Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

It may seem odd to some sensible people that this learned gentleman of over fifty should expose his own history so freely to a young fellow whom he had not seen until half an hour before. But it was a part of the Doctor's character to suppose that humanity took an interest in him just as he took an interest in all humanity; and his natural frankness had been increased by contact with the prevailing communicativeness of his open-hearted fellow-citizens of the South. I dare say that he would have unfolded the tale of his exile to an intelligent stage-driver by whom he might have chanced to sit, with as little hesitation as he poured it into the ears of this graduate of a distinguished university and representative of a staid puritanical aristocracy. He had no thought of claiming admiration for his self-sacrificing loyalty. His story was worth telling, not because it was connected with his interests, but because it had to do with his sentiments and convictions. Why should he not relate it to a stranger who was evidently capable of sympathising with those sentiments and appreciating those convictions?

But there was another reason for the Doctor's frankness. At that time every circumstance of the opening civil war, every item of life that came from hostile South to indignant North, was regarded by all as a species of public property. If you put down your name on a hotel register as arrived from Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, or any other point south of Mason & Dixon's line, you were immediately addressed and catechised. People wanted to know how you escaped, and why you tried to escape; and were ready to accord you any credit you demanded for perilous adventures and patriotic motives; and did not perceive it nor think a bit ill of you if you showed yourself somewhat of a romancer and braggart. And you, on the other hand, did not object to telling your story, but let it out as naturally as a man just rescued from drowning opens his heart to the sympathising crowd which greets him on the river bank.

Now Miss Ravenel was a rebel. Like all young people and almost all women she was strictly local, narrowly geographical in her feelings and opinions. She was colored by the soil in which she had germinated and been nurtured; and during that year no flower could be red, white and blue in Louisiana. Accordingly the young lady listened to the Doctor's story of his self-imposed exile and to his sarcasms upon the people of her native city with certain pretty little starts and sniffs of disapprobation which reminded Colburne of the counterfeit spittings of a kitten playing anger. She could not under any provocation quarrel with her father, but she could perseveringly and energetically disagree with his opinions. When he had closed his tirade and history she broke forth in a defence of her darling Dixie.

"Now, papa, you are too bad. Mr. Colburne, don't you think he is too bad? Just see here. Louisiana is my native State, and papa has lived there half his life. He could not have been treated more kindly, nor have been thought more of, than he was by those Ashantees, as he calls them, until he took sides against them. If you never lived with the southerners you don't know how pleasant they are. I don't mean those rough creatures from Arkansas and Texas, nor the stupid Acadians, nor the poor white trash. There are low people everywhere. But I do say that the better classes of Louisiana and Mississippi and Georgia and South Carolina and Virginia, yes, and of Tennessee and Kentucky, are right nice. If they don't know all about chemistry and mineralogy, they can talk delightfully to ladies. They are perfectly charming at receptions and dinner parties. They are so hospitable, too, and generous and courteous! Now I call that civilization. I say that such people are civilized."

"They have taught you Ashantee English, though," smiled the Doctor, who has not yet fully realized the fact that his daughter has become a young lady, and ought no longer to be criticised like a school girl. "I am afraid Mr. Colburne won't understand what 'right nice' means."

"Oh, yes he will. Do try to understand it, Mr. Colburne," answers Miss Ravenel, coloring to her temples and fluttering like a canary whose cage has been shaken, but still smiling good-naturedly. Her father's satire, delivered before a stranger, touched her, but could not irritate a good temper softened by affection.

"I must be allowed to use those Ashantee phrases once in a while," she went on. "We learn them from our old mammas; that is, you know, our nice old black nurses. Well, I admit that the mammas are not grammarians. I admit that Louisiana is not perfect. But it is my Louisiana. And, papa, it ought to be your Louisiana. I think we owe fealty to our State, and should go with it wherever it goes. Don't you believe in State rights, Mr. Colburne? Wouldn't you stand by Barataria in any and every case?"

"Not against the Union, Miss Ravenel," responded the young man, unshaken in his loyalty even by that earnest look and winning smile.