“But, Stephen, you get the same rations with the rest, and the same that your employers gave you all last year.”
“Shore, sah, but I nebber had enuff, den, nuther, dough I nebber say nuffin to nobody ’bout it, kase I’s not one de talkin’ kine.”
“Bress you, sah,” grinned the plow-driver, who had been listening to the conversation, “he nebber had ’nuff in his life. He’m allus hungry. He ’s de power-fullest eater I eber did see.”
“Dat’s fac’. I don’t brag on myself, but I kin eat a heap. I’s good hand. I plows wid de bestest, and no man nebber pass me. When I hire for man, I do best I kin for him, and take de best care I kin ob his mule; but it mighty hard not to hab enuff to eat.”
The difficulty of making an allowance in the weekly issues of rations, for his inordinate appetite, without making the other hands dissatisfied, was explained to him.
“I’s got common sense. I kin see dat. But I don’t want to work for a man and den have to buy what I eat. To be shore, I got de money, and de chilen do eat a heap; but you don’t make no ’lowance for dem, and I don’t want to spend de money what I earn by hard work buyin’ bread for dem.”
A promise of a drink of whisky pacified him. As we rode off the overseer burst out into a hearty laugh. “Why, do you know now,” and his manner indicated that he thought it a capital joke; “do you know—that fellow’s just the biggest thief on these plantations! Lor’ bless you, how he can steal! He not got enough to eat! Well, hog meat must be mighty scarce in all the nigger cabins around him when he hasn’t got enough! Why, I had to discharge him last year for stealing. It got so bad that the very niggers couldn’t stand it. Even Uncle William’s piety was disturbed by him. One Sunday morning Uncle William’s pig was gone, and he couldn’t find hide nor hair of it. He knowed where to hunt, and he pitched into Stephen’s cabin. I got down there just then; and Uncle William was a talkin’ at him, I tell you. There was some hair there, which Uncle William declared come off his pig; and he wanted to know what that hair was doin’ in Stephen’s cabin, if Stephen hadn’t seen the pig! Nigger meetin’ was broke up, that day, with the row. So things kept goin’ on till I had to discharge Stephen. He cried like a baby, and begged to be took back, but I wouldn’t. Then he went off. Three days later, back comes Stephen with a first-rate mule. He cried and begged so that I let him go to work again, and hired his mule. Three days afterward, who do you think should come along, but a nigger guard a huntin’ for Stephen. But that nigger was too sharp for them. They got the mule; but Stephen took for the tall cotton, and nobody saw him for two days. Come to find out, he had gone back into the country, when I turned him off, and had found an old nigger woman on some little patch in the woods plowin’ with a mule. He told her that was too hard work for her, and that if she would go to the cabin and get some dinner for him he’d plow for her. Soon as her back was turned, he mounts mule, cuts and runs. Do you think, when I scolded him for it, the nigger said he wouldn’t have stole the mule, but he was afraid I wouldn’t let him come back, and he thought if he brought me a nice mule I might be more favorable to him! That’s the kind o’ niggers you believe, when they tell you they don’t get enough to eat!” And again the overseer enjoyed his hearty laugh.
A succession of rains kept me shut up on a Louisiana cotton plantation for several days, early in April. When Sunday came I accompanied the overseer down to the negro church. It stood at the end of the street, on either side of which were ranged the quarters. It had originally been a double cabin, intended for a couple of slave families, like the rest of the quarters; but the middle partition had been knocked out; and space enough was thus secured to accommodate a much larger congregation than that which we found gathered. But with frugal mind, the worthy overseer had determined not to waste all this valuable room. A couple of beds had accordingly been set up at one end of the cabin, and a negro family with a sleepy-looking baby and one or two grown daughters had this for their home. As you entered you had your choice—you could visit the family or go to church, as you preferred.[[77]] At the other end stood the pulpit—a rough platform, fronted by a contrivance which looked like the first bungling effort of a carpenter’s apprentice at the manufacture of a rough, pine mantle-piece. Four or five benches in front served for pews; and on either side of the pulpit other benches were ranged, on which gathered the fathers and mothers of this negro Israel. Square holes in the walls, filled with swinging wooden shutters, answered the purpose of windows. Above were the joists, brown with the smoke of many a year, festooned with cobwebs, hung with here and there a string of red-peppers, or a poke of garden herbs “for the ager,” and covered with a collection of carefully preserved fishing rods. Against the weather-boarding, which served also instead of ceiling or plastering, were fastened pictures of Grant and Joe Johnson; and near the pulpit was a rough, enlarged copy of Brady’s well-known photograph of Mr. Lincoln, with “Tad” standing at his knee, looking over an album. The imaginative copyist however had added a meaningless face, with hair smoothly gummed to the temples, which was supposed to represent Mrs. Lincoln. Directly behind the preacher’s head was nailed a New Orleans merchant’s advertising almanac-card.
Services were just beginning as we entered. One or two of the headmen bustled about to get chairs for us; the rest continued their singing with less staring and turning of heads than many a white congregation exhibits over late comers. The women all wore comparatively clean calico dresses; and the heads of all were wrapped in the inevitable checkered and gay-colored handkerchief. Even the preacher’s head was bound up in a handkerchief, none too clean, and over this his brass-rimmed spectacles were made secure by means of a white cotton string.