Harper's Round Table, November 3, 1896

by Various

One day was so much like another that, were it not for the seasons that flew by quickly, the world would have apparently been standing still; but that the oars were becoming less heavy and the distances not so great. Very soon I tended the nets alone or wandered along the shore with the old flintlock fowling-piece over my shoulder; ducks, or perhaps a wild goose or a swan, during the spring and fall, were always ready to be cooked, hanging in the spring-house at the end of the garden.

I began to roam farther and farther in my lonely excursions. Poor old Maréchal would follow me no longer than reached the shadow of the house.

I suppose that many people who travelled by the coach that passed the cross-roads every day wondered who the boy was that used to stand with a tall gun beside him at a fence corner, silently watching the lumbering vehicle go down the highway in a cloud of dust. I must have presented a quaint sight, no doubt, for my clothes were of home manufacture and I kept growing out of them. But the buttons, I recollect, on the rough cloth, were very beautiful, and inscribed with the same crest that was painted on one corner of the portrait with the flowing brown hair; these buttons played an important part in subsequent adventures, and I would give a finger to possess one at the present writing. But I am forging ahead of my story. To get back to it in quick order:

One day my mother and I and Ol' Peter mounted the rickety wagon to which our one lone mule was harnessed, and drove to the cross-roads. It was the first time that I could remember my mother leaving the plantation. I did not know then that it was on my account that she was making this departure, but I can see it plainly enough in looking over the time. A question that I had asked of her some days before had more than probably decided her upon doing so.

"Mamma," I had inquired, "are we always going to live here?"

I remember that she had looked at me strangely, and the next day the preparations were made for the great change. It is little things that occasion them usually in life, I notice.

When the coach stopped at the cross-roads tavern, the passengers gazed at us most curiously. The guard nudged his companion and whispered something, and a tall man in an officer's uniform politely handed my mother to a seat inside. Then the horn blew, the driver touched up the horses, and away we went.

I began to feel frightened. We passed houses and plantations with hundreds of colored people working in the fields, and at last, a little past noonday, we entered the town of Baltimore, and drove to an inn. The sight of so many people and of boys of my own age playing in the streets, the near-by glimpses of the shipping at the wharfs, thrilled and excited me; and as we descended from the coach, I held fast to my mother's skirt and would have hidden. The landlord of the inn hastened out and received us with the greatest consideration. After some bowing and scraping, and many orders to the negro servants, he turned from my mother, and poking out his finger in my direction, addressed a question to me, to which I falteringly replied in a manner that was evidently unintelligible, from the look on his face. I must have spoken French in my embarrassment.

We did not stay long at the inn—two or three days at the most; then we went to live in a little house that my mother had rented at the corner of the street. Aunt Sheba and the two other servants joined us. It was my mother's intention to go back to the plantation for the rest of the property she had left behind her; but she put off the expedition time after time, although she often spoke of doing so as if it were a duty neglected.

Now I went to school at a Mr. Thompson's, a cross-faced, snuffy individual, who wondered at my knowledge of Latin and marvelled at my simplicity. But it did not take me long to adapt myself to circumstances. After I had fought two or three battles with the lads of my own age, they decided that I was better as a friend than as an enemy, and I grew, more than likely, to think and behave as any one of them.