III
No servants or retainers of any race ever identified themselves more fully with their masters. The relation was rather that of retainers than of slaves. It began in the infancy of both master and servant, grew with their growth, and continued through life. Such a relation does not now, so far as I know, exist, except in the isolated instances of old families who have survived all the chances and changes with the old family servants still hanging on. Certainly, I think, it did not exist anywhere else, unless, perhaps, on the country estates of the gentry in England and, possibly, in parts of France and Germany.
This relation in the South was not exceptional. It was the general, if not the universal rule. The servants were “my servants” or “my people”; the masters were to the servants, “my master and my mistis,” or “my white folks.” Both pride and affection spoke in that claim.
In fact, the ties of pride were such that it was often remarked that the affection of the slaves was stronger toward the whites than toward their own offspring. This fact, which cannot be successfully disputed, has been referred by Professor Shaler to a survival of a tribal instinct which preponderated over the family instinct. Others may possibly refer it to the fact that the family instinct was, owing to the very nature of the institution of slavery, not allowed to take deep root. Whatever the cause, it does not appear even now to have taken much root, at least, according to the standard of the Anglo-Saxon, a race whose history is founded upon the family instinct.
The family ties among the Negroes often appear to be scarcely as strong now as they were under the institution of slavery. Marital fidelity is, if we are to believe those who have had good opportunities of observation, not as common now as it was then. The instances of desertion of husbands, of wives, of parents, or children would possibly offset any division that took place under that institution.
A number of old Negroes whom I have known have been abandoned by nearly all of their children. Often, when they grow up, they leave them with scarcely less unconcern than do any order of the lower animals.
The oldest son of our dining-room servant went off at the time of one of Sheridan’s raids and was never heard of again until some twenty years after the war, when it was learned that he was a fisherman on the lower James, and although he lived, and may be living yet, within a hundred miles of his old home, where his father and mother lived, he never took the trouble even to communicate with them once. The next son went off to the South after the war, and the only time that he ever wrote home, so far as I know, was when he wrote to ascertain his age, in order that he might qualify to vote. The same may be said of many others.
The Mammy was, perhaps, the most important of the servants, as she was also the closest intimate of the family. She was, indeed, an actual member of the household. She was usually selected in her youth to be the companion of the children by reason of her being the child of some favored servant and, as such, likely to possess sense, amiability, judgment, and the qualities which gave promise of character and efficiency. So she grew up in intercourse with the girls of the family, and when they married she became, in turn, the nurse and assistant to the old mammy, and then the mammy of her young mistress’s children, and, after, of their children.
She has never been adequately described. Chiefly, I fancy, because it was impossible to describe her as she was.
Who may picture a mother? We may dab and dab at it, but when we have done our best we know that we have stuck on a little paint, and the eternal verity stands forth like the eternal verity of the Holy Mother, outside our conception, only to be apprehended in our highest moments, and never to be truly pictured by pen or pencil.
So, no one can describe what the Mammy was, and only those can apprehend her who were rocked on her generous bosom, slept on her bed, fed at her table, were directed and controlled by her, watched by her unsleeping eye, and led by her precept in the way of truth, justice, and humanity.
She was far more than a servant. She was a member of the family in high standing and of unquestioned influence. She was her mistress’s coadjutress and her wise adviser, and where the children were concerned, she was next to her in authority.
My father’s mammy, old Krenda, was said to have been an African princess, and whether there was any other foundation for the idea than her commanding presence and character, I know not; but these were unquestionable. Her aphorisms have been handed down in the family since her time. Among them was one which has a smack of the old times and at least indicates that she had not visited some modern cities: “Good manners will cyah you whar money won’t.”
I remember my mammy well, though she died when I was a child. Her name was Lydia, and she was the daughter of old Betty, who had been my great-grandmother’s maid. Betty used to read to her mistress during the latter years of her life when she was blind. Lydia had been my mother’s mammy before she was mine and my brother’s, and she had the authority and prestige of having been such.
After forty-five years, I recall with mingled affection and awe my mammy’s dignity, force, and kindness; her snowy bed, where I was put to sleep in the little up-stairs room, sealed with pictures from the illustrated papers and with fashion-plates, in which her artistic feeling found its vent; I recall also the delicious “biscuit-bread” she made, which we thought better than that of all the cooks and bakers in the world. In one corner stood her tea-table, with her “tea-things,” her tea and white sugar.
I remember, too, the exercise of her authority, and recall, at least two “good whippings” that she gave me.
One curious recollection that remains is of a discussion between her and one of her young mistresses on the subject of slavery, in which the latter fell back on what is, possibly, one of the strongest arguments of the slave-holder, the Bible, and asserted that God had put each of them in their places. It may be left to the reader to say which had the better of the argument. The interest of the matter now is rather academic than practical.
A few days before my mammy’s death she made her will, dividing her “things,” for such wills were as strictly observed as if they had been admitted to probate. Among her bequests her feather-bed and pillows were left to my elder brother. She made my mother bring a pen and write his name on the bed and pillows. And these pillows are now in his rectory.
It was from our mammies that we learned those delightful stories of “Brer Fox” and “Brer Hyah,” which the children of a later generation have learned through the magic pen of “Uncle Remus.” It was from them also that we learned many of the lessons of morality and truth.
Next to the mammy in point of dignity was, of right, the butler. He held much the same position that is held by the butler in English houses. He was a person in authority, and he looked that every inch. He had his ideas, and they usually prevailed. He was the governor of the young children, the mentor of the young men, and their counsellor even after they had grown up.
Some of my readers may have seen in some hotel a Negro head-waiter who was a model of dignity and of grave authority—a field-marshal in ebony—doing the honors of his dining-room like a court chamberlain, and ruling his subordinates with the authority of a benignant despot. Such a one was probably some gentleman’s butler, who had risen by his abilities to be the chief of the dining-room.
More than one such character rises before me from the past, and the stories of their authority are a part of the traditional record of every family. The most imposing one that I personally remember was “Uncle Tom,” the butler of a cousin, whose stateliness impressed my childhood’s fancy in a way which has never been effaced. I have seen monarchs less impressive. His authority was so well recognized that he used to be called in to make the children take their physic.
It was said that one of the children, who is now a matron of great dignity and a grandmother, once, in an awed whisper, asked her grandmother, who was the mistress of “Uncle Tom” and of several hundred other servants, “Gran’ma, is you feared o’ Unc’ Tom?” And her grandmother, who told the story, used to add: “And you know the truth is, I am.”
It was a cousin of hers, Mrs. Carter, of Shirley, who used to say that when she invited company she always had to break it to Clarissy, her maid.
In truth, whatever limitation there was on the unstinted hospitality of the South was due to the fact that the servants were always considered in such matters.
This awe of the butler in his grandeur often did not pass away with youth. He both demanded and received his due respect even from grown members of the family. Of one that I knew it is told now by gray-headed men how, on occasion, long after they were grown, he would correct their manners, even at table, by a little rap on the head and a whispered reproof, as he leaned over them to place a dish. And I never knew one who did not retain his position of influence and exercise his right of admonition.
I have known butlers to take upon themselves the responsibility of saying what young gentlemen should be admitted as visitors at the house, and to whom the ladies should be denied. In fact, every wise young man used to be at pains to make friends with the old servants, for they were a sagacious class and their influence in the household was not inconsiderable. They had an intuitive knowledge, which amounted to an instinct, for “winnowing the grain from the chaff,” and they knew a “gent’man” at sight. Their acute and caustic comments have wrecked the chances of many an aspiring young suitor who failed to meet with their approval.