anyhow." 
 
 Well, all things are ready now for "de coon hunt." 
 Buck and Cain have provided themselves with plenty of 
 fine light wood for the torches, and Uncle Amos, you see, 
 has his two fine old dogs, Boss and Sappho, following 
 him, as the old man turns away from the grindstone, 
 with the clear light of the torches glinting from the bright 
 blade of his sharp axe, which he carefully hands to his 
 son, young Amos, telling him to be "monstus tickler wid 
 dat axe enyhow," while the old darky takes up his gun 
 and, whistling to his dogs, moves on to Marse John's 
 office. Here is a party of young gentlemen ready for 
 the hunt, and who are waiting for George and Henry 
 to come on with the axes. So off they started about nine 
 o'clock at night. Everything was favorable — the moon 
 was in its last quarter, the wind was light, and it was 
 just cloudy enough, the old hunter said, "fo' de scent ob 
 varmints to lie rite." The hunting ground was some two 
 miles away along the river swamp, which was heavily set 
 with large cypresses, - gums and white oak timber, with 
 the usual undergrowth of hornbeam and dogwood. The 
 habit of the raccoon is to make his special home in these 
 thick swamps, always near a water course, finding a hol- 
 low tree, in which he rears his family in safety; while 
 both male and female will sally out into the neighboring 
 plantation in their destructive forays upon the corn 
 crop while it is yet in its milky or roasting ear condi- 
 tion. They select their den near a stream of water, for 
 the double purpose of being convenient to the fish and 
 mussels found there, of which they are very fond, and 
 for finding a safe retreat in the water when closely pressed 
 by an enemy. The raccoon is not strictly amphibious, 
 but his lungs are so constructed that he can live a long 
 time under water, and thus drown a dog or a wildcat if 
 
150 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the two become engaged in deadly clinch. In the laws 
 of instinct how nature seems to take care of all her chil- 
 dren, if some of them would only trust her as implicitly 
 as the coon does the water when hotly pressed. 
 
 The hunters had been for some half hour or more 
 making their way through this deep forest. The dogs 
 were thrown out on the hunt, right and left, with noth- 
 ing to break the deep silence save the occasional hoot 
 from an owl out on his foray for food, or the "cheer-up" 
 of the ground squirrel as he scampered away, frightened 
 by the light of the torches, and the suppressed cry of the 
 different forms of larger insect life. Now and them some 
 one of the young hunters, more accustomed to city side- 
 walks and gas lights than to a night tramp in the forest, 
 would fall over a log or catch his foot in a bamboo briar; 
 when, necessarily obeying the law of gravitation, down he 
 would come — and sometimes spoke a form of English 
 he did not learn in the Sundav-school. The dogs were 
 well trained and the old hunter trusted them implicitly, 
 so on they went, the autumn night wind sighing in the 
 boughs overhead and the silent stars watching in their 
 courses. Presently the deep bark of old Sappho was 
 heard well over on the left. In a moment Uncle Amos 
 cheered on his dogs, calling out: 
 
 "Hark to her, Boz; call 'em up, ole gal," and then he 
 said, "Dat's a coon as sure's yuh's bo'n, Marse John ; doan' 
 yuh hear de ole gal's voice?" 
 
 He pushed on rapidly in the direction of the dogs. 
 By this time both dogs, with fine, rich voices, were wak- 
 ing up the echoes of the lonely woods and showed clearly 
 they were moving the game. The coon, unlike the fox, 
 rarely makes a long lead, but trusts more to the friendly, 
 overhanging trees and the deep water, as a last resort, 
 when hotly pressed. The short, jerky notes of the dogs' 
 voices showed clearly that the trail was a hot one, and 
 Uncle Amos, from his ripe experience, knew full well 
 that they would soon run the game to cover. Presently 
 a very different call from the dogs informed us that the 
 coon had taken to a tree and then the old man broke out 
 with great energy, "Speak to ? im, boys ! Gib us de news ! 
 
The Old Plantation. 151 
 
 Look to 'im, ole gal." Then he pushed on, followed by 
 the whole party. Soon we reached the banks of the river, 
 where on a tongue of land formed by a lagoon just above 
 us there grew a very large willow oak, at the base of which 
 both dogs were barking in such a furious way as to tell 
 its own story, even if they had not climbed up on the 
 trunk of the tree as far as they could. Uncle Amos 
 spoke up with no little excitement in his voice and man- 
 ner: 
 
 "He's dun up heah, Marse John, suah as yuh is bawn; 
 dese dogs don't lie, suah. Some niggers lies, but dese 
 dogs nebber; he's up heah an' he got to cum down." 
 
 George and Henry were ordered to cut down the large 
 oak, taking care, under the old man's order, to cut the 
 tree so it should fall away from the river. My sakes ! 
 how the chips fly, as these two axemen, excited by the 
 prospect of fine sport, throw themselves into the work. 
 While this was going on the old hunter had crossed the 
 lagoon, and with a torch flaming in his hand in the 
 most rapid manner was shining the eyes of the coon. 
 Soon he called out: 
 
 "Marse John, yuh make dem niggers, Buck an' Cain, 
 sta't up a fiah down dere clos' to de ribber. Dis gwine 
 to tak' all de lite we kin git." 
 
 A few moments later the old man called out in full 
 assurance that the coon was there, well up towards the 
 top of the tree. Meantime, he had built up a large fire 
 on his side of the lagoon, and presently for yards around 
 everything was flooded with light, when he recrossed and, 
 as he walked away from the tree, measured with his eye 
 the distance he thought the tree would reach on the 
 ground. Then he took Sappho on the other side of the 
 lagoon and asked his young master to please take the 
 other dog far enough away to be out of reach of the fall- 
 ing tree. Just then the great oak, creaking and groan- 
 ing, as if loath to fall, began at the top to sway and 
 swing. Cried the old man: 
 
 "Cut dat lef han' co'ner quick, boys, and fling her 
 'way f'om de ribber, an' look out all han's, fo' de coon is 
 
 a-cumrmn." 
 
152 The Old Plantation. 
 
 Just then the tree came down with a great crash; yei 
 before it struck the ground out from the limbs sprang 
 the coon in the direction of the lagoon, but old Boss was 
 a little too quick for him. They closed, they clinched, 
 and such a fight as neither you or I can describe ensued, 
 while each moment, with great activity, the coon seemed 
 to be getting nearer the water. Just then old Sappho 
 came to old Boss's help. The old darky cried out: 
 
 "Keep 'im out'n de watah, boys ! keep 'im out'n de 
 watah, boys! he'll drown dem dogs ef he git 'em in de 
 watah." 
 
 After a furious fight for some minutes, just on the 
 brink of the lagoon, the old clog succeeded in getting the 
 coon by the throat and the struggle was soon over. 
 
 "He dun got de steel trap grip on 'im now," called out 
 George, and as excitement ran very high among the whole 
 party Uncle Amos allowed the dogs to do him up thor- 
 oughly. The coon sold his life clearly, however, for the 
 blood was flowing from the ears and noses of both dogs, 
 as their enemy had set all four of his claws deep down 
 and torn the flesh clear out. While the fight was going 
 on the negroes were calling in loud tones of deep excite- 
 ment, "Go fer him, Boz ! Hold him, Sappho ! Eat him 
 up, ole gal !" After a time, when the fight was over 
 and the victory complete, the old hunter called both of 
 his dogs up to him and examined them closely. When he 
 saw the blood still flowing from the base of old Sappho's 
 ear he took a quid of tobacco out of his mouth and held it 
 there for some little time, thus trying to stay the flow 
 of blood. While he was thus engaged, seeing how deep 
 the cut was from the coon's sharp claws, the old man's 
 temper got the advantage of him and he cussed a blue 
 streak, for the old fellow loved his dogs as he loved his 
 children well nigh, and maybe you can't blame him so 
 much, as there was no law in old Amos's church against 
 "a nigger's cussin' when dat dam' coon dun tore dat dorg's 
 year mos' off." 
 
 "Is any ob yuh gemmem got yo' watch? What time is 
 it, Marster?" 
 
 The watches had all been left on the dressing tables at 
 
The Old Plantation. 153 
 
 home. The old negro said, however, "he couldn't see 
 de seben stars nor de pinters, but he fa'rly 'no'd it was 
 dun past midnite and we bettur be gittin' to'rds home." 
 So the old man whistled to his dogs — too badly done up 
 for any more coons that night — and the party made their 
 way home, George in the lead, with the coon swung over 
 his shoulder. As they neared the quarter the old darky 
 continued his astronomical observations, as they were now 
 out of the thick forest and he could see the sky. When 
 he found "de seben stars an' de pinter," he said, "it was 
 gwine hard on to'rds one o'clock perzacly." And the old 
 man was not very far away from the true time. 
 
 Doubtless, kind reader, in this account of the plantation 
 coon hunt, you have been pained, as the writer has been, 
 at the old man's apparent profanity. But, in very truth, 
 when reduced to its last analysis there was no profanity 
 about it. He never employed the name of the Deity. In 
 its use the average plantation servant was as religiously 
 reverent as the strictest Hebrew ever was. Even had he 
 been guilty of the charge, in common charity may we not 
 regard old Amos's weakness as Lawrance Sterne did that 
 of Uncle Toby when he swore; of whose oath Sterne says 
 so beautifully, "The accusing angel, as he flew up to 
 heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it 
 in ; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped 
 a tear on the oath and blotted it out forever." Let us 
 hope so, and see what that bright light in Granddaddy 
 Cain's house means at this unusual hour. Marse John 
 said to Uncle Amos: 
 
 "I am afraid the old man must be sick; we will go by 
 and see what's the matter." 
 
 As they drew near the old man's house they heard a 
 voice; and presently, close by now, they recognized it as 
 the voice of one engaged in prayer. Eeverently they 
 paused at the door and listened as this devout patriarch 
 of the plantation, the head of all the Methodist servants 
 on the estate, was pouring his heart out in prayer at 
 the foot of the throne of grace. He was praying with 
 great earnestness, with none other awake in his house 
 than his faithful wife, Aunt Phyllis. Waxing warmer 
 
154 The Old Plantation. ^ 
 
 and rising higher in his tide of devotions, the old man 
 invoked the Divine blessing on "Ole Marster, old Mis- 
 tiss, Marse John, Marse Jeems, Mis' Caroline an' all de 
 white fokeses at the grate house, an' all de niggers on de 
 plantation; an' mak' dem rascals quit stealin' chickens 
 and turkeys ob nites." Finally, waxing very warm, he 
 asked, "de Heb'nly Father, pleas', suh, to hab murcy on 
 po' ole Cain, fo' he wus tired, mi'ty tired ob m'iling and 
 t'iling here below. Pleas', suh, to sen' de angel Gabrul 
 down an' take 'im home to glory." 
 
 Marse John, in a fit of innate badness, could not stand 
 this any longer, and, thinking to put the old darky's 
 spiritual condition and sincerity to the sharpest possible 
 test, rapped loudly on the door. 
 
 Kap ! rap ! rap ! 
 
 "Who dere?" the old man anxiously inquired, still 
 on his knees. 
 
 "The angel of the Lord, come after Cain," in the most 
 sepulchral tone possible, said Marse John. 
 
 "Cain; come arter Cain? (Phyllis, put out dat lite, 
 ole 'oman, mi'ty quick.) He ain't been heah, suh, fo' free 
 weeks; he dun gone (throwing himself with great violence 
 well under the bed) he done gone, Marse Angel; ole Mars- 
 ter sent de rascal down to Wilmington wid a lode ob bacon 
 an' he dun run away, an' he in de Holly Shelter Pocoson, 
 Marse Angel, rite now. — (Lie mi'ty low, Phyllis, an' 
 doan' say not'in' nohow)," almost in a whisper. 
 
 The old man was frightened almost out of his wits. 
 As the mischievous party turned away from the old man's 
 house and were now well out of ear shot, old Amos spoke 
 up: 
 
 "Marse John, dese heah Mefodis niggers falls from 
 grace monstus quick, dosn't dey? Dase got none ob de 
 old-fashun' Baptist 'ligen or de parsavarince ob de saints 
 ob de Lord." 
 
 At his own quarters Marse John found that the other 
 members of the party were already discussing an ample 
 supply of cold ham and beaten biscuit, well buttered, and 
 such other good things as made up a most comfortable 
 supper for all the party, including the servants, who in 
 
The Old Plantation J 155 
 
 their turn ate heartily, all showing clearly that an old- 
 fashioned plantation coon hnnt served the double purpose 
 of plenty of fun and whetting the appetite. My sakes! 
 how Buck and all the other servants did eat, while the 
 dogs, Boss and Sappho, enjoyed the scraps. Ah, those 
 blessed old plantation days — we ne'er shall see their like 
 again. 
 
156 The Old Plantation, 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Well, well, the visit of these charming young people 
 at the old plantation was now over. Comparative quiet 
 now obtained where for the past few weeks that form of 
 sweet pleasure alone known to youth had held joyous 
 sway. They all realized, in the rapid flight of time, 
 how truly Robert Burns had said: 
 
 "Pleasures are like poppies spread; 
 We seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 
 Or, like the snowflake on the river, 
 A moment white, then gone forever ; 
 Or, like the fitful borealis race, 
 That flits ere you can point the place; 
 Or like the rainbow, evanishing amid the storm/N 
 No man can tether time or tide, 
 The time has come and Tarn maun ride." 
 
 Well off to Princeton, to Chapel Hill, to St. Mary's, 
 Raleigh, these young people go ; not leaving as they came, 
 however, for that sly little god, Cupid, had been indus- 
 triously engaged, and from his bow enwrapped with flowers 
 had sent many a dart with quivering accuracy to the 
 heart. Well, thus has it ever been and thus will it ever 
 be to the end of the chapter of time. Amen. So be it. 
 
 The institutions of learning at the South have under- 
 gone many changes. Many of them in the late forties and 
 early fifties were far, very far, from lacking very many 
 things to recommend them. When one takes into consider- 
 ation the fact that institutions of learning in Georgia, 
 South Carolina, and other parts of the South, were of so 
 
The Old Plantation? 157 
 
 EigK a grade that such of her distinguished sons as Alex- 
 ander Stephens and Benjamin Hill of Georgia, Wade 
 Hampton of South Carolina, the Breckenridges, of Ken- 
 tucky, and many others whom it were tedious to mention, 
 were outfitted for the distinguished usefulness they 
 achieved, what conclusion do we reach? None other than 
 this — that the wealth of the South (and at that time the 
 nation's wealth was at the South) demanded the best of 
 everything in the markets of the world. 
 
 In the world of fashion, Paris, through New Orleans, 
 was tributary to the South. It is said that some of the 
 wealthy people of Louisiana were careful to send regularly 
 their most particular and expensive laundry work to Paris. 
 If it be true that this was the rule in regard to the outfit- 
 ting of the body, we are quite sure that North Carolina, in 
 common with Virginia and the other Southern States, 
 held within their border institutions of learning — male 
 and female — preparatory schools, colleges and universities, 
 which proved the nursing mothers of both men and women 
 largely influential at home and abroad. We know that this 
 was so in North Carolina for years before the war and, 
 thanks to God, the old State, after a long, dark inter- 
 regnum, is coming to her own again, and we believe this 
 is so in the South generally. 
 
 The writer is free to admit that the practical working 
 of our system of labor at the South served to keep the 
 extremes of our population far apart. It was a long, long 
 way socially from the front piazza of the planter to the 
 cabin door of either the overseer or the "poor white trash" 
 element. 
 
 Practically, before the war we had no yeomanry; and 
 in this condition lay our greatest weakness — compensated, 
 however, by so many advantages under the old regime as 
 more than condoned that weak thread in our social or- 
 ganism. In this cluster of preparatory schools for the uni- 
 versity, as well as in the number and high character of 
 her smaller colleges — but more expressly in the university, 
 we have the secret of the State's wealth in great men; 
 while for the perpetuation of that noble race mothers were 
 educated, and well educated — not out of any of the gentle 
 
158 The Old Plantation. 
 
 and influential femininities of the sex — as well by the 
 Baptist at Murfreesboro, the Methodist at Greensboro, 
 the Presbyterian at Hillsboro and Charlotte, the Moravians 
 at Salem, as by the Episcopalian at St. Mary's, Kaleigh. 
 These institutions, in those blessed good old days, were 
 both the pride of and the bulwark of the State, and 
 served to produce that fine type of character which made 
 citizenship in this State abound in all the finer forms of 
 conservatism. In the markets of the world the State 
 credit was equal to the best in this country; while her 
 merchants were able to buy what they pleased in New York, 
 and on such terms as they might elect. The healthful 
 interblending of the Scotch-Irish blood of the Piedmont 
 and western counties with that of the Cavalier and Hugue- 
 not of the more eastern and coastal section, had prepared 
 a race of men whose high courage and devotion in the army 
 of Northern Virginia later on has never been surpassed in 
 the annals of our race. The religious life of the people, 
 happily fostered at her schools, had very much to do with 
 this result. 
 
 The writer can speak in none other than a general way 
 of any of these schools except Mr. Bingham's school for 
 boys, then taught in Orange County, some twelve miles 
 from Hillsboro; of St. Mary's school, Raleigh; and of the 
 university at Chapel Hill. They were all three exception- 
 ally fine institutions, and naturally enough so, as they 
 enjoyed many marked advantages. 
 
 The South at this time was at the very zenith of her 
 prosperity, coming from her great wealth. In those days 
 it was not an unusual condition of affairs that at the same 
 time and from the same family the daughter should be 
 at St. Mary's, the elder brother at Chapel Hill, and the 
 younger boy at Mr. Bingham's school. Thus, in some 
 sense, these three institutions seemed to have gone together, 
 drawing their patronage from the same families between 
 the Potomac and the Rio Grande. 
 
 At no institution in this country (not even excepting 
 the famous boy school in Concord, New Hampshire; and 
 we doubt whether we ought to except Rugby, England, 
 in Tom Brown's days), in the last fifteen years before the 
 
The Old Plantation. 159 
 
 war, was there annually assembled a finer body of youtH 
 than that over which William I. Bingham, the second, 
 presided. It has been a half century since I looked in his 
 fine old face, but I warm up and grow younger when I 
 think of him. What splendid boys this noble old teacher 
 numbered among his pupils. When I shut my eyes and 
 call their names, flushed with young life and its joyous an- 
 ticipations, I can almost hear the ringing laughter of the 
 brilliant Davy Hall of Warrenton, of that born Chester- 
 field, William Hunt Hall of Wilmington; of that singu- 
 larly handsome boy, James B. Hughes of New Berne ; and 
 of Henry Cobb of Alabama. Yes, I can see the manly 
 forms of the Merritts; that born linguist of Chatham 
 county, Sam Jackson ; and am prepared for all the mischief 
 of Parsley of Wilmington and many others just as attrac- 
 tive, most of whom went with me from this school to 
 Chapel Hill, while many of them have passed over the river 
 just a little way ahead of me, where I trust we may all 
 meet dear "Old Bill," as we then called Mr. Bingham, 
 that nonpareil, that prince of American teachers. 
 
 And what shall be said of dear old Chapel Hill, with 
 Governor Swain as president; the Messrs. Phillips and 
 Professor Fetter, Dr. Shipp, the scholarly Hubbard, the 
 amiable Wheat, the faithful Brown, the loving young 
 Battle, a tutor full of rich promise, so faithfully kept in 
 lifelong usefulness to his alma mater and to his State; 
 that miracle of men, in his vast learning, Dr. Mitchell; 
 with that embodiment of high character and consecrated 
 talent, Judge Battle? Old Chapel Hill boy of the early 
 fifties ! Shut your eyes and hear the old college bell, while 
 you think tenderly of Walker Meares, Jimmie Wright, 
 John Holmes, Henry Bryan, Baldy Capehart, Alfred 
 Waddell, Eufus Paterson, Tom Settle, Zeb Vance, Jimmie 
 Wilson, Gideon Pillow, Hunter Nicholson, that sweet- 
 hearted boy, as handsome as an Apollo, Ivy Foreman 
 Lewis, John Swann Moore, and "Button" Battle ; with that 
 youth that never had a fair fight with the devil in his life, 
 but who was born good, Dick Battle; Dick Henderson, 
 Fred Hill, Horace Lacy and Dick Yarboro. Then tell me 
 if you and I did not have royal companions in those days I 
 
l6o The Old Plantation. 
 
 Do you wonder that "Ole Bunk," in his tender, watch- 
 ful guardianship over that band of splendid boys, showed 
 the whole South that he bore the university a far reaching 
 love which only death itself could reach? His charge, 
 embracing during his long term of office many of the 
 noblest young men of the South, was indeed a grand one; 
 and right nobly did he and the whole faculty perform their 
 loving duties. Their fidelity to high trust was such that 
 in elevating the standard of citizenship in the common- 
 wealth and elsewhere in the South they lessened the duties 
 of those who have succeeded them. Messrs. Battle, Winston 
 and Alderman, as presidents of the university, have all 
 gratefully felt that these educators stimulated them to 
 such alacrity and marked ability as have spread abroad 
 the high fame of this great institution. Esto perpetual 
 Esto perpetua longissime. 
 
 Turning now to another institution, let us attend a com- 
 mencement of St. Mary's in that golden era of her high 
 prosperity under the elder Smedes, who, faithful unto 
 death, through a long life of such high function as one of 
 the great teachers of the land, has made his name a house- 
 hold word in many houses of the South, even as far away 
 as the Eio Grande. This is Commencement week at St. 
 Mary's, and those carriages filled with youths are just 
 down from the Commencement at Chapel Hill. These 
 young gentlemen, en route home from the university, have 
 stopped over — some to witness the graduation of their 
 sisters and sweethearts, others to have a good time gener- 
 ally. June is here in all her leafy pride and the city of 
 Raleigh is out in full force, with her beautiful daughters 
 and chivalric sons. Wilmington, ISTew Berne, Edenton, 
 Washington, Fayetteville, Charlotte — in fact nearly all of 
 the larger towns and most of the counties of the State are 
 here represented, as well in the young ladies of the school 
 as in the many s^iests. It is indeed a "red letter day" in 
 the history of St. Mary's. In that large parlor, perhaps 
 the largest, and certainly among the most beautiful in the 
 whole South, what an assemblage of beautiful maidens and 
 handsome young men? What soft, sweet voices these 
 Southern girls have, and what marked proprieties of dress. 
 
The Old Plantation, 161 
 
 you must observe among them; also how modest their 
 bearing, and the absence of anything like boisterous or 
 bantering demeanor. Not a single touch or taint of a 
 hoyden among them all. Of home refinement and 
 delicacy of the old plantation life, what living and loving 
 epistles are these Southern girls ! How proud is their old 
 bishop (Atkinson) of them all — his dear children, most 
 of whom he has confirmed — you may see, as his loving eye 
 lights up with admiration of those three lovely, tidewater 
 girls who glide along over the stage to their places at the 
 piano, harp and guitar ! What poetry of motion in the 
 carriage and walk of the ante-bellum Southern girls 
 in those blessed days when the young men did not part 
 their hair in the middle, and when no bicycles had ruined 
 the grace of woman's attractive movement. How broad 
 and full the course of study in this school, the admirable 
 essays, read so modestly and effectively by the young 
 ladies, set forth, as the noble face of Dr. Smedes lights 
 up with pleasure at some singularly fine sentence in her 
 salutatory falling from the lips of that fair graduate 
 from Georgia; or as further on in the exercises the vale- 
 dictorian moves many of a large audience to tears when 
 with faltering voice she says farewell to dear old St. 
 Mary's forever. Had the present writer a million of 
 dollars a minute for one short half hour (now that in 
 the breaking up of the old plantation life the Southern 
 wealth has gone), five millions should go to the endow- 
 ment of Chapel Hill, five millions should go to the 
 building of St. Mary's, and five millions should be spent 
 in establishing a large preparatory school, on the same 
 plan as that of the Bingham school in the fifties, giv- 
 ing to every one of the Southern States scholarships in 
 each of these splendid institutions. And yet it may be 
 that these schools, in common with Davidson College, 
 Wake Forest, and all the other schools of our Southland 
 contending with poverty, may in the end demonstrate 
 the fact that the most influential of all endowments is 
 fine Christian character, allied to that broad and deep 
 scholarship which the Southern educators are now bring- 
 
1 62 The Old Plantation. 
 
 ing to our institutions of learning from the Susquehanna 
 to the western verge of Texas. 
 
 When one pauses long enough in these days of hurry 
 and worry to give the subject the thought to which it is 
 entitled, by virtue of its importance in the past to the 
 South' s record, no class of her devoted children is more 
 entitled to a grateful recognition than such as have al- 
 ready been mentioned among the educators of the land. 
 To them, among many others, the names of Deems, 
 Horner, Wilson, Graves, John Bingham, Sprunt and Kob- 
 inson should be added, as those whose lives are perpetu- 
 ating themselves in the great usefulness of their pupils, 
 their children, and their successors in high office. High 
 office it is. Aristotle and Socrates were great teachers, 
 and yet it was left to the great Nazarene himself to illus- 
 trate the fact that he who taught most industriously, with 
 the highest standards always before his eyes, preached 
 most effectively. 
 
 The writer could scarcely have said less than he has 
 said in giving anything like an adequate knowledge of 
 the schools to which the Southern boys and girls were 
 sent from their plantation homes, in the good old days 
 before the floods of 1861 and '65. These schools, in the 
 high character of the great teachers of the South, ac- 
 count for the remarkable influence of her people for so 
 many years, actually shaping the policy of the Govern- 
 ment for more than three-quarters of a century in affairs 
 of the republic. Their power was only broken under the 
 benumbing influence of the French devolution, so pro- 
 longed as to reach from Paris to Fanueil Hall, Boston, 
 ushering in that form of popular contempt i6v authority 
 which has swept away the Constitution, having employed 
 ^Uncle Tom's Cabin" as its a rant coureur. 
 
 It will not be forgotten that these pictures of Southern 
 plantation life were to be seen in all the Southern States, 
 prior to the war, as well in Maryland as in Texas. The 
 writer portrays those in North Carolina, not because they 
 were exceptional, but because be can speak of these more 
 understandingly. The early fifties at the South was an 
 era of high standards. Her prosperity was never greater. 
 
The Old Plantation. 163 
 
 The wisdom of her statesmen had been vindicated, in the 
 popular judgment, by the annexation of Texas and the 
 acquisition of California. All over the South, at that 
 time, the public men were of such high character and were 
 possessed of ability so very marked as to show that Cal- 
 houn, Clay, Benton, King, Gaston and Reeves had left 
 their impress on that age. 
 
 In North Carolina our young men were animated by 
 the example of a singularly strong band of distinguished 
 men. In the Senate of the United States were Messrs. 
 Badger, Mangum and Haywood, succeeded by such men 
 as Bragg, Clingman, and others scarcely less distin- 
 guished. In the House of Eepresentatives were McCoy, 
 Donnell, Ashe, Outlaw, Bryan, Craige and Ruffin, all 
 of whom showed clearly that Mr. Macon's influence over 
 the State had never died out. On the Bench of the 
 Supreme Court were the elder Ruffin, Pearson and Bat- 
 tle ; while on the Circuit Court Bench were such pure jur- 
 ists as Caldwell, Bailey, Person, Shepherd, Settle, Manley, 
 Dick, Saunders and Ellis, all of whom served to main- 
 tain the high standard of judicial purity and ability erected 
 by Henderson, Murphey, Daniels and others. Such men 
 as Gales, Holden, Hale, Fulton and others, maintaining 
 the high rank of journalism in the State, with a singularly 
 able and pure body of clergymen presiding over the 
 different churches of the commonwealth, were the in- 
 fluential forces actively at work, in cooperation with 
 t the marked purity of home life from Cherokee to Curri- 
 i tuck, in investing the State with that power which she 
 showed all through her history, and notably so from 1861 
 to '65. No wonder that when their old mother's honor 
 was assailed such men as her peerless Vance and her in- 
 trepid band of distinguished sons should have rushed to 
 the rescue, followed by one hundred and twenty-five 
 ; thousand patriots, espousing her fortune for weal or woe 
 ; from Bethel to Appomattox. This faintly outlined con? 
 dition of the South in the decade just before the war be- 
 |: tween the States was the fine fruitage of her social forces 
 ; in active play from the old plantation life. She was at 
 the acme of her glory then, and certainly in many respects. 
 
164 The Old Plantation. 
 
 Christendom has never equaled it. In our subsequent 
 history we can hope for no parallel — in its high-typed 
 golden-hearted manliness; in its gentle, refined and cul- 
 tured womanhood; in its freedom from the prurient 
 forces of that materialism which measures men, not by 
 what they are so much as by their pecuniary successes al- 
 together. From its fine products we must, indeed, char- 
 acterize it as a bright era in the history of our civiliza- 
 tion. It was about to die. Like the dying dolphin, which 
 puts forth its most beautiful coloring as it gasps out its 
 life on the whitened sands of the seaside, so the old South 
 was never so fair nor so dear to her children as during 
 the last decade of her existence, from 1855 on to the 
 close. 
 
 We have glanced at the schools and colleges of the 
 South, and have seen how admirably they served the high 
 purposes for which they had been called into life, by 
 the wealth and culture of the old plantation regime. It 
 must not be forgotten that while the North centered all 
 of her finest energies along the lines of commerce and 
 manufactures, the South, up to the great upheaval, con- 
 tinued an agricultural people (with her great wealth and 
 consequently her strength) on her large landed estates. 
 
The Old Plantation. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 To the Southern people many and varied were the 
 sources of relaxation and amusement. We have indi- 
 cated some of the home modes of innocent enjoyment on 
 these pages. Few people ever made more of or derived 
 more pure pleasure from the celebration of marriage than 
 did our fathers and mothers, in their old-fashioned, home 
 kept weddings. To the bridal couples of that era there 
 were no limited express railroad trains, taking them with 
 lightning speed out of touch with the loved ones at home. 
 This was the bright reign of home weddings among home 
 people, with the joyousness of home customs and the sun- 
 light of home glorified upon everything. After charming 
 hospitalities at the home of the bride (where the guests, 
 sometimes from a hundred miles or more away, were en- 
 tertained) the bridegroom's family called all the guests 
 to his home. Then the bridesmaids and groomsmen 
 claimed their privilege of entertaining. Thus was it that 
 one marriage often called for a half dozen or more beau- 
 tiful parties. Thus was it, also, that one wedding led up 
 to other weddings. One can quite understand the social 
 conditions, where these old-fashioned English customs had 
 obtained from the early settlement of the country. What 
 strong reason had these people for loving their homes, 
 the lares and penates of which had felt no touch or taint 
 of commercialism, and who were strangers to the rude 
 shocks given the divine institution of marriage by the 
 modern appliances of divorce whose fearful driving wheels 
 are centered in the clubhouse. In those better davs of 
 
1 66 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the republic, freed largely from cosmopolitan evil, the 
 present writer remembers well the widespread interest 
 and regret over the first notable suit for divorce among 
 the very best people of Virginia and Maryland — how it 
 was discussed and how sharply reprobated. Alas, alas, 
 what changes have come with Worth gowns from Paris 
 and the customs loaned us (in questionable kindness) from 
 Gotham, time is sadly revealing. In those days it was 
 not unusual for parties of young people, properly chaper- 
 oned, to spend some weeks of the winter season of gayety 
 in New Orleans, at the old St. Charles and St. Louis 
 hotels. The time ordinarily selected was just before the 
 Lenten season set in, when the charming population of 
 that delightful city, French and Creoles, were at the 
 heyday of enjoyment in the carnival season. The re- 
 turn home was made generally by the Mississippi Eiver, 
 whose floating palaces were singularly attractive. In the 
 summer time the wealth of the South enabled many of 
 its best people, old and young, to repair to Saratoga 
 Springs and elsewhere North. The seaside resort at 
 Cape May was then very popular ; nor was old Point Com- 
 fort less so, as there had been no development of any kind, 
 good or bad, at Narragansett Pier or Newport. Modern 
 millionairism at that time had not rendered possible such 
 a social evolution as the "Four Hundred" of New York, 
 that sickly product of the distempered conditions of the 
 post-bellum congestion of wealth and morals — of mascu- 
 line women and effeminate men. 
 
 In our portion of the old South there were two occasions 
 of marked interest to plantation people. These were our 
 agricultural fairs and the sessions of our State Legis- 
 lature. In the summer months there had been an inter- 
 change of charming acquaintance among the several sec- 
 tions of the State. Some of the Tidewater people went 
 in their own carriages, in quest of health and pleasure, 
 as far as the charming resorts along the French Broad 
 Eiver, and elsewhere across the mountains in western 
 North Carolina. Others again found all they desired near 
 home at Nag's Head or at Beaufort. Harbor. There was 
 no Morehead City in those days. A larger number still 
 
The Old Plantation. 167 
 
 either occupied their summer homes, in the healthy sec- 
 tions of Moore and Chatham, or went to the charming 
 resorts in the famous old County of Warren, known in 
 the parlance of that day, as Jones* Springs and Old 
 Shocco Springs. The writer, as a university man, and 
 as a young lawyer, had enjoyed social life at Saratoga 
 and the Greenbrier White Sulphur — had tested the soft 
 crabs and other good things at the height of the season 
 at Old Point Comfort and Cape May— and he is free to 
 say that all this, of its kind, was very fine and enjoyable. 
 At the same time, let these young Southern readers know 
 the fact that nowhere in the world, in the judgment of 
 the writer, did the old plantation element feel itself quite 
 as much at home as at Jones' and Old Shocco Springs. 
 And this is so for these reasons — here the plantation 
 element, from the Albemarle and Pamplico sections of the 
 State, with large wealth and high culture, from weight 
 of numbers and social position, had the controlling in- 
 fluence. These resorts had been frequented by the same 
 families, in many cases, for more than one generation. 
 And then, in those days, the County of Warren, with its 
 great wealth and fine society, was the special habitat of 
 the old-time Southerner. In its palmiest days it is said 
 to have had, on the whole, the finest estates, the best bred 
 horses, the purest breeds of "Alston- Greys" and "Cotton 
 Beds" (game chickens), the largest gardens for both flow- 
 ers and vegetables, with the most luxuriant mint beds in 
 the whole State. Eegarding its higher products, some 
 have affirmed that the men of old Warren were singu- 
 larly manly and its women exceedingly beautiful. Let 
 it be observed, however, that in these particulars no 
 county or section throughout the whole South had any 
 monopoly. This much the writer runs no risk in saying. 
 Memory, true to her trust, carries him back to one of the 
 most noted of all the seasons at Old Shocco, when the 
 large and fashionable company was at its height. The 
 various sections of the State were represented there, as 
 well by its fine young men as by its beautiful women. It 
 was the evening of the "great ball." Eichmond and 
 Petersburg, Virginia, and the larger towns of the State 
 
1 68 The Old Plantation. 
 
 were out in full force. Old Frank Johnson's (negro) 
 string band furnished the music, and who ever heard bet- 
 ter dance music than this? It is said that, as the night 
 wore away, this remarkably gifted darky has often been 
 known to lose consciousness and go to sleep, yet go on 
 calling tho figures and never make a mistake. The floor 
 was full of couples in the large, double quadrilles, and 
 
 "Bright the lamps shone on fair women and brave men." 
 
 It so happened that in the same set were two sisters 
 from the neighboring town of Warrenton, and the lovely 
 
 Miss from Wilmington, Miss from Bertie County, 
 
 perhaps the most beautiful woman North Carolina ever 
 
 produced, and Miss from Wilkesboro. These five 
 
 were the most strikingly beautiful Southern girls the 
 writer has ever seen anywhere. And yet, what am I 
 talking about? What is the difference between the most 
 beautiful rose in the flower garden of Pensacola, Florida, 
 or that same lovely flower found in Richmond, Vir- 
 ginia? One star may differ from another star in beauty, 
 but the characteristic loveliness of the ante-bellum plan- 
 tation girls was so marked that you could scarcely note 
 the difference between its fine forms, as seen all over North 
 Carolina. You may say the same of the whole South. 
 Two of the above young ladies were types of that form 
 of beauty in the delineation of which dear old Sir Walter 
 Scott seems to have reveled in his description of Brenda 
 in the "Pirate," while the other three rej^resented that 
 order of loveliness of which her fair sister, Minna, has 
 ever been the type. But what is the use of stating that 
 which everybody knows ? The beauty of Southern girls has 
 passed long ago into a proverb. Our Northern friends 
 love to come down to Baltimore and witness for them- 
 selves the beauty of Southern girls on Charles street, and 
 hear their sweet voices in the mellow, soft accents of the 
 Southern plantation, with no blight or blur of nasal 
 catarrh upon it. The young people of that time delighted 
 in attending the agricultural fairs in Raleigh in those 
 beautiful days of October, where the deep interest and 
 healthful emulation in the plantation products brought 
 
The Old Plantation; 169 
 
 many of the most successful planters together. The sweet 
 hospitality of Raleigh, then scarcely a city, together with 
 the Yarboro Hotel, Guyon's, and the City Hotel under that 
 perfection of a host, Captain Lawrence, added largely to 
 the pleasures of the occasion. In those days the fair was 
 not regarded as over until the young people had enjoyed 
 the "Marshall's Ball" at the Yarboro Hotel, a very charm- 
 ing function, under the inspiration of old Frank John- 
 son's music. 
 
 In those days Raleigh was, indeed, a most charming 
 city. How could it be otherwise when such distinguished 
 sons of the old State could then be often seen on the 
 streets as ex-Governor Charles Manly, ex-Governor Wil- 
 liam A. Graham, ex-Governor Thomas Bragg, Judges 
 Badger, Battle, Ruffin, Saunders and Manly, while the 
 Haywoods, the Bryans, the Johnstons, the Mordecais, 
 the Grimes, the Hines, the Cottons, the Camerons, the 
 Masons, the Devereux and many others kept their ances- 
 tral position in society, rather by what they were than 
 as they were rated by the tax collector ? Ah, me ! "Tem- 
 pora mutantur et nos mutumur in Mis" said the old pagan. 
 Without employing any vain regrets or indulging any 
 invidious comparisons, it may be pardoned an old man 
 if he says that when such men as the Moores, the Ashes, 
 the Daveses, the Waddells, the Hills, the Grahams, the 
 Collinses, the Davises and many others were active in the 
 State, Citizenship, as worn by them and their brilliant 
 orators, Hawkes, Miller, Joseph Hill and Michael Hoke, 
 was accounted her greatest wealth and proudest distinc- 
 tion, rather than the money of individuals or corporations. 
 It was during this golden era, when these social forces 
 had fully crystallized into their very finest forms, that the 
 Legislature was in session. The truly representative men 
 of the State were members of that body, with that peer- 
 less gentleman and distinguished lawyer, the Honorable 
 Richard Speight Donnell, as speaker. Raleigh was, per- 
 haps, never so enjoyable as at that time. With her own 
 citizens at their best, in the exercise of that sweet hos- 
 pitality for which they have been ever so strikingly dis- 
 tinguished, one can say this with perfect impunity. You 
 
170 The Old Plantation. 7 
 
 may be quite sure that -such young gentlemen as James 
 Allan Wright of Wilmington, William Saunders, Joseph 
 A. Englehard, and many others like them, were in the 
 full tide of enjoyment of that city, full of charming stran- 
 gers from various sections of the State. Party after party 
 was given by the Manleys, the Haywoods, the Badgers 
 the Bryans, and others equally distinguished for social 
 position. With its beautiful belles and its striking beaux, 
 the city had never been known quite so gay. 
 
 There was one young lady about to make her entree 
 into society and to signalize this important event in her 
 beautiful young life her father and mother gave a very 
 large party. Perhaps it was the most noted event of a 
 very notable winter. The attendance was strikingly large, 
 embracing some of the creme de la creme of the State, 
 for these proud parents, on both sides of the house, repre- 
 sented two of the most distinguished families in the whole 
 commonwealth. When the whole house was fully ablaze 
 with light and the old-fashioned wax candles, in untold 
 numbers, were shedding their soft kindly rays (the mod- 
 ern gas or electric light was unknown then) over the large 
 company, surely could Sir Walter Ealeigh have walked 
 in with Queen Bess on his arm the "virgin queen" would 
 have recognized no trace of degeneracy in the beautiful 
 women and handsome men. She would have joyously ex- 
 claimed to all about her, "These are the rich products 
 of the Anglo-Saxon civilization, which has girdled the 
 world with life and light and beauty. They are all my 
 children." And well might she have done so, for passingly 
 beautiful was the rare scene. The whole night passed 
 as joyously as that of a belle on her wedding eve. The 
 distinguished debutante was radiantly beautiful, moving 
 about among her delighted guests and receiving the homage 
 of all whom she blessed with her smiles as does the light 
 of a May day gladden a bank of roses. Such courtly 
 gentlemen as Judge Badger, the Lord Falkland of the 
 South, and others, gladly paid her homage, and one may 
 be quite sure that we all felt proud of the beautiful 
 
 Miss . Among the many guests there was one who 
 
 had grown gray amid similar scenes, but had never mar- 
 
The Old Plantation^ J171 
 
 ried. An enforced celibate, he had not borne his lot as 
 gracefully as he might have done, but unfortunately had 
 become somewhat embittered as Cupid from time to time 
 turned his back upon him. When the evening was at its 
 height of enjoyment this gentleman commented, rather 
 in a loud tone of voice, upon the society of Ealeigh, re- 
 marking in easy earshot of a group of the most charm- 
 ing young people present: 
 
 "Miss Charlotte, do you not think the society of Raleigh 
 this winter is strikingly characterized by the extreme 
 juvenility of the beaux?" 
 
 This he said not to but at young Wright, who was as 
 handsome as an Apollo, with his face as smooth as a 
 girl's. The young Wilmingtonian turned on him, his fine 
 face flushed with suppressed anger, his lip wreathed in 
 disdain, and said in a clear, ringing voice: 
 
 "General E , one of the most painful commen- 
 taries on man's relation to life is that he is but once a 
 man and twice a child." 
 
 Ah, well, these old days have passed away. All that is 
 left of them is for the most part sadly reminiscent. For- 
 tunately, most of the actors in those charming scenes have 
 passed off the stage. Few, only a very few of us are left 
 to chafe under the unhappy changes which a hybrid civi- 
 lization has brought on. Eating no dirt, spitting no 
 fire, we still hold our colors firmly in our hand, and are 
 yet enabled to cry out : 
 
 "Let fate do her worst; there are relics of joy, 
 Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy." 
 
172 The Old Plantation. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 We have already seen on these pages some of the 
 amusements of the old Southerners. We have witnessed how 
 readily their warm, sunny temperaments expressed them- 
 selves, as well in their outdoor sports and wiles as in those 
 around their hospitable hearthstones. Not more surely 
 do climate and soil assert themselves in forest, field and 
 flower, than in the habits, tastes and employments of those 
 subjected to their sway. The differentiations between 
 the dwellers along our Northern lakes and those of our 
 beautiful Southland are largely the outcome of the dif- 
 ference in climate. After all is said and done, they are 
 far less racial than climatic. Among the many and marked 
 differences between civilized nations, it is a blessed fact 
 that there is one event in their history which, year by 
 year, is asserting a growing influence over all sorts and 
 conditions of men. It need scarcely be said that this is 
 the birth of the Nazarene, the Son of God. 
 
 At the South Christmas has ever been known as a 
 season of blessed rejoicing. Among the people of the 
 North, until the past two or three decades, their Thanks- 
 giving, with puritan imprimatur, was a higher feast 
 than that of the Nativity. This grew out of their differ- 
 ences in religious faith and training. Now, however, 
 among all Christian people, there seems to be a fixed de- 
 termination to make Christmas the one great, precious 
 holiday, not only of the nation, but of the world as well. 
 At the South, in great house and cabin, for generations 
 it has been the season above all others full of mirth and 
 
The Old Plantation. 173 
 
 good cheer. Eesting from labor, the planter and his serv- 
 ants have ever enjoyed it. From the settlement of 
 Eoanoke Island, the Bethlehem story has made its influ- 
 ence felt wherever the Cavaliers have gone. ISTor have the 
 Huguenots made it less of a "red letter day" than the 
 blessed doctrine of the Incarnation fully entitled it to. 
 On the old plantation the planters were taught at this 
 season of love to open their hearts and purses to every 
 cry of sorrow and every detail of distress. His Christian 
 mother, coming from old England or the southern part 
 of France, had taught him to remember that Judean mid- 
 night sky, across which a star flashed that had never yet 
 been seen on shore or sea. As a child, the old planter had 
 asked his faithful mother to tell him all about that lovely 
 manger, wherein, that December night, the Virgin mother 
 held in her arms that babe, above whose head was an aure- 
 ole and in whose eyes was the revelation of the brother- 
 hood of man. 
 
 On the plantation in the old South no sooner was the 
 harvest well over than slow yet methodical preparation 
 for Christmas was entered upon. The fruits of the earth 
 gathered in, the large stores of animal food well looked 
 after, the planter bent his energy to the fattening of his 
 bullocks and hogs. The butchering season, or the hog 
 killing time, was a joyous event to the servants on the es- 
 tate. On this plantation it was no child's play to pro- 
 vide the meat rations for so many servants; and there 
 were no vegetarians among them. The truth is, among 
 men the rule seems to be that the lower the form of civi- 
 lization the more meat comsumed. Be this as it may, 
 about the twentieth of November the hogs and bullocks 
 were as fat as they could roll, and "de hog killin' " be- 
 gan. The salt employed in curing the meat in those days 
 was the large grain Turk's Island article which was well 
 pounded or ground by being beaten in long wooden troughs 
 with heavy wooden pestles. This to the young servants 
 was a great frolic, and one could always tell when the 
 neighbors were butchering by the noise of the salt pestles, 
 which could be heard for miles on a clear, cold morn- 
 ing. In order that there should be no loss or waste^ 
 
174 The Old Plantation. 
 
 and that plenty of time should be allowed for consuming 
 the "chines and the chitterlings/' the hogs were not all 
 butchered at once, but with an interval of ten days or two 
 weeks between each killing. In this way the sausage, 
 so deliciously seasoned with pot herbs, the juicy tender- 
 loins, the tempting spareribs, the delicious sweetbreads, 
 and perhaps the most delicate of all, the brains of the ani- 
 mals — in fine, everything coming to the old planter's table 
 at this season of the year — made up a breakfast good 
 enough for a king. The young servants were careful to 
 save every bladder from the several hundred hogs, which 
 they blew up with their own hot breath, introduced through 
 a joint of reed inserted in the neck, and which after being 
 securely tied with bits cf cotton string, were hung up over 
 the fireplaces in their cabins. They thus supplied them- 
 selves abundantly with Christmas guns, exploding them 
 in place of the modern firecracker, during this high festival. 
 
 One can quite understand how rapidly passed the hours 
 during these active preparations for the holidays. The 
 wagons and carts for days beforehand were fully employed 
 in hauling an ample supply of well seasoned firewood 
 from the new-ground clearings of last winter to the wood 
 pile at the mansion and to every cabin on the plantation. 
 Indeed it was suggestive of cheerful warmth and comfort 
 to see the many cords of oak, hickory, ash and blackjack 
 brought in at this time. The mill wagon, or carry-log, 
 was used to bring in from the turpentine orchards large 
 logs of seasoned pine or light wood, to be sawed up and 
 split for the cheerful fires, so essential to a well kept 
 Christmas. The market wagons were now brought into use. 
 Well laden with barrels of lard, turkeys, ducks, geese and 
 other poultry, eggs, butter, roasting pigs (with shuck foot 
 mats, baskets, horse collars and other products of the serv- 
 ants' private industry), they were driven to the market 
 towns of Wilmington and New Berne some eight or ten 
 days before Christmas. These were disposed of by Uncle 
 Suwarro, and the purchases of nuts, candies, fruits and 
 other things, for great house and cabin, were made by this 
 judicious old servant. 
 
 At this time the old planter always remembered to send 
 
The Old Plantation. 175 
 
 a big turkey and a fine roasting pig to each of several friends 
 in town, who never forgot to send back boxes of oranges, 
 lemons, grapes, figs, runlets and baskets of fine old wine, 
 with some liquids not so light as wine. The merchants 
 never forgot so good a customer as the old planter, espe- 
 cially at Christmastide. 
 
 Among other purchases never forgotten was a full sup- 
 ply of bananna handkerchiefs and Barlow knives, as pres- 
 ents for the servants, while a plentiful supply of strings 
 for Eli's fiddle and the banjo players was always pur- 
 chased. At this gala season there was from the well ap- 
 pointed stores of the plantation, a full issue of clothing, 
 including hats and shoes, so that every servant on the es- 
 tate would be especially well dressed, "fo' Crismus." My 
 sakes ! How busy was old Uncle Shadrac in barbecuing 
 five or six whole hogs and halves of young bullocks, taking 
 care to baste them well with a long handled mop that had 
 been dipped into a pan of vinegar, salt and home grown 
 red pepper, so that there should be no lack of highly fla- 
 vored seasoning. Uncle Amos was very busy in his daily 
 hunts for game — wild turkeys, ducks, squirrels, partridges 
 and pheasants — while the old planter himself saw to it 
 that there should be a saddle or two of fine venison for 
 this occasion. The truth is, nothing seems to have been 
 forgotten by the planter or his good wife. The captains 
 of the vessels trading between our landing and the mar- 
 ket towns were ordered to bring up a full supply of selected 
 oysters in the shell, not forgetting salt water fish and fowl, 
 Handy was careful to feed the young gobblers very heav- 
 ily on broken rice and peanuts, while the several cooks 
 were as busy as they could well be in preparing a bounti- 
 ful supply of bread (corn and wheat), with cakes, pies 
 and all sorts of good things for the servants' Christmas 
 dinner. Virgil and George had erected long tables in the 
 back yard, while Buck and Cain had gathered quantities 
 of evergreen from the woods, including basketsful of fresh 
 fragrant wintergreen and the delicate mistletoe, with which 
 to dress the pictures and paintings in the great house. 
 
 Ah, me ! How it delights one to go back in memory 
 and bring back the joyous scenes enacted during the blessed 
 
176 The Old Plantation. 
 
 hours of absorbing labor of Christmas preparation. The 
 day before the "high feast" was one of special activity. 
 Everybody was busy. Aunt Daphne and Jane were cov- 
 ering the long tables with white homespun cloth, while 
 the writer's sisters, with needles and thread, were sew- 
 ing on the borders sprays of cedar, boxwood and winter- 
 green, so as to make the tables as pretty as possible. The 
 pride of the planter and his family was stirred to make the 
 occasion just as pleasant as possible, alike in the great 
 house and the cabin. The young ladies issued invitations 
 for a cotillion party during the week, while the young gen- 
 tlemen invited some of the neighbors to join them in the 
 indispensable fox hunt. It often happened that the house 
 was full of company from the neighboring towns, friends 
 of the old planter's children, boys and girls, who had come 
 out to enjoy an old-fashioned plantation country Christ- 
 mas. 
 
 Well, the preparations are all complete. Supper is over 
 and the house is ablaze with light from the many candles, 
 as well as from the cheerful lire. The pictures have all 
 been dressed with evergreen; while large bunches of mis- 
 tletoe with waxen berries are suspended from the center- 
 pieces of the large halls and parlor. Merry laughter from 
 merry hearts, snatches of songs, the buzz of animated 
 conversation and notes from the piano were all heard, 
 when suddenly a salvo as of artillery startles the merry- 
 makers. What is it ? Some twenty-five or thirty of .the 
 young servants have come up to give "Ole Marster and 
 Mistiss" a Christmas eve serenade, which they preface 
 with those Christmas guns which startled us a while ago. 
 This loud report is the simultaneous explosion of those 
 hog bladders that were hung up at the butchering season. 
 The young servants put them down on the hard beaten 
 paths around the great house and jump on them with 
 both feet. This is the secret of those loud reports whick 
 broke in on the fun and frolic. 
 
 And then when quiet is restored comes the serenade. 
 It is in the form of Christmas carols, which have been 
 taught them by the planter's daughters, and rendered by 
 ft quartette of servants,, accompanied by flute and violin. 
 
The Old Plantation. 177 
 
 The present writer has heard fine singing in St. Thomas' 
 church on Fifth avenue, New York, as well as in the 
 cathedral in New Orleans. Never at any time has he 
 heard more melody evoked than that on these serenades 
 by the fine voices of the servants. To this very hour I 
 can shut my eyes and still hear them, nor have they been 
 displaced by either the roar of artillery at Manassas or the 
 rattle of musketry at Gettysburg. Well, the concert or 
 serenade is over, and Eliza, Handy and Buck have gone out 
 on the veranda with trays of all sorts of refreshments 
 for these thoughtful members of the planter's family, who 
 presently fully refreshed, retire to their own quarters, 
 singing as they go with all the joy in their hearts of the 
 old-time plantation Christmas — perhaps a little bit height- 
 ened by a glass or two of good old homemade Scuppernong 
 wine or eggnog. 
 
 During the evening orders had been given by the old 
 planter, through Ben, Uncle Jim, Suwarro and Handy, 
 that all the poultry, and every animal on the plantation — 
 including Inez, the pointer, and old Dozy, the jack — should 
 have a bountiful Christmas feed early in the morning. 
 Not that they were not well fed ordinarily. They were. 
 But is was a matter of beautiful sentiment with my father 
 and mother that on the morning of the birthday of the 
 King every form of animal life on the estate should be 
 placed in full sympathy with the Christmas "high feast." 
 The great house was elaborately dressed with evergreen — 
 pictures, halls, stairways and all — when, every disposition 
 for the next morning having been made, the family re- 
 tired, each to his own department, but not to sleep for an 
 hour or more. All were busy in the opening and arrange- 
 ment of the different presents for each other and the house- 
 hold servants. It was the sweetest and tenderest hour of 
 the whole year to the family. At this time unselfishness, 
 that virtue which binds man so closely to God, took on 
 its very finest form. Doubtless the angels of God, all 
 aglow with festive joy, were reporting to the recording 
 angel much, very much, of the power of love which is 
 still of heavenly record, though the actors for the most 
 part have long since passed away. While these ministra- 
 
178 The Old Plantation. 
 
 tions of family friendliness were going on, often after 
 midnight, the silence was ever and anon broken by some 
 young darky firing off one of his Christmas guns, for 
 the joy of this warm-hearted, emotional race was wholly 
 unrestrained at this blessed season. What a difference 
 in its observance here by these Christianized Africans and 
 their kinspeople on the banks of the Congo and Loango in 
 the far away "dark continent." 
 
 My sakes ! What a fusilade that is. Bang ! Bang ! Bang ! 
 "Hurrah for Christmas !" No more sleep. The day is 
 breaking and Christinas has come. Listen to those merry 
 voices down at the quarter ! It would seem that every- 
 body is awake, from Granddaddy Cain, the old patriarch of 
 the plantation, down to the youngest little ebon-faced darky. 
 All up and very fully awake, one would say, if the ring- 
 ing laughter and joyous greetings pass for anything. Nor 
 is this Christmas joy confined to the servants at the 
 quarter. The old mansion is full of the opening up of 
 various forms of festivity. Hear the ringing shouts of 
 Merry Christmas, father \" "Merry Christmas, mother \" 
 Christmas gift, ole Marster; Christmas gift, Ole Mis- 
 tiss," coming from Handy, Buck, Eliza and all the other 
 house servants. The custom of the family was, as each 
 one came out into the breakfast room to bring with them 
 their presents for the other members of the household, 
 placing them on a side table, beautifully dressed with 
 flowers and evergreen, prepared for that purpose. After 
 family prayers these packages, properly bestowed, were 
 all opened. In many cases, what display of perfect knowl- 
 edge of each others exact wants ! How beautiful some 
 of them are, while no one is forgotten — not even Buck, 
 George or Cain — for, at this season especially, the old 
 planter's home is a republic of love. 
 
 Why is it that of all the family the ole Mistiss, the 
 dear, blessed mother, the devoted wife, receives more pres- 
 ents than any other? The answer is easy. Her many 
 presents are the tokens of that tribute exacted by her 
 boundless love for us all. Ah, the far reaching tender- 
 ness of motherhood ! 
 
 What nice little package is that you see the old planter 
 
 
The Old Plantation. 179 
 
 opening there? He opens one wrapper, and yet another, 
 and another, and another, until at last he conies to a 
 box, as of fine jewelry. While he is opening his treasure 
 observe that beautiful young lady from New Berne, as 
 she watches him very closely. At last he opens the box 
 and takes out the most cunning contrivance. What is it ? 
 It is of the finest flesh-colored silk. The dear old gen- 
 tleman holds it up between his thumb and forefinger so 
 that everybody can see it, still no one seems to know what 
 it is. At last one of the young gentlemen (who seems 
 to be the master of more than one of the fair donors' 
 secrets) calls out: 
 
 "Why, don't you all see it's a nose protector — some- 
 thing to protect the nose from the cold when out fox 
 hunting of a bitter, frosty morning? Pray, sir, put it 
 on please." 
 
 "Put it on; put it on," was heard all around the table. 
 
 Sure enough the dear old gentleman put it on his 
 rather large, Napoleonic nose, and how nicely it fitted and 
 how everybody enjoyed the joke, as he wore it with the 
 delicately wrought holes for nostrils and the cunning little 
 pink and white tassel suspended from the tip end of the nose. 
 What a roar of laughter and how the dear old planter 
 enjoyed the fun, as he turned and thanked Miss Nannie 
 
 D for just what he wanted, telling her he would be 
 
 sure to wear it; and wear it he did on more than one 
 bleak winter morning when fox hunting. Well, the pres- 
 ents are all opened — and such an array. A dog whistle 
 of silver, a beautiful riding whip, kid gloves, a prayer- 
 book, stationery, a beautiful silk dress, something from 
 each one for all, not forgetting presents for the servants 
 of the household. 
 
 Handy rings the breakfast bell and we all sit down, 
 amid peals of laughter, to such a breakfast as the present 
 writer will not attempt to describe ; simply saying that his 
 mouth waters, even at this late day, when he thinks of the 
 broiled oysters, venison steak and beaten biscuit, with 
 hot rice waffles and such coffee. Breakfast over, the assem- 
 bly bell rings. By the side of a table on the back veranda 
 the old planter and his dear wife take their places, while 
 
i8o The Old Plantation. 
 
 all the servants file past them, each receiving some present 
 — a bandanna handkerchief, a Barlow knife, a doll baby 
 or a package of tobacco; and to each of the foremen an 
 envelope with a crisp bank note in it, every one calling 
 out in passing by, "Merry Cris'mus ! Merry Cris'mus !" 
 and right merry it was. After church in the morning, 
 to which all went who were so disposed, the wish of the 
 old master bringing about a large attendance, the family 
 enjoyed a luncheon at one o'clock. At two o'clock the 
 assembly bell rang and the servants assembled in the back 
 yard for dinner. Before they began their dinner the prizes 
 in money were given for the first, second and third best 
 crops in the turpentine orchards that year. 
 
 It would have done you good, dear reader, to have seen 
 Ben, Uncle Philip, Cicero and Eobert serving as special 
 waiters while dispensing this excellent dinner of barbecued 
 meats with plenty of potatoes, rice, corn and wheat bread, 
 followed by pies and cakes, with coffee in abundance. Ah, 
 you ought to have seen the festive joy of these overgrown 
 children, as nicely dressed, amid peals of laughter and the 
 frequent explosion of their Christmas guns by the younger 
 ones they fully satisfied their appetites. I will not humble 
 myself by undertaking, and then failing, to describe some 
 features of this plantation Christmas dinner. I certainly 
 do wish, kind reader, you could have witnessed the com- 
 pany manners of the ebon beaux and dusky belles, as 
 they sought to make headway in each other's good graces. 
 How you would have enjoyed witnessing the saucy tossing 
 of her head, bedecked with red ribbon, as Kate, the young 
 mistress's maid, replied to Ben's inquiry, wishing her 
 a merry Christmas. He said: 
 
 "Mis' Kate, how duz yer corporashun seem to sergashiate 
 on dis yer 'cashun?" 
 
 To which suggestive question Kate made reply: 
 
 "I am, suh, no wusser dan I was, but I feels much mo' 
 comf ortabler sense dinnah ; yuh must hab s'posed dat whole 
 barbecue wuz prapared for yuh. I jes' wish all ole Mas- 
 ter's niggers wuz as 'dustrious in de co'nfield as yuh is at 
 dis table." 
 
 Wonderfully given to big words at all times, it was on 
 
The Old Plantation. 181 
 
 just such occasions as this that Ben would abandon him- 
 self to what he called "long tailed bookionary 'spresions/' 
 Whatever may have been the immediate effect upon each 
 other of such passages at arms as the above, it was true 
 that more than one wedding on the plantation followed 
 close after the Christmas holidays. After these bows and 
 conges and the full enjoyment of the dinner, each one 
 made his respects to the old master. Then, in family 
 groups, they retired to their own homes. As they passed 
 along the well-worn pathway, every few minutes off would 
 go one of those Christmas guns, whereupon in strong, 
 hilarious voice one of the many revelers would call out, 
 "Hurrah for Christmas ; Christmas comes but once a year ; 
 if I gits drunk you needn't keer." At night they would 
 have their dance and gladly entertain their friends from 
 the neighboring estates, and so this blessed holiday was 
 observed among these people. 
 
 Nearly all of these older servants have gone where 
 "de good darkies go/' and it is feared that the generation 
 which has come on since these golden hours are strangers 
 to many forms of innocent enjoyment which obtained in 
 those days. The beautiful Christmas dinner which en- 
 gaged the family around the hospitable board of the old 
 home was a very masterpiece of housewifery in all its de- 
 partments. It is rather strange, and somewhat humilia- 
 ting, that those things which give us the most pleasure in 
 some cases, baffle our powers of description. Among them 
 is an old-fashioned plantation dinner and, I may add, the 
 description of a beautiful bride; for (let it be said respect- 
 fully in her presence) the two, as far as I am concerned, 
 baffle all powers of description. Many improvements have 
 come in the last quarter of the nineteenth century — among 
 which are electric lights, telephones and automobile 
 carriages (not bicycles or multiplied divorces) — but the 
 culinary art, as did eloquence and rare statesmanship, 
 reached its perfection in the days of Calhoun, Clay and 
 Webster. There are other features of this festive week 
 which claim attention, and they furnish the writer with 
 a welcome excuse for hurrying over that dinner, the per- 
 fection of which would be marred by any attempt on my 
 
1 82 The Old Plantation. 
 
 part at description. We hurry over the description, but 
 there was no hurry in the discussion of the meal itself. 
 After dinner with its black coffee and cigars, came whist, 
 music and a few quadrilles, winding up with the Virginia 
 reel. Thus ended a typical Southern Christmas Day, but 
 the holiday and its festivities extended to the New Year. 
 
The Old Plantation. 183 
 
 CHAPTEK XXV. 
 
 Of the accomplishments of the boys raised on the South- 
 ern plantation, there is one the acquisition of which he 
 has no clearly defined recollection of. In his nursery days 
 he has a vague remembrance of a pony, of which he ac- 
 quired a thorough mastery before he put on pants. He 
 knows when and where he learned to swim and to shoot 
 a gun, but from his very cradledom he was made familiar 
 with his horse. Hence it was that, until the resources of 
 the South were broken in the late Confederate struggle for 
 Independence, the cavalry which followed the standards 
 of Hampton, Stuart, Ashby and Forrest have rarely if ever 
 been equaled in the annals of war. When the Southern 
 boy added to his knowledge of horses that of familar ac- 
 quaintance with dogs, which comes only from early and 
 close association, one is quite prepared to find his char- 
 acteristic manliness. Of the two, the dog and horse, 
 it is still a mooted question which in point of high in- 
 stinct stands next to man. Loving both of them, the 
 writer will not undertake to settle this question. He will 
 make no invidious discrimination between his friends. 
 Where the two are closely thrown together, as they are in 
 the fox chase, man has ever found ample field for his love 
 of both. This close association of the three most noble 
 forms of animal life — man, horse and dog — accounts 
 largely for that peculiar fascination which the fox chase 
 has ever had for the youth of the South. Far more fas- 
 cinating is it than a stag or deer hunt. Incomparably su- 
 perior is it to the bear hunt. Stale and flat are both duck 
 
184 The Old Plantation. 
 
 and partridge hunting in comparison with it. This is so* 
 because in none of these is there to be found that close 
 comradeship which is inseparable from the rider, his 
 horse and his dog, and which belongs only to the old- 
 fashioned fox chase. Baseball, golf, yachting, lawn tennis, 
 and all of these more conventional, artificial modes of en- 
 joyment, in point of excitement — that tension of nerve 
 coming out of a sense of danger, that high form of thrill- 
 ing pleasure of the full cry of hounds in close and hot 
 pursuit, that full sympathy between the hunter, his horse 
 and his dog, are not to be compared with this old-fashioned 
 plantation sport. 
 
 We are now to speak of one of these. It was at dawn 
 of day, the morning after Christmas, when the silvery notes 
 of our neighbor's (Mr. Frank Thompson) horn were heard 
 floating over field and forest, telling in their friendly way 
 that the invitation to the hunt had been received and 
 accepted. In an orchestra the liquid notes of the cornet 
 are singularly sweet. To those swayed by music, the 
 violin, the flute, the piano and the guitar are very attract- 
 ive; but the writer has heard nothing so moving, so in- 
 spiring, as the mellow sound of the hunter's horn, that 
 harbinger of field sport unequaled. The call is answered. 
 Presently in comes Mr. Thompson, accompanied by two 
 or three neighbors, while the barking of his pack chal- 
 lenges the old planter's dogs, who answer back from their 
 closely kept kennel, telling significantly that they are 
 ready for a trial of speed — for a day of splendid sport. 
 Hot coffee, with cold meats, bread and butter, make up 
 the hunter's quickly dispatched breakfast, for the day is 
 fine. The horses are held at the front gate by Cicero, 
 George, Buck and Cain, the dogs are whining impatiently to 
 be let out of the kennel and the cigars and pocket flasks 
 have been attended to by Handy, when the command is 
 given for the start. Quickly they mount their impatient 
 horses, the gate is opened, out rushes as fine a pack of 
 fox hounds as ever followed game, and the party of ten or 
 twelve hunters ride away as merrily as if they were going 
 to a feast. 
 
 Time fails us in describing each hunter and his fine 
 
The Old Plantation. 185 
 
 mount. We will, however, take the time to pay our re- 
 spects to that princely Southern gentleman — our neighbor 
 and friend — Mr. Frank Thompson, whose sons are still 
 actively engaged in keeping up the old line in the dear 
 old county of Onslow. The father had a marked ad- 
 vantage over his boys, in that while, perhaps, he knew 
 less of books than they did, his outdoor education had 
 been more closely attended to and he had developed into 
 one of the most ardent sportsmen in Eastern Carolina. 
 On this occasion he looked every inch the typical Southern 
 fox hunter. Then about thirty-five years of age, in weight 
 somewhere about one hundred and forty pounds, straight 
 as a Parthian arrow, in height about five feet ten inches, 
 with deep auburn hair brushed back behind his ears under 
 a jaunty hunting cap, mounted on a thoroughbred bay 
 mare (in politics a Henry Clay Whig), he was for all 
 the world the man you would have selected for a hard 
 rider, a close friend, and a hard worker in a political cam- 
 paign — the wrong man to make angry unless somebody 
 was to be badly hurt. Yes, yes, what a splendid party of 
 true Southerners this was, riding along briskly to the 
 Christmas fox hunt, in those blessed days before the flood. 
 They have all gone over into the borderland and joined 
 the great majority save one. Sad is the thought that their 
 places have not been — cannot be — filled, for trie social 
 forces which produced them died out with the old South. 
 Well, the hunting ground has been reached. It lay 
 west of the lake, well out in the turpentine orchard, and 
 above the headwaters of Chapel Eun. The dogs, eager 
 for the chase, are circling well out to the right and left, 
 searching anxiously for the trail. The hunters are chat- 
 ting away merrily about crops, politics and the weather, as 
 they ride along full of energy and that peculiar elan known 
 only to the genuine fox hunter. Presently the deep notes 
 of old Staver's voice are heard calling for help to carry 
 the trail, which that industrious old dog has found. The 
 old planter cries out, "Hark to him ! Hark, Nimrod ! 
 Hark, Fashion !" On they ride. The scent is strong, so 
 strong that Mr. Thompson calls out, "By George, it's a 
 bitch fox! Hark, Juno! Hark, boys! Hark, away!" 
 
1 86 The Old Plantation. 
 
 Rapidly we ride on, for the dogs have caught the trail 
 and have gone. Now the whole pack is calling out in fine 
 chorus. Every hunter has gathered up the reins and 
 straightened up in his saddle, not unlike a squadron of 
 cavalry about to enter a deadly charge. The horses show 
 from the quick way in which they are bounding along, 
 that they are in full sympathy with the increasing excite- 
 ment of the riders. 
 
 The old planter leading his boys, all splendidly mounted, 
 rides like a young man. Ah, what a splendid figure was 
 his that day ! The writer has ridden after Asliby, has 
 seen Stuart when mad amid the high carnival of war, 
 but he has never seen any man on horseback more thor- 
 oughly the master of his mount than was this old planter 
 when fired by the wild excitement of the chase. The cry 
 of the pack increases in volume, as the trail grows hotter 
 and hotter, while on they go, pressing after old Reynard, 
 who has not yet risen from her cover in the dense thicket 
 which we are now approaching. We have reached it. It 
 was one of those jungles or thickets full of bamboo and cat- 
 briers, with dense undergrowth. No horseman can enter it. 
 The dogs go in. Not very far do they go when the sharp, 
 harsh, angry cry of Fashion is heard. All understand it, 
 dogs and hunters alike. The fox is up and has broken 
 away from cover. Did you ever hear such a cry in your 
 life? Hear the deep notes of Rover, joining with the 
 sharper notes of Nimrod and the sharp, raspy staccato of 
 Fashion, while twenty others join in the chorus. The 
 fox, hot pressed, must come out of that dense cover. 
 They are making it too hot for her. Out she comes and, 
 trusting to her speed, stretches away for dear life across 
 the pine ridge clear of undergrowth — about two hundred 
 yards in the lead of the pack. As she clears the thicket, 
 Neighbor Thompson gets a view of her. Hear him, as 
 with his manly voice he calls out, "Hark ! Hark ! Hark 
 away, boys ! Hark, old Juno !" Out they come — the 
 whole pack — and on they go, running still by scent, Juno 
 and Fashion abreast, with all the others following close 
 after ! 
 
 And now comes the sport. Horses, riders, dogs, all full 
 
The Old Plantation. 187 
 
 of it. They ride like mad, the old planter and Mr. Thomp-' 
 son leading, followed closely by the others at a breakneck 
 gait, and all yelling as if the furies had broken loose. The 
 fox had too much start and reached another bayou just 
 in advance of the pack, but she had no time to throw 
 away. Into this dense thicket she plunges and rapidly 
 makes her way through it, then leaves it for a hundred \ 
 yards or more, circles around, and on her back track 
 enters it on the other side, in her crafty cunning hoping 
 thus to elude the dogs, which were moving more slowly 
 through the sharp-set catbriers, the thorns of which are 
 cutting their noses and ears so that the blood flows freely. 
 Some time elapsed before the dogs succeeded in forcing 
 her from cover. After a time old Staver gives out one 
 of those sharp, angry barks which the hunter understands 
 to mean quick work. She has broken cover again, and 
 this time the dogs are close on her ; not yet quite in sight, 
 for no fox, red or gray, could ever stand long before 
 Fashion running by sight. So fleet is the good old dog 
 (the most beautiful thoroughbred English fox hound the 
 writer ever saw) that she always reminded one more of 
 the splendid movement of a greyhound in her magnificent 
 sweep of splendid speed than an ordinary dog of the hound 
 breed. On they go ! The dogs are running rapidly now, 
 indicated by the short, angry, half suppressed cry as if 
 they had not time to bark. What rapid riding! What 
 shouting ! How much the horses seem to enjoy it as, pull- 
 ing away on the bit, they rush on. Hard run, the fox 
 just makes the cover again. She has no time to talk to 
 Breer Rabbit in her hurry. On come the fastest of the 
 dogs and into the cover they plunge. Here they show 
 their high instinct by circling around singly; and thus, 
 presently, they force the fox out for the last time. Once 
 more she makes a bold, strong lead across the open woods. 
 The old planter and Mr. Thompson are sitting on their 
 horses at the edge of the swamp just as the game breaks 
 from cover, and at the top of their voices they call out, 
 "Here, here! Hark, Fashion! Hark, Juno!" On come 
 the faithful dogs, and as they stretch away across the ridge 
 the two leaders get a glimpse of the fox, and with an 
 
1 88 The Old Plantation. 
 
 angry, sharp scream of a bark they dash on. Reynard's 
 days, her minutes, are now numbered. The hunters ride 
 on. They see that her danger signals are flying, for her 
 tail is down and her tongue is out of her mouth. They 
 press on. Just then, as they are letting their horses out 
 at full speed, they see the fox chase in all its wild excite- 
 ment, in all its finest form, dogs, fox and horses all run- 
 ning in full view. Then they hear the two dogs, as they 
 utter a half growl and a half bark, and in a moment more 
 the chase is over, for the leading dog overruns the fox, 
 which, in doubling back, is caught by the next dog and 
 in a trice thrown to the ground and fastened by the throat. 
 Mr. Thompson, our guest, in a moment dismounts and with 
 a quick movement of his pocket knife severs the tail from 
 the body. Then with a blast or two upon his beautifully 
 polished hunting horn he calls for the lagging dogs and 
 hunters, inserts the brush in the band of his cap, and, as 
 the victor of the hunt, proceeds to tie the dead animal to 
 his saddle bow. But the hunters are not all up. Waiting 
 some time, several of the party go back to see what has be- 
 fallen the absentee, one of the young gentlemen from the 
 city. Returning on the line of the last lead from the 
 swamp, they find him some half a mile or more away. He 
 is half reclining at the base of a pine tree, pretty badly 
 hurt. His horse had fallen by putting one of his fore- 
 feet in a stump hole while running, when both horse and 
 rider had gone down with no little violence, hurting 
 neither of them seriously and luckily breaking no bones, 
 though giving the rider a severe shaking up. The horse 
 was soon caught, with some help the young hunter mounted, 
 and the whole party started for home. As they jog 
 along, the hunters all agree in regarding this as a very 
 fine chase. 
 
 Certainly the bold, strong leads which the fox had made 
 from one cover to another, embracing in one a lead more 
 than a mile, had put both dogs and horses on their mettle. 
 Undoubtedly it was a most exciting scene in the second 
 fine dash, when the game broke away with a strong lead — 
 after her cunning trick in doubling and running fallen 
 logs in the tangled, thick cover — with all the dogs in 
 
The Old Plantation. 189 
 
 a huddle as they came out and took up the hot running 
 trail. It was a scene worthy of Kosa Bonheur, when close 
 after the pack, the hunters let their horses out to a fine 
 speed, cheering on the dogs with exciting voices. Yes, the 
 battle field has its excitements wholly indescribable, with 
 its roar of artillery, its blaze and rattle of musketry and 
 its bursting and ricocheting shells. Yes, that is so; yet 
 the fox chase of the olden times had a wonderful fascina- 
 tion over those who were trained to its finest forms in the 
 old plantation days— when the high-strung Southerner 
 stood so related to his sunny life as to know what was 
 meant by the saying, "Time was made for slaves." 
 
 The whole party dined with the old planter that day, 
 when there was some fine conversation, as Mr. Thompson 
 exploited his dog, Juno, and the old planter came back 
 at him by telling how Fashion had led the whole pack. 
 Ah, those blessed old days ! We ne'er shall see their like 
 again; but their memory is very precious to some of us, 
 who have outlived most of our friends, and along whose 
 pathways the dark shadows of the Appomattox have fallen. 
 
 The party breaks up, after making an engagement to 
 try their hand at a deer hunt when the dogs and horses 
 shall have rested up. The next day one could have told 
 from the quick way in which the servants were moving 
 about that some important event was on hand. What was 
 it ? It was the large party that was to come off that even- 
 ing. Handy and Buck were busy in waxing the floors of 
 the broad halls where the young people were to enjoy the 
 dancing. The young ladies and young gentlemen were 
 busy in freshening up the decorations — some replacing with 
 fresh evergreen anything that might have withered, others 
 bringing in from the greenhouse beautiful flowers and 
 potted plants. Our young friend who had been unhorsed 
 in the fox chase was out again, still lame but able to assist 
 the young ladies in trimming the candelabra with ivy 
 leaves and other evergreens, and in doing such other 
 things as were necessary. At the junction of the two 
 broad halls a platform had been placed for Eli and the 
 other musicians, so that with the same music four quad- 
 rilles could go on at once in the four sections of the broad 
 
190 The Old Plantation. 
 
 halls. Time fails for a full description of the elaborate 
 preparations. It is not necessary. We can trust the dear 
 old planter's wife and daughters to have everything just 
 right. Parties were no new things to them. The day 
 wore on. The afternoon was far spent. Towards night- 
 fall the guests began to arrive from a distance. From 
 Clinton, Kenansville, Kinston, Trenton, as well as from 
 New Berne and Wilmington, the guests came. How 
 graciously were they received ! What kind inquiries were 
 made of the old fathers and mothers at home. What a 
 marked absence of anything like the chilling, mechanical 
 stiffness of the more modern, artificial manners of certain 
 other sections ! What an absence of stiffness in bearing 
 and manner, both upon the part of the guests and those 
 whom they were gladdening by their visit. How easily 
 everything seems to go on. How readily Eliza and Kate 
 (dressed up in their "best bib and tucker," with becoming 
 turbans wound around their heads, and their snowy white 
 aprons) showed the young ladies upstairs. How bright 
 were the faces of Buck and Handy as they escorted the 
 young gentlemen to Marse John's quarters ! Where in 
 the round world are all these charming young people to 
 sleep to-night? Never you mind about that. Wait and 
 see. Our early supper was soon over, allowing plenty of 
 time for elaborate toilets before the full opening of the 
 festivities. Now the servants are busy in lighting a 
 hundred or more wax or spermaceti candles (the old plan- 
 ter allows no lamps in his house), when presently the whole 
 house is radiant with light. The guests from the neigh- 
 boring plantations are beginning to arrive. The parlors 
 are already well filling up with beautiful young ladies, 
 exquisitely dressed, with no suggestion of decollete or any 
 thing like immodesty in their elaborate and rich toilets. 
 Diamonds and pearls, which had been in the families from 
 Revolutionary days, throw back glinting rays of light 
 from the beautiful persons of these lovely young girls. 
 What fair scene for a painter it was ! I cannot describe 
 it, but I well remember it. How full of kind courtesy 
 and gentle dignity in their bearing were the young men, 
 
The Old Plantation. 191 
 
 I 
 
 who in after years rode with Hampton and Ashby or who* 
 followed where Pettigrew led at historic Gettysburg ! 
 
 Presently the sweet notes of the violin are heard. The 
 buzz of brisk, breezy conversation and the rippling laugh- 
 ter of joyous young maidens gives place to the dance. It 
 is no wonder. The young people of the old South, true 
 to their blood and training, were always ready for this 
 innocent amusement. How handsomely dressed are these 
 young gentlemen as they file out, each one with a lovely 
 girl on his arm, for they have heard the call to the dance ? 
 ■Yes, they have all heard the long-drawn notes on Eli's 
 violin, and his fine strong voice as he calls, "Pardners 
 fo ? de fus' cotillyin." From the large number of young 
 people present, to furnish the four sets of eight pairs 
 each was not a difficult task. In a short time, apparently, 
 all were ready. Just then someone called out, "Not yet, 
 we are waiting for our host and hostess to open the dance." 
 After some slight delay out came the old planter, with his 
 wife leaning on his arm, and took their places among the 
 young people in the dance. It was a joyous sight in those 
 happy old times to see the two generations moving together 
 in time with the music as they threaded their way through 
 the mazes of the dance. With no disposition to berate the 
 present generation because they have it not, but rather 
 to speak of the exact conditions of society in those days, 
 let us note well the graceful carriage of the young ladies 
 now on the floor of this old plantation home. How do 
 their easy, graceful motions, with scarcely an effort marking 
 the time, seem so exactly to accord with the rich garmentry 
 so nicely fitted to their beautiful, well-rounded figures. 
 These lovely Southern girls seem to have mastered the 
 pleasing secret of the poetry of motion. Observe for one 
 moment that black-eyed, rich brunette, as with her partner 
 she sweeps along so gracefully the whole length of the 
 quadrille and with her fine face lit up with the excite- 
 ment of the occasion she flings back a laughing banter 
 to conventionality and says, in her fine motion, "I learned 
 what I know of the finest forms of grace of person from 
 my horseback rides, and not on a bicycle ; I love the dance, 
 because in it there is no harm, for my mother spoke truly 
 
192 The Old Plantation. 
 
 when she said we commit forty times more sin with our 
 tongues than we do with our toes." Yes, it is true, that as 
 these girl were taught to row a boat and ride a horse they 
 well-nigh mastered the secrets of feminine grace in their 
 carriage and their fine bearing in the dance. Just how 
 far technique in music has destroyed melody, how far the 
 bicycle has robbed the young ladies of this age of grace- 
 ful form and motion, I know not, but you may judge how 
 graceful these young ladies were if you will only look on 
 at this dance, full of the festivity of Christmastime in 
 the early fifties of the last century. One cannot leave 
 these older people, engaged with their whist and conversa- 
 tion over there, and stand here for ten minutes watching 
 these young people "chasing the glowing hours with fly- 
 ing feet," without saying most heartily that Keats was 
 right when, in his Endymion, he said, "A thing of beauty 
 is a joy forever." 
 
 On goes the dance — quadrille after quadrille — until long 
 after midnight, with here and there a waltz introduced, and 
 occasionally a schottische or a mazourka, and here and 
 there time allowed for the lancers. The announcement 
 of supper brought in some young people, who were far 
 more seriously engaged in those slow, deliberate promenades 
 on the long piazza which told so unmistakably that Cupid 
 was not dead, but that the mischievous little god was 
 very much alive and very busy this evening. Supper over, 
 the dancing is resumed, until at last, amid the wee sma ? 
 hours of the morning, the order rings out from Eli's well 
 known voice "Git yo' pardners fo' de ole Berginny reel." 
 What a stir ! What commotion ! Presently it would seem as 
 if everybody was in that dance, the reel reaching the whole 
 length of the hall. Let us count them. There are over 
 thirty couples in this reel. Ah, the glorious old Virginia 
 reel ; what memories it evokes, what shadows it proclaims ! 
 There are many forms of fine amusement among the young 
 people in the South. The young men love the fox chase 
 and the young ladies delight in their horseback rides, as 
 well or perhaps even better than they do Sir Walter Scott's 
 works or Macaulay's fine essays. The Virginia reel, how- 
 ever, stirs them as nothing else can. It is the last of the 
 dance for this time, and such a dance! It has always 
 
The Old Plantation. 193 
 
 been a mooted point whether the reel was made for the 
 Southerner or the young people of the South made for 
 the reel. There is that in the rapidity of its action — a 
 fine field for the natural grace of this warm-hearted, 
 pleasure-loving people — the inspiration of the music in 
 the old pieces of "Grey Eagle" or 'Tire on the Mountain" 
 combining to account for the popularity of this dance, 
 which neither wars nor revolutions can destroy. Of its 
 kind — and it is a glorious kind — there is nothing of all 
 the European dances nor of those colder, more mechanical, 
 icy figures of the conventional "four hundred" in chilly 
 Gotham which can match it. Some of those fine, manly 
 forms we see to-night were seen later in the serried ranks 
 following Stuart, Hoke, Gordon and Pettigrew as they 
 followed Stonewall Jackson, who in turn was led by the 
 matchless Lee, but, fine as they were, here to-night they 
 appear to even greater advantage than when they periled 
 their lives and, in so periling them, felt of the edge of 
 battle. Yes, when the Cavalier and Huguenot blood met, 
 as it did here to-night, they showed beyond peradventure 
 that "knighthood was still in flower" in those dear old days 
 of the South. 
 
 The hospitality of the neighboring estates was so marked 
 and his own capacity to entertain his friends was so great 
 that by crowding his male guests, and with free use of 
 pallets, the planter's company was comfortably enter- 
 tained. 
 
 The Christmas festivities were very far from being con- 
 fined to the white people, as the servants had their full 
 share of it in their own way. This was clearly shown by 
 the notes of music, snatches of songs and the peculiar 
 noise, all their own, of "double shuffle," "the break down," 
 "chi'kin in de bred tray" and the graceful "pigeon wing," 
 followed by their genuine "cake walk." Thus did these 
 two races dwell together — the weaker (in daily contact with 
 the older, stronger civilization) steadily emerging from 
 the shadows of paganism. In view of what is now tran- 
 spiring among this same race in Illinois and Georgia, to 
 the mind of the writer it would have been far wiser not to 
 have made the attempt to hurry Almighty God in His 
 
194 The Old Plantation.; 
 
 slower, wiser purposes with this race. They were not 
 fitted for the ballot when it was thrust upon them. They 
 were being gradually and healthfully prepared for it, under 
 the slower processes of the relation which they sustained 
 to the white people under the Constitution prior to the 
 emancipation proclamation. For it is true, absolutely 
 true, that colonization societies were actively at work all 
 over the fair Southland, gradually and healthfully set- 
 ting on their feet those who a few generations ago were 
 amid the jungles of far off Africa. 
 
The Old Plantation/ 195 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 (CONCLUSION. 
 
 In closing up a volume like this, one finds so many; 
 features of great value have been omitted from the pic- 
 ture that, after all, nothing better than a mere sketch 
 has been presented. The writer puts down his pen, sad- 
 dened by the thought that only a mere outline of the true 
 conditions has been given. On the other hand, if he has 
 portrayed the old South faithfully others will take up the 
 work, so that the grandchildren of the men who were with 
 General Lee at Cold Harbor in 1864, or with General 
 Grant in Appomattox (in other volumes from other pens) 
 will have a more detailed account of those halcyon days 
 in which the South developed such strength as she showed 
 in 1861 and '65. 
 
 The reader will perceive that the writer, in justifying 
 his own people — in vindicating his own mother and father, 
 has entered into no argument with Mrs. Stowe. He has 
 simply answered her book, not by dialectics but by statis- 
 tics — not by getting into a bad humor but by stern facts. 
 Did time and space allow, gladly would the writer go 
 on, enlarging upon those social features of Southern 
 life in the ante-bellum civilization which so strikingly 
 characterized the old South in Georgia., Kentucky, Mary- 
 land and Texas — in fine, all over this lovely portion of 
 the country. He would gladly lead you into the boy- 
 hood homes of the Hamptons in South Carolina, the Hills 
 
196 The Old Plantation. 
 
 in Georgia, the Breckenridges and Crittendens in Ken- 
 tucky, the Yanceys and Currys in Alabama, where you 
 would at once recognize the identity, except in shaded de- 
 tails, of those forces in all her fair borders which made 
 the old South what she was, the idol of her own people 
 and, from many points of view, the admiration of the 
 world. 
 
 He sincerely hopes that none of his readers will regard 
 this volume as either partial or provincial, because he lays 
 the scene of his recitals in one chamber of the old South- 
 ern plantation home (and that the North Carolina room) 
 while he knows, and you know that from the Susquehanna 
 to the Bio Grande the same roof-tree, with umbrageous 
 branches, covered the same people, the product of the same 
 institutional forces, speaking in varied dialect the same 
 language, listening to the same song birds, strengthened 
 by the same traditions, gladdened by the same folk-lore, 
 while in childhood we drank in the same lullabies from 
 mothers trained to high duty, and were inspired by fath- 
 ers incited to the prowess and manliness of their ancestral 
 ' standards with such hallowed and hallowing community 
 of suffering as, please God, has enabled the whole South to 
 puffer and grow strong. 
 
 f Having in the pages of this volume, looked upon one 
 picture ; pardon the writer if, with a sad heart, he now asks 
 you to look upon another portraiture — that of the present 
 condition of a manumitted and enfranchised race — the 
 same race, only under very changed conditions. We sub- 
 mit, in all candor, that neither in uplift of character nor 
 any qualification for happiness or usefulness has the negro, 
 as a race, been improved by the change. The writer may 
 be pardoned if he introduces some current testimony from 
 the Philadelphia Record, as startling as it is suggestive: 
 
 "In an address recently delivered by Professor Wilcox 
 of Cornell University, before the American Science Social 
 Association at Saratoga, he showed crime is very largely 
 on the increase among the negro population of the country. 
 But the most startling fact shown was that the negroes in 
 the Northern States are worse by far than the negroes in 
 
The Old Plantation. 197 
 
 tide Southern States. While there are twenty-nine black 
 men imprisoned in the South, out of every ten thousand, 
 in the North the proportion is sixty-nine out of every ten 
 thousand. This disparity can hardly be explained as a 
 matter of latitude. In the North there are larger oppor- 
 tunities of education, but possibly a lesser opportunity 
 of profitable employment and a more uncompromising 
 prejudice of race. Talk as we may of the difficulties the 
 nation has been called upon to contend with in dealing with 
 the mixed races in the East and West Indies, the problem 
 is not more complex than our immediate home problem; 
 and our hundred years of experience has not furnished a 
 solution." 
 
 Twenty-nine black men imprisoned in the South to sixty- 
 nine black men in the North, out of every ten thousand of 
 negro population of the two sections, is truly startling. 
 "In the North there are larger opportunities of education/' 
 says the Record, notwithstanding which there are more 
 than double the number of criminals compared with the 
 South. This particular feature merits very careful con- 
 sideration and investigation. Do the "larger opportunities 
 of education" tend to development of the criminal instinct 
 to a greater degree in the negro than in the white race? 
 
 But the further statement, which may be taken rather 
 as the explanation of this difference, is entitled to the at- 
 tention of the colored people themselves. It is a fact that 
 the Southern whites are the only real friends the negroes 
 have, ever have had, or ever will have, but which these 
 same misguided people have stubbornly refused to believe. 
 The Record admits, notwithstanding the "larger opportuni- 
 ties of education," even to the extent of mixed schools 
 in most of the Northern States which may have contrib- 
 uted largely to the demoralization of the negro — "there is 
 possibly a lesser opportunity of profitable employment and 
 a more uncompromising prejudice of race." This is both 
 an honest and, we believe, a truthful statement. And this 
 condition, mark you, kind reader, exists where there are 
 only hundreds of negroes to thousands in the South. All 
 of which suggests the inquiry, Has not the South been en« 
 
198 The Old Plantation. 
 
 titled to, and is it not deserving to-day of more of sym- 
 pathy than of the censure it has received at the hands of 
 the Northern people for her efforts to solve the problem of 
 self preservation, while at the same time she treats the 
 negro humanely ? Glad, indeed, are we to state that from 
 frequent expressions of late, similar to that quoted above 
 from the Record, all true patriots are warranted in thinking 
 that the Northern people and press are awakening to the 
 awful ordeal through which the South has passed and 
 through which it is still endeavoring to pass, and in conse- 
 quence are more disposed to do justice to all concerned. 
 Let us hope a more enlightened and a juster sentiment is 
 developing in all sections of the country, amid the clos- 
 ing hours of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Had we time, dear reader, before you and I say "Hail 
 and Farewell I" gladly would we go back to the old home 
 and enjoy ourselves once more at the dear old planter's 
 hospitable dinner table. Well, let us go, anyhow, for we 
 shall not enjoy such royal company again for a long time, 
 if ever. Handy is ringing the dinner bell, and with the old 
 planter in walk a few of his close friends. As they sit 
 down at the table let us look at them somewhat closely 
 and observe the tine products of the old plantation social 
 forces. Whose is that benevolent face on the right hand 
 of the planter? That is the Honorable Williani Horn 
 Battle, now of the Circuit Court Bench of the State and 
 later on of the Supreme Court Bench, at a time when the 
 people honored themselves in the selection of such gentle- 
 men as the elder Thomas Euffin and Eichard M. Pearson 
 as judges, not for a term of years, but for life or good be- 
 havior. Judge Battle is spending the interval between 
 Jones and Onslow courts with my father. In point of high 
 character and the fine forms of great usefulness, the State 
 has had no son more highly respected or beloved; nor has 
 she produced one whose children can, with greater cause, 
 rise up and call his memory blessed. The gentleman on 
 the opposite side of the table is the Honorable William 
 Shepperd Ashe, M.C., the closest personal friend my father 
 ever had. For years he represented his district in Con- 
 gress, having fully intrenched himself in the confidence 
 
The Old Plantation. 199 
 
 and high esteem of the State in the Legislature. Later 
 in life and notably so during the war, he devoted himself 
 with marked ability and high success to the railroad trans- 
 portation of the South, in which he greatly distinguished 
 himself in that he rendered invaluable services to the peo- 
 ple in this most important department. Of distinguished 
 Colonial and Revolutionary ancestry, which he honored by 
 a long line of useful service, his very strongest feature 
 of character was his supreme loyalty to his friends, who> 
 in his tender judgment, could do no wrong; even if the 
 correlation of this be true of him, that his enemy could 
 do no right. In many ways his son, Captain Samuel A. 
 Ashe, of Raleigh, North Carolina, reminds his friends very 
 strikingly of his noble father. The other gentleman, is the 
 Honorable Thomas Ruffin, a member of the North Carolina 
 Bar, but more strikingly distinguished as a member of 
 Congress and still later on as a colonel of cavalry in the 
 army of Northern Virginia; where, at the head of his 
 regiment, he laid down his life in defense of the principles 
 of government for which he had battled so nobly on the 
 floors of Congress. All over the fair South, dear reader, 
 might you have looked upon just such pictures of high 
 character and marked ability. But the writer has drawn 
 this one, in order that the character of the products of the 
 old plantation life might stand out in bold relief before 
 you. 
 
 There are many portions of the old South which I would 
 gladly visit with you, but the time is close at hand when 
 you and I must part. I would gladly go with you to 
 Edgecombe and Orange counties; to those two dear old 
 Colonial towns, Wilmington and New Berne ; to the Pied- 
 mont section of the State, at Morganton and elsewhere, 
 there; to the Valley of the French Broad in Buncombe 
 and other picturesque counties ; in fine, all over the State ; 
 assured that you would readily account for the population 
 from the country they inhabit, in part, but mainly from 
 the religious home life they led, with the uplift given 
 them, each man " dwelling under his own vine and figtree ;" 
 with the fine social forces of the old plantation life, under 
 which they were taught "to eat no dirt, spit no fire, ride 
 
200 The Old Plantation. 
 
 a horse and speak the truth." In whatever direction you 
 might look or go, dear reader, whether amid the savannahs 
 of the Gulf states or the broad rolling prairies of Texas, 
 amid the blue-grass country of Kentucky or along the now 
 classic streams of Maryland and Virginia — all over the 
 Southland this picture would have been reproduced, with 
 only some slight differences in light and shade. 
 
 Like the last of the Mohicans, the old planter and his 
 race are dead. 
 
 "The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 
 The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 
 The cock's shrill clarion or the echoing horn, 
 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 
 For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
 No busy housewife ply her evening care, 
 No children run to lisp their sire's return, 
 Or climb his knee, the envied kiss to share." 
 
 Dead and yet to memory dear. Yes ! Yes ! They will 
 live as long as Memory is true to her trust and Virtue 
 stands crowned by a grateful posterity. This book 
 "The Old Plantation," may be read by few or many. 
 It matters not. But the heart in the old life — the 
 socialchaxCQi in the old life — the loving confidence be- 
 twSenxhe two races in the old life — the high integrity 
 in politics and devotion to the Constitution of the old life 
 — the beautiful form of womanhood with the striking type 
 of manhood in the old life — all growing out of their relig- 
 ious homes, faithfully guarded, under the conservative 
 forces of the old life — these — these shall never fade away. 
 Old planter ! hail and farewell ! but not forever, for we 
 shall meet again on the bright plains of the Great Beyond, 
 where no "civil equalities" exist, but where justice, holding 
 the scales, is administered by a God of Love. Hail and 
 farewell! Zoe mou sas agapoe! "'By my life I love 
 you/' 
 
 THE 
 
 END. 
 
> 
 
 The Old Plantation. 201 
 
 4 
 
 y^ 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 It may be true, aye, it is true, that Southern nation- 
 ality is a dream of the past. A gulf, beyond which we 
 could not pass, yawned between us and the realization of 
 our hopes; and though bright flowers bloomed upon its 
 brink and wafted us sweet perfume, we could not cross 
 to gather them. The Southern Cross no longer gleams 
 out amid the wild light of .battle; the sword of the van- 
 quished is sheathed, and the land is gloomy with the harm- 
 less sepulchers of our martyred dead. But when years and 
 years shall have passed away — when the last of the present 
 generation sleeps with their fathers and new forms 
 throng the old familiar places — when faction shall have 
 hushed and justice holds the scales, then as bright as day 
 and as free from blemish and stain will stand forth in 
 bright relief upon the scroll of historic fame the record of 
 the old plantation South, dearer to the hearts of her chil- 
 dren now in the hour of sorrow that when on the march to 
 victory she won the admiration of the world. Pilgrims 
 from other lands shall tread with reverent step above the 
 spot where molders the dust of our loved and lost; while 
 those who are to follow us will cherish as household gods 
 the names of those who, carving their way through the 
 fiery path of war, have written their names where they 
 can never die. The old plantation home life is dead, and 
 the principles for which so many laid down their lives may 
 not be recognized until their names have grown feeble on 
 the tongue of friendship* and been dropped in dead silence 
 from the ear of the world. But it is struggling back from 
 
A. 
 
 «a 
 
 202 The Old Plantation. 
 
 the hollow bosom that once bled for it, and will ascend the 
 heights of government at the hands of a reunited and 
 strengthened people, with no sectional triumph upon it. 
 And when the faithful historian shall descend into the 
 vaults of the dead past in quest of traditions of liberty, and 
 in honest search for the facts of history, he will then dis- 
 cover to whom the world is indebted for the perpetuation 
 of the republic. He will find that in the old home life of 
 the South, where such men as Macon and Gaston of North 
 Carolina taught posterity to revere the Constitution and 
 to love liberty, the very finest forms of loyalty and patriot- 
 ism were installed. 
 
 ■ 
 
 "* ri ^^*'.'^^ „ FINIS- f ' m tJU«- 
 
 ■