CHAPTER XV.
BECKY SPEAKS UP IN MEETING IN THE INTERESTS OF MORALITY.
The incidents which once enlivened the lives of every family that was served by the negro slave are fading from the minds of even many who were centers of those episodes. But they are of legendary interest to the younger generations. There are some things to be regretted in the negro being poured into the mold of the white man’s education. The only true national music in the United States is that known as “the negro melody.” Will not so-called musical “cultivation” tend to destroy the charmingly distinctive character of the negro’s music? Art cannot supply or enhance the quality of his genius. It will be a definite loss if the music of the future shall lack the individualism of his songs, for with them will go the wonderful power of improvisation—the relic of his unfettered imagination, the voices of his native jungles struggling to translate themselves into speech. His happy insouciance is already fleeing before the pressure of his growing responsibilities. Very much that constitutes the picturesque and lovable in negro character will disappear with the negro point of view,—for if he survives in this civilization his point of view must merge into the Anglo-Saxon’s. Only those who were “to the manor born” can deftly interpret the idiosyncrasies of the plantation negro; so, while a few of us who owned them are yet alive, it may be a service to the future, as well as our duty and pleasure, to link their race peculiarities to the yet unborn, by revealing and embalming them through the garrulous pen. Becky Coleman’s gifts as a raconteuse deserve a record. It delights me to remember her as I sat one day at the door of the porch facing the wide river and the public road. Near by, through a path in the grounds, a procession of colored people passed and repassed morning and evening, with buckets on their well-cushioned heads, to the cisterns of water in the rear of the house. Becky came along and greeted me with polite cordiality. I invited her to stop and rest awhile, and filled her tin cup with iced lemonade from a pitcher standing near.
The woman seated herself on the steps, set down her pail beside her and sipped the cool beverage.
“Thanky, ma’am,” said she. “I feels dat clean down in my foots. It’s mighty hot fer dis time er year. Ole Aunt Mary is spendin’ to-day at my house, en she hope me some, hoin’ in my gyardin’, en now um gwine to bile er pot o’ greens and stchew some greasy butter beans (fer de ole ’oman don’t never have nothin’ but meat en brade at her house), en den she mus’ finish gittin’ de grass en weeds outen my cabiges, for um bound to have a fall gyardin’, en ef yo wants turnips, en lettice, en redishes, yo knows whar to fin’ em.”
Becky lifted the lower flounce of my wrapper and inspected the embroidery, looking at me sharply from head to foot. “Dat’s a mighty purty dress yo got on, Miss Carrie,” said she, “yo mus’ lem me have it when yo’re done wid it. Won’t yo promise me?”
“Now, Becky,” I replied, “don’t ask me to make a promise I might forget, and you would be sure to remember; but you go on and tell me about your protracted meeting at the Royal Oak Church yesterday.”
Becky squared her portly person into a comfortable position, her hand on her hip, and with complacency and satisfaction beaming from her ebony colored face she began:
“Ya’as em I wuz dar; I was bleeged to be dar, fer um one uv de stchowerd sisters. You knows we dresses in white en black. I had on dat black silk dress yo sont me las’ Chrimus. Dat is, I had on de tail uv it, wid er white sack instead of er bass, en I jes’ let yo know nun of dese niggers roun’ here can beat me er dressin’, when I gits on de close yo gie me. I had er starchy big white handkercher tied turbin fashin on my head, en Miss Lula’s big breas’-pin right yeah” (putting her hand to her throat), “en I tell yo, mun, I jes’ outlooked ennything in dat house. Yander comes Aunt Loo, an’ I bet she’ll tell yo de same. ’Twas er feas’ day—sackament day—en all de stchowerd sisters was er settin’ roun’ on de front benches, like dey does dem times, en dar wus Sis’ Lizer Wright, who wus one of us, all dressed up in pure white, en settin’ side uv her was Peter Green, en he wus fixed up too, mitely, even down to new shoes.
“Dey hilt pra’ar, en den Bro’ Primus Johnson ris en showed er piece up paper ’en told us all ’twas er license fer to jine Peter Green and Lizer Wright in de holy bonds o’ mattermony; ‘But,’ sez he, ‘fo’ I go any furder I want de bretherin to come for’ard en speak dey mines on de subjick.’