VI.
One blustering, drizzling March night at our home in Alabama the two little daughters of Uncle Ben and Aunt Phillis, who, since their early childhood had been brought up in Mr. G——’s house as servants, came rushing into our room with the startling intelligence that “Daddy’s arter mammy; he’s got an axe in his hand and says he’s gwine ter kill her dis berry night.” Where Phillis was hiding the little girls knew not. She was not in the kitchen, nor in her cabin; neither had she come into the house to her master and mistress. “Her’s dodgin’ ’round to keep out’en daddy’s way,” the younger of Phillis’s girls declared. We all became deeply interested in Aunt Phillis’s troubles, and dropped our knitting and crocheting in severe disapprobation of the way in which Ben was treating his helpmate, and our censure was the more emphasized when we remembered the smutting he had given our dresses. The smaller boys and girls of the household came also into our room to hear Martha and Maria tell of Ben’s chasing Phillis around with the axe, and soon we had ten all told around the fire, all gathered close together.
The mournful echoing and reëchoing of the March wind as it rushed past in fitful, heavy gusts, sometimes rattling the window panes, then dying away through the dark pine forests that bounded one side of the mansion, added not a little to our excited imaginings, and we lapsed into a kind of dread silence, when all of a sudden an unearthly scream came from just beneath our feet, it seemed, and we sprang up instantly. Martha, who had recognized her mother’s voice, at one bound passed through our room door to the rear hall door, which she opened in a twinkling and Aunt Phillis flew into our room. We slammed the door to on the instant, thinking Uncle Ben was at his wife’s heels, and that one of us might catch the hurl of the axe intended for Phillis. We braced our shoulders against the door with all our strength, but Uncle Ben was prudent enough not to try to force an entrance.
Mrs. G——, hearing our screams, imagined that the house had caught fire. She sped to our room and reached the door just as we were in the act of slamming it shut, so that it caught her left hand just across the knuckles, and she was held all of a minute before she could make herself heard in the great uproar. The third finger of her left hand was badly crushed, and to this day shows the imprint of that accident. Mr. G—— also hastened to our room, and, finding that Ben was after Phillis with an axe, got his gun, and from the rear hall door peered forth into the bleak night for Ben; but no Ben could be seen or heard. When the Babel-like confusion of our tongues had somewhat stilled, Aunt Phillis was called upon to explain her piercing scream. She said that as she was putting her kitchen in order for breakfast in the morning, Ben had told her he was going to split her head open that very night with the axe, and went to the wood-pile for the axe. Then Aunt Phillis slipped round on the front colonnade next her mistress’ room, thinking if Ben should come for her there she could quickly spring into that room. From the front colonnade she saw Ben go into the kitchen axe in hand. Not finding her there, he came out again and went to the rear of the house. Although the night was dark, she imagined her dress was of light enough color to betray her to Ben, should he come on that side of the house. She then thought of our room, which, on account of an incline in the yard toward the front gate, was not raised as high off the ground by two or three feet as the rooms on the front colonnade. Aunt Phillis reasoned that if she crept under the house as far as our room, where a good fire was always burning in the winter time, she could keep warm seated at the base of the chimney, and if need be, sleep there all night, secure from the fury of Ben. So she crawled as far down as our room, and made herself as comfortable as the ground would permit, chuckling the while at Ben’s prowling around for her in the raw March wind and rain. She was the more content as she knew her two girls slept in her mistress’s room. To use her own words, “I was gitten good and warm ’gin the bricks o’ de chimbley, and feeling sort o’ sleepy, soon was nodden. I jest happened to open my eyes as I raised my head of a sudden, and bless God! dar was Ben crawlin’ right up to me on his knees, wid de axe in his hand. I tell yer, I never knows how I did got out fro’ under dar.”
Uncle Ben, despite his eccentricities, lives yet on the old plantation with his mistress; but Mr. G—— died years gone by now. No one bears any ill-will, I am sure, to venerable Uncle Ben, not even those of us who well remember his misdeeds; and this episode of those days of civil strife—an episode connected with the two oldest daughters of Mrs. G——, her niece, and myself,—stands out with clear distinctness, though more than twenty years have gone.
While knitting around the fireside one night, talking of what we had done, and could yet accomplish, in industries called into existence by the war and blockade, we agreed then and there that each of us four could and would card and spin enough warp and woof to weave a dress apiece. This proved a herculean task for us, for at that time we barely knew how to card and spin. Mrs. G—— smiled incredulously, we thought, but kindly promised to have the dresses dyed and woven, in case we should card and spin them. The older daughter and I elected to work together. I was to card and spin eighteen yards of warp—nine yards of our wide heavy homespun being then ample enough for one plain dress. Of course we used the same style the whole four years of the war, in our secluded settlement; not a fashion plate or “ladies’ magazine” did we see during that entire period, so that we were but little troubled as to “latest styles.” My companion in work was to card and spin eighteen yards of filling. Similarly the other daughter and her cousin agreed as to carding and spinning their warp and woof. We imposed the number of cuts each should spin, agreeing that each should spin one cut every night after our suppers, Saturday night excepted. Every Saturday we were to card and were spin six cuts apiece, till eighteen yards finished.
Inasmuch as it took about six cuts of our soft spun woof to make one yard of thick heavy cloth, and about the same of hard twisted warp, we were not long in numbering the weeks we should be in spinning the four dresses; and of course, going to school or teaching school, and spinning only nights and Saturdays, our progress on the eighteen yards was necessarily slow. We thought, however, that we would have them ready for the loom in ten weeks at the farthest. Mrs. G—— said if we had them ready to dye and weave in three or four months we would do well. But there were those who could card and spin from one to two yards of cloth per day and do it easily.
On a certain Monday evening, after we had supper, we began quite merrily the carding and spinning for our four dresses, and made our first cut of thread by the number of rolls we had carded and spun. I remember that seventy rolls carded evenly and smoothly, if of medium size, would reel one cut of thread. We invariably added two or three rolls to the seventy for good measure. Our rolls at first were oddly shaped, often evoking ridicule, but we soon learned to mould them to perfection.