We did not have “made-over” dishes, cold meats nor stale bread on our tables; little darkies were sent by the half sick and aged for “left overs.” Children were not bottlefed or spoonfed; they consumed pot liquor and mush and molasses as soon as they were weaned. Corn, cowpeas and turnips were cultivated for the slaves, and when there was an overplus of garden vegetables it was sent to the quarter kitchen. Their meat was pickled pork—it was called “clear sides”—shipped from Kentucky or Missouri. All their cooking was done by two cooks in a big kitchen, but every cabin had a fireplace, with a pot or skillet, of course, for we all know how the darky dotes on little messes of her own doing. All the doors had locks, and the women went to the field with the key hung around their necks.
Each spring at house-cleaning, cabins were whitewashed inside and out; also the stables and other plantation buildings, the fences and trees as high up as a long pole or brush could reach. From Saturday noon till Monday was holiday, when the enterprising men chopped wood, for which they were paid, and the drones sunned themselves on the porch steps, and the women washed their clothes. I knew of only one planter who made his negroes work on Sundays. He was an Englishman who married into a plantation. The indignant neighbors called the attention of the grand jury in that case, with success, too. During sugar-making everybody worked day and night, but the season was short, terminating in December.
I cannot recall more than three deaths in ten years. I have no record to refer to (I guess that plantation folio afforded some information to the Union army). There was a burial ground for the slaves. One of them, the engineer, by the way, and a mighty good negro, too, acted as preacher. He married and buried and in all ways ministered to the spiritual needs of his flock. I recall teaching Lewis to sing “Canaan.” He wanted to learn a hymn, and had a lusty bass voice, while I did not have any at all. Lewis was not the only accomplished negro. We did not have white labor. There were slave carpenters, coopers, masons and sugar makers; women who cut and made all clothing, shirts, coats, pantaloons, dresses.
By law no child under ten years of age could be sold from its mother. I suppose that law is obsolete now! It happened a negro child born in the penitentiary of a convict mother, named Alroy, had to remain ten years in confinement; he was taught reading and writing, probably all the Rs, by the convicts, while he imbibed in such surroundings a good many less desirable accomplishments. Hon. Mr. Alroy represented his native parish in the Louisiana Legislature of reconstruction times. He was better fitted probably than some of his dusky colleagues, for he could read the laws; some of them could not. That is also of the dead past, thank God, and has no bearing on the old plantation life, except as an illustration of the law regarding slaves.
The “big house” had no fastenings on the front and back doors. In the absence of my husband one time I was awakened, in the dead hour of night, by a touch on my shoulder. “It’s me, mistis; de levee’s broke.” A crevasse! Without taking time to put on an extra gown, I was an hour giving orders and dispatching men to the planters, even twenty miles off, for assistance.
For a week thereafter, day and night, I fairly lived on horseback at the levee, superintending the repair work in place of my absent husband and our inefficient overseer. Each planter affected by the crevasse came, or sent an overseer with a force of slaves, who worked in hour shifts, to their waists in the water, driving piles and heaping sand bags. As the shifts changed the men were given a dram and hot soup or coffee, and sent to a huge bonfire nearby to dry themselves.
Another time I landed from a boat at the witching hour between midnight and dawn. The boat’s bell and whistle sounded to attract some light sleeper. By the time I was fairly ashore a glimmering light of a lantern was seen. I was escorted to the house by the coachman, but if any other negro had responded I should have felt quite as safe.
Mammy Charlotte was supreme in the domestic department. The little cupbearers from the quarters reported to her for the “dreenings” of the coffee pot or the left-over soup. The visitor by the library fire called to her for a glass of wine or a “finger” of whisky. I called Charlotte to ask what we were going to have for dinner. She was the busy one, and every plantation had just such a mammy. Charlotte and I belonged to the same church. When there was a vacant seat in the carriage Sunday morning she was called to occupy it.
One of our neighbors, that a New Englander would call a “near” man, owned a few acres adjoining ours, but too remote from his plantation to be advantageously cultivated. He would not fence his property nor work his road, nor keep his levee in repair (it was just there we had the crevasse); however, it afforded good pasturage for Uncle Billy’s cow, and for us, a supply of mushrooms. Billy’s nets and lines supplied us with shrimp and fish, small catfish that William cooked à la pompano, not a poor imitation of that delectable Gulf dainty. I heard Charlotte berating Billy for not bringing in some more of those fine shrimp, when he knew, too, there was company in the house. Imagine my consternation at Billy’s reply, “Dey done gorn; dat ole drowned mule is floated away.”
Col. Hicky was our nearest neighbor, on Hope estate. When the dear old man was eighty and I was twenty-five we were great chums. He never passed in his buggy if I was visible on the lawn or porch without stopping for a chat. There was frequent interchange of neighborly courtesies. He had fine large pecans, and we didn’t; we had celery and he didn’t, so there was much flitting back and forth of baskets. If we were having an unusual occasion, like the dinner my husband gave in honor of Messrs. Slidell and Benjamin, when they were elected to the United States Senate, a big basket came from Hope estate. Didn’t the dear old gentleman send a capon turkey which was too big for any dish we had, and didn’t we have to borrow the Hicky dish?