TOURNAMENTS AND STARVATION PARTIES
It would seem that times were too hard and life too bitter for
merry-making. Not so. With less than half a chance to be glad, the
Southerner will laugh and dance and sing--and make love. At least, he used
to. The Southerner is no longer minstrel, lover, and cavalier. He is
becoming a money-maker. With cannons at our gates and shells driving us
into cellars, guitars were tinkling, pianos were not dumb, tripping feet
were not stayed by fear and sorrow. When boys in gray came from camp,
women felt it the part of love and patriotism to give them good cheer,
wearing smiles while they were by, keeping tears for them when absent.
With the war over and our boys coming home for good, ah, it was not hard
to laugh, sing and dance, poor as we were! "Soldiers coming up the road,"
"Some soldiers here for tonight," the master of the house would say, and
doors would fling wide. "Nice fellows, I know," or "I knew this one's
father, and that one's uncle is Governor--and this one went to school with
our Frank; and these fought side by side with friends of ours," or "Their
names are so-and-so," or just, "They are gentlemen." Maidens would make
themselves fair; wardrobes held few or no changes, but one could dress
one's hair another way, put a rose in one's tresses, draw forth the
many-times-washed-over or thrice-dyed ribbon for adornment. After supper,
there would be music in the parlor, and perhaps dancing. But not always!
too often, the guest's feet were not shod for dancing. It might be that
he was clothed from shirt to shoe in garments from the host's own store.
Many a soldier would decline entering the great house and beg off from
presentations, feeling the barn a more fitting shelter for his rags, and
the company of ladies a gift the gods must withhold.
Joy reigned in every household when its owner came home from the war, joy
that defeat at arms could not kill. The war was over! it had not ended as
we had prayed, but there was to be no crying over spilt milk if young
people had their way.
Departure of old servants and installation of new and untried ones was
attended with untold vexation, but none of this was allowed to interfere
with the pleasure and happiness of young people when it was possible to
prevent it. Southern mistresses kept domestic difficulties in the
background or made merry over them. On the surface, domestic machinery
might seem to move without a hitch, when in reality it was in so severe a
state of dislocation that the semblance of smooth operation was little
short of a miracle.
Reserves of cotton and tobacco that had escaped the attention of the
Yankee Army sold high. Fortunate possessors were soon flush with
greenbacks which were put in quick circulation. It was a case of a little
new bonnet and an alpaca skirt with girls everywhere; women had done
without clothes so long, they felt they just must have some now; our boys
had gone in rags so long, they must have new clothes, too; everybody had
lived so hard and been so sad, there must be joy now, love-making and
dancing. The "Starvation Party" did not go out of fashion with war. Festal
boards were often thinly spread, but one danced not the less lightly for
that. Enough it was to wing the feet to know that the bronzed young
soldier with his arm about your waist must leave you no more for the
battle.
[Illustration: MISS ADDIE PRESCOTT
(A Louisiana Belle)
Afterwards Mrs. R. G. H. Kean, of Lynchburg, Va.]
To show how little one could be festive on, we will take a peep at a
starvation party given on a plantation near Lexington, North Carolina, by
Mrs. Page, soon after General Kilpatrick's troops vacated the mansion. "We
had all been so miserable," Mrs. Page tells, "that I was just bound to
have some fun. So I gave a dining."
She invited ten ladies, who all came wondering what on earth she could set
before them. They walked; there was not a carriage in the neighbourhood.
They were all cultured, refined women, wives and daughters of men of
prominence, and accustomed to elegant entertainment. A few days before,
one of them had sent to Mrs. Page for something to eat, saying she had not
a mouthful in the house, and Mrs. Page had shared with her a small supply
of Western pork and hardtack which her faithful coloured man, Frank, had
gotten from the Yankees. Mrs. Page had now no pork left. Her garden had
been destroyed. She had not a chair in the house, and but one cooking
utensil, a large iron pot. And not a fork, spoon, cup, plate or other
table appointment.
With pomp and merriment, Mrs. Drane, a clergyman's widow, the company's
dean and a great favourite with everybody, was installed at the head of
the bare, mutilated table, where rude benches served as seats. Mrs.
Marmaduke Johnston, of Petersburg, was accorded second place of honour.
The _menu_ consisted of a pudding of corn-meal and dried whortle-berries
sweetened with sorghum; and beer made of persimmons and honeyshucks, also
sweetened with sorghum. The many-sided Frank was butler. The pudding,
filling the half of a large gourd, was placed in front of Mrs. Drane, and
she, using hardtack as spoon, dipped it up, depositing it daintily on
other hardtack which answered for plates and saucers.
The beer was served from another gourd into cups made of newspapers folded
into shape; the ladies drank quickly that the liquid might not soak
through and be lost. They enjoyed the beverage and the pudding greatly and
assured their hostess that they had rarely attended a more delightful
feast. The pudding had been boiled in the large iron pot, and Frank had
transferred it to the gourd. In his kitchen and pantry, gourds of various
sorts and sizes seemed to ask: "Why were vessels of iron, pewter, and
copper ever invented, and what need has the world of china-ware so long as
we grow on the backyard fence?"
How Frank's mistress, a frail-looking, hospitable, resourceful little
woman, provided for herself and family and helped her friends out of next
to nothing; how her cheerfulness, industry, and enterprise never failed
her or others; and how Frank aided her, would in itself fill a book.
But then it is a story of Southern verve and inventiveness that could be
duplicated over and over again.
Did not Sir George Campbell write in an English magazine of how much he
enjoyed a dinner in a Southern mansion, when all the feast was a dish of
roasted apples and a plate of corn-bread? Not a word of apology was
uttered by his host or hostess; converse was so cultured and pleasing,
welcome so sincere, that the poverty of the board was not to be weighed in
the balance. This host who had so much and so little to give his guest was
Colonel Washington Ball, nearest living kinsman to General George
Washington.
The fall of 1865 was, in Virginia at least, a bountiful one. Planters'
sons had come home, gone into the fields, worked till the crop was all
laid by; and then, there was no lack of gaiety. A favourite form of
diversion was the tournament, which furnished fine sport for cavalry
riders trained under Stuart and Fitz Lee.
One of the most brilliant took place in 1866, at a famous plantation on
the North Anna River. The race-track had been beaten down smooth and hard
beforehand by the daily training of knights. It was in a fair stretch of
meadow-land beyond the lawns and orchards. The time was October, the
weather ideal, the golden haze of Indian Summer mellowing every line of
landscape. On the day appointed the grounds were crowded with carriages,
wagonettes, buggies and vehicles of every sort, some very shabby, but
borrowing brightness from the fair young faces within.
The knights were about twenty-five. Their steeds were not so richly
caparisoned as Scott's in "Ivanhoe," but the riders bestrode them with
perhaps greater ease and grace than heavy armor permitted mediæval
predecessors. Some wore plumed hats that had covered their heads in real
cavalry charges, and more than one warrior's waist was girt with the red
silk sash that had belted him when he rode at the head of his men as Fitz
Lee's captain. A number were in full Confederate uniform, carrying their
gray jackets as jauntily as if no battle had ever been lost to them. One
of these attracted peculiar attention. He was of very distinguished
appearance; and from his arm floated a long streamer of crape. Every one
was guessing his name till the herald cried: "Knight of Liberty Lost!" The
mourning knight swept before the crowd, bearing off on the point of his
spear the three rings which marked his victory for at least that run.
For this sport, three gibbet-like structures stand equal distances apart
on a straight race-track. From the arm of each, a hook depends and on
each hook a ring is hung. Each knight, with lance poised and aimed, rides
full tilt down this track and takes off all the rings he can in a given
number of rides. He who captures most rings is victor. It is his right to
choose the Queen of Love and Beauty, riding up to her on the field and
offering a ring upon his spear. The knight winning the second highest
number chooses the First Maid of Honour; and so on, until there is a royal
quartette of queen and maids.
The tournament was to the South what baseball is to the nation; it was
intensely exciting and picturesque, and, by reason of the guerdon won,
poetic, investing an ordinary mortal with such power as Paris exercised
when he gave the golden apple to Venus. It had spice of peril to make it
attractive, if "danger's self is lure alone." Fine horsemanship, a steady
hand, and sure eye were essentials.
"Liberty Lost" won, and the mourning knight laid his laurels at the feet
of a beautiful girl who has since reigned as a social queen in a Northern
home. The coronation took place in the mansion that evening. After a
flowery address, each knight knelt and offered a crown to his fair one.
The symbols of royalty were wreaths of artificial flowers, the queen's
shaped like a coronet, with sprays forming points. Her majesty wore a gown
that had belonged to her great-grandmother; very rich silk in a bayadere
pattern, that served as becoming sheath for her slim blonde loveliness.
After the coronation, the knights led their fair ones out in the "Royal
Set" which opened the ball.
Perhaps it is better to say that George Walker, the negro fiddler, opened
the ball. He was the most famous man of his craft in the Piedmont region.
There he was that night in all his glory at the head of his band of
banjoists, violinists and violincellist; he was grandeur and gloss
personified when he made preliminary bow and flourish, held his bow aloft,
and set the ball in motion!
"Honour yo' pardners!"
"And didn't we do as George told us to do!" Matoaca says. "Such
dance-provoking melodies followed as almost bewitched one's feet. 'Life on
the Ocean Wave,' 'Down-town Girls Won't You Come Out Tonight and Dance by
the Light of the Moon!' 'Fisher's Horn-Pipe' and 'Ole Zip Coon' were some
of them. Not high-sounding to folks of today, but didn't they make feet
twinkle! People did what was called 'taking steps' in those days. I can
almost hear George's fiddle now, and hear him calling: 'Ladies to the
right! Gents to the right! Ladies to the center! Gents to the center!
Hands all 'roun' an' promenade all!' Who could yell 'Do se do!' and
'Sashay all!' with such a swing?"
About one o'clock all marched in to supper, the queen and her knights and
maidens leading. It was hard times in Virginia, but the table groaned
under such things as folks then thought ought to adorn a festal board.
There was not lacking the mighty saddle-o'-mutton, roast pig with apple in
his mouth, Smithfield ham, roast turkey, and due accompaniments. The
company marched back to the ball-room, and presently marched again to a
second supper embracing sweets of all descriptions.
Commencements at schools and colleges, which the South began to restore
and refill as quickly as she was able, brought the young people together
and were strong features in our social life. So were Sunday schools; and,
in the country, protracted meetings or religious revivals. And barbecues.
Who that has gone out to a frolic in the Southern woods and feasted on
shote or mutton roasted over a pit and basted with vinegar and red pepper
gravy, can forget what a barbecue is!
Summer resorts became again meeting-grounds for old friends, and new.
Social gatherings at the Greenbrier White Sulphur were notable. General
Lee was there with his daughter, and the first to lead in extending
courtesies to Northern guests attracted to the White by the reputation of
that famous watering-place. Again, our women were at their ancient haunts,
wearing silks and laces as they were prospering under the new order or as
their great-grandmothers' trunks, like that of Love and Beauty's Queen,
held reserves not yet exhausted. And under the silks and laces, hearts
cried out for loved ones who would gather on the green lawns and dance in
the great halls no more. But heroism presented a smiling face and took up
life's measure again.
In cities changes were not so acute as in the country, where people,
without horses and vehicles, were unable to visit each other. The larger
the planter, the more extreme his family's isolation was like to be, his
land and his neighbours' lands stretching for miles between houses. I
heard a planter's wife say, "Yours is the first white woman's face I have
seen for six months." Her little daughter murmured mournfully: "And I
haven't seen a little white girl to play with for longer than that."
Multitudes who had kept open house could no longer. To a people in whom
the social instinct was so strong and hospitality second nature, abrupt
ending of neighbourly intercourse was a hard blow.
Stay and bankrupt laws for the benefit of the debtor class and bearing
much hardship on creditors, often orphan minors, were passed, and under
these planters were sold out and moved to new places, their overseers
often succeeding them and reigning in their stead. It was not an
unknown thing for men to manage to get themselves sold out under these
laws, thus evading payment of obligations and at the same time securing a
certain quota for themselves, which the law allowed. It seemed to me that
many who took it were better off than before. There were unfortunates who
had to pay security debts for bankrupts. Much hard feeling was engendered.
[Illustration: MRS. DAVID URQUHART, OF NEW ORLEANS
A famous hostess, distinguished for her social graces and her good deeds.]
Some measure for relief of the debtor class was necessary. A man who had
contracted debts on the basis of thousands of acres at fifteen to fifty
dollars an acre, and owning a hundred or more negroes, worth a thousand
dollars each, could not meet in full such engagements when his land would
not bring two dollars an acre, when his negroes were set free, and hired
labour, if he had wherewithal to hire, could not be relied on. Some men
took the Bankrupt Law for protection, then set themselves to work and paid
obligations which could not be exacted by law.
THE BONDAGE OF THE FREE