FIRST CHILD--PLANTATION LIFE
The next winter, in February, mamma’s first child, a son, named
Benjamin, after papa’s father, was born. She was desperately ill, and
her beautiful hair was cut as short as possible. Papa had thought it
wisest for her to accede to her brother and his wife’s urgent request
that she should go to them in Charleston for the event; and it was most
fortunate, for had she been taken ill at home, with a doctor far away,
she probably would not have lived. As it was, her recovery was slow, and
it was some time before she could resume her normal life at home. Aunt
May, her unmarried sister, went home with her when she returned, and
stayed until she regained her usual health. Aunt May was the only plain
sister, for although she had beautiful complexion, brown hair, and fine
figure, her face was not pretty,--but she made up in wit what she lacked
in beauty. She was the wittiest, most amusing companion, and had great
domestic gifts as housekeeper. Aunt May’s coffee, Aunt May’s rolls and
bread, in short, every article on her table was superior, and, of
course, this was a great comfort to mamma. There was only one drawback.
Aunt May had no patience with incompetence, and the servants were a
terrible trial to her, and mamma had to hear hourly of their
shortcomings, which she knew only too well already, and to sympathize
with Aunt May over them.
My mother spent a very anxious time in the first year of her eldest
child’s life. He was very delicate, and mamma knew nothing about babies.
The plantation nurses seemed to her very ignorant, and she was afraid to
trust the baby to them. However, any one who has read Doctor Sims’s very
interesting account of his early practice, especially among babies, well
knows that these nurses, many of them, had learned through the constant
care of babies how to manage them in a way surprising to one whose
knowledge is altogether theoretic and scientific. Anyway, my brother
grew and strengthened before the next baby came two years afterward.
Robert was a very beautiful, strong child, and from the first gave no
anxiety or trouble, only delight to mamma; and the little boys were
always taken for twins, the elder being small for his age and the
younger large.
Two years passed, and another baby came. This was the first little girl,
and papa wished to name her for his mother, Charlotte Ann, and mamma
asked that part of Aunt Blythe’s name be added--her name was Elizabeth
Frances. She had died the winter before, and mamma missed her
dreadfully. So the little girl was called Charlotte Frances; and, in the
household with its number of servants, you could always distinguish
those devoted to my mother, who always spoke of “Miss Fanny,” and those
devoted to my father, who spoke of “Miss Cha’lot.” But I never knew this
from mamma, and do not know if it were so. Hearing of her only from
mamma, I only knew of her as Fanny, my perfectly beautiful little
sister.
Of these years I know very little, nothing, indeed, except that my
parents went the summer following to Newport and New York, and visited
papa’s uncle, the great painter, Washington Allston, in Boston. When Mr.
Flagg was looking over the great man’s letters preparatory to publishing
his life and letters, he found one from Washington Allston to his
mother, speaking of this visit and of my mother’s beauty and charm; and
Mr. Flagg very kindly sent this letter to my mother, who gave it to me,
and there is quite a contest among my nieces and nephews as to who will
be the lucky one to whom I leave it. Mamma was greatly impressed by the
ethereal beauty of the artist. She had at this time as nurse for the
baby a woman from the State of New York, who took the little one in to
see and be seen by her great-uncle. When she came out of the studio she
said to mamma: “Surely, your uncle has the face of an angel, ma’am.”
Three years passed, mamma very happy with her little family of
interesting children, two of them so beautiful that wherever they went
the nurse was stopped on the street by those who remarked on the
wonderful beauty of Robert and Fanny. Poor, dear little Ben was neither
beautiful nor strong, but he had a good mind and powerful will. Mamma
often went to Charleston to visit her brother and sisters there, for by
this time the youngest sister, Harriet, was also married to a young and
very clever lawyer, Henry Deas Lesesne, who was in the law office of
James L. Petigru, and she had her charming home in Charleston; so there
were three homes to be visited there. Aunt Louise had relented in her
attitude to my father and was always hospitably anxious to entertain the
little family. Aunt Blythe had left her fortune to my father and the
two boys, still babies though they were, to the surprise and indignation
of many. So these were happy prosperous years.
Papa found the house at Chicora too small for the growing family, and
began the planning of a new one, to which the two very large down-stairs
rooms of the old one should be attached as an L. As the spring came on,
a new baby was expected, and mamma hoped it would be a little girl, to
name after her mother. As my mother dreaded the move to the sea, which
involved so much troublesome packing, my father built a summer house,
what would now be called a bungalow, for it had large, airy rooms, but
all on one floor, at a pineland about eight miles north of the
plantation on the same side of the Pedee, where he had a large tract of
land, and where the cattle went always in summer. It was called “The
Meadows.” Mamma was very pleased to be so near the plantation, for she
could drive down in the afternoons and see after her flower-garden,
which was beautiful and her delight. She gathered great baskets of roses
and brought them back. The Meadows was very prettily situated in a
savannah, which was a natural garden of wild flowers--great, brilliant
tiger-lilies, white and yellow orchis, the pink deer-grass, with its
sweet leaf, pink saltatia, as well as white, and ferns everywhere.
Here, in this isolated new summer home, miles away from any neighbor,
mamma was taken ill about two months before the time set for the baby’s
coming. Hastily the doctor was summoned, a very young man, still
unmarried, but one who showed early his skill and proficiency as a
family doctor; then the monthly nurse, as it was then called, Mary
Holland, was found and brought. Fortunately, she had been employed in
Georgetown and had not yet returned to Charleston, where she lived, and
was in great demand by the doctors of best standing. I remember her as
an old woman, but still tall and stately in figure, and with great
dignity and poise. She was about the color of an Indian. It was a mercy
she could be got, for my mother was desperately ill; but the little girl
so hoped for was born, and my mother did not die. When she became strong
enough to speak, and my father was with her, she said: “I want to see
little Louise.”
My father answered: “I will bring little Adèle to you myself.”
She exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Allston, I do not want the baby named after me!
I must name her for my dear mother.”
But he answered: “I wish her to bear the name of my beloved wife.”
She said nothing, but the tears which all of her suffering had not
brought, now rolled down her cheeks. In a little while papa returned
with the small bundle of flannel wrappings and most skilfully and
tenderly unfolded them until the baby was visible.
Mamma looked at her, and then with something of her wonted spirit said:
“You may call her Adèle if you like! Poor little soul, she cannot live!
Take her away!”
I must think that this exhibition of almost cruel obstinacy on my
father’s part was due to the fact that the doctor had told him mamma
could not possibly recover, and he thought it the only chance to have a
little girl to name after her.
Wonderful tales were told of the smallness of the little Adèle. “She was
put into a quart cup with ease and comfort to her.” After mamma was well
enough to hold her and play with her, she passed her wedding-ring over
her hand and on her arm as a bracelet! But the little Adèle had a grit
and grip on life which astounded every one, and she grew to womanhood,
a beautiful creature in face, form, and spirit. She married and had
seven children, and never lost one from illness. They grew up healthy
and strong. The tiny Adèle was born August 16, 1840, in the very middle
of a very hot summer. Of course, my mother’s return to health was slow
and tedious.
One can cast one’s mind back to that date, when ice was so great a
luxury that it was only to be had in the North, where it was cut and put
up in the winter. The Meadows was twenty miles from the nearest town and
post-office, Georgetown, and everything had to be brought up by the
plantation wagons and team. But milk and butter and cream were abundant,
also poultry and eggs; and the Pedee furnished most delicious
fish--bream and Virginia perch and trout. There were figs in abundance
and also peaches, but the latter were small and a good deal troubled
with cuculio. They were, however, very good stewed, and my mother made
quantities of delicious preserves from them.
Around the house at Chicora grew luxuriant orangetrees, only the
bitter-sweet; but these oranges make the nicest marmalade, so mamma put
up quantities of that for winter use. Her vegetable-garden was always
full of delicious things--cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and okra; and,
as my father killed beef and mutton every week for use on the
plantation, she had the very best soups and steaks; and there were
always wild ducks to be had. Also, after August 1, there was venison in
the house, for my father was devoted to deer-hunting. At the time the
negroes understood preserving the venison in the hottest weather by
exposing it to the broiling sun. I do not know what else they did, for
it is now a lost art; but it was called “jerked venison” and was a
delicious breakfast dish, when shaved very thin and broiled. They also
preserved fish in the same way--called “corned fish”--it was a great
breakfast dish broiled. Besides all this, about the end of August the
rice-birds began to swarm over the rice, sucking out all the grain when
in the milk stage. This necessitated the putting out of bird-minders in
great numbers, who shot the little birds as they rose in clouds from the
rice at the least noise. These rice-birds are the most delicious
morsels; smaller than any other bird that is used for food, I think, so
that a man with a good appetite can eat a dozen, and I, myself, have
eaten six. When they go out at the end of harvest, another delicious
little bird comes in, called locally a coot, but really the rail or
soarer of Maryland. All these things made living easy and abundant, for
they came in great quantities.
Mamma spoke with great pleasure of this part of her life when she could
thoroughly enjoy her little family, sorrow not yet having clouded her
horizon. When the little Adèle was two years old came a little sister,
strong, healthy, and beautiful, to bear the name of the beloved little
French mother, Louise Gibert--then her cup of happiness was full. She
had come to love the plantation life, with its duties and its power to
help the sick, to have the girls taught to sew and cut out simple
garments, to supply proper and plentiful nourishment for the
hospital--all this came to be a joy to her. There was on the plantation,
besides the hospital or “sick-house,” a “children’s house,” where all
the mothers who were going out to work brought their children to be
cared for during the day. The nursing babies, who were always taken care
of by a child of ten or eleven, were carried to the mothers at regular
intervals to be nursed. The head nurse, old Maum Phibby (Phœbe), was a
great personage, and an administrator, having two under her, a nurse and
a cook. Maum Phibby trained the children big
[Illustration: MRS. BENJAMIN ALLSTON (NÉE CHARLOTTE ANNE ALLSTON),
MOTHER OF R. F. W. ALLSTON.
Miniature by Fraser.]
enough to learn, teaching them to run up a seam and hem, in the way of
sewing, and to knit first squares for wash-cloths, and then stockings,
and then to spin. When the war came there was not a grown woman on the
plantation who could not knit stockings or spin yarn. Weaving was only
taught to certain young women who showed ability and some mechanical
skill.
Mamma walked out often to the sick-house to see the patients and taste
the soup and other nourishment, and then on to the “chillun’s house” to
see how their food was prepared, and whether they were all kept clean
and healthy. This she did all her life, and I remember the joy of being
allowed to go with her and of seeing the children all lined up in rows,
their black skins shining, as clean black skins do, in a delightful way,
their white teeth gleaming as they dropped their courtesies as mamma
passed, each one holding in her hand some piece of work to exhibit. They
were a healthy, happy lot and very clean, as it was an important part of
Maum Phibby’s duties to report the mothers who were negligent of “clean
linen.”[3] There was in the children’s house, as well as the
sick-house, a tin tub, that in the hospital big enough for the tallest
man to lie straight in, and that at the children’s house smaller; and
any number of huge black kettles, so that hot water in great quantities
could be got very quickly on the open fires. The children were bathed
and scrubbed once a week by Maum Phibby, and woe to the mother whose
child was not found to have been kept clean in the meantime. I have two
of those immense coffin-shaped tubs now, perfectly good and strong, and
I had one freshly painted and used it until two years ago, when I was
able to put in a modern bathtub. At the end of the war, when furniture
and every portable thing was carried off by the darkies, the bathtubs
from the sick-house were the one thing not taken. They were
conspicuously in poor repute, one thing that nobody wanted! The
coffin-shaped tub has a great recommendation, as taking less than half
the water to cover a person entirely than the modern tub, and a very hot
bath could be quickly given.
Mamma every Sunday afternoon had all the children big enough to come
assembled in the little church in the avenue, and taught them what she
could of the great mercy of God and what he expected of his children.
It was always spoken of as “katekism,” and was the event of the week to
the children--their best clothes, their cleanest faces, and oh, such
smiling faces greeted mamma when she arrived at the church! After the
lesson a big cake was brought in a wheelbarrow by one of the house-boys,
convoyed by Maum Mary, who cut it with much ceremony, and each child
went up to the barrow, dropped a courtesy and received a slice, then
passed to my mother with another courtesy, filed out and scampered
happily home as soon as safe from Maum Mary’s paralyzing eye.
All her life mamma kept this up, and in later years we children were
allowed to go on condition that we should sit still and listen to the
catechism, and ask for no cake until every child had had his share. Then
we were allowed a few scraps, which tasted nicer than any other cake.