The sheaves are beaten with flails[Frontispiece]
PAGE
"Cherokee"—my father's place[4]
Bonaparte [7]
Each field has a small flood-gate, called a "trunk"[9]
Marcus began work on the breaks[10]
"The girls shuffled the rice about with their feet until it was clayed"[11]
Near the bridge two negro women are fishing[14]
A request from Wishy's mother, Annette, for something to stop bleeding[17]
Green thought it was folly and fussiness[27]
She picked her usual thirty-five pounds alone[31]
To-day the hands are "toting" the rice into the flats[34]
"You see a stack of rice approaching, and you perceive a pair of legs, or a skirt, as the case may be, peeping from beneath"[35]
Chloe[40]
Front porch—Casa Bianca[42]
Elihu was a splendid boatman[51]
My little brown maid Patty is a new acquisition and a great comfort, for she is very bright[53]
The roughness and plainness of the pineland house[54]
The yearly powwow at Casa Bianca[60]
"Four young girls who are splendid workers"[62]
She promised not to war any more[65]
"Myself, ma'am, bin most stupid"[66]
A rice field "flowed"[72]
The hoe they considered purely a feminine implement[79]
The back steps to the pineland house[84]
"A very large black hat"[87]
Her husband brought her in an ox cart[93]
"Old Maum Mary came to bring me a present of sweet potatoes"[98]
"Pa dey een 'e bald"[102]
One or two hands in the barn-yard[107]
A corner of Casa Bianca[109]
"Chaney"[112]
Five children asked me to let them "hunt tetta"[120]
"It is tied into sheaves, which the negroes do very skilfully, with a wisp of the rice itself"[122]
"The field with its picturesque workers"[124]
"The Ferry"[132]
His wife was very stirring[136]
Day after day I met Judy coming out of her patch[138]
"Old Florinda, the plantation nurse"[144]
"Miss Patience, le' me len' yer de money"[150]
"Jus' shinin' um up wid de knife-brick"[159]
Aphrodite spread a quilt and deposited the party upon it[164]
"Then he could talk a-plenty"[171]
Chloe is devoted to the chicks—feeds them every two hours[174]
Prince Frederick's Pee Dee[178]
Prince George Winyah[180]
"Eh, eh, I yere say yu cry 'bout chicken"[187]
The summer kitchen at Cherokee[188]
The winter kitchen at Cherokee[189]
The string of excited children[190]
I got Chloe off to make a visit to her daughter[198]
I really do not miss ice, now that my little brown jug is swung in the well[200]
Patty came in[210]
"Plat eye!"[216]
Goliah cried and sobbed[225]
Had Eva to sow by hand a little of the inoculated seed[232]
Her little log cottage was as clean as possible[236]
The sacred spot with its heavy live oak shadows[242]
"I met Dab on the road"[249]
Cherokee steps[250]
The smoke-house at Cherokee for meat curing[260]
Sol's wife, Aphrodite, is a specimen of maternal health and vigor[262]
I saw a raft of very fine poplar logs being made[263]
Cypress trees[265]
She was a simple, faithful soul—always diligent[270]
Winnowing house for preparation of seed rice[272]
"Patty en Dab en me all bin a eat"[276]
Chloe began: "W'en I bin a small gal"[288]
I took Chloe to Casa Bianca to serve luncheon[299]
"I read tell de kumfut kum to me"[309]
"Up kum Maum Mary wid de big cake een de wheelbarrer"[311]
Gibbie and the oxen[313]
In the field—sowing[317]
How to lay the breakfast table[321]
Joy unspeakable[326]
The church in Peaceville[331]
Chloe was a great success at the North[338]
My old summer home at Pawleys Island[349]
The roof of the house on Pawleys Island—from the sand-hills[352]
"En de 'omans mek answer en say: 'No, ma'am; we neber steal none'"[356]
"Dem all stan' outside de fence"[367]
Fanning and pounding rice for household use[375]
Pounding rice[376]
The rice-fields looked like a great lake[399]
Casa Bianca[422]
Rice-fields from the highlands[439]
"You see I didn't tell no lie"[442]

A WOMAN RICE PLANTER

CHAPTER I

Cherokee, March 30, 1903.

You have asked me to tell of my rice-planting experience, and I will do my best, though I hardly know where to begin.

Some years ago the plantation where I had spent my very short married life, Casa Bianca, was for sale, and against the judgment of the men of my family I decided to put $10,000, every cent I had, in the purchase of it, to grow old in, I said, feeling it a refuge from the loneliness which crushed me. Though opposed to the step, one of my brothers undertook very kindly to manage it until paid for, then to turn it over to me. I had paid $5000 cash and spent $5000 in buying mules, supplies, ploughs, harrows, seed rice, etc., necessary to start and run the place. This left me with a debt of $5000, for which I gave a mortgage. After some years the debt was reduced to $3000, when I awoke to the fact that I had no right to burden and worry my brother any longer with this troublesome addition to his own large planting,[1] and I told him the first of January of 18—that I had determined to relieve him and try it myself. He seemed much shocked and surprised and said it was impossible; how was it possible for me, with absolutely no knowledge of planting or experience, to do anything? It would be much wiser to rent. I said I would gladly do so, but who would rent it? He said he would give me $300 a year for it, just to assist me in this trouble, and I answered that that would just pay the taxes and the interest on the debt, and I would never have any prospect of paying off the mortgage, and, when I died, instead of leaving something to my nieces and nephews, I would leave only a debt. No; I had thought of it well; I would sell the five mules and put that money in bank, and as far as that went I would plant on wages, and the rest of the land I would rent to the negroes at ten bushels to the acre. He was perfectly dismayed; said I would have to advance heavily to them, and nothing but ruin awaited me in such an undertaking.

However, I assembled the hands and told them that all who could not support themselves for a year would have to leave the place. With one accord they declared they could do it; but I explained to them that I was going to take charge myself, that I was a woman, with no resources of money behind me, and, having only the land, I intended to rent to them for ten bushels of rice to the acre. I could advance nothing but the seed. I could give them a chance to work for themselves and prove themselves worthy to be free men. I intended to have no overseer; each man would be entirely responsible for the land he rented. "You know very well," I said, "that this land will bring my ten bushels rent if you just throw the seed in and leave it, so that every stroke of work that you do will go into your own pockets, and I hope you will prove men enough to work for that purpose."

Then I picked out the lazy, shiftless hands and told them they must leave, as I knew they would not work for themselves. All the planters around were eager for hands and worked entirely on wages, and I would only plant fifty acres on wages, which would not be enough to supply all with work. My old foreman, Washington, was most uneasy and miserable, and questioned me constantly as to the wisdom of what I was doing. At last I said to him: "Washington, you do not know whether I have the sense to succeed in this thing, Mass' Tom does not know, I don't know; but we shall know by this time next year, and in the meantime you must just trust me and do the best you can for me."

It proved a great success! I went through the burning suns all that summer, twice a week, five miles in a buggy and six in a boat! I, who had always been timorous, drove myself the five miles entirely alone, hired a strange negro and his boat and was rowed by him to Casa Bianca plantation. Then, with dear old Washington behind me, telling of all the trials and tribulations he had had in getting the work done, I walked around the 200 acres of rice in all stages of beauty and awfulness of smell.