Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"Your future depends upon yourselves," the Doctor went on. "You can become useful and even influential citizens, if you will. But you must be industrious and honest, and faithful to your engagements. I want you to understand this perfectly. I will talk more to you about it some other time. Just now I wish chiefly to impress upon you your immediate duties while you are on this plantation. I shall expect you all to sleep in your quarters. I shall expect you to be up at daybreak, get your breakfasts as soon as possible, and be ready to go to work at once. You must not leave the plantation during the day without my permission. You will work ten hours a day during the working season. You will be orderly, honest, virtuous and respectable. In return I am to give you rations, clothing, quarters, fuel, medical attendance, and instruction for children. I am also to pay you as wages eight dollars a month for first-class hands, and six for second-class. Each of you will have his little plot of land. Finally, I will endeavor to see that you are all, old and young, taught to read."

Here there was an unanimous shout of delight, followed by articulate blessings and utterances of gratitude.

"Whenever any one gets dissatisfied," concluded the Doctor, "I will apply to find him another place. You know that, if you go off alone and without authority, you are exposed to be picked up by the provost-marshal, and put in the army. Now then, get your breakfasts. Major Scott, you will report to me when they are ready to go to work."

While the Major offered up a ponderous salute, the line dispersed in gleesome confusion, which was a sore disappointment to him, as he wanted to make it right face, clap hands, and break ranks in military fashion. The Doctor went to breakfast with the most cheerful confidence in his retainers, notwithstanding the idle opening of this morning. As soon as the poor fellows knew what he expected of them, they would be sure to do it, if it was anything in reason, he said to Lillie. The negroes were ignorant of their duty, and often thoughtless of it, but they were at bottom zealous to do right, and honestly disposed toward people who paid them for their labor. And here the author ventures to introduce the historical doubt as to whether any other half-barbarous race was ever blessed and beautified with such a lovingly grateful spirit as descended, like the flames of the day of Pentecost, upon the bondsmen of America when their chains were broken by the just hands of the great Republic. Impure in life by reason of their immemorial degradation, first as savages, and then as slaves, they were pure in heart by reason of their fervent joy and love.

Under no urgency but that of their own thankfulness the Doctor's negroes did more work that summer than the Robertsons had ever got from double their number by the agency of a white overseer, drivers, whips and paddles. On the second morning they were all present and up at daybreak, including even Tom the lovelorn, and Jim the "no 'count nigger." In a couple of weeks they had split out many wagon-loads of rails from the forest in rear of the plantation, put the broken-down fences in order, and prepared a sufficient tract of ground for planting. Not a pig nor a chicken disappeared from the Doctor's flocks and herds, if I may be allowed to apply such magnificent terms to bristly and feathered creatures. On the contrary, his small store of live-stock increased with a rapidity which seemed miraculous, and which was inadequately explained by the non-committal commentary of Major Scott, "Specs it mebbe in anser to prayer." Ravenel finally learned, to his intense mortification, that his over-zealous henchmen were in the habit of depredating nightly on the property of adjacent planters of the old Secession stock, and adding such of their spoils as they did not need, to his limited zoological collection. Under the pangs of this discovery he made a tour of apology and restitution through the neighborhood, and on returning from it, called his hands together and delivered them a lecture on the universal application of the law of honesty. They heard him with suppressed titters and hastily eclipsed grins, nudging each other in the side, and exhibiting a keen perception of the practical humor and poetical justice of their roguery.

"'Pears like you don' wan' to spile the 'Gyptians, Mars Ravenel," observed a smirking, shining darkey known as Mr. Mo. "You's one o' God's chosen people, an' you's been in slavery somethin' like we has, an' you has a right to dese yere rebel chickins."

"My good people," replied the Doctor, "I don't say but that you have a right to all the rebel chickens in Louisiana. I deny that I have. I have always been well paid for my labor. And even to you I would say, be forgiving,—be magnanimous,—avoid even the appearance of evil. It is your great business, your great duty toward yourselves, to establish a character for perfect honesty and harmlessness. If you haven't enough to eat, I don't, mind adding something to your rations."

"We has 'nuff to eat," thundered Major Scott. "Let the man as says we hasn't step out yere."

Nobody stepped out; everybody was full of nourishment and content; and the interview terminated in a buzz of satisfaction and suppressed laughter. Thenceforward the Doctor had the virtuous pleasure of observing that his legitimate pigs and chickens were left to their natural means of increase.

Lillie's reading schools, held every evening in one of the unfurnished rooms of the second story, were attended regularly by both sexes, and all ages of this black population. The rapidity of their progress at first astonished and eventually delighted her, in proportion as she gradually took her ignorant but zealous scholars to her heart. The eagerness, the joy, the gratitude even to tears, with which they accepted her tuition was touching. They pronounced the words "Miss Lillie" with a tone and manner which seemed to lay soul and body at her feet; and when the Doctor entered the schoolroom on one of his visits of inspection they gave him a dazzling welcome of grins and rolling eyes; the spectacle reminded him vaguely of such spiritual expressions crowns of glory and stars in the firmament. If the gratitude of the humble is a benediction, few people have ever been more blessed than were the Ravenels at this period.