THE JUNONIAN RITE.
"Marse Desmit?"
"Well?"
"Ef yer please, Mahs'r, I wants ter marry?"
"The devil you do!"
"Yes, sah, if you please, sah."
"What's your name?"
"Nimbus."
"So: you're the curer at Knapp-of-Reeds, I believe?"
"Yes, sah." "That last crop was well done. Mr. Ware says you're
one of the best hands he has ever known."
"Thank ye, Mahs'r," with a bow and scrape.
"What's the gal's name?"
"Lugena, sah."
"Yes, Vicey's gal--smart gal, too. Well, as I've about concluded to
keep you both--if you behave yourselves, that is, as well as you've
been doing--I don't know as there's any reason why you shouldn't
take up with her."
"Thank ye, Mahs'r," very humbly, but very joyfully.
The speakers were the black baby whom Desmit had christened Nimbus,
grown straight and strong, and just turning his first score on the
scale of life, and Colonel Desmit, grown a little older, a little
grayer, a little fuller, and a great deal richer--if only the small
cloud of war just rising on the horizon would blow over and leave
his possessions intact. He believed it would, but he was a wise
man and a cautious one, and he did not mean to be caught napping
if it did not.
Nimbus had come from Knapp-of-Reeds to a plantation twenty miles
away, upon a pass from Mr. Ware, on the errand his conversation
disclosed. He was a fine figure of a man despite his ebon hue,
and the master, looking at him, very naturally noted his straight,
strong back, square shoulders, full, round neck, and shapely,
well-balanced head. His face was rather heavy--grave, it would
have been called if he had been white--and his whole figure and
appearance showed an earnest and thoughtful temperament. He was as
far from that volatile type which, through the mimicry of burnt-cork
minstrels and the exaggerations of caricaturists, as well as the
works of less disinterested portrayers of the race, have come to
represent the negro to the unfamiliar mind, as the typical Englishman
is from the Punch-and-Judy figures which amuse him. The slave Nimbus
in a white skin would have been considered a man of great physical
power and endurance, earnest purpose, and quiet, self-reliant
character. Such, in truth, he was. Except the whipping he had
received when but a lad, by his master's orders, no blow had ever
been struck him. Indeed, blows were rarely stricken on the plantations
of Colonel Desmit; for while he required work, obedience, and
discipline, he also fed well and clothed warmly, and allowed no
overseer to use the lash for his own gratification, or except for
good cause. It was well known that nothing would more surely secure
dismissal from his service than the free use of the whip. Not that
he thought there was anything wrong or inhuman about the whipping-post,
but it was entirely contrary to his policy. To keep a slave
comfortable, healthy, and good-natured, according to Colonel Desmit's
notion, was to increase his value, and thereby add to his owner's
wealth. He knew that Nimbus was a very valuable slave. He had
always been attentive to his tasks, was a prime favorite with his
overseer, and had already acquired the reputation of being one of the
most expert and trusty men that the whole region could furnish, for
a tobacco crop. Every step in the process of growing and curing--from
the preparation of the seed-bed to the burning of the coal-pit,
and gauging the heat required in the mud-daubed barn for different
kinds of leaf and in every stage of cure--was perfectly familiar
to him, and he could always be trusted to see that it was properly
and opportunely done. This fact, together with his quiet and contented
disposition, added very greatly to his value. The master regarded
him, therefore, with great satisfaction. He was willing to gratify
him in any reasonable way, and so, after some rough jokes at his
expense, wrote out his marriage-license in these words, in pencil,
on the blank leaf of a notebook:
MR. WARE: Nimbus and Lugena want to take up with each other. You
have a pretty full force now, but I have decided to keep them and
sell some of the old ones--say Vicey and Lorency. Neither have had
any children for several years, and are yet strong, healthy women,
who will bring nearly as much as the girl Lugena. I shall make
up a gang to go South in charge of Winburn next week. You may send
them over to Louisburg on Monday. You had better give Nimbus the
empty house near the tobacco-barn. We need a trusty man there.
Respectfully, P. DESMIT.
So Nimbus went home happy, and on the Saturday night following, in
accordance with this authority, with much mirth and clamor, and with
the half-barbarous and half-Christian ceremony--which the law did
not recognize; which bound neither parties, nor master nor stranger;
which gave Nimbus no rights and Lugena no privileges; which neither
sanctified the union nor protected its offspring--the slave "boy"
and "gal" "took up with each other," and began that farce which
the victims of slavery were allowed to call "marriage." The sole
purpose of permitting it was to raise children. The offspring were
sometimes called "families," even in grave legal works; but there
was no more of the family right of protection, duty of sustenance
and care, or any other of the sacred elements which make the family
a type of heaven, than attends the propagation of any other species
of animate property. When its purpose had been served, the voice
of the master effected instant divorce. So, on the Monday morning
thereafter the mothers of the so-called bride and groom, widowed
by the inexorable demands of the master's interests, left husband
and children, and those fair fields which represented all that they
knew of the paradise which we call home, and with tears and groans
started for that living tomb, the ever-devouring and insatiable
"far South."