THE BIRTH OF OCTAVIA.
Not long after this Simon's mother, Aunt Dinah, "went the way of all
the earth, and was gathered to her fathers." This caused great
mourning and lamentation on the plantation. The old auntie was almost
looked upon with reverence. She was, as it were, an oracle, being
consulted on everything that transpired on the place.
This was a severe grief to Simon and Elsie, who received the
condolences of all the slaves on the place. The little negroes were
bereft of a true friend, as Aunt Lucy, Aunt Dinah's successor, was not
as thoughtful, good and kind to the little ones as Aunt Dinah had been.
The negro is no nurse and of no account in a sick room. This was so in
the case of the deceased old auntie, who was sick quite awhile and
doubtless wanted good nursing. But let one of their number die and
they are very much in evidence, sitting up with the corpse or attending
the funeral. Aunt Dinah had one of the longest funeral processions
ever witnessed in that country.
The negroes not only preach at the burial, but appoint a time several
months ahead, giving it great publicity, when So and So's funeral will
be preached with great _eclat_. On these occasions there is as much
shouting, singing, groaning, moaning and praying as there is in their
revival meetings.
Simon and Elsie put on the usual mourning for parents, and to show
their grateful remembrance asked their mistress to get them an elegant
monument, with the proper inscription thereon, and erected it at the
head of her grave, something very rare for slaves.
Soon after this Elsie got in bad health, would not eat, and
notwithstanding much was done for her restoration to health, she failed
to improve. The negro as a race has a larger share of superstition
than any other. With this Simon was considerably tinctured. As Elsie
failed to improve it was noised around that she was "conjured." Simon,
notwithstanding his intelligence, began to share in the belief that
this was so. There was an old negro "conjure" doctor on the place,
whom Simon asked to go around and see Elsie.
After talking with Elsie awhile he left, and seeing Simon told him that
"Elsie grievin' 'bout Brutus." He protested that she cared nothing in
the world about that negro in the woods, and he would have to search
for another cause. Believing that she was "conjured," he insisted that
the conjurer take the "spell" off. To this he agreed, and appointed a
day when he would bring her around all right. The "conjurer" told
Simon that Elsie had "lizards and roaches" in her ear, and that they
must come out. It is possible that Simon believed this stuff by
letting his superstition get the better of his judgment and
intelligence. At the appointed time the "conjurer" came, having
lizards and roaches in a box up his sleeve. After songs, incantations
and gesticulations, all the while rubbing her head, he adroitly
liberated the lizards and roaches, which ran off, making Elsie scream.
This may have had effect on the few spectators present, but it
certainly had none on Elsie, who knew that she had been acting a piece
of consummate duplicity from the first. The "conjurer" told Elsie,
"dem live things in her hed wus de cause of all her trubble, and that
she would get well now." Elsie, however, failed to improve, and Simon
went to see his mistress in regard to the matter, who sent a physician
back with him to see Elsie. When leaving he told Simon that Elsie had
given birth to a beautiful girl baby as white as he, the physician,
was, and with hair as straight.
Horror of horrors! This was "the unkindest cut of all." Simon was
crushed, humiliated, and felt that he was disgraced by the conduct of
his sister; and to think of her duplicity for all those months was
enough to cause an angel to swear. He and his sister were the most
intelligent and refined negroes in all that country. They were the
_elite_, the bon ton, the upper crust, and were looked on as such by
the other slaves. If there were aristocrats among slaves, Simon and
sister filled the bill. Simon had held his sister up to the negro
girls on the place as an example, and for her to bring disgrace on them
in that way was too much!
Aunt Lucy, Elsie's nurse, said that Elsie had no ordinary baby; that
"it was white as the whitest, eyes as blue as ole mars'er, an' hair as
strate as ole missis, an' not a white man in de kentry. Dis weren't no
nigger baby; Elsie she got wid chile by de Holy Spirit." Simon knew
that the days of miracles had passed, and that none other than a white
man was its father. Elsie admitted after a long time that her owner
was the child's father. Whether he was satisfied, Simon said no more
about it, but refused for a long while to even see the baby. Time
heals all things, and finally Simon consented to see it and was struck
with her beauty. Elsie named her child Octavia, and as it grew in
years Simon began to love the child as his own. She became a favorite
on the whole plantation, nothing being too good that any of the slaves
had for little Octavia. She was a heroine from the first, as she
proved to be in after life.
To all appearances she was as pure as the purest Caucasian, and if an
expert had been put on the stand to swear as to her race he would have
said Caucasian. Such are the circumstances under which this afterwards
wonderful being was brought into existence.
With a white father and quadroon mother, this made her seven-eighths
Caucasian.