A SOUTHERN plantation lying, as so many of them do, at some distance from any town or village, presents a phase of life peculiar to itself, and very singular to one unaccustomed to it from childhood. It has not the loneliness of isolation, for each planter's house is in its way a sort of a palace, the residence of the superior authority, while at a little distance are clustered together the cabins of his retainers, sometimes in such numbers as to form almost a little village of their own. Yet the members of the family are often separated for weeks or months from all congenial companionship, excepting what they can find in each other; for, besides the distance, the state of the roads is often an insuperable obstacle to all intercourse with their far-off neighbors. Eminently social as Southerners usually are, this is no slight drawback to their enjoyment, and the arrival of the post is looked forward to as the one great weekly event to relieve the monotony of "the leaden-footed hours."
Bessie Egerton was in this respect more fortunate than many of her companions, her father's plantation being but about five miles from the village of Oxford, in South Carolina. This was only a pleasant ride when the roads were good; but there were weeks during the winter and early spring when even Bessie Egerton, general belle and favorite as she was throughout the surrounding country, had nothing but the mails to remind her that there were other interests and more stirring events in the world than those of which her home was the centre.
Mr. Egerton was not one of those wealthy planters whose income rivals that of the merchant princes of the North, and would be a pretty fortune for a person of moderate wants; but he was in comfortable circumstances, and Bessie's home was a very pleasant one. The house stood on a gentle slope, and with its wide verandas covered with roses, jessamine, and honey suckles, and overhung by live-oak trees, from whose gnarled branches hung drooping long fringes of the gray moss, giving them the venerable appearance of age, it suggested ideas of coolness and shade, the peculiar comforts of that part of the country.
It was in the latter part of February; the early spring was already coming on with the laggard steps of one sure of its dominion, and therefore in no haste to assert it. The rose-bushes, that had but a few weeks before shaken off their summer's burden of leaves and flowers, gave tokens that they were about to take it up once more, and the yellow jessamine in the woods, with those many beautiful, but as yet unnamed vines and flowers that adorn the swamps and marshes of the South, had already begun to awaken from their winter's slumber.
Bessie had been busy all the morning. Her mother was a confirmed invalid, and upon the eldest daughter of the house were devolved all the active duties that belong to the mistress of a plantation—much heavier and more arduous than those of a Northern housekeeper, requiring the exercise of more thought and discretion. After breakfast, with her basket of keys, that invariable accompaniment of a Southern housekeeper, she went to the store-room to give out the dinner for the family. There, after having measured out the flour and spices, and counted the eggs, and portioned off the vegetables required, she stood to see that everything was replaced in its proper order. Her next visit was to the smoke-house for the meat, and there she was often required to superintend the distribution of certain portions of it, both to the house and field-servants on her father's place. Then giving a scrutinizing glance at the poultry-yard as she passed, she sought the spring-house, which was a dairy also, and remained there for an hour overlooking the operations of the dairy-woman. From thence she bent her steps to the negro-quarter, where there were two or three sick servants, of whose condition her mother wished to have a particular account. To obtain an idea of their ailments and their needs was the work of no little time, for to be sparing of words is not a characteristic of either the ignorant or the suffering. She ended her duties here by a visit to her nurse, now a bedridden old woman, and, after talking with her for a little while, and reading to her, as was Bessie's daily practice, she returned to what was called, par excellence, "the house."
When she entered her mother's room to give a detailed account of all that she had done, she was greeted with—
"Bessie, dear, I want you to cut out directly a shirt and a pair of trowsers for Peter. He has just been in to say that his old ones are not fit to wear to church, and, if he don't have some new ones, he cannot go next Sunday; and, as it is communion-day, I do not like to have him compelled to stay away by any neglect of mine."
"But he ought to have given us a little more time, I think," said Bessie. "To-day is Friday."
"Yes, dear; but Dinah can make the shirt, and you can have Elsie, your little maid, to help you with the trowsers. She is quite a neat seamstress."
"But I told Elsie to sew on my new dress to-day. I intended to wear it next Sunday."