On Sunday sent word to all the Cherokee hands that I wanted them to hoe the rice yesterday. Of course no work is ever done on the Fourth. It is a day of general jubilation among the darkeys—gorgeous costumes, little tables set about with ice cream, lemonade, cakes; every kind of thing for sale—watermelon above all. Yesterday morning there were three women in the field and a boy to hoe the rice. The other hands sent word that "they couldn't work so soon arter the Fourth."
"A very large black hat."
I am anxious to get the field hoed out, for besides its being very grassy, I see by the weather report that the river has risen to 18 feet at Cheraw and is still rising, and it is most important to get the rice clean of grass and the water put over it before that freshet water gets down here. There are 12 tenant houses on the place with 20 grown hands and about 6 half hands and numbers of children. These people, by their agreement, are to work for me whenever I call them. When I do not need them they are at liberty to work wherever they choose, but when I call them they are bound to come. With this understanding they have their house free of rent with an acre of rich upland, all the wood they need, winter and summer; yet it is impossible to get the necessary work done. One-half of an acre is the task for a whole hand in hoeing rice, and the eleven-acre field should not take more than two days at the utmost; but at this rate it will take more than a week, and I am powerless to command the work. I pay in money always, but they prefer to make excuses of illness to me, and slip off and work for my neighbor who pays in cards redeemable only in his store, because it is done on the sly and in opposition to my authority—in other words, that is freedom.
Who could succeed with such a state of things in any business? I am so discouraged. I do not see where it is to end. This fertile soil must just grow up in weeds and go to waste, because, forsooth, life is too easy here. Why work when one can live without? Why carry out a contract when one can wriggle out of it as a snake does from the effort to hold him with a forked stick, and go and bask in the sun and satisfy the elemental needs as the snake does?
Jim came in to-night, having done a fine day's ploughing, but very angry because he had spent his midday hours chasing three negro pigs through the corn-field. He says they are in the field every day doing great damage, and he cannot find any hole in the fence where they could get in. My own twenty-five pigs are kept confined in a crawl or pen for fear of their getting into the corn, and these robber pigs are fattening on it. I very much fear some one in an unseen moment turns them in the gate, for they belong to people living on the place.
I am broadcasting peas on the field from which the oats were cut, and these pigs are eating them before they can be ploughed under. I cannot bear to order the pigs shot, but suppose I will have to do it. Things have never been so bad as this before. There is some influence under the surface of which I know nothing. God only knows how it is to end, and it is a great comfort to feel that He does know everything and never fails them that trust Him.
July 16.
Our rector came to us for service to-day, and we had an excellent sermon from him. To-night all the neighbors assembled at my house, as usual on Sunday evenings, for sacred music. It always moves me to see the delight every one takes in this very simple way of passing the evening—men, women, and children are equally enthusiastic. I tried having the children in the afternoon, but they did not enjoy it as much, so they all come at 8 and sing until 10, and then home to their night's rest.