Plantation Sketches

by Margaret Devereux

I was so young a bride, only seventeen, when I was taken to our winter home, and so inexperienced, that I felt no dread whatever of my new duties as mistress. The household comforts of my childhood’s home had seemed to come so spontaneously that I never thought of processes, and naturally felt rather nonplussed when brought into contact with realities. The place had for years been merely a sort of camping-out place for your great-grandfather, who liked to spend a part of the winter there; so the house was given over to servants who made him comfortable, but who took little heed of anything else.

I recollect my antipathy to a certain old press which stood in the back hall. The upper part was filled with books. In the under cupboard, Minerva kept pies, gingerbread, plates of butter, etc. The outside looked very dim and dusty. I could not bear to look at it, but knew not how to remedy its defects. I know now that it was a handsome old piece, which a furniture-lover would delight in. However, my youthful appetite did not scorn Minerva’s gingerbread, and, as I had many lonely hours to get through with as best I could, I would mount the highest chair that I could find, and ransack the old musty volumes in search of amusement. The collection consisted chiefly of antiquated medical works, some tracts, etc., but once, to my delight, I unearthed two of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, which were indeed a treasure trove; one of them was “Gaston de Blondeville,” which I thought beautiful. I have regretted that I did not take care of it, for I have never seen another copy.

Minerva was a woman of pretty good sense, but of slatternly habits. She had been so long without a lady to guide her that her original training was either forgotten or entirely disregarded. Once, when starting to Conacanarra for Christmas, I charged her to take advantage of the fine weather to give the passage floors a thorough scrubbing; they were bare and showed every footprint of black mud from the outside. When it came time to return, in spite of our pleasant Christmas week, we were glad to think of our own home and were rather dismayed when the morning fixed for our departure broke dark and very cold, with little spits of snow beginning to fall. I was much afraid that we should be compelled to yield to the hospitable objections to our going, but at last we succeeded in getting off. We crossed at Pollock’s (your great-grandfather’s ferry), so that should the storm increase we need not leave our comfortable carriage until we should be at home. It was a lonely drive; the snow fell steadily but so gently that I enjoyed seeing the earth and the trees, the fences and the few lonely houses that we passed all draped in white; though we were warmly wrapped, the anticipation of the crackling fires in our great old fireplaces was delightful. When we got home, the first sound that greeted our ears, as we stepped upon the piazza, was a mournful, long-drawn hymn. Shivering and damp from our walk up the yard, we opened the door, to see Minerva, with kilted skirts, standing in an expanse of frozen slush and singing at the top of her voice, while she sluiced fresh deluges of water from her shuck brush. I was too disgusted for words, but resolved that this should not occur again. As soon as I could communicate with the outside world I had the hall floors covered with oilcloth (then the fashionable covering). Also, Minerva was displaced, and Phyllis reigned in her stead, but Minerva, nevertheless, always indulged in the belief that she was indispensable to our happiness and comfort.

In honor of my advent as mistress, the floors had been freshly carpeted with very pretty bright carpets, which were in danger of being utterly ruined by the muddy shoes of the raw plantation servants, recently brought in to be trained for the house. Although the soil generally was a soft, sandy loam, I observed in my horseback rides numbers of round stones scattered about in the fields. They were curious stones, and looked perfectly accidental and quite out of place. Their presence excited my interest, and aroused my curiosity as to their origin, which has never been gratified. They seemed so out of place in those flat fields! However, I determined to utilize them and had a number collected and brought into the yard, and with them I had a pretty paved walk made from the house to the kitchen.

Our house stood upon what was known as the “Second Land,” which meant a slight rise above the wide, low grounds, which were formerly, I believe, the bed of the sluggish stream now known as the Roanoke. All along the edge of these Second Lands, just where they joined the low grounds, there was a bed of beautiful small gravel. I was delighted when I discovered this and at once interested myself in having a gravel walk made up to the front of the house, and this was, when completed, all that I had hoped, and served as a perfect protection against the offending mud.

There was one evil, though, which I could not guard against, and this was the clumsy though well-meaning stupidity of a plantation negro. One afternoon the house became offensive with the odor of burning wool. I followed up the scent and, after opening several doors, I finally traced it to the dining-room. It was filled with smoke, and there, in front of an enormous fire, squatted Abby. In a fit of most unaccountable industry she had undertaken to clean the brass andirons, and had drawn them red hot from the fire and placed them upon the carpet. Of course, four great holes were the result and, as the carpets had been made in New York, there were no pieces with which the holes could be mended. As I had already decided her to be too stupid to be worth the trouble of training, I felt no desire to find fault with her, so I merely told her to put them back, or rather stood by to see it done. I did not keep her in the house after that, but do not suppose that she ever at all realized the mischief that she had done.

One of my amusements was to watch the birds; they were so numerous, and appeared to be so tame. I set traps for them. This was childish, but I was very young and often rather at a loss to find something to do; so I used to take with me my small house boy, “Minor,” whom I was training to be a grand butler; he would carry the trap and, after it had been set and baited, I would make him guide me to the trees where the sweetest persimmons grew; there I would while away the morning and on the next we would find one or more birds fluttering in the trap, which, to Minor’s silent disgust, I would set free.

The squirrels, too, were a pleasure to me in my horseback rides toward Vine Ridge, especially. Your grandfather and I would pause to watch them playing hide and seek just like children, scampering round and round, their pretty gray tails waving, until some noise would send them out of sight, and the silent forest would seem as if no living thing were near. It was upon one of these rides that your grandfather told me how, when he was about twelve years old, and spending his Christmas holidays at Runiroi with his grandfather, he once said that he could shoot one hundred squirrels between sunrise and sunset. His uncle, George Pollock Devereux, happened to hear him and rebuked him sharply for so idle a boast, and when your dear grandfather manfully stood his ground, saying that it was not an idle boast, his uncle called him a vain braggart, which so offended your grandfather that he told his uncle that he would prove the truth of his assertion. And so, upon the following morning, he rose early and was at Vine Ridge gun in hand, ready to make his first shot, as soon as the sun should appear. The squirrels were very numerous at first, and he made great havoc among them. Many a mile he tramped that day, scanning with eager eyes the trees above him, in search of the little gray noses, hidden behind the branches, and thus it happened that he got many a fall and tumble among the cypress knees; but what did that matter to his young limbs? he had only to pick himself up again and tramp on. As the day advanced, fewer little bright eyes peeped from the tree-tops and his number was not made up; he was getting tired too, and very hungry, for he had eaten nothing since his early breakfast. He stumbled wearily on, however, determined not to fail, for he dreaded his uncle’s triumphant sarcasm should he do so. A few more shots brought his number to ninety-nine, but where was the one-hundredth to be found? The sun was sinking to the horizon; he had come out from the swamp and was tramping homeward; the gun, so light in the morning, now weighed like lead upon his shoulder. As he looked into every tree for that hundredth squirrel which could not be found, the sun’s disk was resting upon the horizon when he turned into the willow lane leading to the house. Just at the entrance there stood a great chestnut oak. This was his last chance. He paused to take one hopeless look, when, to his unspeakable joy, he beheld a fox squirrel seated up among the branches. Now he knew that the fox squirrel was the slyest, as well as the shyest of all his kind; no creature so expert as he in slipping out of range; there would be no chance for a second shot, for now only a rim of the sun was left. With a wildly beating heart he raised his gun, took time to aim well,—fired,—and down came his hundredth squirrel. His wager was won; fatigue and hunger all gone, he hastened gayly home and with pride emptied his bag before his uncle and his delighted old grandfather, who loved him above everything, and who finally made him his heir, so that your grandfather was quite independent of his own father.

When I first became acquainted with the plantation, the sale crop was taken down to Plymouth in a great old scow, but this was afterward superseded by the introduction of freight steamers, which took the produce direct to Norfolk. These steamers proved to be a great comfort and convenience to us. By them we might receive anything that we desired from Norfolk, of which the things most enjoyed were packages of books,—Vickry and Griffiths, booksellers, having standing orders to send at their discretion what they thought desirable, besides the special orders for what we wished to see.

The advent of a steamer at the landing would cause much pleasurable excitement. If anything of special interest was expected, the first puff of steam from down the river would be eagerly examined through the spy-glass. Then would follow several days of busy life down at the different barns from which the corn was to be shipped. Before the introduction of the corn-sheller, the corn was beaten from the cob by men wielding great sticks, or flails; others raked the grain into an immense pile; from this pile it was measured by select hands and put into bags, which were carried to the steamer lying at the landing. The men who measured and kept the tally maintained a constant song or chant, and designated the tally, or fifth bushel, by a sort of yell. The overseer stood by with pencil and book and scored down each tally by a peculiar mark. The constant stream of men running back and forth, with bags empty or full, made a very busy scene.