Next morning, near the ferry house, I noticed a set of stocks, having holes for the head as well as the ankles; they stood unsheltered and unshaded in the open road.
I asked an old negro what it was.
“Dat ting, massa?” grinning; “well, sah, we calls dat a ting to put black people, niggers, in, when dey misbehaves bad, and to put runaways in, sah. Heaps o’ runaways, dis country, sah. Yes, sah, heaps on ’em round here.”[16]
Mr. S. and I slept in the same room. I went to bed some time before him; he sat up late, to smoke, he said. He woke me when he came in, by his efforts to barricade the door with our rather limited furniture. The room being small, and without a window, I expostulated. He acknowledged it would probably make us rather too warm, but he shouldn’t feel safe if the door were left open. “You don’t know,” said he; “there may be runaways around.”
He then drew two small revolvers, hitherto concealed under his clothing, and began to examine the caps. He was certainly a nervous man, perhaps a madman. I suppose he saw some expression of this thought in my face, for he said, placing them so they could be easily taken up as he lay in bed, “Sometimes a man has a use for them when he least expects it. There was a gentleman on this road a few days ago. He was going to Natchez. He overtook a runaway, and he says to him, ‘Bad company’s better’n none, boy, and I reckon I’ll keep you along with me into Natchez.’ The nigger appeared to be pleased to have company, and went along, talking with him, very well, till they came to a thicket place, about six miles from Natchez. Then he told him he reckoned he would not go any further with him. ‘What! you black rascal,’ says he; ‘you mean you won’t go in with me? You step out and go straight ahead, and if you turn your face till you get into Natchez, I’ll shoot you.’ ‘Aha! massa,’ says the nigger, mighty good-natured, ‘I reckon you ’aint got no shootin’ irons;’ and he bolted off into the thicket, and got away from him.”
At breakfast, Mr. S. came late. He bowed his head as he took his seat, and closed his eyes for a second or two; then, withdrawing his quid of tobacco and throwing it in the fireplace, he looked round with a smile, and said:—
“I always think it a good plan to thank the Lord for His mercies. I’m afraid some people’ll think I’m a member of the church. I aint, and never was. Wish I was. I am a Son, though [of Temperance?] Give me some water, girl. Coffee first. Never too soon for coffee. And never too late, I say. Wait for anything but coffee. These swell-heads drink their coffee after they’ve eaten all their dinner. I want it with dinner, eh? Don’t nothing taste good without coffee, I reckon.”
Before he left, he invited me to visit his plantations, giving me careful directions to find them, and saying that if he should not have returned before I reached them, his wife and his overseer would give me every attention if I would tell them he told me to visit them. He said again, and in this connection, that he believed this was the most inhospitable country in the world, and asked, “as I had been a good deal of a traveller, didn’t I think so myself?” I answered that my experience was much too small to permit me to form an opinion so contrary to that generally held.
If they had a reputation for hospitality, he said, it could only be among their own sort. They made great swell-head parties; and when they were on their plantation places, they made it a point to have a great deal of company; they would not have anything to do if they didn’t. But they were all swell-heads, I might be sure; they’d never ask anybody but a regular swell-head to see them.
His own family, however, seemed not to be excluded from the swell-head society.