Within my soul hath need to sing.
THE BOY IN GRAY.
By Will N. Harben, Author of “Abner Daniel.”
One day in midsummer I went to visit the old plantation of the Lansdale family. The moment I entered the cooling shade of the tall trees on the lawn something seemed to tell me that I was on a spot hallowed by human suffering and misfortune.
The house had two stories and an L. There was a long veranda in front, the roof of which was supported by large white columns. My interest in the place was due to the fact that prior to the Civil War it had been the rendezvous of the aristocracy for miles around it. The wide halls and spacious rooms had once rung with gay laughter, sweet music and the tripping of feet in merry dances.
Behind the uninhabited dwelling the shrubbery had grown into a riotous tangle. Choice rose bushes had been dwarfed and choked to barrenness by an army of interlopers—Jamestown weeds, hollyhocks and giant sunflowers. Only here and there might be seen a pale-leaved geranium or a dandelion in the edges of the gravel walks, now almost completely overgrown. Here, bent to the earth, lay a decayed lattice, pulled down by a fragrant jasmine; in another place stood the rotten remains of what had once been a graceful summerhouse.
As I wended my way further from the old mansion the silence and shade seemed to thicken and blend into the pervading melancholy. When about two hundred yards from the house, I suddenly came upon a log cabin almost hidden from view behind a close growth of gnarled and twisted apple trees. In the door sat an old negro man. His face was pinched and wrinkled and his eyes, peeping through their brown slits, looked like blue beads. With his old bell-shaped hat on his knee, he glanced up in surprise, and, rising quickly he hobbled towards me, bowing politely.
“Who dis heer?” he asked, as he shaded his eyes with his hand and peered up at me. “It seems like I don’t know you, but you may know who I is. Most white folks knows me, dough, thank de Lawd! I carn’t see you good, suh; my sight is failin’ me powerful fast.”
“I’m a stranger in this part of the South,” I told him. “I have heard so much about the Lansdale family that I wanted to see their old home; that’s all. I hope I’m not intruding.”
“Lawdamussy, bless you, no, suh!” he replied quickly. “You is welcome to roam ’round all you want. Ef ’twuz des in de ol’ time, suh, my young marster, er my ol’ marster, would done met you down de carriage drive an’ ’scort’ you in an’ took yo’ hat an’ pass roun’ de wine an’ cigars, but” (a long sigh escaped his lips, and he shook his head sadly), “but dat time done gone, suh—dat time done gone.”