“Well, now, I’d like to have the women tell me about the men. Are they as good husbands as when they were slaves? Do you live as well in your houses? Do they work as well, and make you as comfortable?”
There was a great giggling now; the ivories that were displayed would have driven a dentist to distraction, and many a stalwart black fellow, who had no notion of being a dentist, did seem to be distracted. But every woman’s hand was raised, and the good preacher proceeded to announce the result and moralize thereon.
“Then,” he said, “I am asked, by our distinguished guest, to put a question that I’m afraid you’ll laugh at. You know your old masters always said you were much happier in a state of slavery than you would be in freedom, and a good many people at the North don’t know but it may be true. You’ve tried supporting yourselves now for some time, and a good many of you have found it pretty hard work sometimes. Now, I want as many of you as are tired of it, and would rather go back and have your old masters take care of you, to hold up your right hands.”
It was fine to notice the start and frightened look, and then the sudden change that came over their faces. The preacher had warned them not to laugh, but they did not look as if they wanted to laugh. They were more disposed to get angry; and the “no, noes” were sufficiently emphatic to satisfy the most devoted adherents of the old system, who used to be constantly declaring that “the slaves were the happiest people on the face of the earth.”
But there remained a scene that showed how, if not anxious to return to their old masters, they were still sometimes glad to have their old masters return to them. Dr. Fuller rose to pronounce the benediction, and all reverently bowed their heads—the proud mothers and their hopeful children, likely plantation hands, gray-headed and gray-bearded patriarchs, like one who stood at my elbow, and, black though he was, looked so like the busts we have of Homer, that I could hardly realize him to be merely a “worn-out nigger”—bowed all together before God, the freedmen and the Major-Generals, the turbaned young women from the plantations, and the flower of Northern schools and society, the woolly-headed urchins, who could just remember that they once “b’longed to” somebody, and the Chief Justice of the United States.
The few words of blessing were soon said; and then came a rush to the stand, “to speak to Massa Richard.” Men and women pressed forward indiscriminately; the good Doctor, in a moment, found both his hands busy, and stood, like a patriarchal shepherd, amid his flock. They pushed up against him, kissed his hands, passed their fingers over his hair, crowded about, eager to get a word of recognition. “Sure, you ’member me, Massa Rich’d; I’m Tom.” “Laws, Massa Rich’d, I mind ye when ye’s a little ’un.” “Don’t ye mind, Massa Rich’d, when I used to gwine out gunnin’ wid ye?” “How’s ye been dis long time?” “’Pears like we’s never gwine to see ’ou any more; but, bress de Lord, you’m cum.” “Oh, we’s gittin’ on cumf’able like; but ain’t ’ou gwine to cum back and preach to us sometimes?” So the string of interrogatories and salutations stretched out. “I haven’t liked him much,” said an officer of our cutter, standing near, whose rough-and-ready oaths had sometimes provoked the rebuke of the Dominie, “but I take back every harsh thought. I’d give all I’m worth, or ever hope to be worth, in the world, to be loved by as many people as love him.”
Leaving the crowd still thronging about the Doctor, we drove out beyond the church half a mile, to a village of cabins, which the negroes have christened “Saxtonville.” It contains a single street, but that is a mile and a-half long. Each house is surrounded by its little plat of potatoes and corn. Back of the house, stretching off to the timber in the distance, is the narrow little parallelogram of land, called the plantation, averaging from thirty to forty acres, planted in cotton, and, in nearly every case, in the highest possible state of cultivation. Poultry swarmed about the cabins, but no swine were to be seen, and no fences were needed to divide one plantation from another.
Returning, we found the roads alive again with the gaily-dressed groups of freedmen, going home from the “meetin’,” and full of animated talk about the great things they had seen and heard. There was constantly the most deferential courtesy. The old women seemed delighted if they could secure a recognition, and not a man of the hundreds on the road passed without lifting, or, at least, touching, his hat. Whenever we approached a gate some negro near us would run ahead to open it; but there was no servility in the air with which he did it. He seemed rather, in bearing and attitude, to say, “I’m a man, and just as good before the law as you are; but I respect you, because you are all friends of ours, and because you know more than I do.” These people can never be made slaves again. They have tasted too long of freedom to submit to be driven. But, perhaps, their danger is in a not very dissimilar direction. They are grateful and confiding; and they may prove easily led.