“Relentless circumstances over (he called it ovah, and Delaven delighted in the charming dialect of the South, as illustrated by the Judge) which we have no control have altered conditions through this entire (entiah) commonwealth. But, no. I should not call Loringwood exactly isolated, with the highway of the Salkahatchie at its door.”
“But when no one travels the highway?” said Delaven, whose comments had aroused the discussion. “No one but 130 black hunters in log canoes have I seen come along it for a week, barring yourselves. Faith, I should think their presence alone would be enough to give a young lady nervous chills, the daily and nightly fear of insurrection.”
The Judge smiled, indulgently, willing to humor the fancies of foreigners, who were not supposed to understand American institutions.
“Your ideas would be perfectly sound, my dear sir, if you were dealing with any other country, where the colored man is the recognized servant of the land and of the land owners. But we of the South, sir, understand their needs and just the proper amount of control necessary to be enforced for mutual protection. They have grown up under that training until it is a part of themselves. There are refractory blacks, of course, just as there are worthless demoralized whites, but I assure you, sir, I voice the sentiments of our people when I state that the families of Southern planters feel much more secure when guarded by their colored folk than they would if surrounded by a troop of Northern soldiery. There have been no cases where white women and children have had reason to regret having trusted to the black man’s guardianship, sir. In that respect I believe we Southrons hold a unique place in history. The evils of slavery, perfectly true in many lands, are not true here. The proofs of it are many. Their dependence on each other is mutual. Each understands and respects that fact, sir, and the highest evidence of it is shown when the master marches to meet their common enemy, and leaves his wife and children to the care of the oldest or most intelligent of his bondsmen.
“I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it. The Northern people have no understanding 131 of it, because, sir, their natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. They are a cold, unresponsive people, and the only systematic cruelty ever practiced against the colored folks by Americans has been by the New England slavers, sir. The slave trade has always been monopolized by the Northern folks in this country––by the puritanical New Englanders who used to sell the pickaninnies at so much a pound, as cattle or sheep are sold.
“They are no longer able to derive a profit from it, hence their desire to abolish the revenue of the South. I assure you, sir, if the colored man could endure the climate of their bleak land there would be no shouting for abolition.”
It was only natural that Delaven should receive a good deal of information those days from the Southern side of the question. Much of it was an added education to him––the perfect honesty of the speakers, the way in which they entered heart and soul into the discussion of their state’s rights, the extreme sacrifices offered up, the lives of their sons, the wealth, the luxury in which they had lived, all given up without protest for the cause. Women who had lived and ruled like queens over the wide plantations, were now cutting their living expenses lower and lower, that the extra portion saved might be devoted to their boys at the front. The muslins and linens for household purposes were used as Gertrude Loring was using them now; everything possible was converted into bandages for hospital use.
“I simply don’t dare let the house servants do it,” she explained, in reply to the Judge’s query. “They could do the work, of course, but they never have had to practice economy, and I can’t undertake to teach it to them as well as myself, and to both at the same time. Oh, yes, Margeret is capable, of course, but she has her hands full to watch those in the cook house.”
Her smile was very bright and contented. It hinted nothing of the straightened circumstances gradually surrounding them, making a close watch in all directions absolutely necessary. Affairs were reaching a stage where money, except in extravagant quantities, was almost useless. The blockade had raised even the most simple articles to the price of luxuries. All possessions, apart from their home productions, must be husbanded to the utmost.