NAT BRADLEY.
I had been for some time expecting to see my guide strike into one of
those side gates, sparsely appearing along the pike, and which I knew,
by the pretentious piers of hewn post-oak, to be the entrances to some
dwelling or plantation.
"How far is it to your father's place?" I asked, in a careless way, so
as to conceal my impatience.
"Oh! a long way yet," was the discouraging reply. "At least forty
miles. We can not reach it to-night. We must sleep in Columbia."
"Beyond Columbia it is?"
"A long way beyond. There's no cotton land on this side worth
cultivating. It lies too far north, and the frost, as I've told you,
often kills the young plants. Father's plantation is a good ways from
the road, on one of the creeks that run into Duck river. It's capital
soil for cotton, only that we have a long way to haul it to a steamboat
landing. This year we intend sending the crop to New Orleans on a flat.
Father's got an idea it will pay, and the boat's being built. You see,
the creek runs right through our plantation, and it's wide enough to
get a flat through to the Duck. Once there, it's only to float down to
the Tennessee and into the Ohio--then on to the Mississippi. We never
did it before, but some of our neighbors have tried it, and they say it
pays. Of course you know, after the crop's gathered the niggers haven't
much to do, and half a dozen of them, with one or two of the regular
river boatmen, can navigate a flat without much expense. By steamboat
there's heavy freight charges just now; besides the hauling before you
can get it aboard. There's no landing nearer our plantation than twenty
miles, and with bad roads at that. We make a hundred and fifty bales
every year, and as a team can only take four at a time, you can tell
what a tedious affair it is. With a flat we can load right on our own
land, close to the cotton-press."
I had become so interested in these details of cotton planting that I
had almost ceased to think of that other attraction which I expected to
find upon the plantation.
It was something so original, so American-like, a crop raised in
the very heart of a continent--amid forest-clad slopes apparently
inaccessible--to be thus transported from the spot on which it was
grown to a market more than a thousand miles distant, not by ship or
steam, or the intervention of any kind of carrier to share the profits
of transportation, but transported by the agriculturist who had grown
it--going, as it were, direct from the producer to the consumer!
Absorbed in the contemplation of this curious problem in political
economy--important as curious--I had for the time forgotten the
traveling companion who had suggested it.
I was aroused from my reverie by hearing him exchange a salutation
with some one who had met us on the road. On looking up I saw it was a
horseman going in the opposite direction. He, too, had the appearance
of a traveler, his horse dimmed with dust and dry sweat, with a pair of
swollen saddle-bags protruding behind his thighs.
He was a young man--apparently twenty-five--though with a countenance
whose expression told of an experience far beyond his age--a
circumstance by no means rare in the region of the South-west.
By his dress he would also have been taken for a planter; although
it was unlike that worn by young Woodley. Like him, he had a Panama
hat; but instead of white linen, his coat was a blouse of sky-blue
_cottonade_, plaited and close-buttoned over the breast, while his
trowsers were of the same stuff and color. It was, in fact, the dress
of the Louisianian creole, adopted by many Americans who have migrated
to lands on the lower Mississippi.
"Well, Walt! Been to Nashville?" was the speech he had addressed to my
companion, as they reined up their horses in the middle of the road.
"Nat Bradley!" exclaimed the young planter, evidently under some
surprise, which might be caused by an unexpected encounter.
"Yes, Nat Bradley it is."
"Who'd have looked for you here? Where have you been?"
"Only out to take a squint at the old place. Mighty glad I got shet of
it. You're all a set of fools for staying in Tennessee. Talk of growin'
cotton up here! Mississippi's the place for that. Why, the meanest
nigger on my plant can make two bales to your one."
"I've heard you have been having great success. My brother has written
to say so."
"Has he, indeed? Well, it's a wonder he don't give up his corn-growing
and try the cotton too. For my part I go in for the weed that fetches
the ready cash--twenty cents to the pound. You've a good crop this
year, haven't you?"
"I believe it is."
"How many bales are you countin' on?"
"Father thinks there will be nearly two hundred."
"D----d handsome crop, if you can only get it safe to market. I've
heard out on Duck you intend flatting it."
"Yes; we are building a boat for that purpose."
"Best way in the world. Far the best. No expense, no hauling, no
freight charges of any kind. Besides, the steamers are eternally
getting blown up. There's half a score of them bu'st their boilers last
season. Recommend me to the good old-fashioned flat. I always send my
truck to Orleans that way, and would do so even if I could tumble the
bales into a steamboat right off the plantation press. Last flat I sent
down fetched me as lumber enough to pay all the expenses of takin' it
there. Come straight from Nashville?"
"Yes."
"Know if there's any boat about starting for below?"
"I haven't heard."
"Hope there is. I want to get down to Mississip. I only run up for a
little business I had in Nash, and thought when so near, I might as
well run out and have a look at the old diggin's on the Duck. Corneel's
out there, ain't she?"
"Yes. My sister is with us."
"Of course I didn't see her, as your old man and I hain't been on the
square ever since that--you know--. D----d hot, ain't it?"
The last remark appeared to be by way of changing the subject, which I
could see was not at all agreeable to my young companion.
"Very hot," was the assenting reply.
"The sooner we get out of it the better. _You're_ bound straight for
home, I suppose?"
"Straight."
The emphasis on the "you're," with a look cast toward me, was evidently
meant to draw out a different answer; while in the glance, quick and
furtive as it was, I could read in Nat Bradley's mind a sentiment
hostile to myself.
"Well!" he exclaimed, turning to conceal his dissatisfaction, "I'm off,
Woodley. Hope to see you some day in Mississippi. Good-by!"
And with another sullen side-look at me, which I did not fail to
return, Nat Bradley struck the spur into his sweating horse, and went
clattering off along the turnpike toward Nashville.