"I am so glad you can't," grinned papa, and strolled obstinately away in the direction of the sugar-house. He was studying the nature of the soil, and proposing to subject it to a chemical analysis, in order to see if it could not be made to produce as much corn to the acre as the bottom lands of Ohio. Indian corn and sweet potatoes, with a little seasoning of onions, beets, squashes, and other kitchen garden vegetables, should be his only crop that season. Also he would raise pigs and chickens by the hundred, and perhaps three or four cows, if promising calves could be obtained in the country. What New Orleans wanted, and what the whole department would stand in desperate need of, should a war break out with France, was, not sugar, but corn and pork. All that summer the possibility of a war with France was a prominent topic of conversation in Louisiana, so that even the soldiers talked in their rough way of "revelling in the halls of the Montezumas, and filling their pockets with little gold Jesuses." As for making sugar, unless it might be a hogshead or so for family consumption, it was out of the question. It would cost twenty thousand dollars merely to put the sugar-house and its machinery to rights—and the Doctor had no such riches, nor any thing approaching to it, this side of heaven. Nevertheless he was perfectly happy in strolling about his unplanted estate, and revolving his unfulfilled plans, agricultural and humanitarian. He proposed to produce, not only a crop of corn and potatoes, but a race of intelligent, industrious and virtuous laborers. He would make himself analytically acquainted, not only with the elements and possibilities of the soil, but with those of the negro soul. By the way, I ought to mention that he was not proprietor of the plantation, but only a tenant of it to the United States, paying a rent which for the first year was merely nominal, so anxious was Authority to initiate successfully the grand experiment of freedmen's labor.
When he returned to the house from a stroll of two hours Lillie favored him with a good imitation of a sound scolding. What did he mean by leaving her alone so, without anybody to speak a word to? If he was going to be always out in this way, they might as well live in New Orleans where he would be fussing around his hospital from morning till night. She was tired with overseeing those stupid negroes and trying to make them set the chairs and tables right side up.
"My dear, don't reproach them for being stupid," said Ravenel. "For nearly a century the whole power of our great Republic, north and south, has been devoted to keeping them stupid. Your own State has taken a demoniac interest in this infernal labor. We mustn't quarrel with our own deliberate productions. We wanted stupidity, we have got it, and we must be contented with it. At least for a while. It is your duty and mine to work patiently, courteously and faithfully to undo the horrid results of a century of selfishness. I shall expect you to teach all these poor people to read."
"Teach them to read! what, set up a nigger school!"
"Yes, you born barbarian,—and daughter of a born barbarian,—for I felt that way myself once. I want you in the first place to teach them, and yourself too, how to spell negro with only one g. You must not add your efforts to keep this abused race under a stigma of social contempt. You must do what you can to elevate them in sentiment, and in knowledge."
"But oh, what a labor! I would rather clean house every day."
"Not so very much of a labor—not so very much of a labor," insisted the Doctor. "Negro children are just as intelligent as white children until they find out that they are black. Now we will never tell them that they are black; we will never hint to them that they are born our inferiors. You will find them bright enough if you won't knock them on the head. Why, you couldn't read yourself till you were seven years old."
"Because you didn't care to have me. I learned quick enough when I set about it."
"Just so. And that proves that it is not too late for our people here to commence their education. Adults can beat children at the alphabet."