Our cortege included several “Dearborns,” similar in shape to the ambulances of the present, in which the old and ailing Negroes were carried, and numerous wagons containing our household goods and provisions followed behind. At night, tents were pitched, in which my aunt and the children slept, unless by chance a storm arose, when the shelter of some hostelry or farmhouse was sought. The preparations for camping were altogether exciting, the erection of tents, the kindling of fires, the unharnessing and watering and feeding of the stock, and the eager industry of the cooks and their assistants in the midst of the array of shining utensils all combining to stamp the scene upon the mind of an impressionable child.
However, in the course of time the slow rolling of our carriage became monotonous to the restive children of the caravan, and the novelty of standing at the windows and gazing over the lifting hills soon wore off. My aunt felt the fatigue less, we thought, for she was a famous soliloquist, and often talked to herself as we rode, sometimes laughing aloud at her own good company. I think we children regarded her as deranged, if harmless, until one day she proved her sanity to our complete satisfaction. In a moment of insupportable tedium we conceived the idea of dropping the little tin cups, with which each was provided, in order to see if the wheels would run over them. One after another the vessels were lowered, and each, to our intense delight, was smashed flat as the proverbial pancake. When my aunt discovered our mischief, being a gentle soul, she merely reprimanded us, and at the next settlement purchased others; but when these and yet others followed the fate of the first, she became less indulgent. Switches were cut from the forest trees, three pairs of pink palms tingled with the punishment then and there administered, and the remembrance thereof restrained my cousins’ and my own destructiveness for the remainder of the journey.
Arrived at Tuscaloosa, I spent four years in the shelter of the motherly affection of my aunt, Mrs. Collier, when, her health failing, I was placed in the home of my mother’s brother, Alfred Battle, a wealthy planter, residing a day’s journey from the little capital. My recollections of that early Alabama life centre themselves about a great white house set in widening grounds, in the midst of which was a wondrous sloe-tree, white with blooms. Many times I and my cousins played under it by moonlight, watching the shadows of the branches as they trembled on the white-sanded earth below, wondering at them, and not sure whether they were fairies’ or angels’ or witches’ shapes. Around that tree, too, we played “Chickamy, Chickamy, Craney Crow,” and, at the climax, “What o’clock, Old Witch?” would scamper wildly to elude the pursuit of the imaginary old witch. Here, a healthy and happy child, I pursued my studies. My uncle’s wife, a woman of marked domestic tastes, taught me to sew and knit and to make a buttonhole, and I made progress in books under the guidance of a visiting teacher; but, my task ended, I flew to the meadows and orchards and to the full-flowering clover-field, or to the plantation nursery to see the old mammies feed the babies with “clabber,” with bread well crumbed in it, or cush, made of bread soaked in gravy and softly mashed.
It was during this bucolic period of my life that the stars fell. I did not witness these celestial phenomena, being sound asleep as a child should be; but, for years afterward, time was marked from that great event. I remember perfectly my aunt’s description of it. People ran from their houses weeping and falling on their knees, praying for mercy and forgiveness. Everywhere the terrifying belief spread that the Day of Judgment was at hand; and nights were made vocal with the exhortations of the black preachers who now became numerous upon the plantation. To very recent days old Negroes have dated their calendar from “de year when de stars fell.”
Ah, me! how long ago that time of childhood’s terrors and delights in that young open country! Of all my early playmates, but one, my cousin William Battle, remains, a twin relic of antiquity! From the first we were cronies; yet we had a memorable disagreement upon one occasion which caused a slight breach between us. We were both intensely fond of my aunt’s piano, but my cousin was compelled to satisfy his affection for music in secret; for Uncle Battle, who heartily encouraged my efforts, was positive in his disapproval of those of my cousin. He thought piano-playing in a man to be little short of a crime, and was quite resolved his son should not be guilty of it. My cousin and I, therefore, connived to arrange our practice in such a way as would allow him to finish his practice at the instrument before my uncle’s return from the day’s duties.
Upon the fatal occasion of our disagreement, however, I refused, upon my cousin’s appearance, to yield my seat, whereupon, losing his temper, he gave me a tap on the cheek. In a moment the struggle was on! Our tussle was at its height, I on top and pummelling with all my might, when, the door opening suddenly, a startled cousin appeared.
“La!” she exclaimed in terror, “Cousin Will and Virginia are fighting!”
“No, we’re not!” I replied stoutly. “We’re just playing;” and I retired with tufts of reddish hair in both hands, but leaving redder spots on the face of my cousinly antagonist. He, thoroughly satisfied to be released, no longer desired to play the piano, nor with me. His head has long been innocent of hair, an hereditary development, but he has always asserted that his baldness is attributable to “My cousin, Mrs. Clay, who, in our youthful gambols, scalped me.”
During my twelfth year, my uncle removed to Tuscaloosa, where my real school days began. It was the good fortune of the young State at that time to have in the neighbourhood of its capital many excellent teachers, among whom was my instructress at the school in Tuscaloosa to which I now was sent. I cannot refrain from telling a strange incident in her altogether remarkable life. From the beginning it was full of unusual vicissitudes. By birth an English gentlewoman, her mother had died while she was yet an infant. In the care of a young aunt, the child was sent to America to be brought up by family connections residing here. On the long sailing voyage the infant sickened and, to all appearances, died. The ship was in midocean, and the young guardian, blaming her own inexperience, wept bitterly as preparations went on for the burial. At last, all else being ready, the captain himself came forward to sew the little body in the sack, which when weighted would sink the hapless baby into the sea. He bent over the little form, arranging it, when by some strange fortune a bottle of whisky, which he carried in his pocket, was spilled and the contents began to flow upon the child’s face. Before an exclamation could be made the little one opened its eyes and gave so many evidences of life that restoratives were applied promptly. The infant recovered and grew to womanhood. She became, when widowed, the mistress of a school in our little capital, and her descendants, in many instances, have risen to places of distinction in public life.
An instructress of that period to whom the women of early Alabama owed much was Maria Brewster Brooks, who, as Mrs. Stafford, the wife of Professor Samuel M. Stafford, became celebrated, and fills a page of conspicuous value in the educational history of the State. She was born on the banks of the Merrimac and came to Tuscaloosa in her freshest womanhood. First her pupil, and afterward her friend, our mutual affection, begun in the early thirties, continued until her demise in the eighties. Many of her wards became in after years notable figures in the social life of the national capital, among them Mrs. Hilary Herbert.