OLD TIMES IN
DIXIE LAND

A Southern Matron’s Memories

BY
CAROLINE E. MERRICK

NEW YORK
THE GRAFTON PRESS
1901

Copyright, 1901,
By CAROLINE ELIZABETH MERRICK

CONTENTS.

OLD TIMES IN DIXIE LAND

CHAPTER I.

COTTAGE HALL.

I have not written these memoirs entirely for the amusement or instruction of my contemporaries; but I shall feel rewarded if I elicit thereby the interest and sympathy which follows an honest effort to tell the truth in the recollections of one’s life—for, after all, truth is the chief virtue of history. My ancestry may be of as little importance in itself as this book is likely to be after the lapse of a few years; yet it is satisfactory to know that your family is respectable,—even if you cannot prove it to be so ancient that it has no beginning, and so worthy that it ought to have no end. I am willing, however, that my genealogy should be investigated; there are books giving the whole history; and it is surely an innocent and praiseworthy pride—that of good pedigree.

I was born November 24th, 1825, at our plantation home, called Cottage Hall, in the parish of East Feliciana, in the State of Louisiana. My father was a man of firmness and of courage amounting to stoicism. He appeared calm and self-possessed under all circumstances. He ruled his own house, but so judicious was his management that even his slaves loved him.

Though I was very young when my mother died, I can remember her and the great affection manifested for her by the entire family. While not realizing the importance of my loss, I knew enough to resent the coming of another to fill her place. My father said he wanted a good woman who could see that his family of six children were properly brought up and educated. His nephew, Dr. James Thomas, introduced him to Miss Susan Brewer, who he thought would fill all these requirements. The marriage was soon arranged, and I was brought home, to Cottage Hall, by my eldest sister, with whom I had been living. The other children had laid aside their mourning and I was informed that I also had new dresses; but I declined to wear them or to call the new mistress of the household by the name of “Mother,” which had been freely given her by the rest of the family. When my father lifted me from the carriage he said: “My child, I will now take you to your new mother.” As he kissed me affectionately I turned away and said: “I am not your child, and I have no mother now.” I have never forgotten the sad look he gave me nor the tenderness he manifested toward my waywardness as he took me in his arms and carried me into the house. I was a troublesome little girl with an impetuous temper; perhaps it was on this account that he often said: “This golden-haired darling is the dearest little one in the house—and the most exacting.” My father had a vein of quaint humor and abounded in proverbial wisdom. I have heard him say, “Yes, I have a very bad memory—I remember what should be forgotten.”

We often had friends and schoolmates to spend the day or night at Cottage Hall; but when these visits were returned we were always accompanied by our married sister or some equally responsible chaperone. We complained much of this rigid rule, yet I now think it was a wise exaction that every night should find us sheltered under the home roof. My father had no patience with the innocent flirtations of young people; he thought such conduct implied a lack of straight-forward honesty which was inexcusable. Few men can understand the temptations of a young girl’s environment, which sometimes cause her to make promises in good faith that cannot be carried out, and my father had no pity on one who so doted on general admiration that she was unwilling to contract her life into a simple home with one true, brave heart. Such an one, he thought, deserved to become a lonely old maid and hold a pet dog in her arms, with never a child of her own, because she had turned away from her highest vocation—and all for pure vanity and folly.

My stepmother was a gifted woman. She was born in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, in 1790, and died July 25th, 1876. She had come South by the advice of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, and was instrumental in bringing into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana over sixty accomplished teachers, she herself having been at the head of successful schools in New York, Baltimore, Tuscaloosa and Washington. The calling of teaching she gave up when she married my father, but the cause of education in the South was greatly promoted by her influence, for which reason she has been compared to Mary Lyon of New England.

On one occasion, when my stepmother had a large party of Northern people at tea, they began praising the products of their own State and depreciating those of Louisiana. My childish anger was stirred, and I asked our guests why they had come down here if they had everything so much nicer and better in Massachusetts? I said no more, for a maid was called and I was sent to bed, retiring with indignation while the company laughed spiritedly at my impertinence. One of my sisters wrote me later, “Ma has no occasion to teach you how to manage, for you were born with a talent for ruling—whether wisely or not time will show.”

Cottage Hall was five miles from Jackson, Louisiana. My father was for many years trustee of the college there which afterward became Centenary College of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. His death occurred in 1849, and I have preserved a eulogy delivered by President Augustus Baldwin Longstreet during the Commencement exercises of the year. From this I transcribe a few sentences:

“A sad announcement will be anticipated by those who have been long in the habit of attending these occasions when they cast their eyes over the Board of Trustees and see that the seat of Captain David Thomas is vacant. Never since the foundation of the College was it so before. He was present at the birth of this institution; he saw it in all its promising and dispiriting visitations; and while it had no peculiar claims upon him, he watched over it with parental solicitude. At length he rejoiced in its commitment to the care of his own church; and under the management of my predecessor, he saw it assume an honorable rank among the kindred institutions of our Southern clime. His head, his heart and purse were all at its service. He was anticipating the events of this week with hopeful gratification when, within forty-eight hours of the time he expected to mingle his counsels with his colleagues, it pleased God to cut him down. Were our griefs always proportioned to our losses, his wife, his children, the orphan, the poor, the church, the trustees, the faculty, and the students would all have raised one wild shriek at the twang of the archer’s bow which laid him low. Were the joys of friendship proportioned to the good fortune of a friend, we should all rejoice and mingle our voices in loud hallelujahs that death had snatched him away; for that he has gone direct from earth to heaven none can doubt who knew him. I find it hard to restrain the starting tears; but this is my weakness. We all should rejoice, but this our nature will not permit; yet we must testify our respect for his memory.”

Then Judge Longstreet read the resolutions of the Board of Trustees of Centenary College, which had been placed in his hands. This extraordinary man was a dear friend of our family, and every child in the house enjoyed his visits. He played on a glass flute for us, and it was a choice privilege when we were allowed to hear him read from his “Georgia Scenes” about the comical doings of Ned Brace and Cousin Patsy. His peculiarities bordered on eccentricity and his wit was inimitable and irresistible.

Mrs. Longstreet was a lovely woman of whose presence one never wearied. She wore the daintiest of white caps, and seemed in the eyes of all like the angel she was. Of Byron, Walter Scott, and historical literature she could give pages from memory with great expression and in the sweetest voice imaginable. She was ideally sweet even in her most advanced years—a vision which once seen can never be forgotten.

CHAPTER II.

OLD TIMES.

On a clear spring morning more than fifty years ago, Cousin Antoinette and I sat on the front porch of Cottage Hall ready for a ride and waiting for the stable boy to bring up our ponies. We were in the act of mounting when my father appeared and inquired where we were going.

“We shall not take a long ride, papa. We are not going anywhere, and shall return in good time for breakfast.”

“You will do nothing of the kind. You have no brother here to ride with you, and it is improper for two young ladies to be seen on the public road alone so early in the morning.” He then ordered the horses back to the lot. We were obliged to submit to his authority without protest, though I was ready to say, “There is a word sweeter than ‘mother, home, or heaven,’ and that word is ‘liberty.’” Contrast this with the freedom of the modern girl on her bicycle!

Once when I left the schoolroom on account of a disagreement with the governess, my stepmother thought my father should require me to return and apologize. “No,” he replied, “she elects her own life and must abide by her choice; she shall not be coerced.” I was never afterward a student in any schoolroom, though at this time only in my thirteenth year. I had been in class with girls three or four years older than myself, and was considered quite mature in person and mental development. I early ascertained that girls had a sphere wherein they were expected to remain and that the despotic hand of some man was continually lifted to keep them revolving in a certain prescribed and very restricted orbit. When mild reproofs failed there were always other curbs for the idiot with eccentric inclinations.

Yet it was with my father’s full consent, even by his advice, that at fifteen years of age I married Edwin Thomas Merrick, for he thought I could not enter too soon upon woman’s exclusive path, and be marching along towards woman’s kingdom with a companion in the prime of a noble manhood. I was indebted for my “bringing up” to the young man I married. He was more than twice my age, and possessed many times over my amount of wisdom. In one of Mr. Merrick’s love-letters, written in 1839, alluding to a remark of mine on the absurdity of a “young thing like me” being companionable for a man of thirty years, he says: “Is it not ‘ridiculously absurd’ for a young lady who talks seriously of moving an island in the lake of Windermere to suppose she is not old enough to marry anybody? I have been reared in the cold North where mind and person come to maturity slowly; you in the sunny South where the flower bursts at once into full luxuriance and beauty.” Lover-like, he compliments me by continuing: “I have never discovered in you anything to remind me of the disparity of our ages; but, on the contrary, I have found a maturity of judgment, correctness of taste and extent of accomplishments which cause me to feel that you have every acquisition of a lady of twenty; and I have been happier in your society than in that of any other human being.”

My husband, the nephew of my stepmother, was born July 9th, 1809, in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. He was an advocate and jurist, served as district judge of the Florida parishes, and was twice elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

The entire household at Cottage Hall was devoted to “Cousin Edwin,” as he was called after our Southern fashion of claiming kinship with those we like. I remember that when Mrs. Lafayette Saunders heard that Mrs. Thomas had made this match, she replied: “It is a pity she did not do the same for all the family, for she surely has made a good one for Caroline!” For a year and a half Mr. Merrick and I had seen much of each other and had exchanged frequent letters, many of which have been sacredly preserved to the present time. Bishop John C. Keener, who was his lifelong friend, said of him at the time of his death: “Judge Merrick was always a bright, delightful person in his family and with his acquaintances and friends. He was a scholar, and was familiar with several modern languages, especially French and German. He had an investigating mind, loved to explore the recent wonders of science, and the doctrine of evolution he accepted. Few men had rounded their career into a grander expression of all the high qualities which concur in the useful citizen and the influential public magistrate. He was an incorruptible and capable judge, which is the most important and admirable character in the official constituency of government.”

The Law Association of New Orleans, in their tribute to his memory, said to him—using his own words at a like meeting in honor of Chief Justice Eustis: “His judicial opinions show a comprehensive intellect, cultivated by long study, and familiarized with the sentiments of the great writers and expounders of the law. They were, as became them, more solid than brilliant, more massive than showy. They are like granite masonry, and will serve as guides and landmarks in years to come. He was domestic, temperate and simple in his habits; modest, patient, punctual, and exceedingly studious. In his family relations he was a good husband, a wise and loving father. He loved his fellow-men and enjoyed the success of others. He encouraged young men, and with his brethren of the bar he was always considerate, courteous and generous.”

Thus he received a beautiful and eloquent tribute which dealt with both his public and private life.

In his home Mr. Merrick was always gentle and lovable without the least apparent pride. He would entertain with the greatest simplicity the youngest child in the house; and this fact reminds me of a little boy who deposited with tears a bouquet at his lifeless feet. To the inquiry “Who sent them?” he replied: “I brought them. For three years he has given me money to buy all my school books, and I am so sorry he is dead!” In a letter my daughter-in-law had written me while we were in Virginia during one of his last summers on earth, she asked: “Does father still roam over the hills gathering flowers for you to wear as he used to do?” Even in his old age his cheerfulness, his equipoise and sweetness never deserted him.

In regard to early marriages, I cannot, in view of my own experience and long life of contentment and domestic happiness, say aught unfavorable, though there is another side to the question and modern custom tends increasingly towards marriage at a later period. As it is true that the progeny of immature plants and animals do not equal in vigor and capacity for endurance the offspring of fully developed specimens, so human beings who desire to establish a home and intend to bring up a family, should not be children, but full-grown, matured men and women; yet, all things else being equal, it is surely better they should unite to make up a perfect life before the season of youth has passed away, and the man became blasé, the woman warped. Men are much concerned about our sex and the duties and peculiar functions belonging thereto. It is my opinion that they too need some instruction in regard to the exercise and regulation of their own relations and responsibilities toward the future welfare of the race. They have decided that brain work is detrimental to the full development of the organization of the female; but they do not worry over the effects of tobacco, whisky and certain vile habits upon the congenital vigor of both boys and girls. Fathers and medical men ought to look well to the hygienic duties of their own sex; then both sexes would be born with better capacity for life and growth, and the poor mother would not be obliged to spend so much care and trouble in rearing the offspring of debilitated manhood. Nature does not work in a hurry. She is patient, persistent and deliberate, never losing sight of her own great ends, and inexorable as to her rights.

If study could check and thwart a child’s growth Margaret D’Ossoli would have been a case of arrested development instead of a large-souled woman. It was her father who kept her little head all day over Greek and Latin exercises at the age of seven years, when she should have been playing with her dolls and romping in the fresh outdoor air. It was her father, M. Necker, who trained Madame de Stael into a woman whom the great Napoleon hated and even feared so much that he insulted her childless wifehood by telling her that what France needed was mothers, and sent her into banishment.

It is useless to get up a lamentation that the race will die out and children be neglected because woman is going to college and becoming informed and intellectual. Nature will take care that she keeps to her principal business, which is to become a willing (or unwilling) medium to continue the species.

CHAPTER III.

HOME LIFE.

My home during my early married life was in the town of Clinton, La. While I never coveted the ownership of many slaves, my comfort was greatly promoted by the possession of some who had been carefully trained to be good domestics, and who were given to me by my father on my marriage. I always liked to go into the kitchen, but sometimes my cook, who had been for twelve years in training, scorned my inexperienced youth, would say emphatically, “Go inter de house, Miss Carrie! Yer ain’t no manner er use heah only ter git yer face red wid de heat. I’ll have dinner like yer wants it. Jes’ read yer book an’ res’ easy till I sen’s it ter de dining-room.” I like just as much to go into the kitchen to-day, and am accounted a “born cook,” by my family, being accredited with a genius for giving those delicious and elusive flavors that are inspirations and cannot be taught. The artist cook burns neither food nor fingers, is never hurried or flurried, and does not reveal in appearance or manner that the table is indebted to her handicraft.

The common idea of tyranny and ill-usage of slaves was often reversed in my case, and I was subject at times to exactions and dictations of the black people who belonged to me, which now seem almost too extraordinary and incredible to relate. I made periodical visits to our plantation in Point Coupe parish, over fifty miles distant from Clinton. En route I would often desire my coachman to drive faster, and he would do so for the moment, then would fall back into the old pace. If I remonstrated he would say: “I’s ’sponsible fer dese yeah horses, an’ dey got ter fotch us back home, an’ I ain’t er gwine ter kill ’em gettin’ ter whar we gwine ter; an’ I’d tell Marse Edwin de same thing if he was heah.”

Gardening has always greatly claimed my heart and time. I have taken prizes at horticultural exhibits, and have been no little vainglorious in this last year of the century to be able to show the public the only blooming century-plant in New Orleans, or indeed in the State, so far as I know, and for whose blossoming I have been waiting thirty years. There is a “mild and gentle” but indissoluble sympathy between the human soul and the brown earth from which we have sprung, and to which we shall return. There is no outward influence that can be compared to that of living, growing, blooming things. The resurrections of the springtime cause an epidemic of gardening fever that prevails until intenser sunshine discourages exertions. When buds are bursting and color begins to glow on every bush and trellis I do not see how any one can be wholly miserable. The great season of hope and promise stirs into fruitfulness of some sort the blood that has been marking time for many years. This ever renewed, undiscouraged passion of making the earth produce seems a proof that man’s natural occupation is husbandry. He keeps at it through love as well as necessity, and every springtime he, as little subdued as nature, renews the contest. It is his destiny.

Therefore it is hardly a matter for surprise that my first-born child appealed so strongly to my love of growing things that the office of my nurse was a mere sinecure, for my boy was always in my arms—perhaps the more that I had been cut off prematurely from my dolls. With every moment devoted to his interests he became such a precocious wonder that all the servants prophesied: “Dat chile’s not long for dis worl’, Miss Calline!” I was not disturbed, however, by these mournful predictions, knowing how much time and patience had been invested in his baby education. When I look back on this period I excuse myself on account of my youth, yet at the same time I pity myself for my ignorance. The experience I bought was high-priced.

The heavy and exacting responsibilities of a slaveholder did not rest upon me with a lightness commensurate with my years. During my annual visits to the plantation I was not sure of uninterrupted rest even at night, for I never could refuse an interview to any of the negroes who called upon me. I observe that my diaries of those days are full of notes of my attendance upon sick servants. When President Lincoln issued his proclamation of freedom to our slaves I exclaimed: “Thank heaven! I too shall be free at last!”—forgetful of the legal disabilities to which white women of these United States are yet in bondage.

In the year 1851 I made my first trip to the North.

While visiting in Ohio, my husband said: “I think a little longer stay here will cure you of your anti-slavery principles;” but I rejected with scorn the idea that I would allow my personal comfort to bias my judgment; though I had to admit that one of my own trained “darkies” was superior “help” to any that I had, so far, encountered. My diary of the day records: “I find the children here are set to work as soon as they are able ‘to do a turn’ or go on an errand, and are kept steadily at it until they grow up, run away, or die. Dear little ‘Sis Daisy’ in this house is running constantly all day long and her little fat hands are broader than mine, from grasping things too large and heavy for so small a child to handle. She drops to sleep sometimes in the big chair or on the lounge in my room. I cover her with my dress and don’t know anything about her when she is called—happy to be sure she is getting some rest. Night must be a blissful time for the overworked hired girls of the North, as they know nothing of the many restful stops our self-protected blacks allow themselves ‘between times.’”

Slavery had many aspects. On the occasion of my sister Ellen’s marriage I was visiting at my father’s home. Julia, my nurse, was of course deeply interested in the preparations; and at one time when she wished to be a spectator, my nine-months-old baby declined to oblige her by going to sleep. I happened to follow her into a darkened room where she had taken the child to be rocked, and was just in time to witness a heavy blow administered in anger to the little creature. In an instant the child was in my arms. “Go out of my sight,” I said, “you shall never touch her again. You are free from this hour!” At the end of the week I was seated in the carriage with the baby on my lap, about to return home. Julia stood awaiting orders. I gave her none. “Shall I get in?” she finally asked. “You are free,” said I, “do as you please.” She hesitated until the coachman peremptorily ordered her to get in and let him drive on.

I held the child during the long drive to Clinton, though I was very tired, and installed another nurse as soon as I reached home, ignoring Julia’s existence. She had her home in the yard and her meals from my table as before. One of the other servants finally came to me saying: “I declare, Miss Calline, Julia goin’ to die if you doan’ giv’ her somethin’ ter do. She doan’ eat nothin’. Can’t yo set her ter washin’?” “She may wash for herself or for you if she wishes,” I replied; “she is free!” At the end of two weeks Julia threw herself at my feet in a deluge of tears begging to be forgiven and to be allowed to nurse her baby again. I gave it back to her; but the child had turned against her, and it was several days before the old relations were restored. There were afterward no similar ruptures, but Julia always resented the slightest reproof or adverse criticism administered to that child by parent or teachers.

At twenty I was the mother of three children, born in Clinton, Louisiana. My last and youngest came twelve years later. When my friends remarked upon the late arrival I informed them that he had come in answer to special prayer, like Hannah’s of old, so that my husband might have a child to comfort his old age when the others were all settled in homes of their own.

Children are our treasure-idols; we are joined to them by our heartstrings. We spend anxious days and sleepless nights soothing their cries and comforting their wailings, and we rejoice in our power to cherish and nourish them into a full and happy life by any sacrifice of ourselves. God pity the desolate little ones who come into the world unwelcomed, and grow up in loveless homes! When in the great yellow fever epidemic of 1878 I lost my eldest daughter, my good children, David and Lula, gave me their baby Bessie to comfort my sorrow. She was my own for four years. I was in the habit of inviting my cousin, Miss Carrie Brewer, to come regularly to instruct and play with her, making the visits a recreation for both. In this manner one of the most successful teachers of the kindergartens of this city began her development, and thus my interest in systematic child culture was inaugurated.

Various children certainly require various management. Their education cannot begin too soon. The Froebel system of kindergarten teaching has usually a salutary influence on troublesome little folks, and is deserving of the increasing attention it is receiving. It is only in these latest days of the century that the initiatory period before school-life begins has had any worthy recognition.

Mr. Merrick and I belonged to the New Orleans Educational Society. I was chairman of a committee which was requested to make a report of its views on the meeting of June 4th, 1884. Shortly after handing in this report—which it had been thought proper a man should read—we attended a special meeting for the annual election of officers. When the balloting began, I found I was not to be allowed any part in this matter, though paying the same dues ($5.00) as the men, and a working member of a committee. In my disgust I said: “I always thought that a vote in political affairs was withheld from woman because it is not desirable for her to come in contact with the common rabble lest her purity be soiled. She should never descend into the foul, dusty arena of the polling booth; but here in Tulane Hall where we are specially invited, in the respectable presence of many good men—some of them our ‘natural protectors’—it is not fair; it is as unjust as it would be for me to invite a party to dinner and then to summon half of them to the table while the other half are required to remain as spectators only of the feast to which all had had the same call.” After that I attended no other meeting of the Educational Society, and requested my husband to discontinue paying my dues.

CHAPTER IV.

RUMORS OF OUR CIVIL WAR.

Mr. Merrick was elected chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana in the year of 1855. I went with him to New Orleans for that winter and lived at the old St. Louis hotel, taking my maid with me, but leaving my children at home in the care of their grandmother. In a letter dated May 11th, 1856, my husband writes: “I bought a house yesterday, at public auction, which I think will do very well for us, but it will cost a good deal to make it as comfortable as our home at Clinton. The property is in Bouligny, a little out of the city, where we can keep our horses. There is a plank road to the city and the railroad station will be near the door. It is an old-fashioned French house built upon brick walls and pillars, with a gallery in front and rear. I send you a plan of it and a sketch of the situation. You will surely be pleased with the place after it is arranged. I dined with Mr. Christian Roselius yesterday and he congratulated me on the purchase; says it is delightful to live out of town. Bouligny is in the city of Jefferson, almost half a mile above Washington Street. There are six fireplaces in the house, and if Aunt Susan does not like any of those large rooms below we will finish off one above or build one for her. The girls will go to school in the city by the cars.”

We had done some house-hunting the winter before, and I was by no means sure I should like living out of town. In his next letter Mr. Merrick said: “I do not think you had better come down until you have somewhat recovered from your disappointment. I have read your letter while my colleagues are reading opinions, and now I take some of the precious time of the State to try to console you. The more I see of the house and its neighborhood the better I like it. You think it is an isolated place up-town, still uninhabited. Well, in twenty years everything will be different, and while I have you and the children in the house, it will be all right. Therefore, you must dry up your tears and be happy.”

It is evident that the home chosen was not such as I should have selected; but a residence in it for nearly half a century has made it very dear, filled as it is with precious memories of those I have loved and lost. So extensive are the surrounding grounds, abounding in flowers, fruit-trees and gardens, that it has been called “the Merrick Farm.” Now that Napoleon Avenue is built up with elegant residences, this large square with its spacious, old-fashioned, double French cottage presents a comfortable, unique appearance in the midst of its modern environment.

So, in November, 1856, I removed from Clinton to New Orleans. In a letter written to Mr. Merrick during the distresses of dismantling the old home, I said: “If it please heaven to give us a long life I hope it may never be our misfortune to move many times.” Heaven seemed to have been propitious to my wish, for here I am in the same loved home, chosen without my consent, but where I expect to fold my willing hands and be made ready for my final resting place.

I do not enter upon the subject of the civil war with a disposition either to justify or condemn; and it is with reluctance that I revert to a question that has been settled forever by fire and blood, and whose adjustment has been accepted even by the vanquished. But as this period came so vitally into my life, these recollections would be incomplete without it; besides, personal records are the side-lights of history and, in their measure, the truest pictures of the times. Years enough have elapsed to make a trustworthy historical perspective, and intelligent Americans should now be able to look upon the saddest war that ever desolated a land without favor or prejudice and to use conditions so severely cleared of the great evil of slavery as stepping-stones to our freedom from all further national mischief.

It must be remembered that the South was not a unit in regard to secession. The Southwest was largely a Whig area, and in the election of 1860 this element voted for Bell and Everett under the standard: “The Union, the Constitution and the Enforcement of Law.” It has always been a question whether secession would have carried could it have been put to the test of a popular vote in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee; for whatever may have been personally believed respecting the right of secession, it is probable the majority of Whigs and some Democrats doubted its expediency. The most solemn, heart-breaking hour in the history of the States was that in which men, shaken with sobs, signed the ordinance which severed them from the Union. Up to that hour the fight by the press had been bitter. But when the fate of the State was sealed, the Stars and Stripes lowered and the State flag run up in its place, almost every man, irrespective of opinions, accepted its destinies, shouldered his musket and marched to the front—where he stayed until a bullet, sickness or starvation emptied his place in the ranks, or until the surrender of Lee at Appomattox.

Many Southern men said: “Never give up the United States flag; let us settle our difficulties under it.” On a Fourth of July one of our neighbors illuminated his house and decorated it with that flag. He was entirely unmolested. We were kinder in that instance to Union people among us than the Yankees sometimes were to “copperhead traitors” at the North. A very few Union men among us went over the other side of the Mason and Dixon line; a few more remained quietly at home, under great stress of public opinion, but gave of their substance, and usually their sons, to the Confederate cause. General Banks said, in his occupation of the city, “I could put all the Union men in New Orleans in one omnibus.”

This was a season of great anxiety and perplexity. After the war became inevitable it may be said that no woman wavered in her allegiance to the Southern cause. Our boys clamored to be allowed to enlist. From Northern relatives came letters wailing: “The war cry is abroad; blood is to be spilled, the nation is to be involved in the bitterest of all wars. It may be that your son, David, and one of my boys may meet in deadly conflict. And when we have cut each other’s throats, destroyed commerce, ruined cities, demoralized the people, outraged humanity, what have we gained? Nothing! nothing! Would to God that some Washington might arise and stay the deadly strife, save the country from shame and disgrace in the eyes of the world.”

On the other side was asserted: “We have nothing else to do but to fight. No door is open to us. Our position as freemen, our all is at stake. Without slavery the best sugar plantation in Louisiana would be worthless. The British thought our forefathers were wrong. We have ten times the cause for revolt which they had. Constitutional rights are invaded. We shall and must succeed.”

Our son David, then in his seventeenth year, was at Centenary College, La., when hostilities began. As he saw his comrades leaving in order to join the army he became very impatient to do likewise. In a letter of April 26, 1861, replying to his urgings, I wrote: “I know you will not think us unkind in asking you to continue your college duties. You have ever been true and filial without having it exacted. Persist in these relations, my dear boy. Write us freely and tell us in perfect confidence whatever you think and feel. Do not act hastily. We do not refuse your request but wish you to wait for further advice. You have no wife and children, but you have parents and sisters to fight for (I don’t count little Eddie). I know you are patriotic and are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of your country, but you must learn much before you go into the army.

“27th, afternoon.—Father has come in and says Vice-President Alexander Stephens writes to President Davis that there are plenty of men—as many soldiers as are now wanted; and this is good news. With Virginia added to the Southern Confederacy we ought to carry the day. It is a pity the border States are so dilatory. Try to be content where you are until your turn comes. Your father says it will come, sure and fast, and you know his judgment is infallible. Last night I went to the Military Fair for the benefit of the soldiers.”

War is the same the world over, and the women are always heroically bearing their share of its responsibilities. I see it announced in this morning’s paper (January 1st, 1900) that Adelina Patti and the Duchess of Marlborough are to appear at an entertainment at Covent Garden in aid of the English fund for officers’ wives and families, called for by the present war in South Africa. It has been noted that after the States seceded a Union woman could not be found in the entire South. However that may be, I am told on authority that while Jackson, Miss., was burning and being pillaged by troops whose horses were festooned with women’s clothes, General Sherman was appealed to by a Southern woman. “Well, madam,” said he, “don’t you know that the Southern women and the Methodist Church North are keeping up this war?”

On June 1st, 1861, I find in one of my letters to my brother: “David is at home. We are willing to give him to our country. His father spares no trouble or expense to fit him for a soldier’s duty. He has a drill-master who instructs him in military science during the day, and drills him with the ‘State Rights Guards’ every night. This Frenchman, whose name I cannot spell, says in two weeks more he will be equal to a captain’s duties; but his father says he must understand the movements of a brigade, battalion and regiment, as well as that of company drill; he must know something and become qualified for everything; so I think he wishes him to have a commission. He is the sole representative of our immediate family. I fear for him, his youth is against him—he should be twenty-one instead of seventeen—though this will not disqualify him in the volunteer service if he is competent. He will go whenever called.”

Thus my young son left me for the army in Virginia where he served until incapacitated by an extraordinary wound through the head received at Seven Pines while a member of the staff of Gen. Leroy Stafford.

After this my brother went into an artillery company as first lieutenant, and I went to the Myrtle Grove plantation to take leave of him. It was during my temporary absence that New Orleans fell into Federal possession, which fact caused me to spend the whole period of the war with my family on the Atchafalaya river at this plantation, having only occasional visits from my husband, who found it necessary to take the greater portion of his slaves to a safer place in another part of the state. His own liberty was also threatened, and since one of his colleagues, Judge Voorhies, had been taken prisoner and detained away from his family and official business, it was desirable that Judge Merrick should incur no such risk.

When Louisiana seceded from the Union many thought that no blood would be spilled; that the Yankees would not fight, and would never learn to bear arms. But this was not Mr. Merrick’s opinion, nor that of many others. The men we called Yankees had fought bravely for their own independence and gained it, and they would fight if necessary again; we should see our soil dug up and earthworks made on our own secluded plantations.

I left my New Orleans home furnished with every comfort, but have never since seen it in that perfect condition. Under General Ben Butler, a public sale was made of the contents of the dwelling, stables and outhouses for the benefit of the United States. Mrs. J. Q. A. Fellows told me she counted thirteen wagon loads of furniture taken out, and had she known me then as she afterwards did, she would have saved many valuable things for me. I owned an excellent miscellaneous library, a new piano, valuable carriages, pictures, china and cut glass—the acquisition of twenty-five years, belonging to me personally who had done nothing to bring on the hostilities between the sections. I was informed that my carriage was appropriated by a Federal officer for his own use.

It was not long before the predictions of my husband were realized by General Banks’ invading our retreat with the purpose of investing Port Hudson in the rear, Farragut meanwhile was trying to force a passage past its guns on the Mississippi river. While Gen. Banks’ command was in transit we were in daily and hourly contact with the troops. When Brig.-Gen. Grover ascertained that my household consisted of women alone, he had his tent pitched very near the dwelling, informing me himself that he did this to secure our safety, and assuring me that we should be unmolested inside the enclosure of our dooryard and the lawn bordering in front on the Atchafalaya river. To this end three men were detailed to act as a guard. I had then a family consisting of two daughters, Laura and Clara, their baby brother Edwin and the two Misses Chalfant and Miss Little, who were my guests for a long time.

We were abundantly furnished with the necessaries of life, and had a bountiful supply of vegetables besides the products of our dairy and poultry yard. Lacking new books to read and mail to bring us letters, newspapers or magazines, there yet came into our lives an intenser interest in what was before us so constantly—this war between the North and the South; and in one way or another everybody, white and black, man, woman and child, took a more or less active part in carrying it on.

A letter from Mrs. Mary Wall gives the following: “I hear my son Benjamin has gone to the war, Willie too, and Bowman has joined the ‘Hunter Rifles.’ There is nothing talked of here but war. God help me, but it is hard! I nursed these boys and they are part of myself; life would be utterly barren without them. But I cannot keep them, nor say a word to stay them from defending their country; but I think it will kill me. I should be better off without children in this extremity.

“What do you think the North intends? Is it to be a war of extermination? Have you read Helper’s book? He says, ‘Go out of the Union to-day and we will scourge you back to-morrow, and make the banks of the Mississippi one vast sepulchre, but you shall give up your slaves.’

“Christians ought to pray constantly that the great Omnipotent may help us. We cannot fathom God’s plans. I am ready to let my negroes go if the way opens, but I do not see that it is my duty to set them free right here and now, though the time may be approaching for them to emerge from their captivity. God’s will is just and good. Oh for perfect reliance on His promises to all who love and serve Him!”

Those who were a part of ante-bellum affairs will remember how earnestly serious-minded and conscientious slaveholders discussed the possibility of gradual emancipation as advocated by Henry Clay. The negroes were in their possession by inheritance and by the customs and laws of the land in which they were born. The slaves were not only a property which had come to them as a birthright, but also a responsibility which could not be laid aside except in a manner that would secure the future good of the slave, with proper consideration for what was justly due the master and his posterity in the settlement of the great question. If politicians on both sides, who cared more for party control and for the money value of a negro than for the nation’s good, could have been ordered to the rear, there is little doubt but that slaveholder and abolitionist and the great American people could have been brought to weigh the subject together on its own merits, and slavery might have been abolished to the satisfaction of North and South by law instead of in a cataclysm of blood.

Those were anxious days when families were left without their male protectors and we women had only ourselves and our young children in our disquieted homes. Yet we were cheerful and marvelously comforted, drawing nearer day by day to the Almighty Father, and sleeping the sleep of the just, though often awakened by the sound of guns and to the sight of Federal blue-coats drawn up in battle-line with gleaming bayonets. There was fasting and prayer everywhere during all the long struggle. The most pathetic sight was thousands of women, children and slaves, with the few non-combatant men the army had spared, on their knees in daily union prayer-meetings, at sunrise or sunset, before the God of Battles.

Each of us sympathized with the words of Lizzie Dowdell, writing in May, 1861: “I do believe the Lord is on our side. If we fail, God have mercy on the world—for the semblance of human liberty will have fled. The enemy has men, money, horses and chariots; they are strong and boastful. Our sins may be flagrant, and we may need to be scourged with scorpions; but will God permit us to be overwhelmed?” Both sides referred their case to the Court of Heaven—as the assaulted Boers are doing to-day. If they sink beneath the unlimited resources of the British, will the triumph of might now be the triumph of right and of human liberties? Three and one-half decades have softened the shadow of prejudice and the high lights of self-interest. It is well for the whole nation that slavery has been abolished and the Union preserved. How much loss will be revealed by time in the sacrifices of the rights of States against Federal encroachment, is a problem for future statesmanship. But it is certain to-day that the moral loss to the United States by the civil war will not be recovered in fifty years; while the baneful corruption of public sentiment and the ruling Administration, by reason of the late Spanish-American conflict, is sufficiently apparent to send every Christian to his knees, or to the ballot-box—the only worldly corrector of political wrongs.

We set a second table for our guard. One middle-aged man named Peter, a very young German and another—all foreigners—made up the trio. I had every delicacy within my reach provided for them, and insisted that my young ladies should see that the table was arranged tastefully, enjoining it on them that they should respond politely whenever they were spoken to. The young German on entering the yard stooped and pulled a rose which he gaily pinned on his coat. “See,” said one of the girls at the window, “that mean Yankee is taking our flowers!” “It is a good sign,” I replied, “that he will never do us any greater harm. He has a kind expression on his blond young face and in his honest blue eyes;” and this fair-faced boy proved a valuable protector on many occasions. He had learned his English in the army and to our horror was terribly addicted to profanity. Instead of the ordinary response to one of our remarks he would come out with “The hell, you say!” even when spoken to by one of the girls. Nevertheless when at last these faithful enemy-friends took up their line of march, we were friendly enemies, and regretfully saw them depart.

CHAPTER V.

MY DAUGHTER LAURA’S DIARY.

From my daughter Laura’s diary, May 21st, 1863, let me quote: “The Yankees have been passing this house all day, regiment after regiment on their way to attack Port Hudson. Two transports have also gone by on the river crowded with soldiers. Heaven protect our beleaguered men—so few against so many! A Lieutenant Francis was perfectly radiant this morning because a boat was waiting to take his regiment (the 6th New York) North, as their time is out. He was very cordial, perhaps because he has a brother in the Confederate army.

“A Dutch cavalry sergeant lingered, and for half an hour stood guard, with his drawn sword keeping away many of the vandals. He claimed to belong to the regular United States army and said his time would be up in four months when he should return ‘to de faderland,’ but he thought they would ‘vip’ us at Port Hudson. When a negro and a white man came together through the backyard for water from the cistern, with horrible oaths and imprecations he drew his sword and with the back of it struck the negro and ordered them both to leave. ‘You nigger,’ said he, ‘you hab no peesnis to enter de blantation! ve don’ vant you! you steals eberyting!’ I am sorry for the poor deluded negroes who flock after this army.

“We were all in the parlor this evening when five Yankee quartermasters came in out of the rain. ‘Old Specs,’ as we call him, was among the number. They introduced each other and then very pressingly requested me to play the ‘Bonnie Blue Flag.’ At last I complied and began to sing, though it nearly kills me to be polite to the Yanks:

“‘As long as the union was faithful to her trust,
Like friends and like brothers we were kind, we were just,
But now that Northern treachery——’

“Here I broke down, and bursting into tears, left the room with my handkerchief to my eyes. They then expressed sorrow that my feelings should have been so disturbed and sent Clara to ask me to come back. She begged so, I dried my tears and returned. Two of them engaged in a discussion with me. One said: ‘The secession vote in Louisiana was controlled and indicated nothing.’ ‘In all true republican governments,’ I answered, ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God; we do not live under an aristocracy or a monarchy.’ ‘But,’ said the man, ‘two-thirds of the people were not permitted to vote; your negroes did not go to the polls.’ ‘They are not freemen,’ I replied—‘but being a woman I know nothing’—and again the tears rushed to my eyes. Thereupon, one of them, Capt. Ives, joined in, saying: ‘The masters voted for the negroes of course, and,’ he continued, ‘it is not fair—two gentlemen against one lady. I take the lady’s part.’ Then in a lower tone, but a perfectly audible one, he said: ‘For God’s sake talk of something else besides the Union and the Confederacy. I’m sick of both.’

“Mrs. Phillips, with Mrs. French, our neighbor, went down to headquarters to ask Gen. Banks for a guard. She reports that he said he would give her none, for it was the women who had brought on and now encouraged the war. Mrs. French said she only wished to be protected from insult, and from hearing such frightful profanity. ‘Madam,’ said he, ‘this war is enough to make any man swear. I swear myself.’ ‘But,’ said she, ‘I wish to spare my Christian mother, who is aged and infirm.’ ‘Well,’ said Gen. Banks, ‘I can’t make her young.’ When she told us about it I replied: ‘Banks is nearly as much of a brute as Butler himself.’

“Tues. May 22, 1863.—Capt. Callender of Weitzel’s staff and Capt. Hall of Emory’s came last night to inquire if the soldiers troubled us. They were very polite and spoke so kindly that they reminded us of Southerners. It is a pity to see such perfect gentlemen in such an army. They offered us a guard which I declined, telling them we were Southerners, so not afraid; for it galls me to be obliged to have Yankee protection. Mother has been so worried since, and Clara reproached me so severely for refusing the guard that I have wished I had done differently, and I was glad when the overseer’s big dog came and lay down before our door. I thought it was a special providence. We have always heard Gen. Weitzel well spoken of; he evidently has men like himself on his staff.

“Monday, May 25, 1863.—Saturday evening our hopes of Gen. Kirby Smith being able to detain Gen. Weitzel were dashed to the ground. Two Yankees said they were all safe at Simmsport except two hundred cavalry captured by our boys; but their rear had been much worried. One of these Yankees was sick and asked permission to lie on our front gallery. Mother brought him some cold mint-tea which he at first declined, but when he saw her taste it he changed his mind and drank it. The man said afterward he was afraid she wanted to poison him till he saw her take a spoonful. Then she brought out a big arm-chair and pillows and made him as comfortable as she could. He was grateful, and stated that he was only doing his duty fighting for the old flag.

“One afternoon Sallie Miller rode past, with a Yankee officer. Shame on her! Two young lady guests on their way to Bayou Goula saw her and were indignant with any Southern girl who would ride with a Yankee in the presence of their army.

“Yesterday a quartermaster drove into the lot, breaking the gate which was locked, and going to the corn-crib. At the instance of the Missouri Yankee, propped up in the rocking-chair, we all ran out to the lot, and mother talked so to him, Clara and I assisting volubly, that he agreed to take only two wagon loads of the corn. He seemed actually ashamed for breaking our fence, and we were just in time to save the crib door by giving him the key.

“We saw some soldiers driving our cattle and milch cows and calves from a field. ‘What a shame!’ said I. A chaplain I suppose, dressed in a fine black suit, who had come in to get water, replied: ‘Our object, miss, is to starve you out so that your brothers, husbands and sons will quit fighting and come home to provide bread for you. On what ground can you expect protection?’ he asked my mother. ‘Is your husband a Union man?’ ‘No, indeed!’ I struck in, ‘he is a true Southerner.’ He saw a spur hanging up, and remarked that there was a man about. Clara answered: ‘It belongs to my brother.’ Then the man said: ‘I won’t ask where he is, for you might be afraid to tell.’ ‘I am not afraid,’ replied Clara. ‘You may know as well as I that he is not here. He is in Virginia.’

“Mother remonstrated about her cows being driven off to be slaughtered; but seeing that it was useless exclaimed at last, ‘Well, take them all!’ This was too much for Asa Peabody, who seemed to be a friend to our sick soldier; he informed the lieutenant in command that he was on guard by Gen. Weitzel’s orders, and intended nothing should be taken off the place; and he turned two of our best cows back into our front yard.

“The men came continually to the cistern for drinking water. Mother said: ‘Let the water be free, I am glad to have protection for some things, but the heavens will send down more rain if the last drop is used.’ One of them observing some of the girls at the window, drained his cup and taking off his cap to them shouted: ‘Success to our cause!’ ‘To ours!’ I called back. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I drink to the Union. I hope to get to Port Hudson before it falls!’ One impertinent fellow asked: ‘Will you answer me one question, miss! Who have destroyed most of your property, Yankees or Rebels?’ ‘The Yankees, of course,’ I said. ‘Well, yours is an exceptional case,’ he retorted. Oh! I never saw so many soldiers and so many cannon!

“Asa Peabody was reproved by our Missourian for using profane language in the presence of ladies. He answered very contritely, ‘I’ll be damned if I will do so any more! You are right.’ He was a brave, good man. We heard of his kindness to many women along the march, and I hope our guerillas whom he so dreaded—as anybody in the world would—did not get him, for he vowed he should ‘keep his eyes peeled’ for them.

“In a recent bombardment at Port Hudson—when the spectacle was sublime—an old negro woman said she knew the world was coming to an end ‘becaze de white folks dun got so dey kin make lightnin’.’

“May 26, 1863.—A Yankee officer called yesterday evening; said he belonged to the famous (infamous, I say) Billy Wilson Zouaves, whose bad character is now wholly undeserved. We were still in the parlor when Col. Irwin, Asst.-Ad.-Gen., called, another officer with him. We tried to be civil, but I deeply feel the humiliation of enforced association with this invading enemy. However, Gen. Grover has been very considerate since he knew we are a household of women. Two wagon-masters came for corn and took what they wanted, breaking open the crib. A chaplain, Mr. Whiteman, very kindly took a note from mother to Gen. Grover, and promised to intercede for her. The General came immediately, and said nothing more should be taken unless it was paid for. Mother declared she would beg her bread before she would buy it with their money; but I told her she had begged the bread of the family, which already belonged to us, by prayers and intercessions and tears enough to make it very bitter food. Some of the quartermasters have since given her statements of what has been taken from Myrtle Grove. ‘Corn we must have,’ said one man, ‘but I will leave this untouched if you will tell me where I can procure more on some other plantation.’ Mother then directed him to Tanglewood where father had an immense quantity stored, and from which place the hands had all been moved into the interior, after the large crop of cotton had been burned by our own people. When this cotton on Tanglewood was burning the negroes stood around crying bitterly; and father and mother both call it ‘suicidal policy of the Confederates’ to destroy the only ‘sinew of the war’ we have which will bring outside cash to purchase arms and other military supplies.”

It should be related that when we heard of General Banks’ being at Simmsport my daughter Clara thought we ought to send or go at once to his headquarters and ask for protection. I find the following copy of a letter which partly explains the safety accorded us by the Federal army during the period recounted.

“To Major General Banks, in Command of U. S. Troops at Simmsport, La.

“Dear Sir:

“I reside near the head of the Atchafalaya where it first flows out of Old River, and our male friends are all absent. We are all natives of Louisiana, and, though we cannot bid you welcome, we hope and trust we may confide in your protection and in the generosity and honor which belongs to United States officers.

“We have no valuable information to give, nor do we think you would ask or require us to betray our own people if we had it in our power. But we can promise to act fairly and honorably, and to do nothing unworthy the high character of Judge Merrick, who is the head of this family. Therefore, we expect to prove ourselves worthy of any generous forbearance you may find it in your power to extend toward defenseless women and children, who appeal thus to your sympathy and manhood; for

“‘No ceremony that to great one ’longs,
Not the King’s crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does.’

“Very respectfully,
“Caroline E. Merrick.”

The result of this letter, which I presented in person, was the following pass:

“Headquarters, Department of the Gulf,
19th Army Corps,
Simmes’ Plantation, May 19, 1863.

“Guards and Patriots:

“Pass Mr. Chalfant, Mrs. Merrick, and party, with their carriages and drivers, to their homes, near the head of the Atchafalaya.

“Richd. B. Irwin,
“A. A. General.”

“Camp Clara, Jackson, Miss., May 31, 1863.—We have good water and our men are improving, but many are ill with typhoid fever”—thus my brother wrote. “The sickness enlists my deepest sympathy. The number of soldiers’ graves is astonishing. From morning until night negroes are constantly digging them for instant use. General Lovell inspected our battery the other day and said he wanted it down on the river; so just as soon as our horses arrive we are to go to work. The men are well drilled, but we lack horses and ammunition. I hear David’s regiment is at Petersburg, Va.”

In Confederate times the people were patient under the sickness in camp, and never a complaint was sent to Richmond about poor food and bad water which caused as many fatalities as powder and ball. Increased knowledge and improved methods of camp sanitation seem almost to justify the indignant protests against embalmed beef and typhoid-breeding water that have been heaped upon Congress and officers of the War Department in the late Spanish-American war. One out of the four of my father’s great-grandsons who enlisted for the Spanish-American struggle lost his life in an unhealthy Florida camp before he could be sent to Cuba. It is plain to every fair-minded investigator that many of these fatalities were due to a lack of those essentials in which every housekeeping woman, by nature and training, is especially qualified. It was a relief to the minds of the mothers of the nation to learn that near the close of the late Cuban conflict a woman had been appointed on the National Military Medical Commission. It is a woman’s proper vocation to care for the sick. Men who would exclude women from the ballot-box on the plea that they only who fight ought to vote, should remember Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale who have served armies so effectually.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning said: “The nursing movement is a revival of old virtues. Since the siege of Troy and earlier we have had princesses binding wounds with their hands. It is strictly the woman’s part, and men understand it so. Every man is on his knees before ladies carrying lint; whereas if they stir an inch as thinkers or artists from the beaten line (involving more good to general humanity than is involved in lint), the very same men would condemn the audacity of the very same women.”

A young naval officer, at my dinner table, once dissented from such views which I had expressed, and of which Bishop Warren of the M. E. Church had heartily approved. “Until women,” said this young officer, “furnish this government for its defense with soldiers and sailors from their own ranks they should be prohibited from voting.” “Dear sir,” I replied, “how many soldiers and sailors does this country now possess in its active service whom the women have not already furnished from their own ranks?”

The young man yielded but was not convinced, even when an eminent physician remarked that he had heard many a young mother say that she would rather march up to the cannon’s mouth than to lie down to meet her peculiar trial. He further stated that when their hour came they were always full of courage, and, in his opinion, their maternity ought to count for something to them of great value in the government.

All men in an army do not fight. No more important branch of the military service existed during the civil war than that which the women of the Confederacy controlled. They planted and gathered and shipped the crops which fed the children and slaves at home and the armies in the field; they raised the wool and cotton that clothed the soldiers and the hogs and cattle that made their meat; they spun and wove the crude product into cloth for the home and the army; their knitting needles clicked until the great surrender, manufacturing all the socks and “sweaters” and comforters which the Confederate soldier-boys possessed—our nearly naked boys toward the last, so often on the march called “Ragged Rebels.”

CHAPTER VI.

WAR-MEMORIES: HOW BECKY COLEMAN WASHED HESTER WHITEFIELD’S FACE.

Among the Federal vessels stationed at Red River Landing was the Manhattan, commanded by Captain Grafton, a high-minded officer as the following incident proves. A letter from Laura Ellen to her brother David, dated at Myrtle Grove, records: “Stephen Brown, mother’s head manager on this place, has been very sick. Dr. Archer, who was stopping with us all night, went to see him, and after an examination, reported that he could do nothing to relieve him without chloroform and surgical instruments, both of which were inaccessible and out of the question; and he candidly told mother Stephen could not live twenty-four hours without an operation. Mother, heart-broken and in tears, begged the doctor to tell her to what means she could resort to save so faithful a servant. The doctor said they had everything needful on the Federal gunboats. Mother instantly determined to go to Red River Landing and appeal for help; but she wished Dr. Archer to go with her and explain the case. He objected, saying he had never held any communication with the enemy, and he did not wish to spoil his record with the Confederates. But mother finally induced him to accompany her.

“It seemed to us a forlorn hope. When she started off with Dr. Archer, mother enjoined it upon us to have the best dinner that we could prepare for the officers who were to come back with her, which suggestion we took the liberty of overlooking, as we did not dream she could succeed in such an unheard-of undertaking. When she reached the Mississippi and waved her handkerchief, a tug came from the gunboat to the shore and she asked to see the commanding officer. The tug offered to take mother to the gunboat, but at first objected to the doctor going with her. Finally both went, and were received on the deck of the big warship. Captain Grafton said he feared that any surgeon or officer might be captured, and that he must have a written guarantee against that possibility before he could run such a risk. Mother told him that Captain Collins and his scouts were thirty miles distant; she could only assure him that none who came to her aid would be molested. Dr. Archer supported her opinion; but the captain declined the adventure; whereupon mother burst into tears. ‘Captain Grafton,’ she said, ‘I did not come here to teach you your duty; but I came to perform mine. Now if the negro’s life is not saved, his death will lie at your door, not mine.’ Capt. Grafton replied: ‘Madam, I don’t like you to put it that way!’ Moved by that view or her tears—he sent the tug for the captains of two other gunboats, and the three held a council of war, finally consenting that a surgeon with his assistants and the necessary equipments should have leave to go provided he would himself assume the responsibility for his absence from the boat, for the military authorities would make no order about it. Thus Dr. Mitchell first came to Myrtle Grove on an errand of mercy.

“None was more surprised than mother herself when Dr. H. W. Mitchell, surgeon of the Manhattan, offered to go with her. It had been eight months since these Federal naval attachés had set foot on land, and apparently they greatly enjoyed the long drive with only a handkerchief for a flag of truce floating from the carriage window. The doctor went to the ‘Quarters’ to see Stephen, and mother flew to the kitchen and dining-room to put forth her rare culinary skill in compensation for our negligence. After dinner we had music, and Dr. Mitchell sang us many new songs, and proved to be very intelligent, entertaining and agreeable. I treated him well, too, as I was bound to do after his kindness. At dinner I had on a homespun dress trimmed with black velvet and Pelican buttons: when they went away I even gave the doctor my hand, ’though always before I had refused to shake hands with a single one of them. Not for anything on earth ‘would I have done as much previously.’”

During the many months that the U. S. gunboat Manhattan remained at Red River Landing, I saw the officers from time to time, and once a crevasse detained Dr. Mitchell for three days in our home. The friendship thus established has outlived the war and proved a source of great pleasure to me; while the sympathy the doctor so kindly extended later, during the bitter reconstruction days, was a solid satisfaction and comfort, for his cultured and experienced mind comprehended both sides of the situation. Devoted to the Union, he yet expressed no inordinate desire to exterminate the South, and never said he would be glad to hang Jefferson Davis. He writes July 30, 1865: “We are all Americans. We speak one language; our flag is the same; we are citizens of the United States. It is the right spirit to recognize no section. If all should uphold the Government faithfully under which we enjoy so many blessings, internal strife in the future will be impossible.”

“Mother says,” the diary continues, “let an army be friend or foe, it takes everything it needs for its subsistence on the march, and starvation is in its track. Brig.-Gen. Grover’s Division camped for two weeks on this plantation, and the General’s own tent was pitched next to our side gate. When some of his staff were here visiting, one of them took baby Edwin in his arms and kissed him. After they had gone I scolded him for kissing a Yankee, and said I was going to tell his ‘Marse Dadles!’ He began to cry and sobbed out, ‘O Sissy, he was a good Yankee!’ They rob the corn-cribs, so it is well they carry off the negroes too. Ours, however, will not go; they have made no preparation to depart, and mother interviews them daily on the subject, but leaves them to decide whether they will ‘silently steal away,’ which is their method of disappearing. Mr. Barbre’s negroes have all gone except two, and Mr. Chalfant’s and Mrs. French’s are preparing to go, so our neighbors are generally upset.”

In a letter of an earlier date Laura Ellen gives an account of Mr. Chalfant coming to me and asking advice as to how the slaves could be prevented from following the army. I had wanted to know of my neighbor if his negroes would take his word on the subject. If so, he might state to them that they might be free just where they were—that it was not necessary they should leave their homes, their little children, their household effects, tools and other “belongings” which could not be carried on the march (to say nothing of the hogs-head of sugar nearly all of them had in their cabins), their poultry, dogs, cows and horses. If it were candidly explained to them that their freedom was to be a certainty, and that they might be hired to work by their old owners, doubtless many would be convinced of the wisdom of remaining at home and taking their chances—all would depend on the confidence the negro had in the master—but they should, in all cases, be left to make their own decision—whether to go or stay. Some of the people who could read should be shown the newspapers, left by the Yankees, wherein it is urged upon the government to put the black men into the army. This should be read to them by one of their own color.

After hearing these views Mr. Chalfant was reported having said: “Mrs. Merrick has more sense about managing the negroes than any man on the river.”

However that may have been, our slaves remained on the place, and many of them and their descendants are yet in the employ of the family. It was considered by some persons to be treason to the Confederacy to speak of the freedom of the slaves in their presence, as if refusal to acknowledge the emancipation act would avert its going into effect.

This attitude towards their liberty destroyed all confidence in the master’s advice, and so his negroes left him. It was several years before the emancipation of the slave was universally effected, there being secluded places into which the news of freedom percolated slowly, and where slavery existed for some time uninterrupted. In following the army parents often abandoned young children. These were given to anybody who would burden themselves with their care. In many cases the natural guardian never again appeared, and these abandoned ones were practically bond-servants until they learned how to be free of themselves.

Careworn and anxious as we were waiting news of our loved ones in the field and of the cause in which we had risked our all, we were too busy to be sad. Telegraphic communication with the center of war was often cut off for many days. During these agonizing, silent seasons the women drew nearer together, and kept busy scraping lint for the hospitals and converting every woolen dress and every yard of carpet left in the house into shirts and bedding for our boys at the front. We varied the labor of managing plantations with every species of bazaar, supper, candy-pulling and tableaux that would raise a dollar for the army. Then we got all the entertainment we could out of our daily domestic round, as I did out of Becky Coleman, one of my old servants who occasionally relieved the monotony of her “daily round” by coming “to ’nquire ’bout de white folks.” It was October when she made one of these visits, but summer reigned in earth and sky. A noble avenue of black walnuts completely shaded one side of my Myrtle Grove house. The large green nuts were beginning to ripen, for when a branch swayed in the wind one would drop from time to time with such a resounding thump upon the ground that it was a matter for satisfaction when Becky seated herself on the steps of the porch without having encountered a thwack on her head from the missile-dealing trees.

“I hear singing over in the woods,” said I to Becky. “Why are you not at the meeting this evening?”

“Who? me? eh—eh—but may be yo don’ kno’ I dun got my satisfacshun down dar a while ago. I’m better off at home. Hester done got me convinced. Lemme tell you how ’twas. One Sunday ebenin’ I heard tell dar wurs gwine to be er sort er ’sperience praar-meeting down to ole Unk Spencer’s house, en es ’twan’t fer, I jes’ tuk my foot in my han’! I did, en I went dar.

“Well, ev’rything was gwine on reg’lar, en peaceable, widout no kin’ er animosity, plum till dey riz up to sing de very las’ hime. De preacher who wus er leadin’ got up den en tuk up de hime book en gin out:

“‘Ermazin’ grace how sweet de soun’
In de beleever’s year!’

“Now, yo knows yo’sef dey ain’t nothin’ tall incitin’ ’bout dat ar’ chune: you knows it; en as fer me, I was jes’ dar er stanin’ up wid de res’, wid my mouf open, jes’ er singin’ fer dear life, never dreamin’ ’bout nothin’ happ’nin’, when heah cum Hester Whitfiel’—coming catter-corner ’cross from de yuther side er de house, wid her han’ h’isted up in de aar, en I ’clar fo’ de Lawd, she hit me er clip rite in my lef’ eye, en mos’ busted it clean outen my haid. It cum so onexpectedlike dat leetle mo’en I would er drap in de flo’. I jes’ felt like I wus shot! Den she had er pa’cel er big brass rings on her han’, en dey cut rite inter my meat!

“I tell yo’, ma’am, I was hurted, I jes’ seed stars, I did! so I up en tole her: ‘’Oman, ef yo got ennything ’g’inst me, why don’t you come out in de big road en gimme er fair fight? Fer Gawd-elmighty’s sake don’ go en make ’ten’ like yo happy, en bus’ my eye open dis heah way.’ Says I, ‘’Ligion ain’t got nuthin’ ter do wid no sich ’havoir; I don’ see no Holy Sperit ’bout it,’ says I. ‘’Twas jes’ de nachul ole saturn what mak’ yo’ do dat, en I jes knows it,’ says I. ‘’Ligion don’ make nobody hurt nothin’,’ says I. Yo reads de Book, Miss Calline, en yo knows I’m speakin’ de salvashun trufe, now ain’t I?

“Den all de folks cum crowdin’ ’roun’ en gethered a holt uv us, en ef dey hadn’t, I lay I woulder stretched her out dar in de flo’, fer I’m de bes’ ’oman—er long ways—en I would er had her convinced in no time. But dey all tu’ned in en baig me ter look over it, bein’ es how it happen in meetin’-time; but I tell yo, ma-am, I never look nowhars wid dat eye fer mor’n free weeks. Why, it wus so swole up en sore, I jes’ had ter bandage it wid sassyfras peth and wid slippery ellum poultices day en night, en my eye wus dat red, en bloodshottened, dat I never ’spected to see daylight outen it no mo’; en I clar’ fo’ de Lawd it ain’t, got rite na’chul till yit!

“No longer’n dis very ebenin’ my ole man, Tom, says ter me: ‘I dun seed nuff trouble wid yo, Beck. You needs dem big pop eyes er yone to patch my close, en wuk wid, en I ain’t er gwine to hev no bline ’oman rown’ me,’ says he; ’en I let yo know frum dis out yo don’t go ter no mo’ praar-meetin’s, ’zaminashuns er what-cher-callums; dat’s de long en short uv it!’ says he. ‘Ef you ain’ got sense nuff ter stay away frum dar,’ says he, ‘I’ll insense yo wid my fis’.’ I knows de weight er dat han’ er hisen, en I’m gwine min’ him dis time, ennyhow;” and Becky pointed toward the cabin from whence the sound of singing was wafted on the breeze, saying, “Yes’um, I’m gwine stay away frum dar, fer er fac’!”

“Becky, is such an incident common at your prayer-meetings?” I inquired.

“Why, no, ma’am, nuthin’ like dat never happen to me befo’; yit, I ’members mighty well when Betsy Washin’ton cum thoo’—’fo’ she jined de chu’ch. ’Twas in de meetin’-house, but yo couldn’t onerstan’ one single wud de preacher wus er sayin’, fer she wus jes’ er shoutin’ es loud es she could fer who las’ de longes’—en I onertuk, fool like, to hole her; fer she wus in sich a swivit, we wus feared she’d brek loose en go inter a reg’lar hard fit, so I jes’ grabbed good holt er de ’oman, ’roun’ de wais’, es she wus er hollerin’, en er jumpin’; en when she felt de grip I fotch on her, she tu’n ’roun’, she did, en gethered my sleeve in ’tween her fingers (en she is jes’ es strong es enny mule), en shore’s yore settin’ dar in dat air big cheer, en I’m er stannin’ heah, talkin’ ter yer, she gin me one single jerk, en I ’clar ter Gawd, she tore my whole sleeve outen de arm-hole, en ripped er big slit clean ’cross my coat body! Why I jes’ thought de ’oman wus gwine ter strip me start naiked, rite dar in de meetin’-house! I got dat shame I jes’ let er go, I did, en den went perusin’ roun’ ’mongst de wimmin en borryd er shawl ter kiver me up; en den I moved on todes home.

“But I mus’ let yo know de nex’ time I met up wid Betsy, I washed her face good wid what she dun. I jes’ tole her de nex’ time she got ter shoutin’ ’roun’ me she mout bre’k her neck—I wan’t gwine hole her, I wan’t gwine tech her; ‘fer,’ says I, ‘yo done gone en ’stroyed de bes’ Sunday dress I got, yo is dat,’ says I, ‘fer er fac’!’

“Den Betsy ’lowed she didn’t keer, en dat she didn’t know what she wus er doin’, but I tuk mighty good notice she never made no motion to grab onter Aunt Sally Brown’s co’se homespun gown when she tuk er tu’n er hol’in uv her. But uv co’se, I heap ruther hev my close tore dan to hev my eye busted out. But dey ain’t no need er airy one bein’ done; en I tole her so, I did dat. ‘Sholey Christians,’ say I, ‘kin ’joy dersef widout hurtin’ nobody, neither tarin’ der close!’ I up en axed her ef she eber knowed de white folks in de big house karyin’ on datterway, en ef she eber seed Miss Marthy er Miss Reeny er cuttin’ up like dat in de white folks’ meetin’-house? Well, she jes’ bust out er laffiin’ in my face at dat, en she ’lowed niggahs wan’t like white folks nohow.

“‘I knows better’n dat,’ says I. ‘Fer Gawd made us all outen de dus’ er de groun’, bofe de white en de black;’ en, Miss Calline, yo’ ma uster tell me ef I ’haved mysef, en kep’ mysef clean, en never tole no lies, ner ’sturb yuther folks’ things, I wus good es ennybody, en I b’lieves it till yit; dat’s de salvashun trufe, I’m tellin’, white ’oman, it sholey is!

“But den Betsy got mad, she did, en gin me er push,—we wus walkin’ ’long de top er de levee—en I wus so aggervated dat I cum back at ’er wid er knock dat made her roll down smack inter de gully. Den she hollered so de men fishin’ unner de river bank cum er runnin’. She had don’ sprain her wris’, en ef her arm had been broke she cudn’t er made no mo’ fuss. Lemme tell yo de trufe! de very nex’ Sunday dey tu’ned us bofe outen de chu’ch case we fit, en I cayn’t go to praar-meetin’ tell I done jine ergin.”

“Well, Becky, you’ve made me forget there is a war and Yankee raids, and I reckon I’ll have to give you a cup of store-coffee for doing it.”

“Thanky, Miss Calline! I’ll be powerful ’bliged ter yo’; en I mus’ be er movin’, en pa’ch dis heah coffee fer my ole mammy’s supper, fer she’s gittin’ monshus tired of tea off dem tater chips what we has ter drink dese days.”

CHAPTER VII.

WAR MEMORIES: THE STORY OF PATSY’S GARDEN.

Our vision of the outside world of human affairs was very narrow and circumscribed in those war-times, and my seminary of five young girls was often a victim to ennui. No weekly mail, no books, no music, no new gowns from one year’s end to another.

The only vital question was: “What is the war news?” There were also no coffee, no loaf-sugar, no lemons in the house. However, with plenty of milk, eggs and butter, fresh fruit and vegetables, to say nothing of fowls galore, we survived. The girls made cake and candy, so with the abundance of open-kettle brown sugar, we diversified our daily menu with many sweet compounds.

The one unfailing source of pleasure was the garden. True, the army at Morganza would send out a raid every fortnight, when fences were broken down and destroyed: then the cows and other cattle would get in and partake of our lettuce and cabbages. But we never gave up; the negroes would drive the marauding cattle out and rebuild the fences every time they were destroyed. On one of these occasions I heard Miss Emma Chalfant say to Uncle Primus: “I shall tell on you when your people come back here; I heard you curse and swear at Mrs. Merrick’s cows this morning—and you call yourself a preacher, too!” “Dese cows and dese Yankees is ’nuff to make ennybody cuss, Miss Emma,” said the negro, as he went along snapping his long whip as he drove the poor animals away from the garden.

Here I am tempted to give the true story of Martha Benton. This girl became positively exhilarated under the influence of perfume and flowers. The delectable odor of Sweet Olive—a mingled essence of peach, pineapple, and orange-flower—produced in her a frenzy of delight. She had been introduced to the exotic floral world by the proprietor of a fine garden where she frequently visited.

Her father could not understand his daughter’s delight in the contemplation of Nature’s beauty; for, as far as these things were concerned, he was afflicted with a total blindness worse than a loss of actual sight. Mr. Benton was fond of fruit but he never noticed or admired the flowers from which the fruit was formed. Nevertheless, he seemed pleased that his neighbor, Mr. Thornton, should be interested in his daughter, and take pleasure in talking with her about his rare plants.

“Miss Patsy,” said Mr. Thornton, “it requires tact and perseverance to grow a perfect lily.”

“I could do it if I had the bulbs,” said the girl.

At the close of the interview, a dozen bulbs and an extensive package of plants were put in the carriage for the young lady to take home, as a compliment to her interest in his favorite pursuit.

Mr. Benton’s front door-yard was given over to his horses, and sometimes the calves were allowed to share in the rich pasturage it furnished. Several ancient cedar trees, ragged and untrimmed, and two thrifty oaks stood on what should have been a lawn, and a straggling row of pomegranates grew along the line of fence on one side, apparently in defiance of cattle and all other exterminating influences.

On her return home, Patsy displayed her treasures to her mother, and was enthusiastic over her floral prospects.

“Papa,” said she, “you must give me space in the vegetable garden for the present, and Tom must prepare the ground.”

“It is perfect foolishness,” said Mr. Benton. “Old Thornton is such a stuck-up old goose that I hated to make him mad, otherwise I should not have brought these things home with me. The truth is I would not swap a row of cotton-plants in my field for everything that old man has got in all his grounds and greenhouses put together.”

“O father, everything he has is so beautiful!” said Patsy. “The summer-houses are like fairy-land, all covered over with roses and vines.”

“You keep cool, Pat, and don’t set your head on having a flower-garden. Your mother was just like you when I married her. The first thing she did was to set out some rose bushes in the front yard. Soon after she took sick and they all died, and she herself came mighty near doing the same thing; so she gave up the whole business, like a sensible woman. Tom is hoeing potatoes just now, and you must not call him from his work to plant this truck, which is of no account anyway. You’d better fling it all in the river. It would be far better than to go out on the damp ground wasting your time and labor.”

“No, indeed,” said Patsy, who had the dauntless energy of a true gardener; “I shall plant them myself—every one!”

She did so, and her treasures made themselves at home in the rich, mellow soil, and throve wonderfully in response to her careful tending. In a short time she gathered roses and violets, and her golden-banded lilies shot up several tall stems crowned with slender, shapely buds, which were watched with great solicitude. Every morning Patsy would say: “They will bloom to-morrow.”

Mr. Benton refused to “consider the lilies” of his daughter except in the light of a nuisance. Only the evening before, he had seen her standing in the bean-arbor with Walter Jones, who seemed lost in his admiration of the girl while she devoured the beauty of the flowers; and Mr. Benton was not happy at the sight.

“It just beats the devil,” he said to himself, “how there is always a serpent getting into a man’s garden to beguile a foolish girl. It ain’t no suitable place anyhow for girls to be dodging around in with their beaux. My mind’s made up,” said he, striking his closed right hand into the open palm of the left. “I’ll wipe out that flower-bed.”

Early the next morning, before the family had risen, Mr. Benton marched into the garden armed with a hoe. He went to the lily-bed and began the work of destruction. Aunt Cindy, the cook, was surprised as she took a view from the kitchen window.

“I ’clar to gracious, de boss is a-workin’ Miss Patsy’s garden!” said she to the housemaid.

“He’s workin’ nuthin’. He’s jes’ a-cuttin’ an’ choppin’ up everything,” said the more observant girl.

“Ef dat ole vilyun is spilen’ dat chile’s gyardin’,” said the cook, “when she fines it out, little Patsy’ll tar up de whole plantation. You listen out when she gits up en comes down-stairs. He ain’t done no payin’ job dis time, I let you know he ain’t dat. Great Gawd,” said she, “Patsy’ll be mad!—eh—eh!”

Jeff Davis, Patsy’s little brother, who was out at the front gate, spied Walter Jones riding past, and called out at the top of his voice, “Come in, old fellow, and take breakfast. Sissy’s asleep yet, but we have killed a chicken, and churned, and opened a keg of nails, and there are three fine cantaloupes in the ice-box.”

Walter could not resist this invitation. He dismounted and joined Mr. Benton on the porch, where that gentleman was sipping a cup of black morning coffee after his labor in the garden.

The dense fog was clearing away, and the sun began to show in the eastern horizon. Patsy came down, and was working up the golden butter, printing it with her prettiest molds. She knew Walter was there. She set on the breakfast table a vase filled with water, and ran out into the garden to get the lilies for a center-piece of beauty and color—for they had actually opened at last.

In a moment everybody was electrified by a terrific scream. The whole family rushed out to see what was the matter. Patsy was wringing her hands and crying. She pointed to the ruined flower-beds, sobbing: “Some wretch has cut up and destroyed all my beautiful flowers!”

“Well,” said Jeff Davis, “it won’t do any good to bellow over it like that, Sis. Breakfast is ready, I tell you. Come to breakfast.”

But Patsy continued weeping and bewailing her loss, regardless of entreaties. She called down some anathemas on the perpetrator of the outrage, which were not pleasant to Mr. Benton’s ears.

“Dry up this minute!” said he. “I cut out those confounded things, and don’t let me hear any more about it. Dry up,” said he, sternly, “and eat your breakfast.”

Neither Patsy nor her mother ate anything, however. They looked through their tears at each other, and were silent, while rebellious indignation filled their hearts. Mr. Benton was angry.

“It is beyond all reason,” said he, “for you to act so because I did as I pleased with my own. Anyhow, I would not give one boy,” looking at Jeff, “for a whole cow-pen full of girls like you,” glancing at Patsy.

Walter was an indignant spectator of this scene, and he wished he could take his sweetheart and fly away with her forever. He took a hasty leave, and Mr. Benton went earlier than usual on his daily round of plantation business.

Her mother soothed Patsy’s feelings as well as she could and counseled patience.

“I hate him, if he is my father,” said the girl.

The mother reminded her of the filial respect due the author of her being.

“I wish I had no father,” she answered perversely.

Mr. Benton rode back of the fields to the woods where the “hands” were cutting timber to complete a fence around the peach orchard. Tom had started in the spring wagon to go three miles down the river for some young trees. Jeff sat on the seat beside Tom. When Mr. Benton returned to go with them to select the trees at the nursery, the horses were apparently restive and rather unmanageable.

“Get down, Jeff,” said Mr. Benton, “and ride my horse, while I show Tom how to drive these horses.”

A moment after, Jeff and his father had exchanged places, and before Mr. Benton had fully grasped the reins, the ponies took fright and ran out of the road. Coming suddenly to a tree which had fallen, they bounded over it, and the vehicle was upset, and Tom and Mr. Benton were violently thrown out. Tom escaped with a few bruises, but Mr. Benton was seriously injured, his arm being dislocated and his leg broken. Jeff went off for the doctor, and Mr. Benton was carried home insensible.

When Patsy saw the men bringing him into the house in this condition, she thought he had been killed, and was filled with heart-breaking grief and remorse. “Poor father!” she cried, “this is my punishment for wishing I had no father this morning. O Lord, forgive me!”

Mr. Benton, however, was not dead. After his injured limbs were set to rights by the surgeon, he was soon in a fair way to recovery. In the meanwhile, Patsy and her mother devoted themselves wholly to ministering to his wants and ameliorating the tedium of his confinement to the house.

“Pat,” said he one day, “you have been a great trouble and expense to me, but when a man is suffering with a lame arm and a broken leg, women are certainly useful to have in the house. You and your mother have waited on me and taken good care of me for many weeks.” He glanced at his spliced leg and his swollen arm, and continued: “I could not do much cutting up things in the garden at this time, Pat, could I? I wish I had let your flower-beds alone. Great Cæsar! didn’t you make a fuss over those lilies, and your mother, too! You both actually cried over that morning’s work.”

“Never mind, father,” said Patsy, reassuringly, “we don’t care now,” and she smiled sweetly and lovingly upon the hard-featured invalid.

He was almost well when he said to her: “You are a good child, and let me tell you, my doctor has fallen in love with you. He told me so. Yes, Pat, he is mashed on you, and intends to ask you to marry him, and you had better give up any foolish notion you may have taken to Walter Jones, and take the doctor. He is the best chance you will ever have. He is doing well in his profession, and besides having a good home to take you to, he belongs to an influential family. All I ask of you is to promise me you won’t refuse the doctor. You would be a fool to reject such a man.”

“O father!” said the girl, “don’t ask me to promise anything.”

“I am going to be obeyed in my own house,” said Mr. Benton, flying into a rage, “and if you don’t mind me, I will put you out of doors.”

Patsy was struck with consternation.

The invalid was now able to move around without assistance. Patsy’s heart was full of fear and trembling.

The next morning she did not come down to print the butter or bring her father his early morning coffee. The girl had eloped with Walter Jones.

“This is worse than breaking my leg,” said Mr. Benton, after his first indignation had subsided.

When he could speak calmly about his trouble to his wife, he wondered what made Patsy so thoughtless and undutiful, when she was an only daughter and had everything she wanted.

“She is very much like her father,” said Mrs. Benton, “and she thought marriage would set her free—emancipate her.”

“That’s pure folly,” said Mr. Benton, “for all females are and ought to be always controlled by their male relations. Nothing on God’s earth can emancipate a woman. She only changes masters when she marries and leaves her father’s house.”

“Patsy, then, has changed masters,” said his wife, “and she seems to be very happy—in her own little home.”

“Old woman, don’t get saucy, and I will tell you something,” said he. “I have sent to the city for some flower-garden truck, and Maitre has sent me up fifty dollars’ worth of what he calls first-class stuff on the last boat, and I am going over to give it to Pat to plant. Tom shall do the work for her, too. To tell you the real downright truth, you all made me feel cheap about chopping up her things, and I am going to replace them.”

“Oh, I am so glad!” said Mrs. Benton.

“Yes,” said Mr. Benton, “I am perfectly willing to restore forty times as much as I destroyed. Pat’s a trump, anyhow, and I shall never go back on her for anything she has ever done. You can rely on that for a fact.”

Mr. Benton was a good neighbor of ours and assumed some authority over my household. He never failed to come over immediately whenever we had a visit from one of the gunboats, and to reprove me sharply for having any friendly interviews or even civilities with our “kidney-footed enemies,” as he called them, yet at the same time he would seize upon all the newspapers which these gentlemanly officers had given us, and carry them off for his own delectation, regardless of all objections and expostulations.

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW WOMAN CAME TO THE RESCUE.

Mary Wall’s letter from Clinton, Louisiana, December 27th, 1863, contains some strong expressions showing the feeling and suffering among women at that period: “You must keep in good heart, my dearest friend, about your son David. I heard he was killed, but I have just seen Mr. Holmes, who has read in a Yankee paper: ‘Capt. Merrick, of Gen. Stafford’s staff, slightly wounded.’ When I heard your boy was killed I felt the blow, and groaned under it, for I know just how the iron hoof of Death tears when it settles down among the heart-strings. When my mother died last year I did not weep so bitterly, for my only disinterested friend was taken from the evil to come; but when my gifted, first-born soldier-boy, Willie—my pride and joy—was laid in a lonely grave, after a mortal gunshot wound, on the Atchafalaya, at Bute la Rose, that was my hardest trial. I could not get to him; yet he was decently buried; but of my brother, shot in the fight in Tennessee, we only know that he was killed on the battlefield at Franklin. My son Wesley was reported missing after the fight at Chickamauga; he may be a prisoner. I have heard nothing more, and my heart stands still when I think he too may have been killed, and his body thrown in some ravine or creek, as the Texans are said sometimes to do when they ‘lose’ their Yankee prisoners on the march. God knows, this is a wicked war! And there is Bowman, my third son; he may be dead, too, for I do not hear a word from him. I try to steady my aching heart, and go my way, and do my work with a quiet face; but often when I am alone I sink down, and the waves go over me. I can pour out my heart to you. I do hope your boy is but ‘slightly wounded,’ so that he may be sent home to stay with you for a long time. May God in mercy spare his life; but do not set your heart on him.”

General Leroy Stafford, on his last visit to his family, stopped at Myrtle Grove and gave me the particulars of the engagement at Payne’s Farm, Virginia, where David was shot, the ball entering his head above the ear and going out on the other side below the ear. He fell from his horse, it was supposed, mortally wounded. By careful medical attention he survived with the loss of the sight of one eye and power of hearing, the drum of one ear being perforated. He suffered temporarily much disfigurement from paralysis of the facial nerve.

When I saw my handsome boy in this condition my distress will not tax the imagination. “O mother,” he said, “you ought not to feel in this way! So many mothers’ boys can never come back to them, and I am alive and getting better every day. If you have felt cramped in expression, or anybody has ever done anything to you which rubbed you up the wrong way, throw down your gauntlet and I’ll fight your battles for you. Don’t shed tears over me!”

Judge Avery said, referring to David’s own letter from the hospital: “It is the letter of a hero—not one word of complaint in the whole of it.” The surgeon attributed my son’s extraordinary recovery to the purity of blood uncorrupted by the use of tea, coffee, tobacco or alcoholic drinks.

My brother Milton was surrendered with Port Hudson. July 25, 1863, he wrote as follows from Custom House Prison, No. 6, in New Orleans: “About 2,000 of us are confined here. Many have called to see me but only one has succeeded—a young lady who announced herself as my cousin; said she was determined to have some relative here. I never saw her before. The ladies are very kind and contribute to all our wants. Hundreds of them promenade daily before our windows; they look very sweet and lovely to us. Their hearts are all right, but when they motion to us with their fans, or wave their handkerchiefs, the guards take them away. The whole city is overrun with Yankee soldiers, and the citizens have a subdued look. We have no reason to complain of our treatment, and we are not wholly discouraged. General Lee’s successes are favorable to our cause, and I now feel hopeful of a speedy termination of our troubles, though I see no prospect of our release.

“I learn that the Yankees took everything from Mr. Palmer’s near Clinton—negroes, mules, horses, made the old man dig up his buried silver, and so alarmed the old lady that she died of fright. I wish to got back into the field—feel more and more the necessity to establish our independence, for we can never again live at peace with our hated enemy.”

Notwithstanding these things, and that this brother was confined for two years at Johnson’s Island until after the surrender, he has been for years a loyal Republican, and is now an office-holder under Mr. McKinley.

The jayhawkers were a terror in the neighborhood of our Pleasant Hill plantation, where Mr. Merrick spent much of the war period. These guerilla ruffians gave many peaceable families much anxiety even when dwelling hundreds of miles from the seat of war. They were sometimes deserters and always outlaws, but wore the uniform of either army as fitted their purpose, and had no scruples about doing the most lawless and violent deed. At one time it was unsafe to let it be known when the head of the family would go or return, or to allow any plans to leak out, lest a descent should be made on the unprotected home or the equally unprotected absentee. A careful servant, closing the window-blinds at night, would caution Mr. Merrick to keep out of the range of wandering shots which were often fired by these desperadoes at unoffending persons. It has been asserted that the guerillas were a part of the regular Confederate service, whereas they were outlawed by the army and subject to summary discipline if caught.

When the Confederates were about us we enjoyed immunity from terrors. For ten months General Walker’s Division of our army camped on my land. It is true we divided our stores with them, but the sense of protection was an unspeakable comfort. I had rooms near my house furnished as a hospital, where I nursed friend or foe who came to me sick. Medicines were treasured more than gold; a whole neighborhood felt safer if it were known there was a bottle of quinine in it; drugs were kept buried like silver.

There was much delightful association with the officers and our other friends in the army. Every family had stored away for times of illness or extra occasions little remnants of our former luxuries—wine, tea, coffee. General Dick Taylor was once my guest. While sipping his champagne at dinner he exclaimed: “I’m astonished, madam, that in these times you can be living in such luxury!” I explained that it was the birthday of my daughter Laura for which we had long prepared, and that to honor it I had drawn on my last bottle of wine saved for sickness. I made him laugh by relating that every time there was a raid I got out a bottle of wine, and we all drank in solemn state to keep it from falling into the hands of the Yankees.

General Richard Taylor was the only son of President Zachary Taylor. He married a Louisiana lady and made his home in this State. He won conspicuous success as a brigade commander under Stonewall Jackson, and being placed in command of the Department of Mississippi and Alabama, his brilliant record culminated in the victories of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. Having beaten General Banks one day at the former place, he pursued him to Pleasant Hill—where my husband was during the whole period of active warfare—and defeated him again. He was the idol of the Trans-Mississippi Department—and well he might be, for he alone had redeemed it from utter hopelessness.[1]

[1] Southern Historical Society Papers.

General Polignac was the brave Frenchman who set his men wild with amusement and enthusiasm, by placing his hand on his heart and exclaiming with empressement: “Soldiers, behold your Polignac!” They beheld him and followed him ardently. While partaking of very early green peas and roast lamb at my table, he asked: “Did you raise these peas under glass, madam?” “Look at my broken windows,” I answered, “all over this house, and tell whether I can raise peas under glass when we can’t keep ourselves under it!” With such as we had everybody kept open house while the war lasted. Nobody, high or low, was turned from the door; so long as there was anything to divide, the division went on: all of which has confirmed me in the belief that in proportion as artificial social conditions are removed the divinity in man shines out; and that Bellamy’s vision for humanity need not be all a dream.

The news of Lee’s surrender fell with stunning force, although it had long been feared that the Confederates were nearing the end of their resources. Peace was welcomed by the class of men who had begun to desert the army, because their little children were starving at home; it was also good news to the broad-minded student of history who knew that surrender was the only alternative for an army overpowered; that the victories of peace embodied the only hope. But there were many who said: “Why not have fought on until all were dead—man, woman and child? What is left to make life worth the living?”

An impression prevailed among the victors of the civil war, that the Southern people were lying awake at night to curse the enemy that had wrought their desolation and impoverishment. Nothing could have been further from the truth. After the first stupefying effects of the surrender, the altered social and domestic conditions engrossed every energy. Every home mourned its dead. Those were counted happy who could lay tear-dewed flowers upon the graves of their soldier-slain—so many never looked again, even upon the dead face of him who had smiled back at them as the boys marched away to the strains of Dixie. The shadow of a mutual sorrow drew Southern women in sympathy and tenderness toward weeping Northern mothers and wives. True men who have bravely fought out their differences cherish no animosities—though still unconvinced.

The women in every community seemed to far outnumber the men; and the empty sleeve and the crutch made men who had unflinchingly faced death in battle impotent to face their future. Sadder still was it to follow to the grave the army of men, of fifty years and over when the war began, whose hearts broke with the loss of half a century’s accumulations and ambitions, and with the failure of the cause for which they had risked everything. Communities were accustomed to lean upon these tried advisers; it was almost like the slaughter of another army—so many such sank beneath the shocks of reconstruction.

It is folly to talk about the woman who stood in the breach in those chaotic days, being the traditional Southern woman of the books, who sat and rocked herself with a slave fanning her on both sides. She was doubtless fanned when she wished to be; but the ante-bellum woman of culture and position in the South was a woman of affairs; and in the care of a large family—which most of them had—and of large interests, she was trained to meet responsibilities. So in those days of awful uncertainties, when men’s hearts failed them, it was the woman who brought her greater adaptability and elasticity to control circumstances, and to lay the foundations of a new order. She sewed, she sold flowers, milk and vegetables, and she taught school; sometimes even a negro school. She made pies and corn-bread, and palmetto hats for the Federals in garrison; she raised pigs, poultry and pigeons; and she cooked them when the darkey—who was “never to wuk no mo’”—left her any to bless herself with; she washed, often the mustered-out soldier of the house filling her tubs, rubbing beside her and hanging out her clothes; and he did her swearing for her when the Yankee soldier taunted over the fence: “Wall, it doo doo my eyes good to see yer have to put yer lily-white hands in the wash-tub!”

As soon as the war was over, my daughter went with her grandmother to visit her father’s relatives in Massachusetts. In letters to her, beginning September 16, 1865, I thus described the conditions under which we were living: “The war was prosperity to the state of things which peace has wrought. Society is resolving itself into its original elements. Chaos has come again. St. Domingo is a paradise to this part of the United States, which is cut off from the benefits of government. The negroes who have gained their liberty are more unhappy and dissatisfied than ever before. Poor creatures! their weak brains are puzzling over the great problem of their future. Care seems likely to eat up every pleasure in their bewildered lives. They no longer dance and sing in the quarters at night, but sit about in dejected groups; their chief dissipation is prayer-meeting. It is a dire perplexity that they must pay their doctor’s bills; they resent it as a bitter injustice that ‘Marster’ does not ‘find them’ in medicine and all the ordinary things of living as of old. They say no provision is made for them. They are left to work for white folks the same as ever, but for white folks who no longer care for them nor are interested in their own joys and sorrows. Freedom meant to them the abolition of work, liberty to rove uncontrolled, to drink liquor and to carry firearms. As Rose recently said to me: “I don’t crave fin’ry—jes plenty er good close, en vittles, en I ’spects ter get dese widout scrubbin’ fer ’em,’ ‘Where is de gover’ment?’ they ask anxiously, ‘en de forty acres er lan’, en de mule?’—which each one of them was led to reckon on. They expected a saturnalia of freedom; to be legislators, judges and governors in the land, to live in the white folks’ houses, and to ride in their carriages. They cannot understand a freedom that involves labor and care. They say they were deceived; that white folks still have the upper hand, and ride while they walk. I pity them deeply.

“You know I have never locked up anything. Now I am a slave to my keys. I am robbed daily. Spoons, cups and all the utensils from the kitchen have been carried off. I am now paying little black Jake to steal some of them back for me, as he says he knows where they are. I cannot even set the bread to rise without some of it being taken. All this, notwithstanding the servants are paid wages. It is astonishing that those we have considered most reliable are engaged in the universal dishonesty. I understand they call it ‘sp’ilin’ de ’Gypshuns!’

“The Mississippi river is open;—the boats ply daily up and down, but we have no mail. We are surely treated like stepchildren of the great United States. Already the tax-assessor has come to value our property; the tax-gatherer has collected the national revenues; agents of the Freedman’s Bureau are taking the census of negro children preparatory to forming schools, and Northern land buyers are looking out for bargains in broken-up estates. Is it strange that we ask: ‘Where is the postmaster?’ We have had already too much exclusion from the world in Confederate days. Let us emerge from our former ‘barbarous state of ignorance,’—and let me hear from my absent child in Massachusetts!

“Your father has written from New Orleans as follows: ‘I have extricated my Jefferson City property from the seizure of the Federals, and have paid $800 to release it, though I think it will cost several hundred more. They—the Federals—burnt the mill mortgaged to me by G. B. M.—and I shall lose $5,000 on that. I think I have done remarkably well to have paid off so many incumbrances, but I wish you to have for the present a rigid management of all matters of expense. I am glad I have a prospect of getting my law library into my possession again. I find four hundred and fifty volumes of it in the quartermaster’s department.

“I can only extricate my affairs by economy on the part of all my family, and am only asking that they show a little patience under our temporary separation. I do not wish them to aid me by earning anything, except it be David, for himself individually; but we shall all be in the city in our own home the sooner by the exercise of present self-denial.

“‘I am glad to learn that the people of the South denounce the assassination of Lincoln,’ for it was a ruinous misfortune to us.

“At present we are living at as little expense as possible with no perceptible income. We are taxed according to the ante-bellum tax lists—including our slaves and property swept off the earth by the armies. A fine sugar estate, near us on the river, worth two hundred thousand dollars, was sold last week for taxes, which were seven thousand five hundred dollars. The whole estate—land, dwelling, sugar house, stock—brought only four thousand dollars. There could scarcely be completer confiscation than these unrighteous tax-sales under which millions of dollars worth of property are advertised for sale.

“I saw a late article in the Chicago Times in which the writer said: ‘You had better be a poor man’s dog than a Southerner now.’ If our negroes are idle and impudent we are not allowed to send them away. If we have crops waiting in the fields for gathering, the hands are all given by the semi-military government ‘passes to go,’ though we pay wages; and (weakly or humanely?) buy food, furnish doctors and wait on the sick, very much in the old way, simply because nature refuses to snap the ties of a lifetime on the authority of new conditions. I have it in mind to make Myrtle Grove a very disagreeable place to some of the most trifling, so that they will get into the humor to hunt a new home.

“General Price said: ‘We played for the negro, and the Yankees fairly won the stake, with Cuffy’s help.’ Let them have him and keep him! Your father has just had a settlement with his freedmen. They are extremely dissatisfied with the result. Though they acknowledge every item on their accounts, furnished at New Orleans wholesale prices, it is a disappointment not to have a large sum of money for their year’s labor—that, too, after an extravagance of living we have not dared to allow ourselves, and an idleness for which we are like sufferers, as the crop was planted on shares. I am convinced the negroes are too much like children to understand or be content with the share system.

“I have a good cook, but she has a cavaliere servente, besides her own husband and children, to provide for out of my storeroom, which she does in my presence very often—though it is not in the bond. I am impatient when she takes the butter given her for pastry and substitutes lard; yet I cannot withhold my admiration when I see her double the recipe in order that her own table may be graced with a soft-jumble as good as mine. Somebody has said: ‘By means of fire, blood, sword and sacrifice you have been separated from your black idol.’ It looks to me as if he is hung around our necks like the Ancient Mariner’s albatross. You ridicule President Johnson’s idea of loaning us farming implements. You must not forget who burned ours. We need money, for we have to pay the four years’ taxes on our freed negroes!

“There is bad blood between the races. Those familiar with conditions here anticipate that the future may witness a servile war—a race war—result of military drilling, arming and haranguing the negro for political ends. Secession was a mistake for which you and I were not responsible. But even if our country was wrong, and we knew it at the time—which we did not—we were right in adhering to it. The best people in the South were true to our cause; only the worthless and unprincipled, with rare exceptions, went over to the enemy. We must bear our trials with what wisdom and patience we may be able to summon until our status is fully defined. I cannot but feel, however, that if war measures had ceased with the war, if United States officers on duty here, and the Government at Washington, had shown a friendly desire to bury past animosities and to start out on a real basis of reunion, we should have become a revolutionized, reconstructed people by this time. But certain it is that the enemy—authorities and ‘scalawag’-friends, who now cruelly oppress the whites and elevate the negro over us—are hated as the ravaging armies never were, and a true union seems farther off than ever.”

CHAPTER IX.

MISS VINE’S DINNER PARTY AND ITS ABRUPT CONCLUSION.

War is demoralizing, and ever since “our army swore terribly in Flanders,” profanity has been a military sin. In my neighborhood it extended to the women and children who had never before violated the third commandment. I knew a little girl who, having seen a regiment of Federal soldiers marching along the public highway, ran to her mother crying, “The damned Yankees are coming!” She was exempt from reproof on account of the exciting nature of the news. She had doubtless heard the obnoxious word so often in this connection that she deemed it a correct term.

I tried to preserve my own household “pure and peaceable and of good report,” and I plead with my five girls to avoid all looseness of expression. But Fannie Little asked: “Mrs. Merrick, may I not even tell Rose to ‘go to the devil’ when she puts my nightgown where I can’t find it, and makes me wait so long for hot water?”

“No, indeed, my child! Only Christian ministers can speak with propriety of the devil, and use his name on common occasions.”

As a social side-light on these disordered secession war-times the following sketch is a true picture. The characters and incidents are real, but the names are assumed. The endeavor to embalm the events in words diverted me in the midst of graver experience during those chaotic days.

Beechwood plantation has a frontage of two miles on the banks of a navigable river. The tall dwelling-house was so surrounded by other buildings, all well constructed and painted white, that the first glance suggested the idea of a village embowered in trees. The proprietorship of a noble estate implies a certain distinction, and in fact the owner of this property had for many years represented his district in Congress. In past as well as present times people manifest a disposition to bestow political honors upon men of prosperity and affluence.

Mr. Templeton, notwithstanding the fact that he possessed an uncommonly large amount of property in land and slaves, was not a giant either in body or in mind. He surely had spoken once in the national Capitol, for was he not known to have sent a printed copy of a speech to every one of the Democratic constituents in the State? In this pamphlet were set forth eloquent and powerful arguments against the unjust discrimination of the specific duties on silk, which he thought operated to the disadvantage and serious injustice of the poor man. He asserted confidently that the poor people would purchase only the heavy, serviceable silken goods, while the rich preferred the lighter and flimsier fabrics, thus paying proportionately a much smaller revenue to the Government. This proved conclusively that Mr. Templeton never consulted his wife, whose rich dresses were always paid for as the tariff was arranged—ad valorem. His patriotic soul was harrowed and filled with sympathy and sorrow on account of the injustice and hardship thus dealt out to his needy and indigent constituents. We cannot follow this interesting man’s public career, and probably it is customary for great statesmen “to study the people’s welfare” and to have the good of the poor men who vote for them very much upon their disinterested minds.

The Templeton family came originally from that State which furnished to the South, in the hour of trial, some brave soldiers and a good song—“Maryland, my Maryland.” Lavinia, Mr. Templeton’s only daughter, had been educated at the Convent in Emmetsburg, and had returned home after Fort Sumter was fired upon and other disturbances were anticipated. This slender, delicate, little creature was very graceful and pretty, timid as a fawn, and frisky as a young colt. At first she could not be induced to sit at table if there was a young man in the dining-room. She said she preferred to wait, and when she came in afterward for her dinner her brother Frank testified that she always ate an extra quantity to make up for the delay.

Old Miss Eliza thought Vine so lovely and good that she always allowed her to do as she pleased, only enjoining on her to “be a lady.” Miss Eliza was an old-maid cousin who lived in the family, shared the cares and anxieties of the parents, and was greatly respected by everybody. She was not a particularly religious person—there not being a church within ten miles—but she was kind, courteous and gentle, and exhibited a great deal of deportment of the very finest quality—as might have been expected from her refined Virginia antecedents. She could not abide that the servants should call Lavinia Templeton “Miss Vine,” but they called her so all the same.

Beaux far and near contended for Lavinia’s regard, and in less than six months after leaving the convent she was married to a young captain newly enlisted in the artillery of the Confederate service. A grand wedding came off where many noteworthy men assembled. While the band played and the giddy dance went on, groups of these consulted about the portentous war clouds. One great man said: “There will be no war; I will promise to drink every drop of blood shed in this quarrel!”

But soon there was a military uprising everywhere. As men enlisted they went into a camp situated less than an hour’s drive from Beechwood. Vine and her lover-husband refused to be separated, so she virtually lived in the encampment. The spotless new tents, with bright flags flying, the young men thronging around the carriages which brought their mothers and sisters as daily visitors, made this camp in the woods a bewitching spot.

Every luxury the country afforded was poured out with lavish hands. Friends, neighbors and loved ones at home skimmed the richest cream of the land for the delectation and refreshment of their dear soldier boys. A young schoolboy, who dined with his brother in camp on barbecued mutton and roast wild turkey with all the accompaniments, wrote to his father that he too was ready to enlist, having now had a perfect insight into soldier life. As this gallant veteran to-day looks at his empty, dangling coat-sleeve and is shown his boyish letter, he smiles a grim smile and says: “Yes, I was a fool in those days.” Vine’s husband had a noble figure and was a picture of manly beauty in his new uniform with scarlet facings. To the horror of her woman friends the devoted little wife cut up a costly black velvet gown, and made it into a fatigue jacket for him to wear in camp.

Meanwhile the unexpected happened and we were in the midst of a real, terrible war. Federal military operations extended over the whole country; then appeared a gunboat with its formidable armament, striking a panic into all the white inhabitants. Soldiers advanced to the front, while citizens precipitately retreated to the rear. In trepidation and hot haste planters gathered up their possessions for departure. Slaves, always dearer and more precious to the average Southern heart than either silver or gold, were first collected and assembled with the owners and their families, and then formed large companies of refugees who went forth to look for a temporary home in some less exposed part of the country.

After much deliberation Mr. and Mrs. Templeton, with the little boys and their cumbrous retinue of wagons, horses and slaves, went to Texas, leaving their daughter Vine, Miss Eliza and two faithful servants as sole tenants of Beechwood. The expected advance of Federal forces in the spring seemed to justify the reduction of the place to such slender equipment. Meanwhile, Captain Paul had been through a campaign in Virginia. On the very day of the battle of Bethel, Vine clasped a new-born daughter in her arms, and the father requested that its name should be Bethel in commemoration of that engagement. This child was a year old before he saw its face. The time came when Louisiana soil was to be plowed up with military trenches and fortifications, and Captain Paul was ordered to Port Hudson. The siege of that place soon followed.

In the evenings Miss Eliza sat on the gallery holding Bethel in her arms, while Vine rocked little Dan, the baby of seven months, and they would all listen in wistful silence to the volleys of heavy guns sounding regularly and dolefully far down the river. The regular boom of the thundering volleys kept on day and night. The two servants, Becky and Monroe, would occasionally join the group; “Never mind, Miss Vine, don’t you fret,” they would say; “sure, Captain Paul’s all right.” After many weeks of painful suspense and anxiety the shocking news came that Captain Paul had been killed by the explosion of a shell. Vine’s grief was wild. She wept and raved by turn, until Miss Eliza feared she would die. Becky with womanly instinct brought her the children and reminded her that she still had these. “Take them away,” cried Vine, “I loved them only for his sake; children are nothing! Take them out of my sight! Oh! Lord,” she cried, “let us all die and be buried together! Why does anybody live when Paul is dead?—dead, dead, forever!”

Vine put on no mourning in her widowhood, for such a thing as crepe was unattainable in those days. The girls in the neighborhood came and stayed with her by turns, and did all they could to divert her mind from her loss.

In a short time even punctilious Miss Eliza rejoiced to perceive some return of Vine’s former cheerfulness. She said it was sad enough and bad enough to have a horrible war raging and ravaging over the country, without insisting that a delicate young thing like Lavinia should go on forever moping herself to death in unavailing grief. There was no need of anything of the kind. While wishing her niece to avoid “getting herself talked about,” Miss Eliza yet thought it needful, right and proper that she should take some diversion and some healthy amusement. So it came to pass after awhile that one day all the officers and soldiers who were temporarily at home, and all the young ladies living on the river, were invited to dine together at Beechwood.

The day was cool and delightful, with just a tinge of winter in the air. Extensive fields, where hundreds of bales of cotton and thousands of barrels of corn had been grown annually, were now given up to weeds, briars and snakes. Here and there in protected nooks and corners clusters of tall golden-rod or blue and purple wild asters waved their heads. Only one small patch of ripened corn near the dwelling indicated that the inhabitants had not entirely forgotten seed-time and might possibly have hope of even a tiny harvest later on.

It was eleven o’clock before Vine had finished the work of decorating her parlors. She felt weary from the unusual exertion, but remembering her duties to her expected guests, she ran to the window overlooking the kitchen and called, “Becky, Becky, you know who are to be here; now do have everything all right for dinner; and, Becky, please keep the children quiet, for I should like to take a nap before I dress.”

“Y’as’m,” said the woman, while a shade of care came into her honest face, as she regarded the two children playing in the corner of the kitchen. “I ’clar to Gawd, dat’s jes’ like Miss Vine, she’s done got in de bed dis minit and lef’ me wid bofe dese chillun on my han’s, en she knows, mitey well, dat um got a heap to tend ter, dis day. She tole me dat she wus gwine to he’p me, she did, en it’s de Gawd’s trufe dat she ain’t done er spec of er blessed thing ceppin gether dem bushes and flowers, en Captain Prince he hope her at dat. Now, ef she had put her han’ to de vegables, dat would er ben sumpin. Flowers will do for purty and niceness, but you cayent eat ’em, en you cayent drink ’em. Dey’re des here to-day and gone all to pieces to-morrow; whut good is dey anyhow? a whole kyart load of um don’t mount ter er hill er beans. Well,” she continued, “I jes’ won’t blame de young creetur, but Gawd ermitey only knows when all dem white folks will set down ter dat ar dinner Miss Vine done ’vited ’em ter come here en eat! Here, Beth,” said she kindly to the little girl, “clam up on dis stool, honey, by dis table; um gwine ter fix yo a nice roas’ tater in a minit. Yo, Dan,” she called out sharply to the boy, “yo jes’ stop mashin’ dat cat’s tail wid dat cheer ’fo’ he scratch yo to deff! Min’, I tell yer! It jes’ looks like Miss Vine wouldn’t keer ef I bust my brains er wukin’; but I ain’t er gwine to do dat fer nobody. Well, not fer strange white folks, anyhow.”

Here Beth with a mouthful of sweet potato asked for water. Becky promptly dipped a gourd full and held it to her lips grumbling all the while, “Lamb O’ Gawd, how in de name er goodness is I gwine ter wait on dese chillun, wash up dese dishes, put on dinner, en fetch all de wood from de wood pile?” As she stood contemplating her manifold duties, she heard the clock in the house striking the hour. “Lord, Gawd,” said she, “ef it ain’t twelve o’clock er ’ready, en shore nuff here comes all dem white folks jes’ a gallopin’ up de big road. Eh—eh—eh—well, dey’ll wait twell em ready fur ’em, dat’s all. But I does wish Miss Vine was mo’ like her mar. Ole Mis’ wouldn’t never dremped ’bout ’viten a whole pasel er folks here, widout havin’ pigs, and po’try, pies and cakes, en sich, all ready, de day befo’. She had plenty on all sides an’ plenty ter do de work too. Now here’s Miss Vine she’s after havin’ her own fun. Well, she’s right, you hear me, niggahs!”

“You ain’t talkin’ to me, Aunt Becky,” said Beth; “I ain’t no nigger.” The woman laughed, dropped her dishcloth on the unswept floor, grasped the child and tossed her up several times over her head. “Gawd bless dis smart chile! no, dat yo ain’t! yo is a sweet, little, white angel outen heaben, you is dat, you purty little white pig!”

In the height of this performance Monroe came to the door and thrust in an enormous turkey just killed. Seeing what was going on he exclaimed: “Why, Aunt Becky, yo better stop playing wid dat white chile en pick dis turkey ’fo’ Miss Eliza happen ’long here en ketch yer.”

“Shet yo mouf, en git out o’ dis kitchen, boy; you cayent skeer me; I can give you as good es you can sen’ any day. De white folks knows I ain’t got but two han’s and can’t do a hundred things in a minit.” She put the child down, however, and resumed her dish washing.

The girls in the meantime had retouched their disheveled curls and joined the young men in the parlor, where for a time music, songs and dances made the hours fly. Let us play “Straw,” said Nelly Jones.

“No, let Captain Prince lead and choose the game,” said Arabella.

So the captain seated the company in line. “Now,” said he, “not one of you must crack a smile on pain of forfeit, and when I say prepare to pucker, you must all do so,”—drawing out as he spoke the extraordinary aperture in his own good-natured face, extending his lips into an automatic, gigantic, wooden smirk reaching almost from ear to ear. Everybody giggled of course, but he went on: “I shall call out ‘Pucker,’ and you must instantly face about with your mouths fixed this way”—and he drew up his wonderful feature small enough to dine with the stork out of a jar. The company shouted, but the game was never played, for reproof and entreaty, joined to the captain’s word of command, failed to get them beyond a preparatory attempt which ended always in screams of laughter.

The sun was getting low in the west when another want began to appeal to the inner consciousness of these young persons. Some of them had ridden for miles in the morning air; since then they had sung and danced and laughed in unlimited fashion. Now they began to think of some other refreshment. Arabella ventured to request that Captain Prince be sent to the kitchen to reconnoiter and bring in a report from the commissary department. The captain responded amiably, and said she was a sensible young lady. “Vine, ain’t you hungry?” asked Arabella. “Oh, I took some luncheon before you came,” replied she; “if you will go up-stairs and look in the basket under my dressing table, you will find some sandwiches, but not enough for all.” The girl flew up-stairs.

When Captain Prince returned the girls rushed forward and overpowered him with questions. He threw up his hands deprecatingly and waved off his noisy assailants. “Stop, stop, young ladies, I will make my report. I went round to the kitchen and found Aunt Becky behind the chimney ripping off the feathers of a turkey so big” (holding his hands nearly a yard apart). “I got a coal o’ fire to light my pipe, then I made a memorandum.” Here he pulled out an old empty pocketbook and pretended to read—“Item 1st, ‘Fowl picking at three o’clock,’ that means dinner at six. Can you wait that long?”

“Never!” cried the girls.

“Well, we must then go into an election for a new housekeeper who will go in person or send a strong committee who will whoop up the cook and expedite the meal which is to refresh these fair ladies and brave men,”—and he began to count them.

“Don’t number me in your impolite crowd,” said Arabella, “for I am content to wait until dinner is ready.” Vine gave her a meaning smile and went up pleadingly to the captain, rolling her fine eyes in the innocent, sweet way characteristic of some of the most fascinating of her sex, and begging him to continue to be the life and soul of her party, as he always was everywhere he went: she said if he would “start something diverting,” she would go and stir Becky up and have dinner right off—she would, “honest Indian.”

These girls were not sufficiently polite to keep up a pleased appearance when bored. Such little artificialities of society belonged to the days of peace. They flatly refused to dance, saying they were tired. One avowed that she was sorry she had persuaded her mother to let her come to such a poky affair, and another declared that she had never been anywhere in her whole lifetime before where there was not cake, fruit, candy, popcorn, pindars, or something handed round when dinner was as late as this. “Oh,” said Nelly Jones, “I wish I had a good stalk of sugar-cane.” In fact a cloud seemed to settle down in the parlors like smoke in murky weather.

Captain Prince stroked his blond goatee affectionately and looked serious, but brightening up in a moment he crossed the wide hall and entered the library where Major Bee was writing. He captured the major, brought him and introduced him to the ladies, and then seated him in a capacious arm-chair, while he held a whispering conference with Nelly Jones. Nelly’s wardrobe was the envy and admiration of all the girls on the river. Being the daughter of a cotton speculator, she wore that rare article, a new dress. Unlike Arabella, whose jacket was cut from the best part of an old piano cover, she was arrayed in fine purple cashmere trimmed with velvet and gold buttons, and was otherwise ornamented with a heavy gold chain and a little watch set with diamonds. Nelly took the captain’s arm and made a low bow to Major Bee, and the girls were once more on the qui vive when they heard the captain say in slow and measured tones, “I have come with the free and full consent of this young lady to ask you to join us for life in the bonds of matrimony.” The amiable old major seemed ready to take part in this dangerous pastime, for gentle dulness ever loves a joke. “Bring me a prayer book,” said he, “if you please.”

“I lent my mother’s prayer book,” said Vine, “to old Mrs. Simpson two years ago, and she never returned it—the mean old thing!”

The major next asked for a broom which he held down before the couple saying, “Jump over.”

“Hold it lower,” said Nelly, and they stepped over in a business-like manner.

“Now,” said Major Bee, “I solemnly pronounce you husband and wife, and I hope and trust that you will dwell together lovingly and peacefully until you die. I have at your request tied this matrimonial knot as tight as I possibly could, under the circumstances, and I hope you will neither of you ever cause me to regret that I have had the pleasure of taking part in this highly dignified and honorable ceremony.”

Then the old major kissed the bride, whom he had always petted from childhood, and shook hands with Captain Prince, whom Nelly refused the privilege accorded the major, for said she, “there was no kissing in the bargain.” The company crowded around with noisy congratulations; a sofa was drawn forward, and the mock bridal couple sat in state and entertained their guests.

“My dear,” remarked the bride, “I expected to make a tour when I was married.”

“Yes, miss,”—he corrected himself quickly,—“yes, madam, I think as there are no steamboats that we may take a little journey up the river on a raft.”

“What kind of a raft, Captain?” asked Nelly.

“My love, I mean a steam raft. I will take the steam along in a jug.”