“The settling of this region is one among the many remarkable events in the history of the rise of the Western States. Fifteen years ago it was an Indian wilderness, and now it has reached and passed in its population, other portions of the State of ten times its age, and this population, too, one of the finest in all the West. Great attention has been given to schools and education, and here, [at Memphis,] has been located the University of Mississippi; so amply endowed by the State, and now just going into operation under the auspices of some of the ablest professors from the eastern colleges. There is no overgrown wealth among them, and yet no squalid poverty; the people being generally comfortable, substantial, and independent farmers. Considering its climate, soil, wealth, and general character of its inhabitants, I should think no more desirable or delightful residence could be found than among the hills and sunny valleys of the Chickasaw Cession.”[8]
And here among the hills of this Paradise of the South-west, we were, Yazoo and I—he, savagely hungry, as may be guessed from his observations upon “the finest people of the West,” among whose cabins in the pine-wood toiled our stage-coach.
The whole art of driving was directed to the discovery of a passage for the coach among the trees and through the fields, where there were fields, adjoining the road—the road itself being impassable. Occasionally, when the coachman, during the night, found it necessary, owing to the thickness of the forest on each side, to take to the road, he would first leave the coach and make a survey with his lantern, sounding the ruts of the cotton-waggons, and finally making out a channel by guiding-stakes which he cut from the underwood with a hatchet, usually carried in the holster. If, after diligent sounding, he found no passage sufficiently shallow, he would sometimes spend half an hour in preparing one, bringing rails from the nearest fence, or cutting brushwood for the purpose. We were but once or twice during the night called upon to leave the coach, or to assist in road-making, and my companion frequently expressed his gratitude for this—gratitude not to the driver but to Providence, who had made a country, as he thought, so unusually well adapted for stage-coaching. The night before, he had been on a much worse road, and was half the time, with numerous other passengers, engaged in bringing rails, and prying the coach out of sloughs. They had been obliged to keep on the track, because the water was up over the adjoining country. Where the wooden causeway had floated off, they had passed through water so deep that it entered the coach body. With our road of to-day, then, he could only express satisfaction; not so with the residents upon it. “Look at ’em!” he would say. “Just look at ’em! What’s the use of such people’s living? ’Pears to me I’d die if I couldn’t live better ’n that. When I get to be representative, I’m going to have a law made that all such kind of men shall be took up by the State and sent to the penitentiary, to make ’em work and earn something to support their families. I pity the women; I haint nuthin agin them; they work hard enough, I know; but the men—I know how ’tis. They just hang around groceries and spend all the money they can get—just go round and live on other people, and play keerds, and only go home to nights; and the poor women, they hev to live how they ken.”
“Do you think it’s so? It is strange we see no men—only women and children.”
“Tell you they’re off, gettin’ a dinner out o’ somebody. Tell you I know it’s so. It’s the way all these people do. Why there’s one poor man I know, that lives in a neighbourhood of poor men, down our way, and he’s right industrious, but he can’t get rich and he never ken, cause all these other poor men live on him.”
“What do you mean? Do they all drop in about dinner time?”
“No, not all on ’em, but some on ’em every day. And they keep borrowin’ things of him. He haint spunk enough to insult ’em. If he’d just move into a rich neighborhood and jest be a little sassy, and not keer so much about what folks said of him, he’d get rich; never knew a man that was industrious and sassy in this country that didn’t get rich, quick, and get niggers to do his work for him. Anybody ken that’s smart. Thar’s whar they tried to raise some corn. Warn’t no corn grew thar; that’s sartin. Wonder what they live on? See the stalks. They never made no corn. Plowed right down the hill! Did you ever see anything like it? As if this sile warn’t poor enough already. There now. Just the same. Only look at ’em! ’Pears like they never see a stage afore. This ain’t the right road, the way they look at us. No, sartin, they never see a stage. Lord God! see the babies. They never see a stage afore. No, the stage never went by here afore, I know. This damn’d driver’s just taken us round this way to show off what he can do and pass away the time before breakfast. Couldn’t get no breakfast here if he would stop—less we ate a baby. That’s right! step out where you ken see her good; prehaps you’ll never see a stage again; better look now, right sharp. Yes, oh yes, sartin; fetch out all the babies. Haint you got no more? Well, I should hope not. Now, what is the use of so many babies? That’s the worst on’t. I’d get married to-morrow if I wasn’t sure I’d hev babies. I hate babies, can’t bear ’em round me, and won’t have ’em. I would like to be married. I know several gals I’d marry if ’twarn’t for that. Well, it’s a fact. Just so. I hate the squallin’ things. I know I was born a baby, but I couldn’t help it, could I? I wish I hadn’t been. I hate the squallin’ things. If I had to hev a baby round me I should kill it.”
“If you had a baby of your own, you’d feel differently about it.”
“That’s what they tell me. I s’pose I should, but I don’t want to feel differently. I hate ’em. I hate ’em.”
The coach stopped at length. We got out and found ourselves on the bank of an overflowed brook. A part of the bridge was broken up, the driver declared it impossible to ford the stream, and said he should return to the shanty, four miles back, at which we had last changed horses. We persuaded him to take one of his horses from the team and let us see if we could not get across. I succeeded in doing this without difficulty, and turning the horse loose he returned. The driver, however, was still afraid to try to ford the stream with the coach and mails, and after trying our best to persuade him, I told him if he returned he should do it without me, hoping he would be shamed out of his pusillanimity. Yazoo joined me, but the driver having again recovered the horse upon which he had forded the stream, turned about and drove back. We pushed on, and after walking a few miles, came to a neat new house, with a cluster of old cabins about it. It was much the most comfortable establishment we had seen during the day. Truly a “sunny valley” home of northern Mississippi. We entered quietly, and were received by two women who were spinning in a room with three outside doors all open, though a fine fire was burning, merely to warm the room, in a large fire-place, within. Upon our asking if we could have breakfast prepared for us, one of the women went to the door and gave orders to a negro, and in a moment after, we saw six or seven black boys and girls chasing and clubbing a hen round the yard for our benefit. I regret to add that they did not succeed in making her tender. At twelve o’clock we breakfasted, and were then accommodated with a bed, upon which we slept together for several hours. When I awoke I walked out to look at the premises.