With a new place, every touch makes a difference; and when some of those
touches are given by the hand of a gardener, nature begins to help.
It was so at our Georgia home. Every bit of time my father or Morgan
could find to spare, they were digging, or trimming, or planting, till
Sarah would set to and grumble to me because they would not come in to
their meals.
"I wouldn't care, sir," she would say, "only the supper's getting
spoiled."
"But the home made more beautiful," replied my father; and then I have
heard him say as he glanced through the window at flower and tree
flourishing wonderfully in that beautiful climate, "If my poor wife had
lived to see all this!"
Early and late worked Morgan, battling with the wild vines and beautiful
growths that seemed to be always trying to make the garden we were
redeeming from the wilderness come back to its former state. But he
found time to gratify me, and he would screw up his dry Welsh face and
beckon to me sometimes to bring a stick and hunt out squirrel, coon, or
some ugly little alligator, which he knew to be hiding under the roots
of a tree in some pool. Then, as much to please me as for use, a punt
was bought from the owners of a brig which had sailed across from
Bristol to make her last voyage, being condemned to breaking up at our
infant port.
The boat, however, was nearly new, and came into my father's hands
complete, with mast, sail, ropes, and oars; and it was not long before I
gained the mastery over all that it was necessary to learn in the
management.
Morgan's fishing-tackle came into use, and after a little instruction
and help from the Welshman, I began to wage war upon the fish in our
stream and in the river, catching, beside, ugly little reptiles of the
tortoise or turtle family--strange objects to be hauled up from muddy
depths at one end of a line, but some of them very good eating all the
same.
The little settlement throve as the time went on, and though the Indians
were supposed to be threatening, and to look with very little favour
upon the settlement so near their hunting-grounds, all remained
peaceful, and we had nothing but haughty overbearing words from our
Spanish neighbours.
To a man the officers and gentlemen who had come out turned their
attention to agriculture, and many were the experiments tried, and
successfully too. At one estate cotton was growing; at another, where
there was a lot of rich low land easily flooded, great crops of rice
were raised. Here, as I walked round with my father, we passed broad
fields of sugar-cane, and farther on the great crinkled-leaved Indian
corn flourished wonderfully, with its flower tassels, and beautiful
green and then orange-buff ears of hard, sweet, flinty corn.
Then came long talks about the want of more help, and one of the
settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how
shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But before
many months had passed there was hardly a settler without slave labour,
the principal exception being my father.
It is hard to paint a picture in words, but I should like those who read
this to understand what my home was like when I was about twelve years
old, a great strong healthy boy, with cheeks burned brown by the sun.
Our place began with one low erection, divided by a rough partition into
two--our room and the Morgans'; most of our meals being eaten in the big
rustic porch contrived by Morgan in what he called his spare time, and
over which ran wildly the most beautiful passion-flower I had ever seen.
But then as wood was abundant, and a saw-pit had been erected, a more
pretentious one-floored cottage residence was planned to join on to the
first building, which before long was entirely devoted to the servants;
and we soon had a very charming little home with shingle roof, over
which beautiful creepers literally rioted, and hung down in festoons
from our windows.
Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild garden
dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled with every
kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able to get
together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south, grape-vines
flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance, and such fruits
familiar to English people at home as would bear the climate filled the
garden.
My father's estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater
part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of assistance
confining his efforts to a comparatively small garden; but he used to
say to me, in his quiet, grave way--
"We might grow more useful things, George, but we could not make the
place more beautiful."
And I often used to think so, as I gazed out of my window at the wild
forest, and the openings leading down to the stream and away to the
swamp, where I could hear the alligators barking and bellowing at night,
with a feeling half dread, half curiosity, and think that some day I
should live to see one that I had caught or killed myself, close at
hand.
Now and then Morgan used to call me to come and see where a 'gator, as
he called it, had been in the night, pointing out its track right up to
the rough fence of the garden.
"You and I'll have a treat one of these days, my lad."
"Yes," I used to say; "but when?"
"Oh, one of these days when I'm not busy."
"Ah, Morgan," I used to say, impatiently, "when you're not busy: when
will that be?"
"Be? One o' these days when we've cut down all the wood, and turned all
that low flat swamp into plantation. You see I'm so busy just now."
"Oh, very well," I said, "I shall go by myself."
"That you won't, look you," he cried. "I heard you promise your father
you wouldn't go alone. You're not much of a boy, but you're too good to
feed alligators with, or let the rattlesnakes and 'cassins try their
pyson on."
"But they wouldn't, I should take care."
"Take care? Do you know, there's 'gators big as trees in these
swamp-holes. I shouldn't wonder if there's some of the old
open-countenanced beauties big round as houses. Why, Master George, I
believe there's fellows out there as old as the river, and as could take
you as easy as I do a pill."
"Don't believe it."
"_Ve_-ry well then; only mind, if one does take you across the middle,
give you a pitch up in the air, and then catch you head-first and
swallow you, don't you blame me."
"Why, how could I, if he swallowed me?" I said.
"Oh, I don't know. You might holler or knock, if you had a stick in
your hand."
"What stuff!"
"Oh, is it! There's plenty of room in 'em, and they're as hard as horn.
But you take my advice, and don't try."
"Well, then, come with me; I know several holes where I think they
live."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I've seen the footmarks leading down to them all plain in the
mud."
"Then you've been going too far, and don't you run no risks again."
I walked away discontentedly, as I'd often walked away before, wishing
that I had a companion of my own age.
Some of the gentlemen settled out there had sons; but they were away,
and at times the place seemed very lonely; but I fancy now that was only
just before a storm, or when everything felt strange and depressing. At
other times I was happy enough. Every morning I had three hours' good
study with my father, who very rarely let me neglect that. Then in the
afternoon there was always something to do or something to see and help
over. For, as far as my father's means would allow, he planned and
contrived endless things to make our home more attractive and
convenient.
One week it would be the contriving of rough tree-trunk steps down from
the bank to the water's edge, so that the boat was easily reached, and
ringbolts were driven into cut-down trees, which became natural posts
for mooring the boat.
Another time during one of our walks, he stopped by a lovely pool out
toward the swamp--a spot of about an acre and a half in extent, where
the trees kept off the wind, and where the morning sun seemed to light
up the bottom, showing every pebble and every fish as if seen through
crystal glass.
"There," he said, "that will be ten times better than bathing in the
river. I always feel a little nervous about you there. This shall be
your own private bathing-pool, where you can learn to swim to your
heart's content. That old fallen hickory will do for your
dressing-room, and there are places to hang up your clothes. I don't
think you can come to harm here."
Of course I was delighted, and at the same time a little disappointed;
for the fact that the pool was perfectly safe took away somewhat from
its attractiveness, and I began to think that there was no stream to
carry one along; no very deep places to swim over and feel a thrill at
the danger; no holes in the banks where an alligator might be smiling
pleasantly as he thought how good a boy would be to eat.