“Wouldn’t you rather belong to him now?”
“B’long to him now! I’s free, sah.”
“Yes, but don’t you think you would rather belong to him still, and not have to take care of yourself?”
“No, sah. I’s free.”
“But now you have all the trouble of supporting yourself, buying your own clothes, making your bargains, getting your provisions, and the like. Don’t you think you would get along better if you still had Mr. May to do all this for you?”
“No, sah. We’s git along heap better dis way. We’s free.”
Wherein he was better off the man did not seem clearly to understand, but this he knew, “We’s free.” He and all the rest spoke warmly of Mr. May, and whenever he appeared among them, the lifting of ragged hats and brightening of black faces told that here, at least, the old kindliness said to have existed between master and slave had been genuine. But not one of them could be got to say that he would rather be a slave again. Nearly all the people had remained on the place. Several times the guerrillas had driven them away, but they always returned and took up their quarters in the old cabins. They knew they were perfectly free to go away if they wished; steamboats could be hailed at almost any hour, and all had money to pay their passage; elsewhere higher wages were reported. But they looked upon “May Lawn” as their home, and Mr. May as the man for whom they ought to work, and no persuasion could change their minds.
The overseer was well enough satisfied with the new order of things. You couldn’t drive a nigger quite so hard, but, on the whole, they worked very well. But the rascals were, if possible, greater thieves than ever. It would be crazy to let them plant any cotton themselves, as some of them wanted to do; and it would be better if there were any way to prohibit their culture of any grain or other product not needed for their own consumption, in their gardens. If they had a crop of ten bushels, you might be sure they would sell fifty, and you would need better locks than any on this plantation to keep them from getting the other forty out of your corn-cribs. If they raised no corn, anybody to whom they offered to sell corn would know it was stolen; but if they raised only a single bushel, there was no check on them, and they would keep selling your property whenever they got half a chance. He had even heard of their stealing corn from the troughs where the mules were eating, to sell it.
Mr. May promised a “bowl of mush and milk” for dinner. When it was announced, it was found to consist of a round of plantation delicacies, cooked by the late slaves. Beef and mutton were not to be had on the coast, and fish were not to be procured short of Lake Pontchartrain; but turkeys, ducks, and chickens were abundant, and these, with a profusion of vegetables, showed that planters might live well if they would. That in general they did not, before the war, has been the common testimony of travelers, from Fred. Law Olmsted down.
At sunset the Wayanda fired her parting salute for the Chief Justice, and shortly afterward a blank shot from her bow-gun brought too the W. R. Carter,[[36]] which had been selected by General Canby for our trip up the Mississippi. There were hurried good-byes, and as the steamer pushed off again, the flaring torch gave us a last glimpse of the faces of our New Orleans friends, and revealed behind them a dusky group of the late slaves, watching the departure of Mass’r May’s guests.