"Bobbie", a Story of the Confederacy

by Kate Langley Bosher

Though his eighth birthday had not yet been reached, he knew every detail of stable matters to what his mother thought an alarming degree, and the ambition of his life was to get astride a race horse. Never had he been allowed that privilege, though he had ridden bareback everything else on the place; and when he heard his father discussing, the night before the big race, the relative merits of his special pride—Dare Devil—as compared with Major Dalrymple’s Lady Virginia, he could stand it no longer, and he crept out to look for Peter Black.

Had Bobbie known what an alter ego was, he would have said that Peter Black was it; for one was the substance, the other the shadow; and when Bobbie was wanted Peter Black was generally called.

By right of birth he really belonged to Sallie Tom, Bobbie’s mammy; but for all other intents and purposes he was owned body and soul by little Mars’ Bobbie, to whom Mars’ Robert had given him on the morning of the great day when the little master “done come.” The big master had made him creep softly in the missus’ beautiful room, and had shown him the new wonder, and told him that he was to belong to him hereafter, and that he must always be very careful, and never let any harm come to him; and Peter Black had promised solemnly, and walked out of the room as one would come out of a holy place, and no king on his coronation day was ever half so proud as he.

Sallie Tom, his mother, was present at this installation into office, and she tried hard to conceal the pride she felt at the selection of the little marsa’s body servant. She said no word at the time, but when she got down to her cabin she put Peter Black on a chair and had a conversation with him.

Peter was her one and only offspring, and though she loved him very much in her own peculiar way, it was something very different from the absolute idolatry she had for her master and mistress, and now for the little stranger that for ten long years she had hoped and prayed would come to fill the sore need of a child up in the big house.

There was a strain of Indian blood somewhere in Sallie Tom, it was thought, and the rest of the negroes were far more afraid than fond of her. They declared she “cungered” them, and some would have nothing to do with her; and for that reason, though the best worker on the place, she had been put in the house by her mistress. At the birth of the baby she had been installed as nurse-in-chief, and from that hour she ruled as despot of the nursery kingdom.

In more ways than one did she assert her Indian peculiarities. No one knew for certain that she possessed a drop of such blood; but her hate once aroused was implacable, and her devotion once given was as intense as it was enduring and genuine.

After the birth of the baby Sallie Tom moved up into the house altogether, but she was still allowed to retain her cabin, and there Peter Black slept at night, and there in her hours of recreation or investigation she went to look after her private matters and to see that all things continued in their usual spotless condition.

On the afternoon of the day that made Peter Black henceforth the property of the few-hours-old heir, Sallie Tom interviewed her offspring as to the responsibilities and obligations now resting upon him as a body servant; and if at the end of the interview Peter Black failed to understand what he was to be and to do, it was because he was only six years old, and not yet equal to taking life altogether seriously.