“Don’t they treat their slaves well?”
“No, sar, they don’t. There ain’t no nations so bad masters to niggers as them free niggers, though there’s some, I’ve heard, wos very kind; but—I wouldn’t sarve ’em if they wos—no!—Does you live in Tennessee, mass’r?”
“No—in New York.”
“There’s heaps of Quakers in New York, ain’t there, mass’r?”
“No—not many.”
“I’ve always heard there was.”
“In Philadelphia there are a good many.”
“Oh, yes! in Philadelphia, and in Winchester, and in New Jarsey. I know—ho! ho! I’ve been in those countries, and I’ve seen ’em. I wos raised nigh by Winchester, and I’ve been all about there. Used to iron waggons and shoe horses in that country. Dar’s a road from Winchester to Philadelphia—right straight. Quakers all along. Right good people, dem Quakers—ho! ho!—I know.”[2]
We slept in well-barred beds, and awoke long after sunrise. As soon as we were stirring, black coffee was sent into us, and at breakfast we had café au lait in immense bowls in the style of the crêmeries of Paris. The woman remarked that our dog had slept in their bed-room. They had taken our saddle-bags and blankets with them for security, and Judy had insisted on following them. “Dishonest black people might come here and get into the room,” explained the old man. “Yes; and some of our own people in the house might come to them. Such things have happened here, and you never can trust any of them,” said the woman, her own black girl behind her chair.
At Mr. Béguin’s (Bacon’s) we stopped on a Saturday night: and I was obliged to feed my own horse in the morning, the negroes having all gone off before daylight. The proprietor was a Creole farmer, owning a number of labourers, and living in comfort. The house was of the ordinary Southern double-cabined style, the people speaking English, intelligent, lively, and polite, giving us good entertainment at the usual price. At a rude corn-mill belonging to Mr. Béguin, we had noticed among the negroes an Indian boy, in negro clothing, and about the house were two other Indians—an old man and a young man; the first poorly clad, the other gaily dressed in a showy printed calico frock, and worked buckskin leggings, with beads and tinsel ornaments, a great turban of Scotch shawl-stuff on his head. It appeared they were Choctaws, of whom a good many lived in the neighbourhood. The two were hired for farm labour at three bits (37½ cents) a day. The old man had a field of his own, in which stood handsome corn. Some of them were industrious, but none were steady at work—often refusing to go on, or absenting themselves from freaks. I asked about the boy at the mill. He lived there and did work, getting no wages, but “living there with the niggers.” They seldom consort; our host knew but one case in which a negro had an Indian wife.