SINGLEHANDED.
As my aunt set sail for the shores of Europe, and Miss Pinshon
and I turned our faces towards Magnolia, I seemed to see
before me a weary winter. I was alone now; there was nobody to
take my part in small or great things; my governess would have
her way. I was so much stronger now that no doubt she thought
I could bear it. So it was. The full tale of studies and tasks
was laid on me; and it lay on me from morning till night.
I had expected that. I had looked also for the comfort and
refreshment of ministering to my poor friends in the kitchen
on the Sunday evenings. I began as usual with them. But as the
Sundays came round, I found now and then a gap or two in the
circle; and the gaps as time went on did not fill up; or if
they did they were succeeded by other gaps. My hearers grew
fewer, instead of more; the fact was undoubted. Darry was
always on the spot; but the two Jems not always, and Pete was
not sure, and Eliza failed sometimes, and others; and this
grew worse. Moreover, a certain grave and sad air replaced the
enjoying, almost jocund, spirit of gladness which used to
welcome me and listen to the reading and join in the prayers
and raise the song. The singing was not less good than it used
to; but it fell oftener into the minor key, and then pouted
along with a steady, powerful volume, deepening and steadying
as it went, which somehow swept over my heart like a wind from
the desert. I could not well tell why, yet I felt it trouble
me; sometimes my heart trembled with the thrill of those sweet
and solemn vibrations. I fancied that Darry's prayers had a
somewhat different atmosphere from the old. Yet when I once or
twice asked Margaret the next morning why such and such a one
had not been at the reading, she gave me a careless answer,
that she supposed Mr. Edwards had found something for them to
do.
"But at night, Margaret?" I said. "Mr. Edwards cannot keep
them at work at night."
To which she made no answer; and I was for some reason
unwilling to press the matter. But things went on, not getting
better but worse, until I could not bear it. I watched my
opportunity and got Maria alone.
"What is the matter," I asked, "that the people do not come on
Sunday evening as they used? Are they tired of the reading,
Maria?"
"I 'spect dey's as tired as a fish mus' be of de water," said
Maria. She had a fine specimen under her hand at the moment,
which I suppose suggested the figure.
"Then why do they not come as usual, Maria? there were only a
few last night."
"Dere was so few, it was lonesome," said Maria.
"Then what is the reason?"
"Dere is more reasons for t'ings, den Maria can make out,"
she said thoughtfully. "Mebbe it's to make 'em love de
priv'lege mo'."
"But what keeps them away, Maria? what hinders?"
"Chile, de Lord hab His angels, and de devil he hab his
ministers; and dey takes all sorts o' shapes, de angels and de
ministers too. I reckon dere's some work o'dat sort goin'on."
Maria spoke in a sort of sententious wisdom which did not
satisfy me at all. I thought there was something behind.
"Who is doing the work, Maria?" I asked, after a minute.
"Miss Daisy," she said, "dere aint no happenin' at all widout
de Lord lets it happen. Dere is much contrairy in dis world,
fact, dere is! but I 'spect de Lord make it all up to us
by'm by."
And she turned her face full upon me with a smile of so much
quiet resting in that truth, that for just a moment it
silenced me.
"Miss Daisy aint lookin' quite so peart as she use to look,"
Maria went on. But I slipped away from that diversion.
"Maria," I said, "you don't tell me what is the matter; and I
wish to know. What keeps the people, Pete, and Eliza and all,
from coming? What hinders them, Maria? I wish to know."
Maria busied herself with her fish for a minute, turning and
washing it; then without looking up from her work she said in
a lowered tone,
" 'Spect de overseer, he don't hab no favour to such ways and
meetin's."
"But, with _me?_" I said; "and with aunt Gary's leave?"
"S'pose he like to fix t'ings his own way," said Maria.
"Does he forbid them to come?" I asked.
"I reckon he do," she said, with a sigh.
Maria was very even-tempered, quiet, and wise, in her own way.
Her sigh went through my heart. I stood thinking what plan I
could take.
"De Lord is bery good, Miss Daisy," she said, cheerily a
moment after; "I and dem dat love Him, dcre can be no sort
o'separation, no ways."
"Does Mr. Edwards forbid them _all_ to come?" I asked. "For a
good many do come."
" 'Spect he don't like de meetin's, no how," said Maria.
"But does he tell all the people they must not come?"
"I reckon he make it oncomfor'ble for 'em," Maria answered
gravely. "Dere is no end o' de mean ways o' sich folks. Know
he aint no gentleman, no how!"
"What does he do, Maria?" I said; trembling, yet unable to
keep back the question.
"He can do what he please, Miss Daisy," Maria said, in the
same grave way. " 'Cept de Lord above, dere no one can hinder
now massa so fur. Bes' pray de Lord, and mebbe He sen' his
angel, some time."
Maria's fish was ready for the kettle; some of the other
servants came in; and I went with a heavy heart up the stairs.
"Massa so fur" yes! I knew that; and Mr. Edwards knew it
too. Once sailed for China; and it would be long, long, before
my cry for help, in the shape of one of my little letters,
could reach him and get back the answer. My heart felt heavy
as if I could die, while I slowly mounted the stairs to my
room. It was not only that trouble was brought upon my poor
friends, nor even that their short enjoyment of the Word of
life was hindered and interrupted; above this and worse than
this was the sense of _wrong_, done to these helpless people,
and done by my own father and mother. This sense was something
too bitter for a child of my years to bear; it crushed me for
a time. Our people had a right to the Bible, as great as mine;
a right to dispose of themselves, as true as my father's right
to dispose of himself. Christ, my Lord, had died for them as
well as for me; and here was my father, _my father_
practically saying that they should not hear of it, nor know
the message He had sent to them. And if anything could have
made this more bitter to me, it was the consciousness that the
reason of it all was that we might profit by it. Those unpaid
hands wrought that our hands might be free to do nothing;
those empty cabins were bare, in order that our houses might
be full of every soft luxury; those unlettered minds were kept
unlettered that the rarest of intellectual wealth might be
poured into our treasury. I knew it. For I had written to my
father once to beg his leave to establish schools, where the
people on the plantation might be taught to read and write. He
had sent a very kind answer, saying it was just like his
little Daisy to wish such a thing, and that his wish was not
against it, if it could be done; but that the laws of the
State, and for wise reasons, forbade it. Greatly puzzled by
this, I one day carried my puzzle to Preston. He laughed at me
as usual, but at the same time explained that it would not be
safe; for that if the slaves were allowed books and knowledge,
they would soon not be content with their condition, and would
be banding together to make themselves free. I knew all this,
and I had been brooding over it; and now when the powerful
hand of the overseer came in to hinder the little bit of good
and comfort I was trying to give the people, my heart was set
on fire with a sense of sorrow and wrong that, as I said, no
child ought ever to know.
I think it made me ill. I could not eat. I studied like a
machine, and went and came as Miss Pinshon bade me; all the
while brooding by myself and turning over and over in my heart
the furrows of thought, which seemed at first to promise no
harvest. Yet those furrows never break the soil for nothing.
In due time the seed fell; and the fruit of a ripened purpose
came to maturity.
I did not give up my Sunday readings; even although the
numbers of my hearers grew scantier. As many as could, we met
together to read and to pray, yes, and to sing. And I shall
never in this world hear such singing again. One refrain comes
back to me now
"Oh, had I the wings of the morning
Oh, had I the wings of the morning
Oh, had I the wings of the morning
I'd fly to my Jesus away!"
I used to feel so too, as I listened and sometimes sung with
them.
Meantime, all that I could do with my quarterly ten dollars, I
did. And there was many a little bit of pleasure I could give;
what with a tulip here and a cup of tea there, and a bright
handkerchief, or a pair of shoes. Few of the people had spirit
and cultivation enough to care for the flowers. But Maria
cherished some red and white tulips and a hyacinth in heir
kitchen window, as if they had been her children; and to Darry
a white rose-tree I had given him seemed almost to take the
place of a familiar spirit. Even grave Pete, whom I only saw
now and then this winter at my readings, nursed and tended and
watched a bed of crocuses with endless delight and care. All
the while, my Sunday circle of friends grew constantly fewer;
and the songs that were sung at our hindered meetings had a
spirit in them, which seemed to me to speak of a deep-lying
fire somewhere in the hearts of the singers, hidden, but
always ready to burst into a blaze. Was it because the fire
was burning in my own heart?
I met one of the two Jems in the pine avenue one day. He
greeted me with the pleasantest of broad smiles.
"Jem," said I, "why don't you come to the house Sunday
evenings, any more?"
"It don't 'pear practical, missie." Jem was given to large-
sized words, when he could get hold of them.
"Mr. Edwards hinders you?"
"Mass' Ed'ards bery smart man, Miss Daisy. He want massa's
work done up all jus' so."
"And he says that the prayer-meeting hinders the work, Jem?"
"Clar, missis, Mass' Ed'ards got long head; he see furder den
me," Jem said, shaking his own head as, if the whole thing
were beyond him. I let him go. But a day or two after I
attacked Margaret on the subject. She and Jem, I knew, were
particular friends. Margaret was oracular and mysterious, and
looked like a thunder cloud. I got nothing from her, except an
increase of uneasiness. I was afraid to go further in my
inquiries; yet could not rest without. The house servants, I
knew, would not be likely to tell me anything that would
trouble me, if they could help it. The only exception was
mammy Theresa; who with all her love for me had either less
tact, or had grown from long habit hardened to the state of
things in which she had been brought up. From her, by a little
cross questioning, I learned that Jem and others had been
forbidden to come to the Sunday readings; and their disobeying
had been visited with the lash, not once nor twice; till, as
mammy Theresa said, " 'peared like it warn't no use to try to
be good agin de devil."
And papa was away on his voyage to China, away on the high
seas, where no letter could reach him and Mr. Edwards knew
that. There was a fire in my heart now, that burned with sharp
pain. I felt as if it would burn my heart out. And now took
shape and form one single aim and purpose, which became for
years the foremost one of my life. It had been growing and
gathering. I set it clear before me from this time.
Meanwhile, my mother's daughter was not willing to be entirely
baffled by the overseer. I arranged with Darry that I would be
at the Cemetery hill on all pleasant Sunday afternoons; and
that all who wished to hear, me read, or who wished to learn
themselves, might meet me there. The Sunday afternoons were
often pleasant that winter. I was constantly at my post; and
many a one crept round to me from the quarters and made his
way through the graves and the trees to where I sat by the
iron railing. We were safe there. Nobody but me liked the
place. Miss Pinshon and the overseer agreed in shunning it.
And there was promise in the blue sky, and hope in the soft
sunshine, and sympathy in the sweet rustle of the pine leaves.
Why not? Are they not all God's voices. And the words of the
Book were very precious there, to me and many another. I was
rather more left to myself of late. My governess gave me my
lessons quite as assiduously as ever; but after lesson time
she seemed to have something else to take her attention. She
did not walk often with me, as the spring drew near; and my
Sunday afternoons were absolutely unquestioned.
One day in March, I had gone to my favourite place to get out
a lesson. It was not Sunday afternoon of course. I was tired
with my day's work, or I was not very strong; for though I had
work to do, the witcheries of nature prevailed with me to put
down my book. The scent of pine buds and flowers made the air
sweet to smell, and the spring sun made it delicious to feel.
The light won its way tenderly among the trees, touching the
white marble tombstones behind me, but resting with a more
gentle ray upon the moss and turf where only little bits of
rough board marked the sleeping places of our dependants. Just
out of sight, through the still air I could hear the river, in
its rippling, flow past the bank at the top of which I sat. My
book hung in my hand, and the course of Universal History was
forgotten; while I mused and mused over the two sorts of
graves that lay around me, the two races, the diverse fate
that attended them; while one blue sky was over, and one
sunlight fell down. And "while I was musing, the fire burned,"
more fiercely than ever. David's had occasion when he wrote
those words. "Then spake I with my tongue." I would have liked
to do that. But I could do nothing; only pray.
I was very much startled while I sat in my muse, to bear a
footstep coming. A steady, regular, footstep; no light trip of
children; and the hands were in the field, and this was not a
step like any of them. My first thought was, the overseer!
come to spy me out. The next minute I saw through the trees
and the iron railings behind me, that it was not the overseer.
I knew _his_ wide-awake; and this head was crowned with some
sort of a cap. I turned my head again and sat quiet; willing
to be overlooked, if that might be. The steps never slackened.
I heard them coming round the railing then just at the
corner I looked up, to see the cap lifted, and a smile
coming upon features that I knew; but my own thoughts were so
very far away that my visitor had almost reached my side
before I could recollect who it was. I remember I got up then
in a little hurry.
"It is Doctor Sandford!" I exclaimed, as his hand took mine.
"Is it Daisy?" answered the doctor.
"I think so," I said.
"And I _think so_," he said, looking at me after the old
fashion. "Sit down, and let me make sure."
"You must sit on the grass, then," I said.
"Not a bad thing, in such a pleasant place," he rejoined,
sending his blue eye all round my prospect. "But it is not so
pleasant a place as White Lake, Daisy."
Such a flood of memories and happy associations came rushing
into my mind at these words, he had not given them time to
come in slowly, I suppose my face showed it. The doctor
looked at me and smiled.
"I see it _is_ Daisy," he said. "I think it certainly Daisy. So
you do not like Magnolia?"
"Yes, I do," I said, wondering where he got that conclusion.
"I like the _place_ very much, if "
"I should like to have the finishing of that 'if' if you
have no objection."
"I like the _place_," I repeated. "There are some things about
it I do not like."
"Climate, perhaps?"
"I did not mean the climate. I do not think I meant anything
that belonged to the place itself."
"How do you do?" was the doctor's next question.
"I am very well, sir."
"How do you know it?"
"I suppose I am," I said. "I am not sick. I always say I am
well."
"For instance, you are so well that you never get tired?"
"Oh, I get tired very often. I always did."
"What sort of things make you tired? Do you take too long
drives in your pony-chaise?"
"I have no pony-chaise now, Dr. Sandford. Loupe was left at
Melbourne. I don't know what became of him."
"Why didn't you bring him along? But any other pony would do,
Daisy."
"I don't drive at all, Dr. Sandford. My aunt and governess do
not like to have me drive as I used to do. I wish I could!"
"You would like to use your pony-chaise again?"
"Very much. I know it would rest me."
"And you have a governess, Daisy? That is something you had
not at Melbourne."
"No " I said.
"A governess is a very nice thing," said the doctor, taking
off his hat and leaning back against the iron railing, "if
she knows properly how to set people to play."
"To play!" I echoed. I don't know whether Miss Pinshon
approves of play."
"Oh! She approves of work then, does she?"
"She likes work," I answered.
"Keeps you busy?"
"Most of the day, sir."
"The evenings you have to yourself?"
"Sometimes. Not always. Sometimes I cannot get through with my
lessons, and they stretch on into the evening."
"How many lessons does this lady think a person of your age
and capacity can manage in the twenty-four hours?" said the
doctor, taking out his knife as he spoke and beginning to trim
the thorns off a bit of sweet-briar he had cut. I stopped to
make the reckoning.
"Give me the course of your day, Daisy. And, by the by, when
does your day begin?"
"It begins at half past seven, Dr. Sandford."
"With breakfast?"
"No, sir. I have a recitation before breakfast."
"Please, of what?"
"Miss Pinshon always begins with mathematics."
"As a bitters. Do you find that it gives you an appetite?"
By this time I was very near bursting into tears. The familiar
voice and way, the old time they brought back, the contrasts
they forced together, the different days of Melbourne and of
my Southern home, the forms and voices of mamma and papa,
they all came crowding and flitting before me. I was obliged
to delay my answer. I knew that Dr. Sandford looked at me;
then he went on in a very gentle way
"Sweetbriar is sweet, Daisy" putting it to my nose. "I
should like to know, how long does mathematics last, before
you are allowed to have coffee?"
"Mathematics only lasts half an hour. But then I have an hour
of study in Mental Philosophy before breakfast. We breakfast
at nine."
"It must take a great deal of coffee to wash down all that,"
said the doctor lazily trimming his sweetbriar. "Don't you
find that you are very hungry when you come to breakfast?"
"No, not generally," I said.
"How is that? Where there is so much sharpening of the wits,
people ought to be sharp otherwise."
"My wits do not get sharpened," I said, half laughing. "I
think they get dull; and I am often dull altogether by
breakfast time."
"What time in the day do you walk?"
"In the afternoon when we have done with the schoolroom. But
lately Miss Pinshon does not walk much."
"So you take the best of the day for philosophy?"
"No, sir, for mathematics."
"Oh! Well, Daisy, _after_ philosophy and mathematics have both
had their turn; what then? when breakfast is over."
"Oh, they have two or three more turns in the course; of the
day," I said. "Astronomy comes after breakfast; then Smith's
_Wealth of Nations_; then Chemistry. Then I have a long History
lesson to recite; then French. After dinner we have Natural
Philosophy, and Physical Geography and Mathematics; and then
we have generally done."
"And then what is left of you goes to walk," said the doctor.
"No, not very often now," I said. "I don't know why, Miss
Pinshon has very much given up walking of late."
"Then what becomes of you?"
"I do not often want to do much of anything," I said. "To-day
I came here."
"With a book," said the doctor. "Is it work or play?"
"My History lesson," I said, showing the book. "I had not
quite time enough at home."
"How much of a lesson, for instance?" said the doctor, taking
the book and turning over the leaves.
"I had to make a synopsis of the state of Europe from the
third century to the tenth; synchronising the event and the
names."
"In writing?"
"I might write it if I chose, I often do, but I have to
give the synopsis by memory."
"Does it take long to prepare, Daisy?" said the doctor, still
turning over the leaves.
"Pretty long," I said, "when I am stupid. Sometimes I cannot
do the synchronising, my head gets so thick; and I have to
take two or three days for it."
"Don't you get punished, for letting your head get thick?"
"Sometimes I do."
"And what is the system of punishment at Magnolia for such
deeds?"
"I am kept in the house for the rest of the afternoon
sometimes," I said; "or I have an extra problem in mathematics
to get out for the next morning."
"And _that_ keeps you in, if the governess don't."
"Oh, no," I said; "I never can work at it then. I get up
earlier the next morning."
"Do you do nothing for exercise but those walks, which you do
not take?"
"I used to ride last year," I said; "and this year I was
stronger, and Miss Pinshon gave me more studies; and somehow I
have not cared to ride so much. I have felt more like being
still."
"You must have grown tremendously wise, Daisy," said the
doctor, looking round at me now with his old pleasant smile. I
cannot tell the pleasure and comfort it was to me to see him;
but I think I said nothing.
"It is near the time now when you always leave Magnolia is
it not?"
"Very near now."
"Would it trouble you to have the time a little anticipated?"
I looked at him, in much doubt what this might mean. The
doctor fumbled in his breast pocket and fetched out a letter.
"Just before your father sailed for China, he sent me this. It
was some time before it reached me; and it was some time
longer before I could act upon it."
He put a letter in my hand, which I, wondering, read. It said,
the letter did, that papa was not at ease about me; that he
was not satisfied with my aunt's report of me, nor with the
style of my late letters; and begged Dr. Sandford would run
down to Magnolia at his earliest convenience and see me, and
make enquiry as to my well-being; and if he found things not
satisfactory, as my father feared he might and judged that the
rule of Miss Pinshon had not been good for me on the whole, my
father desired that Dr. Sandford would take measures to have
me removed to the North and placed in one of the best schools
there to be found; such a one as Mrs. Sandford might
recommend. The letter further desired, that Dr. Sandford would
keep a regular watch over my health, and suffer no school
training nor anything else to interfere with it; expressing
the writer's confidence that Dr. Sandford knew better than any
one what was good for me.
"So you see, Daisy," the doctor said, when I handed him back
the letter, "your father has constituted me in some sort your
guardian, until such time as he comes back."
"I am very glad," I said, smiling.
"Are you? That is kind. I am going to act upon my authority
immediately, and take you away."
"From Magnolia?" I said breathlessly.
"Yes. Wouldn't you like to go and see Melbourne again for a
little while?"
"Melbourne!" said I; and I remember how my cheeks grew warm.
"But will Miss Pinshon go to Melbourne?"
"No; she will not. Nor anywhere else, Daisy, with my will and
permission, where you go. Will that distress you very much?"
I could not say yes, and I believe I made no answer, my
thoughts were in such a whirl.
"Is Mrs. Sandford in Melbourne I mean, near Melbourne
now?" I asked at length.
"No, she is in Washington. But she will be going to the old
place before long. Would you like to go, Daisy?"
I could hardly tell him. I could hardly think. It began to
rush over me, that this parting from Magnolia was likely to be
for a longer time than usual. The river murmured by the
sunlight shone on the groves on the hillside. Who would look
after my poor people?
"You like Magnolia after all?" said the doctor. "I do not
wonder, as far as Magnolia goes. You are sorry to leave it."
"No," I said, "I am not sorry at all to leave Magnolia; I am
very glad. I am only sorry to leave some friends."
"Friends " said the doctor.
"Yes."
"How many friends?"
"I don't know," said I. "I think there are a hundred or more."
"Seriously?"
"Oh, yes," I said, "They are all on the place here."
"How long will you want, Daisy, to take proper leave of these
friends?"
I had no idea he was in such practical haste; but I found it
was so.