CHAPTER XVI.
A LETTER FROM CAROLINA
"'THE BATH,' ENTERPRISE, S.C.,
"January 27, 19--
"MY DEAR MR. HOWARD:--If only I could drop in on you this evening and make my report in person, what couldn't I tell! You would laugh if you knew why we call our house The Bath. But first, have I ever told you that we have a house? Well, Guildford is so far from even Whitehall, which is the nearest place we visited, that I lost too much time in coming and going. I must have been eight hours in the saddle some days, and I didn't get on fast enough to suit my leaping ambition,--and--bathrooms are scarce in the country, so Cousin Lois and I decided to build a model cabin or quarters before we started the house, and live on the place. There was already a windmill, so I ordered a porcelain tub in Charleston, and built my house around it. Cousin Lois preëmpts it most of the time, but I get my full share, and it is a luxury. Did you ever try going without a bathroom? Try it. It will make you 't'ink ob yo' marcies,' as the negroes say.
"Oh, we are so happy! Every day some of the dear neighbours who knew Guildford in its prime ride or drive over to tell me little forgotten quirks of the blessed place, and to assure me that I am copying it faithfully. Cousin Lois calls it curiosity, but I think it is interest. But the primitive methods in vogue in the South--well, you simply would not believe me unless you saw them. For example, at the turpentine plant at Schoville, which I will tell you more of later, my engineer found them ladling out the crude turpentine by hand, when you know it ought to be piped, and half the time this cheap negro labour, which they hire to save machinery, is drunk or striking, which often shuts down the plant for days at a time,--ten days at Christmas always. Machinery may be expensive, but, at least, it doesn't get drunk, and by means of it a man may run his business, even in the South, regularly, and so build up a reputation for reliability, which, honestly, Mr. Howard, nobody down here seems to know the meaning of, as we understand it! Any excuse serves. Just make your excuse--that's all. It not only seems to relieve the conscience of the purveyor, but satisfies the consumer as well. In Georgia it is a State law not to move freight on Sunday. Imagine that, added to the railroad service as it stands! And in a certain town in Middle Georgia, the fire-engines are drawn by oxen. I enclose the kodak I took of it, for I know you won't believe me else. One thing the South needs more than anything else is some of our Northern Italian labour. Then the negroes will see what it really is to work.
"But I am running away with myself.
"I shall skip all I can, and only tell the essentials.
"After we left Whitehall, nothing would do but we must pay a round of visits among the Lees and La Granges, which we did, staying as short a time as possible with each, partly because I could not properly attend to my work, and partly because of the heart-breaking poverty of all my poor dear relatives. If you could only see their bravery, their pride, and their wholly absurd fury at the bare suggestion that ease and comfort might come to them from admitting Northern capital! I think if they knew that my money comes through you, they would force me to starve with them rather than be indebted to a ---- Yankee. The ladies don't use that word with their lips, but their eyes say it. As it is, they think I am still selling my jewels. And I don't contradict them, simply because there is no use in giving them pain. Their hatred of the North is something which cannot be eradicated in a day. It is a factor in business which blocks the path of every well-wisher of the South, and is an entity to be reckoned with just as palpably as credit. The man who ignores it makes a mistake which sooner or later will bring him up with a jerk. I dwell upon this, because, if we form the syndicate which you propose, it must be managed craftily, and I know you will not disregard my warning.
"As an example of it, let me tell what has befallen the plant for making wood turpentine at Schoville, Georgia. It is a fine, modern, up-to-date plant of the steam process, backed and controlled by Judd Brothers & Morgan, of Brooklyn. Their representative approached my counsel, offering to sell. The Brooklyn firm own fifty-one per cent. of the stock, and the rest is taken by citizens of Schoville. I sent my man, Donohue, down to investigate the process, intending, if I didn't buy, to organize a similar company and operate under their patents, as I find theirs, if not the best, is at least a satisfactory process, and turns out a pure water-white turpentine with a specific gravity of 31.70. And Donohue asserts that by the use of steam he can eliminate the objectionable odour. He has been in the employ of both the Schoville and the Lightning companies and is a valuable man, though not strictly honest. Donohue was satisfied that there was something wrong at Schoville, and advised me to hold off. He reported the plant out of repair, although the books showed money in plenty supplied by the owners. Donohue then visited the plant at Lightning, Georgia, and found everything all right. It has since transpired that the foreman of the plant at Schoville, a cracker named Leakin, had deliberately shipped crude turpentine, which of course was of rank odour and off colour, to the factors at Savannah, who shipped it to Germany and South America without giving it a very careful examination. As is usual with these men, they were too slack to make the thorough examination before making shipment which the law requires, and paid over an advance of thirty-five cents a gallon to Leakin like innocent little lambs. Of course, the inevitable occurred. Buenos Ayres and Berlin not only refused to pay, but returned the consignment, and the Savannah factors now refuse to touch wood turpentine at any price.