“Dat’s to keep him from swellin’ ’fore we bury him,” explained the bereaved wife; who, with a house-full of people looking on, was engaged in dressing herself for the funeral. Her sick baby was in the hands of another negress—its feverish and parched little head absolutely inside the chimney, in which a great fire was blazing. The woman said they had made so much noise last night, after the old man died, that the child had got no sleep. “Reckon you’d make noise too, ef you los’ you’ husban’. Husban’s ain’t picked up ebery day. Dey’s plenty ob men you can hab, but taint ebery day you can git a good husban’.”
In the afternoon they buried him. The rough board coffin was lifted into a cart, to which one of the plantation mules was attached. A great crowd, composed of negroes from three or four plantations followed, singing a hymn in mournful, minor chords that, rendered in their wonderfully musical voices, seemed at a little distance almost equal to the finest performance of the “Dead March,” in Saul. The grave was in the plantation burying-ground, in the common outside the levee. It was only about four feet deep; yet it seemed half-full of water. A lusty young fellow rolled up his pantaloons, jumped down into the grave and vigorously baled out for ten minutes. Even then the coffin sank out of sight, and the little clods which each one hastened to throw in upon it only fell, with a splash, into the muddy water. “Dis is de length an’ breadth of what we’s all a comin’ to,” began the old preacher; and for a few moments he continued in the most sensible strain I had heard from any one at any of their religious exercises. Then came more singing, while the grave was filled up; and then they all started back, chatting and laughing as they went.
The passion for whisky is universal. I never saw man, woman, or child, reckless young scapegrace, or sanctimonious old preacher among them, who would refuse it; and the most had no hesitancy in begging it whenever they could. Many of them spent half their earnings buying whisky. That sold on the plantation was always watered down at least one-fourth. Perhaps it was owing to this fact, though it seemed rather an evidence of unexpected powers of self-restraint, that so few were to be seen intoxicated.
During the two or three months in which I was among them, seeing scores and sometimes hundreds in a day, I saw but one man absolutely drunk. He had bought a quart of whisky, one Saturday night, at a low liquor shop in Natchez. Next morning early he attacked it, and in about an hour the whisky and he were used up together. Hearing an unusual noise in the quarters, I walked down that way and found the plow-driver and the overseer both trying to quiet Horace. He was unable to stand alone, but he contrived to do a vast deal of shouting. The driver said, “Horace, don’t make so much noise; don’t you see the overseer?” He looked around, as if surprised at learning it.
“Boss, is dat you?”
“Yes.”
“Boss, I’s drunk; boss, I’s ’shamed o’ myself; but I’s drunk! I ’sarve good w’ipping. Boss; boss, s-s-slap me in de face, boss.”
The overseer did not seem much disposed to administer the “slapping;” but Horace kept repeating, with a drunken man’s persistency, “slap me in de face, boss; please, boss.” Finally the overseer did give him a ringing cuff on the ear. Horace jerked off his cap, and ducked down his head with great respect, saying, “T’ank you, boss.” Then, grinning his maudlin smile on the overseer, he threw open his arms as if to embrace him, and exclaimed, “Now, kiss me, boss!”
Next morning Horace was at work with the rest; and, though he has bought many quarts of whisky, he has never been drunk since.
On one occasion I saw a novel example of the difficulties that sometimes occur in the best regulated plantations. On this one, there were no better plowmen than Alfred and Moses. Each, however, had a young and pretty (i. e. jet black and regularly-featured) wife. The women were disposed to attract all the admiration they could, and the boys grew very jealous. Several times they gave their wives sound beatings; but this didn’t seem to reach the root of the complaint. In their turn the wives grew jealous, doubtless not without ample cause, and not being able to beat their husbands, they did the next best thing, and attacked their husbands’ “sweethearts.” In such encounters they came out second best more than once.