THE REORGANIZATION OF SOUTHERN LABOR IS CONTINUED WITH VIGOR.
By six o'clock in the morning the Doctor was out visiting the quarters
of his sable dependants. Having on the previous evening told Major
Scott, the head man or overseer of the gang, that he should expect the
people to rise by daybreak and get their breakfasts immediately, so as
to be ready for early work, he was a little astonished to find half of
them still asleep, and two or three absent. The Major himself was just
leaving the water-butt in rear of the plantation house, where he had
evidently been performing his morning ablutions.
"Scott," said the Doctor, "you shouldn't use that water. The butt holds
hardly enough for the family."
"Yes sah," answered with a reverential bow the Major. "But the butt that
we has is mighty dry."
"But there is the bayou, close by."
"Yes sah, so 'tis," assented the Major, with another bow. "I guess I'll
think of that nex' time."
"But what are you all about?" asked the Doctor. "I understood that you
were all to be up and ready for work by this time."
"I tole the boys so," said the Major in a tone of indignant virtue. "I
tole 'em every one to be up an' about right smart this mornin'. I tole
'em this was the fust mornin' an' they orter be up right smart, cos
everythin' 'pended on how we took a start. 'Pears like they didn't mine
much about it some of 'em."
"I'm afraid you didn't set them an example, Scott. Have you had your
breakfast?"
"No sah. 'Pears like the ole woman couldn't fetch nothin' to pass this
mornin'."
"Well, Scott, you must set them an example, if you want to influence
them. Never enjoin any duty upon a man without setting him an example."
"Yes sah; that's the true way," coincided the unabashed Major. "That's
the way Abraham an' Isaac an' Jacob went at it," he added, turning his
large eyes upward with a sanctimoniousness of effect which, most men
could not have equalled without the aid of lifted hands, tonsures and
priestly gowns. "An' they was God's 'ticlar child'n, an 'lightened by
his holy sperrit."
The Doctor studied him for a moment with the interest of a philosopher
in a moral curiosity, and said to himself, rather sadly, that a monkey
or a parrot might be educated to very nearly the same show of piety.
"Are all the people here?" he inquired, reverting from a consideration
of the spiritual harvest to matters connected with temporal agriculture.
"No sah. I'se feared not. Tom an' Jim is gone fo' suah. Tom he went off
las' night down to the fote. 'Pears like he's foun' a gal down thar that
he's a co'ting. Then Jim;--don' know whar Jim is nohow. Mighty poor mean
nigger he is, I specs. Sort o' no 'count nigger."
"Is he?" said the Doctor, eyeing Scott with a suspicious air, as if
considering the possibility that he too might be a negro of no account.
"I must have a talk with these people. Get them all together, every man,
woman and pickaninny."
The Major's face was radiant at the prospect of a speech, a scene, a
spectacle, an excitement. He went at his subordinates with a will,
dragging them out of their slumbers by the heels, jerking the little
ones along by the shoulder, and shouting in a grand bass voice, "Come,
start 'long! Pile out! Git away frum hyer. Mars Ravenel gwine to make a
speech."
In a few minutes he had them drawn up in two ranks, men in front, women
in the rear, tallest on the right, younglings on the left.
"I knows how to form 'em," he said with a broad smile of satisfied
vanity. "I used to c'mand a comp'ny under Gineral Phelps. I was head
boss of his cullud 'campment. He fus' give me the title of Major."
He took his post on the right of the line, honored the Doctor with a
military salute, and commanded in a hollow roar, "'Tention!"
"My friends," said the Doctor, "we are all here to earn our living."
"That's so. Bress the Lawd! The good time am a comin'," from the not
unintelligent audience.
"Hear me patiently and don't interrupt," continued the Doctor. "I see
that you understand and appreciate your good fortune in being able at
last to work for the wages of freedom."
"Yes, Mars'r," in a subdued hoarse whisper from Major Scott, who
immediately apologized for his liberty by a particularly grand military
salute.
"I want to impress upon you," said Ravenel, "that the true dignity of
freedom does not consist in laziness. A lazy man is sure to be a poor
man, and a poor man is never quite a free man. He is not free to buy
what he would like, because he has no money. He is not free to respect
himself, for a lazy man is not worthy even of his own respect. We must
all work to get any thing or deserve any thing. In old times you used to
work because you were afraid of the overseer." "Whip," he was about to
say, but skipped the degrading word.
"Now you are to work from hope, and not from fear. The good time has
come when our nation has resolved to declare that the laborer is worthy
of his hire."
"Oh, the blessed Scripter!" shouted Madam Scott in a piercing pipe,
whereupon her husband gave her a white-eyed glare of reproof for daring
to speak when he was silent.
"Your future depends upon yourselves," the Doctor went on. "You can
become useful and even influential citizens, if you will. But you must
be industrious and honest, and faithful to your engagements. I want you
to understand this perfectly. I will talk more to you about it some
other time. Just now I wish chiefly to impress upon you your immediate
duties while you are on this plantation. I shall expect you all to sleep
in your quarters. I shall expect you to be up at daybreak, get your
breakfasts as soon as possible, and be ready to go to work at once. You
must not leave the plantation during the day without my permission. You
will work ten hours a day during the working season. You will be
orderly, honest, virtuous and respectable. In return I am to give you
rations, clothing, quarters, fuel, medical attendance, and instruction
for children. I am also to pay you as wages eight dollars a month for
first-class hands, and six for second-class. Each of you will have his
little plot of land. Finally, I will endeavor to see that you are all,
old and young, taught to read."
Here there was an unanimous shout of delight, followed by articulate
blessings and utterances of gratitude.
"Whenever any one gets dissatisfied," concluded the Doctor, "I will
apply to find him another place. You know that, if you go off alone and
without authority, you are exposed to be picked up by the
provost-marshal, and put in the army. Now then, get your breakfasts.
Major Scott, you will report to me when they are ready to go to work."
While the Major offered up a ponderous salute, the line dispersed in
gleesome confusion, which was a sore disappointment to him, as he
wanted to make it right face, clap hands, and break ranks in military
fashion. The Doctor went to breakfast with the most cheerful confidence
in his retainers, notwithstanding the idle opening of this morning. As
soon as the poor fellows knew what he expected of them, they would be
sure to do it, if it was anything in reason, he said to Lillie. The
negroes were ignorant of their duty, and often thoughtless of it, but
they were at bottom zealous to do right, and honestly disposed toward
people who paid them for their labor. And here the author ventures to
introduce the historical doubt as to whether any other half-barbarous
race was ever blessed and beautified with such a lovingly grateful
spirit as descended, like the flames of the day of Pentecost, upon the
bondsmen of America when their chains were broken by the just hands of
the great Republic. Impure in life by reason of their immemorial
degradation, first as savages, and then as slaves, they were pure in
heart by reason of their fervent joy and love.
Under no urgency but that of their own thankfulness the Doctor's negroes
did more work that summer than the Robertsons had ever got from double
their number by the agency of a white overseer, drivers, whips and
paddles. On the second morning they were all present and up at daybreak,
including even Tom the lovelorn, and Jim the "no 'count nigger." In a
couple of weeks they had split out many wagon-loads of rails from the
forest in rear of the plantation, put the broken-down fences in order,
and prepared a sufficient tract of ground for planting. Not a pig nor a
chicken disappeared from the Doctor's flocks and herds, if I may be
allowed to apply such magnificent terms to bristly and feathered
creatures. On the contrary, his small store of live-stock increased with
a rapidity which seemed miraculous, and which was inadequately explained
by the non-committal commentary of Major Scott, "Specs it mebbe in anser
to prayer." Ravenel finally learned, to his intense mortification, that
his over-zealous henchmen were in the habit of depredating nightly on
the property of adjacent planters of the old Secession stock, and adding
such of their spoils as they did not need, to his limited zoological
collection. Under the pangs of this discovery he made a tour of apology
and restitution through the neighborhood, and on returning from it,
called his hands together and delivered them a lecture on the universal
application of the law of honesty. They heard him with suppressed
titters and hastily eclipsed grins, nudging each other in the side, and
exhibiting a keen perception of the practical humor and poetical justice
of their roguery.
"'Pears like you don' wan' to spile the 'Gyptians, Mars Ravenel,"
observed a smirking, shining darkey known as Mr. Mo. "You's one o' God's
chosen people, an' you's been in slavery somethin' like we has, an' you
has a right to dese yere rebel chickins."
"My good people," replied the Doctor, "I don't say but that _you_ have a
right to all the rebel chickens in Louisiana. I deny that I have. I have
always been well paid for my labor. And even to you I would say, be
forgiving,--be magnanimous,--avoid even the appearance of evil. It is
your great business, your great duty toward yourselves, to establish a
character for perfect honesty and harmlessness. If you haven't enough to
eat, I don't, mind adding something to your rations."
"We _has_ 'nuff to eat," thundered Major Scott. "Let the man as says we
hasn't step out _yere_."
Nobody stepped out; everybody was full of nourishment and content; and
the interview terminated in a buzz of satisfaction and suppressed
laughter. Thenceforward the Doctor had the virtuous pleasure of
observing that his legitimate pigs and chickens were left to their
natural means of increase.
Lillie's reading schools, held every evening in one of the unfurnished
rooms of the second story, were attended regularly by both sexes, and
all ages of this black population. The rapidity of their progress at
first astonished and eventually delighted her, in proportion as she
gradually took her ignorant but zealous scholars to her heart. The
eagerness, the joy, the gratitude even to tears, with which they
accepted her tuition was touching. They pronounced the words "Miss
Lillie" with a tone and manner which seemed to lay soul and body at her
feet; and when the Doctor entered the schoolroom on one of his visits of
inspection they gave him a dazzling welcome of grins and rolling eyes;
the spectacle reminded him vaguely of such spiritual expressions crowns
of glory and stars in the firmament. If the gratitude of the humble is a
benediction, few people have ever been more blessed than were the
Ravenels at this period.
As a truthful historian I must admit that there were some rotten specks
in the social fruit which the Doctor was trying to raise from this
barbarous stock. Lillie was annoyed, was even put out of all patience
temporarily, by occasional scandals which came to light among her sable
pupils and were referred to her or to her father for settlement. That
eminent dignitary and supposed exemplar of purity, Major Scott, was the
very first to be detected in capital sin, the scandal being all the more
grievous because he was not only the appointed industrial manager, but
the self-elected spiritual overseer of the colored community. He
preached to them every Sunday afternoon, and secretly plumed himself on
being more fluent by many degrees than Mars Ravenel, who conducted the
morning exercises chiefly through the agency of Bible and prayer-book.
His copiousness of language, and abundance of Scriptural quotation was
quite wonderful. In volume of sound his praying was as if a bull of
Bashan had had a gift in prayer; and if Heaven could have been taken,
like Jericho, by mere noise, Major Scott was able to take it alone. Had
he been born white and decently educated, he would probably have made a
popular orator either of the pulpit or forum. He had the lungs for it,
the volubility and the imagination. In pious conversation, venerable
air, grand physique, superb bass voice, musical ear, perfection of
teeth, and shining white of the eyes, he was a counterpart of Mrs.
Stowe's immortal idealism, Uncle Tom. But, like some white Christians,
this tolerably exemplary black had not yet arrived at the ability to
keep the whole decalogue. He sometimes got a fall in his wrestlings with
the sin of lying, and in regard to the seventh commandment he was even
more liable to overthrow than King David. Ravenel had much ado to heal
some social heart-burnings caused by the Major's want of illumination
concerning the binding nature of the marriage contract. He got him
married over again by the chaplain of the garrison at Fort Winthrop, and
then informed him that, in case of any more scandals, he should report
him to the provost-marshal as a proper character to enter the army.
"I'se very sorry for what's come to pass, Mars Ravenel," said the
alarmed and repentant culprit. "But now I 'specs to go right forrad in
the path of duty. I s'pose now Mars Chaplain has done it strong. Ye see,
afore it wasn't done strong. I wasn't rightly married, like 'spectable
folks is, nohow. Ef I'd been married right strong, like 'spectable white
folks is, I wouldn't got into this muss an fotched down shame on
'ligion, for which I'se mighty sorry an' been about repentin in secret
places with many tears. That's so, Mars Ravenel, as true as I hopes to
be forgiven."
Here the Major's manhood, what he had of it, broke down, or, perhaps I
ought to say, showed itself honorably, and he wept copious tears of what
I must charitably accept as true compunction.
"I am a little disappointed, but not much astonished," said the Doctor,
discussing this matter with the Chaplain. "I was inclined to hope at one
time that I had found an actual Uncle Tom. I was anxious and even ready
to believe that the mere gift of freedom had exalted and purified the
negro character notwithstanding uncounted centuries of barbarism or of
oppression. But in hoping a moral miracle I was hoping too much. I
ought not to have expected that a St. Vincent de Paul could be raised
under the injustice and dissoluteness of the sugar-planting system.
After all, the Major is no worse than David. That is pretty well for a
man whom the American Republic, thirty millions strong, has repressed
and kept brutish with its whole power from his birth down to about a
year ago."
"It seems to me," answered the Chaplain,--"I beg your pardon,--but it
seems to me that you don't sufficiently consider the enlightening power
of divine grace. If this man had ever been truly regenerated (which I
fear is not the case), I doubt whether he would have fallen into this
sin."
"My dear sir," said the Doctor warmly, "renewing a man's heart is only a
partial reformation, unless you illuminate his mind. He wants to do
right, but how is he to know what is right? Suppose he can't read.
Suppose half of the Bible is not told him. Suppose he is misled by half
the teaching, and all the example of those whom he looks up to as in
every respect his superiors. I am disposed to regard Scott as a very
fair attempt at a Christian, considering his chances. I am grieved over
his error, but I do not think it a case for righteous indignation,
except against men who brought this poor fellow up so badly."
"But Uncle Tom," instanced the Chaplain, who had not been long in the
South.
"My dear sir, Uncle Tom is a pure fiction. There never was such a slave,
and there never will be. A man educated under the degrading influences
of bondage must always have some taint of uncommon grossness and
lowness. I don't believe that Onesimus was a pattern of piety. But St.
Paul had the moral sense, the Christianity, to make allowance for his
disadvantages, and he recommended him to Philemon, no doubt as a weak
brother who required special charity and instruction."
Injured husbands of the slave-grown breed are rarely implacable in
their anger; and before a fortnight had passed, Major Scott was
preaching and praying among his colored brethren with as much confidence
and acceptance as ever.
The season opened delightfully with the Ravenels. Lillie was
occasionally doleful at not getting letters from her husband, and
sometimes depressed by the solitude and monotony of plantation life. Her
father, being more steadily occupied, and having no affectionate worry
on his mind, was constantly and almost boyishly cheerful. It was one of
his characteristics to be contented under nearly any circumstances.
Wherever he happened to be he thought it was a very nice place; and if
he afterwards found a spot with superior advantages, he simply liked it
better still. I can easily believe that, but for the stigma of forced
confinement, he would have been quite happy in a prison, and that, on
regaining his liberty, he would simply have remarked, "Why, it is even
pleasanter outside than in."
But I am running ahead of some important events in my story. Lillie
received a letter from her husband saying that he should visit the
family soon, and then another informing her that in consequence of an
unforeseen press of business, he should be obliged to postpone the visit
for a few days. His two next letters were written from Brashear City on
the Atchafalaya river, but contained no explanation of his presence
there. Then came a silence of three days, which caused her to torture
herself with all sorts of gloomy doubts and fears, and made her fly for
forgetfulness or comfort to her housekeeping, her school, and her now
frequent private devotions. The riddle was explained when the Doctor
procured a New Orleans paper at the fort, with the news that Banks had
crossed the Atchafalaya and beaten the enemy at Camp Beasland.
"It's all right," he said, as he entered the house. He waved the paper
triumphantly, and smiled with a counterfeit delight, anxious to
forestall her alarm.
"Oh! what is it?" asked Lillie with a choking sensation, fearful that
it might not be quite as right as she wanted.
"Banks has defeated the enemy in a great battle. Colonel Carter is
unhurt, and honorably mentioned for bravery and ability."
"Oh, papa!"
She had turned very white at the thought of the peril through which her
husband had passed, and the possibility, instantaneously foreseen, that
he might be called to encounter yet other dangers.
"We ought to be very grateful, my darling."
"Oh! why has he gone? Why didn't he tell me that he was going? Why did
he leave me so in the dark?" was all that Lillie could say in the way of
thankfulness.
"My child, don't be unreasonable. He wished of course to save you from
unnecessary anxiety. It was very kind and wise in him."
Lillie snatched the paper, ran to her own room and read the official
bulletin over and over, dropping her tears upon it and kissing the place
where her husband was praised and recommended for promotion. Then she
thought how generous and grand he was to go forth to battle in silence,
without uttering a word to alarm her, without making an appeal for her
sympathy. The greatest men of history have not seemed so great to the
world as did this almost unknown colonel of volunteers to his wife. She
was in a passion, an almost unearthly ecstasy of grief, terror,
admiration and love. It is well that we cannot always feel thus
strongly; if we did, we should not average twenty years of life; if we
did, the human race would perish.
Next day came two letters from Carter, one written before and one after
the battle. In his description of the fighting he was as professional,
brief and unenthusiastic as usual, merely mentioning the fact of
success, narrating in two sentences the part which his brigade had taken
in the action, and saying nothing of his own dangers or performances.
But there was another subject on which he was more copious, and this
part of the letter Lillie prized most of all. "I am afraid I sicken you
with such fondness," he concluded. "It seems to me that you must get
tired of reading over and over again the same endearing phrases and pet
names."
"Oh, never imagine that I can sicken of hearing or reading that you love
me," she answered. "You must not cheat me of a single pet name; you must
call me by such names over and over in every letter. I always skim
through your letters to read those dear words first. I should be utterly
and forever miserable if I did not believe that you love me, and did not
hear so from you constantly."
At this time Lillie knew by heart all her husband's letters. Let her eye
rest on the envelope of one which she had received a week or a fortnight
previous, and she could repeat its contents almost verbatim, certainly
not missing one of the loving phrases aforesaid. Through the New Orleans
papers and these same wonderful epistles she followed the victorious
army in its onward march, now at Franklin, now at Opelousas, and now at
Alexandria. It was all good news, except that her husband was forever
going farther away; the Rebels were always flying, the triumphant
Unionists were always pursuing, and there were no more battles. She
flattered herself that the summer campaign was over, and that Carter
would soon get a leave of absence and come to his own home to be petted
and worshipped.
From Alexandria arrived a letter of Colburne's to the Doctor. The young
man had needed all this time and these events to fortify him for the
task of writing to the Ravenels. For a while after that marriage it
seemed to him as if he never could have the courage to meet them, nor
even call to their attention the fact of his continued existence. His
congratulations were written with labored care, and the rest of the
letter in a style of affected gayety. I shall copy from it a single
extract, because it bears some relation to the grand reconstruction
experiment of the Doctor.
"I hear that you are doing your part towards organizing free labor in
Louisiana. I fear that you will find it an up-hill business, not only
from the nature of your surroundings but from that of your material. I
am as much of an abolitionist as ever, but not so much of a
'nigger-worshipper.' I don't know but that I shall yet become an
advocate of slavery. I frequently think that my boy Henry will fetch me
to it. He is an awful boy. He dances and gambles all night, and then
wants to sleep all day. If the nights and days were a thousand years
long apiece, he would keep it up in the same fashion. In order that he
may not be disturbed in his rest by my voice, he goes away from camp and
curls up in some refuge which I have not yet discovered. I pass hours
every day in shouting for Henry. Of course his labors are small and far
between. He brushes my boots in the morning because he doesn't go to bed
till after I get up; but if I want them polished during the day,--at
dress-parade, for instance,--it is not Henry who polishes them. When I
scold him for his worthlessness, he laughs most obstropolously (I value
myself on this word, because to my ear it describes Henry's laughter
exactly). For his services, or rather for what he ought to do and
doesn't, I pay him ten dollars a month, with rations and clothing. He
might earn two or three times as much on the levee at New Orleans; but
the lazy creature would rather not earn anything; he likes to get his
living gratis, as he does with me. This is the way he came to join me.
When I was last in New Orleans, Henry, whom I had previously known as
the body servant of one of my sergeants, paid me a visit. Said I, 'What
are you doing?'"
"'Workin' on 'ee levee.'
"'How much do you get?'
"'It's 'cordin' to what I doos. Ef I totes a big stent, I gits two
dollars; an' ef I totes 'nuff to kill a hoss, I gits two dollars 'n 'aff
a day.'
"'Why, that is grand pay. That is a great deal better than hanging
around camp for nothing but your board and clothes. I am glad you have
gone at some profitable and manly labor. Stick to it, and make a man of
yourself. Get some money in the bank, and then give yourself a little
schooling. You can make yourself as truly respectable as any white man,
Henry.'
"'Ya-as,' he said hesitatingly, as if he thought the result hardly worth
the trouble; for which opinion I hardly blame him, considering the
nature of a great many white men of this country. 'But it am right hard
work, Cap'm.'--Here he chuckled causelessly and absurdly.--'Sometimes I
thinks I'd like to come and do chores for you, Cap'm.'
"'Oh no,' I remonstrated. 'Don't think of giving up your respectable and
profitable industry. I couldn't afford to pay you more than ten dollars
a month."
Here he laughed in his obstropolous and irrational fashion, signifying
thereby, I think, that he was embarrassed by my arguments.
"Well, I kinder likes dem terms," he said. "'Pears like I wants to have
a good time better'n to have a heap o' money."
"And so here he is with me, having a good time, and getting more money
than he deserves. Now when you have freed with your own right hand as
many of these lazy bumpkins as I have, you will feel at liberty to speak
of them with the same disrespectful levity. Wendell Phillips says that
the negro is the only man in America who can afford to fold his arms and
quietly await his future. That is just what the critter is doing, and
just what puts me out of patience with him. Moreover, he can't afford
it; if he doesn't fall to work pretty soon, we shall cease to be
negrophilists; we shall kick him out of doors and get in somebody who
is not satisfied with folding his arms and waiting his future."
"He is too impatient," said the Doctor, after he had finished reading
the letter to Lillie. "Just like all young people--and some old ones.
God has chosen to allow himself a hundred years to free the negro. We
must not grumble if He chooses to use up a hundred more in civilizing
him. I can answer that letter, to my own satisfaction. What right has
Captain Colburne to demand roses or potatoes of land which has been sown
for centuries with nothing but thistles? We ought to be thankful if it
merely lies barren for a while."