FROM H. W.
June 5. Mr. Philbrick brought one unwelcome letter—an appointment from Mr. Pierce to Mr. G. to some plantation at the other end of the island. He is too valuable to be here. He is going to a hard place, ten or twelve plantations, though with fewer negroes in all than on these three.
The mule-cart came up and was loaded with all Mr. G.'s things, and by nine o'clock he took his departure on horseback, in his red flannel shirt and palm-leaf hat looking quite Southern and picturesque.
[Later.] Here came my morning school, for the first time, under Bacchus' conduct. I heard them singing and went to the window to watch and see how he was bringing them from the quarters. He is a cripple in his hands, which turn backwards, and he has but little control of his arms, but is much looked up to by the other children. Of course he cannot do any work, and Mr. G. has made him a sort of schoolmaster, and he has always kept school when Mr. G. was away. He manages them nicely, after his fashion—leaving them in the midst if he happens to want to eat some hominy! They never have regular meals, but each one eats hominy when he happens to want it. Well, soldiers have been stationed on the place, and Bacchus had got some notion of drill, so he marched up the thirty-five children, six or seven in a row, holding hands to keep them straight, and with two of the oldest boys for captains on each side to administer raps with their sticks if they did not keep in line, walking backwards himself to oversee the whole company, with a soldier's cap on his head, and shouting out his orders for them to sing their different tunes all the way,—the funniest spectacle himself imaginable.
Monday, June 9. Found that Bacchus' brother Lester had been taken sick Sunday morning and died at night, so he did not bring up the school. Just after dinner we saw the people assembling at their burying-place,[47] and H. and I went down to witness the services. Uncle Sam followed us, book in hand and spectacles on nose, reading as he walked. As we drew near to the grave we heard all the children singing their A, B, C, through and through again, as they stood waiting round the grave for the rest to assemble and for Uncle Sam to begin. Each child had his school-book or picture-book Mr. G. had given him in his hand,—another proof that they consider their lessons as in some sort religious exercise. We were joined at once by Mr. Philbrick, and stood uncovered with the rest about the grave, at the mouth of which rested the coffin, a rough board one, but well shaped and closed. Uncle Sam took off his hat, tied a red handkerchief round his head and, adjusting his glasses, read the hymn through, and then deaconed out two lines at a time for the people to sing. He repeated the process with a second hymn, when Abel made a prayer; then Uncle Sam read from the Burial Service and began his exordium, apologizing for his inability to speak much on account of a sore throat, but holding forth for about half an hour upon the necessity for all to prepare for "dis bed," filling his discourse with Scripture illustrations and quotations aptly and with force, using the story of "Antoninus and Suffirus" as a proof that God would not have any "half religions"—that if anybody had "hid his Lord's money in de eart' he must grabble for it before 'twas too late." He read from the service again, one of the men throwing on earth at the usual place. When they came to cover up the grave, the men constantly changed hoes with those who had not handled them before, that each might aid, women and old men stooping to throw in a handful. Abel made another prayer, they sang again and dispersed.
It was of this scene that W. C. G. wrote the following lines:
THE NEGRO BURYING-GROUND.
'Mid the sunny flat of the cotton-field
Lies an acre of forest-tangle still;
A cloister dim, where the grey moss waves
And the live-oaks lock their arms at will.
Here in the shadows the slaves would hide
As they dropped the hoe at death's release,
And leave no sign but a sinking mound
To show where they passed on their way to peace.
This was the Gate—there was none but this—
To a Happy Land where men were men;
And the dusky fugitives, one by one,
Stole in from the bruise of the prison-pen.