With Axe and Rifle

by William Henry Giles Kingston

I do not believe that my father heard the last remark of the black, as he was engaged in replacing some of the articles in the waggon which had escaped being washed out, for he answered—

“Yes, by all means, we will drive on to Mr Bracher’s plantation. It’s not very far off, I hope, for the sooner we can get on dry clothing the better.”

My father, as he helped in my mother, and placed me in her arms, threw his own coat, wet as it was, over me, as it served to keep off the wind and was better than nothing.

“What’s your name, my good fellow?” he asked of the black.

“Me Diogenes, massa, but de folks call me ‘Dio’.”

“Well, jump in, Dio, and tell me the way I am to drive.”

“Straight on den, Massa,” said Dio, climbing in at the hinder part of the waggon, “den turn to de right, and den to de lef’, and we are at Massa Bracher’s.”

My father drove on as fast as the horses could go, for although the weather was tolerably warm, my teeth were chattering with cold and fright, and he was anxious, wet as we were, not to expose my mother and me to the night air. By following Dio’s directions, in less than ten minutes we reached a house of more pretensions than any we had yet seen. It was of one story, and raised on a sort of platform above the ground with a broad veranda in front. Behind it was a kitchen-garden, and plantations of tobacco, and fields of corn on either side. Dio, jumping out, ran to the horses’ heads, and advised my mother to go first, taking me with her, and to introduce herself to Mammy Coe.

“Yes, go, Kathleen,” said my father, “the good woman will certainly not turn us away, although from what Dio says, she may not receive us very courteously.”

The door stood open; as we ascended the wooden steps, two huge blood-hounds rushed out, barking furiously, but Dio’s voice kept them from molesting us. The noise they made served to summon “Mammy Coe,” a brown lady of mature age, a degree or two removed from a negress, dressed, as I thought, in very gay colours, with a handkerchief of bright hue bound round her head, forming a sort of turban.