A NEW ARRIVAL.
Forty years ago a Virginia planter was a king, his broad acres his
kingdom, his wife his queen, his children heirs to his throne, and his
slaves his subjects. True, it was a petty kingdom and he but a petty
monarch; but, as a rule, petty monarchs are tyrannical, and the Southern
planter was not always an exception. In those days men were measured,
not by moral worth, mental power, or physical stature, but by the number
of acres and slaves they owned. The South has never possessed that
sturdy class of yeomanry that has achieved wonders in the North. Before
the war labor was performed by slaves, now it is done by hired help, the
farmer himself there seldom cultivating his soil.
The home of Mr. George W. Tompkins, our acquaintance, was a marvel of
beauty and taste. Located in the Northwestern portion of the State,
before its division, it was just where the heat of the South was
delightfully tempered by the cool winds of the North. No valley in all
Virginia was more lovely. To the east were hills which might delight any
mountain lover, all clothed and fringed with delicate evergreens,
through which could be caught occasional glimpses of precipitous bald
rocks. Over the heights the sun climbed every morning to illuminate the
valley below with a radiance of glory. Mountain cascades came tumbling
and plunging from mossy retreats to swell a clear pebble-strewn stream
which afforded the finest trout to be found in the entire State.
The great mansion, built after the old Virginia plan, with a long stone
piazza in front, stood on an eminence facing the post-road, which ran
within a few rods of it. The house was substantial, heavy columns,
painted white as marble, supporting the porch, and quaint, old-fashioned
gables, about which the swallows twittered, breaking the lines of the
roof. In the front yard grew the beech and elm and chestnut tree, their
wide-spreading branches indicating an existence for centuries. A little
below the structure, and south-west from it, was a colony of low, small
buildings, where dwelt the slaves of Mr. Tompkins. One or two were
nearer, and in these the domestics lived. These were a higher order of
servants than the field-hands, and they never let an opportunity pass to
assert their superiority over their fellow slaves.
Socially, as well as geographically, Mr. Tompkins' home combined the
extremes of the North and South. He, with his calm face and mild gray
eyes, was a native of the green hills of New Hampshire, while his
dark-eyed wife was a daughter of sunny Georgia.
Mrs. Tompkins was the only child of a wealthy Georgia planter. Mr.
Tompkins had met her first in Atlanta, where he was spending the Winter
with a class-mate, both having graduated at Yale the year before. Their
meeting grew into intimacy, from intimacy it ripened into love. Shortly
after the marriage of his daughter, his only child, the planter
exchanged his property for more extensive possessions in Virginia, but
he never occupied this new home. He and his wife were in New Orleans,
when the dread malady, yellow-fever, seized upon them, and they died
before their daughter or her husband could go to them.
Mr. Tompkins, a man who had always been opposed to slavery, thus found
himself the owner of a large plantation in Virginia, and more than a
hundred slaves. There seemed to be no other alternative, and he accepted
the situation, and tried, by being a humane master, to conciliate his
wounded conscience for being a master at all.
He and his only brother, Henry, had inherited a large and valuable
property from their father, in their native State. His brother, like
himself, had gone South and married a planter's daughter, and become a
large slave-holder. He was a far different man from his brother.
Naturally overbearing and cruel, he seemed to possess none of the
other's kindness of heart or cool, dispassionate reason. He was a hard
task-master, and no "fire-eating" Southerner ever exercised his power
more remorselessly than he, and no one hated the Abolition party more
cordially. But it is not with Henry Tompkins we have to deal at present.
It was near noon the day after the travelers reached Jerry Lycan's inn.
Mrs. Tompkins sat on the piazza, looking down the road that led to the
village. She was one of those Southern beauties who attract at a first
glance; her eyes large, and dark, and brilliant; her hair soft and
glossy, like waves of lustrous silk. Of medium height, though not quite
so slender as when younger, her form was faultless. Her cheek had the
olive tint of the South, and as she reclined with indolent grace in her
easy chair, one little foot restlessly tapping the carpet on which it
rested, she looked a very queen.
The Tompkins mansion was the grandest for many miles around, and the
whole plantation bore evidence of the taste and judgment of its owner.
There seemed to be nothing, from the crystal fountain splashing in front
of the white-pillared dwelling to the vast fields of corn, wheat and
tobacco stretching far into the back-ground, which did not add to the
beauty of the place.
On the north were barns, immense and well filled granaries and stables.
Then came tobacco houses, covering acres of ground. One would hardly
have suspected the plain, unpretentious Mr. Tompkins as being the
possessor of all this wealth. But his house held his greatest
treasures--two bright little boys, aged respectively nine and seven
years.
Abner, the elder, had bright blue eyes and the clear Saxon complexion of
his father. Oleah, the younger, was of the same dark Southern type as
his mother. They were two such children as even a Roman mother might
have been proud to call her jewels. Bright and affectionate, they
yielded a quick obedience to their parents, and--a remarkable thing for
boys--were always in perfect accord.
"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Oleah, following close after his brother, and
quite as much excited.
"Well, what is the matter?" the mother asked, with a smile.
"It's coming! it's coming! it's coming!" cried Oleah.
"He's coming! he's coming!" shouted Abner.
"Who is coming?" asked the mother.
"Papa, papa, papa!" shouted both at the top of their voices. "Papa is
coming down the big hill on the stage-coach."
Mrs. Tompkins was now looking for herself. Sure enough there was the
great, old-fashioned stage-coach lumbering down the hill, and her
husband was an outside passenger, as the sky was now clear and the sun
shone warm and bright. The clumsy vehicle showed the mud-stains of its
long travel, and the roads in places were yet filled with water.
The winding of the coachman's horn, which never failed to set the boys
dancing with delight, sounded mellow and clear on the morning air.
"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" cried Oleah, clapping his
little hands.
"It's going to stop! it's going to stop!" shouted Abner, and both kept
up a frantic shouting, "Whoa, whoa!" to the prancing horses as they drew
near the house.
It paused in front of the gate, and Mrs. Tompkins and her two boys
hurried down the walk.
Mr. Tompkins' baggage had just been taken from the boot and placed
inside the gate, and the stage had rolled on, as his wife and two boys
came up to the traveler.
"Mamma first, and me next," said Oleah, preparing his red lips for the
expected kiss.
"And I come after Oleah," said Abner.
Mr. Tompkins called to a negro boy who was near to carry the baggage to
the house, and the happy group made their way to the great piazza, the
two boys clinging to their father's hands and keeping up a torrent of
questions. Where had he been? What had he seen? What had he brought home
for them? The porch reached, Mrs. Tompkins drew up the arm-chair for her
tired husband.
"Rest a few minutes," she said, "and then you can take a bath and change
your clothes, and you will feel quite yourself once more."
The planter took the seat, with a bright-faced child perched on each
side of him.
"You were gone so long without writing that I became uneasy," said his
wife, drawing her chair close to his side.
"I had a great deal to do," he answered, shaking his head sadly, "and it
was terrible work, I assure you. The memory of the past three weeks, I
fear, will never leave my mind."
"Was it as terrible as the message said?" asked Mrs. Tompkins, with a
shudder.
"Yes, the horrible story was all true. The whole family was murdered."
"By whom?"
"That remains a mystery, but it is supposed to have been done by one of
the slaves, as two or three ran away about that time."
"How did it happen? Tell me all."
The little boys were sent away, for this story was not for children to
hear, and Mr. Tompkins proceeded.
"We could hardly believe the news the dispatch brought us, my dear, but
it did not tell us the worst. The roads between here and North Carolina
are not the best, and I was four or five days making it, even with the
aid of a few hours occasionally by rail. I found my brother's next
neighbor, Mr. Clayborne, at the village waiting for me. On the way he
told all that he or any one seemed to know of the affair. My brother had
a slave who was half negro and part Indian, with some white blood in his
veins. This slave had a quadroon wife, whom he loved with all his wild,
passionate heart. She was very beautiful, and a belle among the negroes.
But Henry, for some disobedience on the part of the husband, whose
Indian and white blood revolted against slavery, sold the wife to a
Louisiana sugar planter. The half breed swore he would be revenged, and
my brother, unfortunately possessing a hasty temper, had him tied up and
severely whipped--"
"Served the black rascal quite right," interrupted the wife, who, being
Southern born, could not endure the least self-assertion on the part of
a slave.
"I think not, my dear, though we will not argue the question. After his
punishment the black hung about for a week or two, sullen and silent.
Several friends cautioned my brother to beware of him, but Henry was
headstrong and took no man's counsel. Suddenly the slave disappeared,
and although the woods, swamps and cane-breaks were scoured by
experienced hunters and dogs he could not be found. Three weeks had
passed, and all thought of the runaway had passed from the minds of the
people. Late one night the man who told me this was passing my brother's
house, when he saw flames shooting about the roof and out of the
windows. He gave the alarm, and roused the negroes. As he ran up the
lawn toward the house a bloody ax met his view. On entering the front
door my brother Henry was found lying in the hall, his skull cleft in
twain. I cannot repeat all that met the man's horror-stricken gaze. They
had only time to snatch away the bodies of my brother, his wife and two
of the children when the roof fell in."
"And the other two children?" asked Mrs. Tompkins.
"Were evidently murdered also, but their bodies could not be found. It
is supposed they were burned to ashes amid the ruins."
"Did you cause any extra search to be made?"
"I did, but it was useless. I have searched, searched,
searched--mountain, plain and swamp. The rivers were dragged, the wells
examined, the ruins raked, but in vain. The oldest and the youngest of
the children could not be found. A skull bone was discovered among the
ruins, but so burned and charred that it was impossible to tell whether
it belonged to a human being or an animal. I have done everything I
could think of, and yet something seems to tell me my task is not
over--my task is not over."
"What has been done with the plantation?" Mrs. Tompkins asked.
"The father of my brother's wife is the administrator of the estate, and
he will manage it."
"And the murderer?"
"No trace of him whatever. It seems as though, after performing his
horrible deed, he must have sank into the earth."
Mrs. Tompkins now, remembering that her husband needed a bath and a
change of clothes, hurried him into the house. The recital of that
horrible story had cast a shadow over her countenance, which she tried
in vain to drive away, and had reawakened in Mr. Tompkins' soul a
longing for revenge, though his better reason compelled him to admit
that the half-breed was goaded to madness and desperation.
The day passed gloomily enough after the first joy of the husband and
father's return. The next morning, just as the sun was peeping over the
gray peaks of the eastern mountains and throwing floods of golden light
into the valley below, dancing upon the stream of silver which wound
beneath, or splintering its ineffectual lances among the branches and
trunks of the grand old trees surrounding the plantation, Mr. Tompkins
was awakened from the dreamless sleep of exhaustion.
"What was that?" he asked of his wife.
Both waited a moment, listening, when again the feeble wail of an infant
reached their ears.
"It is a child's voice," said Mrs. Tompkins; "but why is it there?"
"Some of the negro children have strayed from the quarters; or, more
likely, it is the child of one of the house servants," said Mr.
Tompkins.
"The house servants have no children," answered Mrs. Tompkins, "and I
have cautioned the field women not to allow their children to come here
especially in the early morning, to annoy us."
Mr. Tompkins, whose morning nap was not yet over, closed his eyes again.
The melodious horn of the overseer, calling the slaves to the labors of
the day, sounded musical in the early morning air, and seemed only to
soothe the wearied master to sleep again. Footsteps were heard upon the
carpeted hallway, and then three or four light taps on the door of the
bedroom.
"Who is there?" asked Mrs. Tompkins.
"It's me, missus, if you please." The door was pushed open and a dark
head, wound in a red bandana handkerchief, appeared in the opening.
"What is the matter, Dinah?" Mrs. Tompkins asked, for she saw by the
woman's manner that something unusual had occurred. Dinah was her
mistress' handmaid and the children's nurse.
"If you please, missus," she said, "there is a queerest little baby on
the front porch in the big clothes-basket."
"A baby!" cried the astonished Mrs. Tompkins.
"Yes'm, a white baby."
"Where is its mother?"
"I don't know, missus. It must a been there nearly all night, an' I
suppose they who ever left it there wants you to keep it fur good."
"Bring the poor little thing here," said Mrs. Tompkins, rising to a
sitting position in the bed.
In a few minutes Dinah returned with a baby about six months old,
dressed in a faded calico gown, and hungrily sucking its tiny fist,
while its dark brown eyes were filled with tears.
"It was in de big basket among some ole clothes," said Dinah.
"Poor, dear little thing! it is nearly starved and almost frozen.
Prepare it some warm milk at once, Dinah," said the kind-hearted
mistress.
The girl hurried away to do her bidding, leaving the baby with Mrs.
Tompkins, who held the benumbed child in her arms and tried to still its
cries.
Mr. Tompkins was wide awake now, and his mind busy with conjecture how
the child came to be left on their piazza.
"What is that?" called Oleah, from the next room.
"Why, it's a baby," answered Abner, and a moment later two pairs of
little bare feet came pattering into their mother's room.
"Oh, the sweet little thing!" cried Oleah; "I want to kiss it."
His mother held it down for him to kiss.
"Isn't it pretty!" said Abner. "Its eyes are black, just like Oleah's.
Let me kiss it, too."
The little stranger looked in wonder at the two children, who, in their
joy over this treasure-trove, were dancing frantically about the room.
"Oh, mamma, where did you get it?" asked Oleah.
"Dinah found it on the porch," the mother answered.
"Who put it there?"
"I don't know, dear."
"Why, Oleah," said Abner, "it's just like old Mr. Post. Don't you know
he found a baby at his door? for we read about it in our First reader."
"Oh, yes; is this the same baby old Mr. Post found?" asked Oleah.
"No," answered the mother; "this is another."
"Oh, isn't it sweet?" said Oleah, as the child cried and stretched out
its tiny hands.
"It's just as pretty as it can be," said Abner.
"Mamma, oh, mamma!" said Oleah, shaking his mother's arm, as she did not
pay immediate attention to his call.
"What, dear?" she asked.
"Are we goin' to keep it?"
"Yes, dear; if some one who has a better right to it does not come to
claim it."
"They shan't have it," cried Oleah, stamping his little, bare foot on
the carpet.
"No," added Abner; "it's ours now. They left it there to starve and
freeze, and now we will keep it."
"You think, then, that the real owner has lost his title by his
neglect?" said the father, with a smile.
"Yes, that's it," the boy answered.
"It's a very good common law idea, my son."
Dinah now came in with warm milk for the baby, and Mrs. Tompkins told
her to take the two boys to their room and dress them; but they wanted
to wait first and see the baby eat.
"Oh, don't it eat; don't it eat!" cried the boys.
"The poor little thing is almost starved," said the mother.
"Missus, how d'ye reckin it came on the porch?" Dinah asked.
"I cannot think who would have left it," answered Mrs. Tompkins.
"That is not a very young baby," said Mr. Tompkins, watching the little
creature eat greedily from the spoon, for Dinah had now taken it and was
feeding it.
"No, marster, not berry, 'cause it's got two or free teef," said the
nurse. "Spect it's 'bout six months old."
As soon as the little stranger had been fed, Dinah wrapped it in a warm
blanket and laid it on Mrs. Tompkin's bed, where it soon fell asleep,
showing it was exhausted as well as hungry. Dinah then led the two boys
to the room to wash and dress them.
"Strange, strange!" said Mrs. Tompkins, beginning to dress. "Who can the
little thing belong to, and what are we to do with it?"
"Keep it, I suppose," said Mr. Tompkins; and, stumbling over a
boot-jack, he exclaimed in the same breath, "Oh, confound it!"
"What, the baby?"
"No, the boot-jack. I've stubbed my toe on it."
"We have no right to take upon ourselves the rearing of other people's
children," said Mrs. Tompkins, paying no attention to her husband's
trifling injury.
"But it's our Christian duty to see that the little thing does not die
of cold and hunger," said Mr. Tompkins, caressing his aching toe.
Soon the boys came in, ready for breakfast, and inquired for the baby;
when told that it was sleeping, they wanted to see it asleep, and stole
on tiptoe to the bed, where the wearied little thing lay, and nothing
would satisfy them until they were permitted to touch the pale,
pinched, tear-stained cheek with their fresh, warm lips.
The breakfast bell rang, and they went down to the dining-room, where
awaiting them was a breakfast such as only Aunt Susan could prepare.
They took their places at the table, while a negro girl stood behind
each, to wait upon them and to drive away flies with long brushes of
peacock feathers. The boys were so much excited by the advent of the
strange baby that they could scarcely keep quiet long enough to eat.
"I am going to draw it on my wagon," said Oleah.
"I'm going to let it ride my pony," said Abner.
"Don't think too much of the baby yet, for some one may come and claim
it," said their mother.
"They shan't have it, shall they, papa?" cried Oleah.
"No, it is our baby now."
"And we are going to keep it, ain't we, Aunt Susan!" he asked the cook,
as she entered the dining-room.
"Yes, bress yo' little heart; dat baby am yours," said Aunt Susan.
"It's a Christmas gift, ain't it, Maggie?" he asked the waiter behind
him. Oleah was evidently determined to array everyone's opinion against
his mother's supposition.
"Yes, I reckin it am," the negro girl answered with a grin.
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Abner. "Why, Oleah, this ain't Christmas."
Seeing his mistake, Oleah joined in the laugh, but soon commenced again.
"We're goin' to make the baby a nice, new play-house, ain't we, Abner?"
"Yes, and a swing."
The baby slept nearly all the forenoon. When she woke (for it was a
girl) she was washed, and dressed in some of Master Oleah's clothes, and
Mrs. Tompkins declared the child a marvel of beauty, and when the little
thing turned her dark eyes on her benefactor with a confiding smile the
lady resolved that no sorrow that she could avert should cloud the
sweet, innocent face.
When the boys came in they began a war dance, which made the baby
scream with delight. Impetuous Oleah snatched her from his mother's lap,
and both boy and baby rolled over on the floor, fortunately not hurting
either. His mother scolded, but the baby crowed and laughed, and he
showered a hundred kisses on the little white face.
A boy about twelve years of age was coming down the lane. He entered the
gate and was coming towards the house. Mr. Tompkins, who was in the
sitting-room, in a moment recognized the boy as Crazy Joe, and told his
wife about the unfortunate lad. He met the boy on the porch.
"How do you do, Joe?" he asked, extending his hand.
"I am well," Joe answered. "Have you seen my father Jacob or my brother
Benjamin?"
"No, they have not yet come," answered the planter.
For several years after, Joe was a frequent visitor. There was no
moment's lapse of his melancholy madness, which yet seemed to have a
peculiar method in it, and the mystery that hid his past but deepened
and intensified.