was broad daylight, and, slipping over the shallow bar at the mouth
of the lagoon, sculled lazily out to the “drop” on the rocks. It was
a windless dawn, the sea was without a ripple, and the slow, heaving
swells reflected the opalescent tints of the eastern sky. The tide was
still on the ebb, and its impulse, augmenting his speed, soon brought
him to the drop where he cast anchor, and the boat swung round, bow
to land, while Esau, in the stern, sat with his back to the rising
sun and threw out his lines. The fish bit well, and at the end of two
or three hours the bottom of Esau’s boat was well covered with the
shining catch, chiefly speckled sea trout, whiting and blackfish. The
sun increased in warmth, and Esau nodded and dozed and then slept,
although, with the turn of the tide, the prow of his boat now pointed
seaward and the sunshine burned in his face. At last, at noon, when
its beams fell vertically upon his kinky head, he awoke with a start
as a big horse-mackerel leaped from the water so near him that he was
drenched with its spray. He looked out upon a sea of molten silver.
A great shark, as long as his boat, rose slowly from the depths to
within a foot of the surface, and, lying motionless, regarded him with
cold, expressionless eyes. Esau shuddered. “_Great Gawd_,” he muttered,
“_time fuh gone home_!” and, as the sinister creature sank out of
sight, he quickly hauled up anchor, shipped oars, and pulled lustily
to shore. It was high tide when he reached the inlet, and he rode the
long rollers over the bar, and soon ran the nose of his skiff ashore
on the oyster shells of the landing. He strung his fish and set out
to find a market, but the time lost while he slept had made him too
late to supply the dinners of his usual customers, and, as his fish
were now stale, he had no recourse but to eat them himself, so he
set about cleaning them, and an hour later, when Jane, having served
the hotel dinner, was dining alone in the kitchen, Esau appeared and
ingratiatingly asked the loan of a frying pan, “please, ma’am, en’ some
greese fuh greese’um.” As neither fat nor fuel cost Jane anything,
she graciously complied, in the handsome spirit that prompts so many
of us to be generous at the expense of others. Esau rubbed the greasy
bacon-rind over the broad, generous bottom of the hotel frying pan and,
having lubricated it sufficiently, cast in his fish, and the horrible
sound and the horrible smell of frying soon filled the ears and the
nostrils of every one about the establishment. Esau fried and he fried
until, having filled a large tray with fish, he hung up the frying pan,
took down his appetite, and began to eat. Esau was an eater, and had
no half-dealings with his art. Seizing a fish by the head and tail,
he moved it laterally across his mouth as some traveling men maneuver
green corn on the cob, or as the village darkey plays the mouth-organ,
until, in the twinkling of an eye, only the bones remained in his
greasy fingers; then he played another mouth-organ, until in a few
minutes he was filled to the neck, and only ten or twelve fried trout
remained, and these he _cached_ with old Jane for future attention,
and betook himself to the shade of a scrubby live-oak nearby to rest.
He threw himself on the sand and slept for several hours like a
gorged Anaconda. At last, toward sundown, the land breeze brought the
mosquitoes from the mainland across the lagoon, and they swarmed over
him. Thrashing about in his troubled sleep, some of the cockspurs that
grow everywhere in the Island sands worked their way through his thin
homespun trousers and stung him into wakefulness. He arose grouchy and
grumbling, and returned to the kitchen where Jane was already preparing
supper. “Eh, eh, weh you bin, Esau?” she greeted him.
“Uh binnuh sleep, ma’am, en’ muskittuh’ en’ cockspuhr’ en’ t’ing wake
me en’ mek me fuh git up.”
“Wuh you gwine do wid dese fish wuh you lef’, Esau? De buckruh sen’
wu’d suh dem fish duh bodduhr’um, en’ ’e tell me fuh t’row’um een de
ribbuh.”
“Uh had bidness fuh eat all dem fish one time, den uh wouldn’ haffuh
t’row’um ’way.” And Esau sidled over to the tray of fish, and, looking
at them regretfully, pinched off nibbling bits with his fingers and
carried them to his mouth.
“You bettuh t’row’way da’ t’ing, Esau,” admonished Jane as she bustled
about her work.
“Yaas, ma’am, uh gwine t’row’um ’way bumbye. Uh yent duh eat’um, uh
jis’ duh pinch’um.” And he went slowly out toward the lagoon with
the tray under his arm, but, as he walked, he pinched the fish so
assiduously that, by the time he came to the water, little save the
bones remained.
Two hours later, Jane approached the mistress of the house with an
anxious face. “Please, ma’am, fuh gimme some ginjuh en’ t’ing fuh
gi’ Esau ’fo’ ’e dead. Da’ nigguh sho’ hab uh hebby appetite fuh eat
bittle. ’E ketch all dem fish, en’ ’e couldn’ sell’um to de buckruh
’cause dem binnuh leddown all day een de sunhot, en’ him fry’um en’
nyam t’ree string by ’eself, en’ ’e lef’ one string ’tell aw’ile ago,
en’ uh tell’um fuh t’row’way dat one, en’ ’e staa’t’ fuh t’row’um
’way, but de fish cry out fuh Esau en’ Esau yeddy de cry, en’ ’e
pinch de fish, en’ ’e keep on pinch’um, pinch ’um, ’tell ’e done nyam
mos’ all de fish, en’ now de fish pinch _him_! Uh bin hab uh bottle uh
hawss linniment fuh rub hawss, en’ uh t’row dat een’um, but de bottle
didn’ bin mo’nuh half full, en’ uh ’f’aid de linniment ent ’nuf fuh
do’um good, alldo’ ’e strangle Esau w’en him swalluhr’um, en’ mek’um
fuh spit sukkuh crab spit. Now, ’e duh roll obuh en’ obuh ’pun de
groun’ same lukkuh mule roll w’en ’e tu’n out duh Sunday, en’ oonuh
kin yeddy’um groan sukkuh dem ’ooman groan to the sett’n’up, w’en dem
husbun’ en’ t’ing dead. Ef you please, ma’am, kin gimme some linniment,
uh sump’n’nurruh fuh g’em, uh dunkyuh ef ’tis kyarrysene, ’cause da’
nigguh gwine dead!”
“What do you want, Jane--ginger, peppermint or whiskey?”
“Wuh da’ las’ one you call ’e name, Missis?”
“Whiskey.”
“Missis, da’ t’ing too sca’ceful fuh t’row’um ’way ef da’ nigguh gwine
dead. Ef you ent got de linniment, please, ma’am, gimme de ginjuh en’
de peppuhmint alltwo, so uh kin t’row’um een Esau.”
“Don’t give him too many things, Jane, one is enough.”
“Missis, enty da’ nigguh eat _fo’ kinduh fish_? Uh wan’ g’em meddisin
fuh reach all de kinduh fish wuh ’e done eat. Uh yent want’um fuh
dead on my han’, ’cause him ent hab no fambly, en’ ’e yent blonx to
no suhciety fuh bury’um, en’ uh know berry well me yent fuh t’row’way
money fuh buy shroud en’ cawpse en’ t’ing fuh no Esau, so please,
ma’am, mek’ace en’ gimme de t’ing fuh t’row een’um en’ see ef uh kin
sabe ’e life!”
A liberal dose of mixed ginger and peppermint was poured into a tin
cup, the rim of which Jane forced between Esau’s teeth, and drenched
him so successfully that in a few minutes he was flopping over the
ground like a fish just pulled out of the water. His spasms were soon
over, however, and he lay in a state of semi-coma. Jane was delighted.
“Missis, me en’ you done sabe Esau’ life. Da’ nigguh blonx to me en’
you, Missis, en’ uh gwine mek’um wu’k.”
Summer passed into early autumn. The days shortened. September suns
burned fiercely upon the ripening corn, and through the lengthening
nights heavy dews fell on the purple petticoat-grass and the
golden-rod. Between sunset and dusk, summer ducks flew over from their
feeding grounds to their roosts in the pineland ponds, and all through
the night sounded the faint “tweet, tweet” of the ricebirds passing on
to their winter quarters.
So Jane, in the late summer of her days, looked kindly upon the man
she had saved, even though she did not value the salvage very highly,
and Esau gradually got in the habit of hanging about her kitchen and
submitting to the air of proprietorship which she assumed toward him,
chopping wood and doing other little chores for her, as a matter of
course.
At last, one Thursday evening toward the end of the month, Jane
bashfully appeared before her mistress, holding a corner of her apron
against a corner of her mouth, which widened almost from ear to ear.
“Missis, uh come fuh tell you, ma’am, uh gwine marri’d Esau. Da’ nigguh
duh heng roun’ de kitchen ’tell ’e git een me way. Uh cyan’ tu’n roun’
bidout step ’puntop’um, so uh gwine tek’um fuh husbun’.”
The announcement caused quite a flutter among the ladies at the hotel,
and, as Jane had fixed the following Saturday evening for the wedding,
they hastened to overhaul their wardrobes for suitable material with
which to deck out the bride. An old dotted-swiss muslin, found hidden
away, was contributed by its owner as something sweet and virginal with
which to rig out the craft that had sailed the seven seas of matrimony.
Another guest of the hotel contributed a pair of white stockings,
and, as Jane desired a veil, a breadth of old mosquito-netting,
stiffly starched and skilfully laundered, was added to the outfit.
On Saturday night, an hour after supper time, Jane, under the convoy
of Esau and accompanied by the “locus pastuh” (the local preacher
of her church) appeared before the hotel company assembled on the
piazza, and announced her readiness to wed. The mosquito-net veil had
been artistically looped about her by some of the ladies, and the
dotted-swiss enveloped her with its starched stiffness. The knot was
soon tied, and Jane, carrying the bride cake in her arms and followed
by her new husband, floated away like a smutty coal-carrying brig,
under a new suit of sails.
On the following morning, Jane appeared in the kitchen earlier than
usual. The lady of the house asked what she had done with her new
husband. “Uh run’um off, missis. Uh yent want’um. Wuh me fuh do wid
man! Enty uh hab proputty! Uh marri’d Esau fuh git husbun’, uh yent
marry’um fuh git man! Nigguh’ wuh grow up sence freedum, dem ent wut!
Uh marry’um, den uh t’row’um ’way!”
“Why did you marry him, then, if you didn’t want him?”
“Ki! Missis! _Uh marry’um fuh shet dem todduh ’ooman’ mout’! You t’ink
me wan’ dem gal’ fuh call me ole maid?_”
THE PLAT-EYE
All low-country negroes believe more or less in “sperrits,” “haants”
and other mysterious appearances, but the “plat-eye,” peculiar to
the Georgetown coast, is the weirdest and most fearsome that vexes
the roaming negroes at night. Plat-eyes appear to old and young of
both sexes, sometimes in the form of a small dog or other animal,
while at other times they may float like wraiths along the marshes
or unfrequented paths, or stoop like low-hung clouds and envelop the
victim. Most frequently, however, the plat-eye appears in the form
of some familiar animal which, glaring at the beholder with eyes of
fire, springs upon him, frightening him into rigidity, and, just as he
expects his vitals to be torn out, the apparition vanishes, and the
trembling negro hurries on his way. The belief has been expressed that,
in some instances, the negroes to whom plat-eyes appear have fallen
asleep as they walked, and, dreaming of these terrors, awakened to find
them gone. In whatsoever form they come, however, the negroes dread the
visitations as Werewolves were feared in Europe not so long ago.
Now, old Jane, the cook at the Pawley’s Island summer hotel, the
many-times widowed woman who, having saved the life of Esau, the
fisherman, by drenching him with horse liniment after he had partaken
too freely of the spoils of his lines, had wedded that same Esau to
save herself the reproach of oldmaidenhood, and had chased him away the
morning after her _Marriage de Convenance_, was a fervent and fearful
believer in plat-eyes. Whenever and wherever she went her ways at
night, she was on the lookout for them, and the expectation of their
momentary appearance kept her nerves in a pleasant state of jumpiness.
A stray calf at the edge of the clearing, a raccoon ambling along a
woodland path, a sudden rabbit bouncing up before her, the horned owl
that lifted her wayward fowls from their runaway roost on the ridgepole
of her cabin, even the ghostly sandcrabs that drifted along the beaches
at night as lightly as wind-blown foam, were all potential plat-eyes!
Two weeks had passed since Jane, the self-made celibate, had ejected
the transitory husband of her bosom from the “bed and board” to
which, under colored custom, if not under State law, he was supposed
to be entitled. Esau wandered about, following his usual vagrant
occupations, but vaguely conscious of his rather indefinite status
as a husband--responsibilities there were none. Jane, to whom the
marriage had brought wifehood--in the abstract, and very real things in
the dotted-swiss and the white stockings of her bridal outfit--being
withal as free and untrammeled in her property and her person as she
had been before the episode, felt herself the gainer, and, to do her
justice, regarded Esau rather as a slaughtered innocent. In respect
of one small matter, however, Esau, too, had gained something. During
his tentative courtship, or rather while, without his knowledge, Jane
had had him under consideration, he chopped wood and did other chores
for her without specific contract for compensation, for Jane was then
an unrelated and unconnected female of the species, and he willingly
performed these gallantries for her; but once married, even though
she had so speedily and unceremoniously divorced, or put him away,
she was yet his woman--in thought at least, his chattel--and, harking
back to his African ancestry, he bethought him that women were but
hewers of wood and drawers of water, the domestic slaves of the lordly
males, and, before laying hand to axe or stooping to pick up chips or
driftwood, he never failed to bargain and chaffer with the cook for
what she should pay him--at the expense of the lady of the house.
“Esau, uh wish you please kin pick up some chip’ fuh me fuh staa’t me
fiah.”
“Wuh you gwi’ gimme?”
“Wuffuh me haffuh pay you fuh chop wood, Esau?”
“Enty uh done marri’d you fuh wife? Wuffuh man haffuh chop wood fuh ’e
own wife?”
“Uh marri’d you, fuh true, Esau, but enty uh done run you off, en’ now
you stan’ same lukkuh all dem todduh man wuh uh nebbuh bin hab fuh
husbun’?”
Esau scratched his head, the point being rather fine for his
comprehension, but he grunted stubbornly, nevertheless.
“Man hab wife fuh cook ’e bittle fuhr’um, enty? Hukkuh ooman kin cook
bittle bidout ’e chop wood, eeduhso pick up chip’ fuh mek fiah? No,
ma’am! Wuh you gwine gimme fuh eat ef uh chop wood fuh you?” Therefore,
whenever Esau chopped wood, the hotel kitchen paid the fee.
September burned and passed away. October came. Among the brown and
purple trunks of the pines, the red-bronze foliage of blackgum and
sourwood glowed like dull fires. Tripods rose above the breakers, and,
from the vantage of their elevated tops, the Islanders fished with rod
and reel for the beautiful channel bass which came up with the rising
tide. The long rollers crashed upon the strand and broke into lace-like
spray that the sea-wind tossed into a thousand miniature rainbows. The
plaintive cry of the sea-birds, the whisper of the wild-oats as their
ripening seed panicles rustled in the wind, and the sharp tang in the
air, brought to the spirit the poignant sadness of autumn--“Falling
Leaf and Fading Tree,” and Tosti’s haunting melody.
On a certain night, Jane permitted Esau’s escort to a cottage two
miles up the beach, whither she had undertaken an errand for her
employer. The night was dark and overcast, and the air was heavy with a
promise of coming rain. A fitful breeze picked up the loose sand above
highwater mark into little whorls, sent them dancing about the upper
beach, and set the clumps of wild-oats on the dunes above to shivering
weirdly. The tide was at the flood, and the long dun rollers boomed
sullenly on the beach and sucked at the sands as though loath to leave
them.
As she got farther away from the comforting lights of the hotel
and adventured into the creepy darkness that lay before her,
Jane shuddered, and lifted the shawl from her shoulders over her
bandanna-topped head as though to shut out from her apprehensive ears
all fearsome sounds. Esau shuffled along beside her, but he, too, was
uncomfortable, for he was a timid negro, and even the boldest are none
too brave at night.
A sudden gust of wind lifted the foam cap from a breaking wave, blew
it in their faces and whistled eerily through the wild-oats. A ghost
crab sprang up at their very feet and scurried away, affrighted. Jane
clutched Esau’s arm. “_Great Gawd!_” she groaned, “_duh plat-eye!_ Uh
shum! uh shum!”
“Weh-weh ’e dey?” stammered her frightened but less imaginative escort.
Before she could point to the flying crab, another pallid, spider-like
creature drifted across her path and followed the first. Jane was
poised for flight, but Esau stood firm and steadied her nerves, and
in a few moments they moved on again, but with wide eyes and hesitant
steps. At last they had covered half the distance, and a mile away,
beyond the dark, a spot of yellow light marked their goal, which they
might have reached but for the raccoons’ love for shell fish. At a low
spot in the broad beach the tide had eaten out a narrow channel through
which the waters rushed almost up to the sand-hills, bringing small
fish and shrimp and clams far beyond the break of the rollers, and, at
the entrance to this cut, facing the ocean, a big raccoon was fishing
at the moment the negroes reached the tidal rivulet and paused to look
for a crossing. Esau, with trousers rolled up to his knees, adventured
first, and as Jane, “standing with reluctant feet,” on the marge,
called to him to ask the depth, she unhappily cast her eyes seaward
just as the four-footed fisherman, startled by the voices behind him,
wheeled, and turned his round, green eyes full upon them. As their
sinister light shone fearsomely against the dark background of the
waves, Jane shrieked in agony. “_Oh Jedus! de plat-eye! de plat-eye!_”
And, turning tail, she fled along the back track, screaming at every
jump. Esau’s gallantry, and one look at the shining eyes, prompted
him to follow Jane, which he did at top speed, while the wretched
raccoon, frightened out of his supper by the havoc he had unwittingly
wrought, lost no time in attaining sanctuary among the scrub beyond the
sand-hills.
On sped Jane. Her screaming-wind gave out after the first hundred
yards, and, save for her labored breathing, she ran silently, Esau, a
black shadow, close behind. In an incredibly short time, Jane and her
runner-up reached the hotel, speechless with exhaustion and fright.
When she had recovered her breath, Jane hurried to her mistress.
“Missis, ma’am, uh nebbuh tek de ansuh wuh you sen’ to da’ juntlemun
todduh side de Ilun’, ’cause uh nebbuh git dey, Missis; en’, ef Jedus
yeddy me, uh nebbuh fuh gone to da’ place no mo’ duh night-time!
Missis, dem plat-eye t’ick ’puntop da’ beach sukkuh fiddluh crab’
t’ick een de maa’sh w’en tide low! Uh binnuh walk ’long Esau, en’ one
sumpn’nurruh come off de wabe’ top, en’ ’e float by me sukkuh cloud wuh
hab uh sperrit een’um. Uh shet me yeye, en’ ’e gone. Den de win’ mek uh
jump, en’ ’e biggin fuh shake dem grass en’ t’ing ’puntop de san’hill
’tell ’e mek me hair fuh rise! Same time uh see two w’ite sperrit run
’cross de paat’. Esau binnuh trimble ’tell uh graff’um by ’e sleebe fuh
keep’um f’um run’way, but none de t’ing nebbuh hab uh chance fuh t’row
dem eye ’puntop me ’tell uh git to de place weh de tide bruk t’ru de
beach. W’en uh git dey, Missis, Esau roll up ’e britchiz fuh cross. Me
duh wait ’tell him git ’cross befo’ uh staa’t’ fuh hice me ’coat fuh
walk t’ru’um, en’, ef me Jedus didn’ tell me fuh t’row me yeye fuh look
roun’, uh nebbuh would’uh bin yuh, but w’en uh look, uh see da’ t’ing’
two eye’ duh shine sukkuh lightship’ eye’ shine ’puntop’uh Rattlesnake
shoal’! Missis, w’en uh fus’ look ’puntop’um uh t’ink ’e duh lightship
fuh true, but bumbye ’e shake ’e head en’ uh know suh ’e duh plat-eye,
en’ ’e duh try fuh t’row uh spell ’puntop me fuh mek me fuh dead! Uh
yent hab time fuh kneel down, but uh staa’t fuh pray een me h’aa’t,
en’ uh baig Gawd, ef da’ plat-eye haffuh ketch nigguh, fuh mek’um fuh
ketch Esau en’ lef me, ’cause, Missis, eb’rybody know’ suh Esau ent
wut! But seem lukkuh Gawd nebbuh yeddy de pray’, ’cause me mout’ bin
shet w’en uh mek’um, ’cause uh yent wan’ Esau fuh yeddy wuh uh say,
en’ de plat-eye nebbuh tek ’e yeye off’uh my’own. ’E look en’ ’e look,
en’ ’e yeye git mo’ bigguh en’ mo’ shiny, en’ w’en uh see suh him duh
look ’puntop’uh me en’ ent duh study ’bout Esau, Missis, _uh comin’
fuh home_! Missis, you see dog run, you see hawss run, you see bu’d
fly, en’ you see pawpus jump een de ribbuh, but you nebbuh see none dem
t’ing trabble lukkuh me trabble w’en uh staa’t fuh run! W’en me ten
toe’ dig een de du’t, ’e t’row de san’ mo’nuh half uh acre behin’ me!
De win’ wuh uh mek t’row dem wil’oats en’ grass en’ t’ing flat ’pun de
groun’, en’ all de time uh duh run uh yeddy Esau’ foot duh beat drum
behin’ me, en’ w’en uh yeddy’um, uh tengkful, ’cause uh know da’ t’ing
fuh ketch him fus’ ’fo’ ’e kin git me; en’, Missis, ef you ain’ hab no
’jeckshun, ma’am, uh gwine tek Esau fuh husbun’ ’gen, ’cause, attuh
tenight, uh know suh me kin run fas’ mo’nuh him, en’ him will be uh
nyuseful t’ing fuh tek ’long w’en uh duh walk duh paa’t duh night-time,
’cause, ef plat-eye mek alltwo uh we fuh run, him _’bleege_ fuh ketch
Esau _fus’_, en’, alldo’ da’ nigguh ent wut, ’e hab shishuh slow foot,
Missis, uh kin mek’um fuh sabe me life!”
“OLD PICKETT”
Before the war, the low-country planters, migrating each summer to
their mountain homes at Flat Rock, N. C., frequently bought horses and
mules from the drovers as they passed along the Buncombe Road on their
way South from the stock ranges of Kentucky and Tennessee. Sometimes
beautiful ponies were brought from the Pink Beds, away back in the
North Carolina mountains, others came from the nearer valleys of the
French Broad, but most of the Seacoast planters supplied their needs
from the Tennessee drovers as they moved down the main-traveled road.
From an old drover named Pickett, a mule was acquired to which the
negroes gave the drover’s name. Although a young mule, and of the
opposite sex, she was christened “Old Pickett,” and bore the name
with distinction for nearly a quarter of a century. Long and low, and
powerfully built, Old Pickett was a light bay in color, with the brown
stripe down the back and the zebra legs which mule wranglers regard as
evidence of toughness--and Old Pickett was tough.
Old Pickett came into the hands of the family late in October. A
thin skin of ice had formed along the shores of the lakes. Flocks of
blue-winged teal whistled through the air and splashed as they alighted
on the clear waters. Chestnuts had fallen, and their green and brown
burrs covered the ground under the far-spreading limbs of the big
trees. Their little cousins, the chinquapins, had long been gathered
and strung in necklaces, or roasted at the hearths of the glowing wood
fires. The pheasant-shooting was nearly over, and Westly-Richards and
Greener were cleaned and oiled and slipped into their buckskin covers,
in readiness for the campaign against deer and duck and turkey in the
low-country. With the first days of November, as the branches of the
great oaks cracked under the weight of the roosting wild pigeons, and
the sloping sides of old Pinnacle and all the lesser peaks burned with
the flame-like foliage of the hickory and the ruby fires of the oaks,
the family started down the mountain for Greenville, the first stop
in the ten-day journey to the sea. Carriages for the ladies and the
elders, saddle horses for the younger men, and comfortable covered
wagons for the house servants, the cavalcade moved out, Old Pickett and
her companions tethered behind the wagons to take their turn at the
pole later on.
Arrived at the big plantation, Old Pickett became familiar with the
plow, the cart and the Gullah negro, and for twelve years led an
uneventful life, buckling to the tough “joint grass” of the uplands in
summer, and bogging pastern deep in winter as the slim plowshare slid
through the sticky soil of the ricefields and turned the stubble into
long greasy-looking furrows. While a willing worker, Old Pickett took
her time and always “gang’d her ain gait.” She was nimble, too, with
her heels, and the stable boys about the mule lot could always amuse
themselves by throwing sticks or light clods of earth on Old Pickett’s
hindquarters to make her “kick up,” when she came in to be unharnessed
after her day’s work, and she was always ready to oblige. Wearing a
blind bridle, she could not see behind her, but she was strong for the
uplift, and whatever touched her in the rear had to go up, whether
stick, or clod or stable boy!
Then the war! In the dawn of an April morning, came the sound of the
big guns in Charleston harbor thirty miles away, and, a few months
later, from another direction, rolled the thunder of yet heavier and
more distant guns, bombarding Port Royal, and still Old Pickett plowed
and carted, and otherwise plodded in the ways of peace, but not for
long. The questing eye of the Confederate Government looked approvingly
on Old Pickett’s short legs, arched loins and well-sprung ribs, and,
discerning an artillery mule, intimated a desire for ownership, but Old
Pickett, compelling as she did the little negroes who walked behind and
around her to become alert and watchful, was a plantation institution
and could not be parted with permanently, but she was loaned to the
Confederacy, and for a year or two hauled caissons and cannon and army
wagons about the coast section wherever an attack was threatened by the
invaders.
At last, the booming of cannon came nearer, an expedition having
reached Willtown only seven miles away, and, as negroes from nearby
plantations were “running away to the Yankees,” a farm was leased in
the far away land of Abbeville, and thither, for safekeeping, went
a number of slaves under Zedekiah Johnson, a kindly and reliable
overseer. With this venture went Old Pickett, and here, until the end
of the war, she faithfully followed the curved and crooked furrows that
ran around the terraced hills, and stubbed her unshod hoofs against the
flinty stones thick sown about the ruddy soil. In the up-country, women
sometimes plowed, and Old Pickett, blinkered and forward-looking as
she was forced to be, submitted to the indignity of being “gee’d” and
“haw’d” and chevied along by a bare-footed, sun-bonneted female of the
species.