My readers must go with me to a military station at the North, and date
back two years from the time of my story. The season must change, and
instead of summer sunsets and roses, we will bring before them three feet
of snow, and winter's bleakest winds.
Neither of these inconvenienced the company assembled in the comfortable
little parlor of Captain Moore's quarters, with a coal-grate almost as
large as the room, and curtains closely drawn over the old style windows:
Mrs. Moore was reduced to the utmost extremity of her wits to make the room
look modern; but it is astonishing, the genius of army ladies for putting
the best foot foremost. This room was neither square nor oblong; and though
a mere box in size, it had no less than four doors (two belonged to the
closets) and three windows. The closets were utterly useless, being
occupied by an indomitable race of rats and mice; they had an impregnable
fortress somewhere in the old walls, and kept possession, in spite of the
house-keeping artillery Mrs. Moore levelled against them. The poor woman
gave up in despair; she locked the doors, and determined to starve the
garrison into submission.
She was far more successful in other respects, having completely banished
the spirits of formality and inhospitality that presided in these domains.
The house was outside the fort, and had been purchased from a citizen who
lived there, totally apart from his race; Mrs. Moore had the comfort of
hearing, on taking possession, that all sorts of ghosts were at home there;
but she was a cheerful kind of woman, and did not believe in them any more
than she did in clairvoyance, so she set to work with a brave heart, and
every thing yielded to her sway, excepting the aforesaid rats and mice.
Her parlor was the very realization of home comfort. The lounge by the
three windows was covered with small figured French chintz, and it was a
delightful seat, or bed, as the occasion required. She had the legs of
several of the chairs sawed off, and made cushions for them, covered with
pieces of the chintz left from the lounge. The armchairs that looked at
each other from either side of the fireplace place, not being of velvet,
were made to sit in.
In one corner of the room, (there were five,) a fine-toned guitar rested
against the wall; in another, was a large fly-brush of peacock's feathers,
with a most unconscionable number of eyes. In the third, was Captain
Moore's sword and sash. In the fourth, was Mrs. Moore's work-basket, where
any amount of thimbles, needles, and all sorts of sewing implements could
be found. And in the fifth corner was the baby-jumper, its fat and habitual
occupant being at this time oblivious to the day's exertions; in point of
fact, he was up stairs in a red pine crib, sound asleep with his thumb in
his mouth.
One of Chickering's best pianos stood open in this wonderful little parlor,
and Mrs. Moore rung out sweet sounds from it evening after evening. Mrs. M.
was an industrious, intelligent Southern woman; before she met Captain
Moore, she had a sort of antipathy to dogs and Yankees; both, however,
suddenly disappeared, for after a short acquaintance, she fell desperately
in love with the captain, and allowed his great Newfoundland dog, (who had
saved the captain, and a great number of boys from drowning,) to lick her
hand, and rest his cold, black nose on her lap; on this evening Neptune lay
at her feet, and was another ornament of the parlor. Indeed, he should have
been mentioned in connection with the baby-jumper, for wherever the baby
was in the day time, there was Neptune, but he seemed to think that a
Newfoundland dog had other duties incumbent upon him in the evening than
watching babies, so he listened attentively to the music, dozing now and
then. Sometimes, during a very loud strain, he would suddenly rouse and
look intently at the coal-fire; but finding himself mistaken, that he had
only dreamed it was a river, and that a boy who was fishing on its banks
had tumbled in, and required his services to pull him out, would fall down
on the rug again and take another nap.
I have said nothing of this rug, which Neptune thought was purchased for
him, nor of the bright red carpet, nor of the nice china candlesticks on
the mantel-piece, (which could not be reached without a step-ladder,) nor
of the silver urn, which was Mrs. Moore's great-grandmother's, nor of the
lard-lamp which lit up every thing astonishingly, because I am anxious to
come to the point of this chapter, and cannot do justice to all these
things. But it would be the height of injustice, in me, to pass by
Lieutenant Jones's moustaches, for the simple reason, that since the close
of the Mexican war, he had done little else but cultivate them. They were
very brown, glossy, and luxuriant, entirely covering his upper lip, so that
it was only in a hearty laugh that one would have any reason to suppose he
had cut his front teeth; but he had, and they were worth cutting, too,
which is not always the case with teeth. The object of wearing these
moustaches was, evidently, to give himself a warlike and ferocious
appearance; in this, he was partially successful, having the drawbacks of a
remarkably gentle and humane countenance, and a pair of mild blue eyes. He
was a very good-natured young man, and had shot a wild turkey in Mexico,
the tail of which he had brought home to Mrs. Moore, to be made into a fan.
(This fan, too, was in the parlor, of which may be said what was once
thought of the schoolmaster's head, that the only wonder was, it could
contain so much.)
Next to Mr. Jones we will notice a brevet-second lieutenant, just attached
to the regiment, and then introduce a handsome bachelor captain. (These are
scarce in the army, and should be valued accordingly.) This gentleman was a
fine musician, and the brevet played delightfully on the flute; in fact,
they had had quite a concert this evening. Then there was Colonel Watson,
the commanding officer, who had happened in, Mrs. Moore being an especial
favorite of his; and there was a long, lean, gaunt-looking gentleman, by
the name of Kent. He was from Vermont, and was an ultra Abolitionist. They
had all just returned from the dining-room, where they had been eating cold
turkey and mince pies; and though there was a fair chance of the nightmare
some hours hence, yet for the present they were in an exceedingly high
state of health and spirits.
Now, Mrs. Moore had brought from Carolina a woman quite advanced in life.
She had been a very faithful servant, and Mrs. Moore's mother, wishing her
daughter to have the benefit of her services, and feeling perfect
confidence in Polly's promise that under no circumstances would she leave
her daughter without just cause, had concluded that the best way of
managing affairs would be to set her free at once. She did so; but Polly
being one of those persons who take the world quietly, was not the least
elated at being her own mistress; she rather felt it to be a kind of
experiment to which there was some risk attached. Mrs. Moore paid her six
dollars a month for her services, and from the time they had left home
together until the present moment, Polly had been a most efficient servant,
and a sort of friend whose opinions were valuable in a case of emergency.
For instance, Captain Moore was a temperance man, and in consequence,
opposed to brandy, wine, and the like being kept in his house. This was
quite a trouble to his wife, for she knew that good mince pies and pudding
sauces could not be made without a little of the wherewithal; so she laid
her difficulties before Aunt Polly, and begged her to advise what was best
to do.
"You see, Aunt Polly, Captain Moore says that a good example ought to be
set to the soldiers; and that since the Mexican war the young officers are
more inclined to indulge than they used to be; that he feels such a
responsibility in the case that he can't bear the sight of a bottle in the
house."
"Well, honey," said Aunt Polly, "he says he likes my mince pies, and my
puddins, mightily; and does he 'spect me to make 'em good, and make 'em out
of nothin, too?"
"That's what I say, Aunt Polly, for you know none of us like to drink. The
captain belongs to the Temperance Society; and I don't like it, because it
gets into my head, and makes me stupid; and you never drink any thing, so
if we could only manage to get him to let us keep it to cook with."
"As to that, child," said Aunt Polly, "I mus have it to cook with, that's a
pint settled; there aint no use 'sputin about it. If he thinks I'm gwine to
change my way of cookin in my old age, he's mightily mistaken. He need'nt
think I'm gwine to make puddins out o' one egg, and lighten my muffins with
snow, like these ere Yankees, 'kase I aint gwine to do it for nobody. I sot
out to do my duty by you, and I'll do it; but for all that, I aint bound to
set to larnin new things this time o' day. I'll cook Carolina fashion, or I
wont cook at all."
"Well, but what shall I do?" said Mrs. Moore; "you wouldn't have me do a
thing my husband disapproves of, would you?"
"No, that I wouldn't, Miss Emmy," said Aunt Polly. "My old man's dust and
ashes long ago, but I always done what I could to please him. Men's mighty
onreasonable, the best of 'em, but when a woman is married she ought to do
all she can for the sake of peace. I dont see what a man has got to do
interferin with the cookin, no how; a woman oughter 'tend to these
matters. 'Pears to me, Mr. Moore, (captain, as you calls him,) is mighty
fidjetty about bottles, all at once. But if he cant bear the sight of a
brandy bottle in the house, bring 'em down here to me; I'll keep 'em out of
his sight, I'll be bound. I'll put 'em in the corner of my old chist
yonder, and I'd like to see him thar, rummagin arter brandy bottles or any
thing else."
Mrs. Moore was very much relieved by this suggestion, and when her husband
came in, she enlarged on the necessity of Polly's having her own way about
the cooking, and wound up by saying that Polly must take charge of all the
bottles, and by this arrangement he would not be annoyed by the sight of
them.
"But, my dear," said he, "do you think it right to give such things in
charge of a servant?"
"Why, Aunt Polly never drinks."
"Yes, but Emmy, you don't consider the temptation."
"La, William, do hush; why if you talk about temptation, she's had that all
her life, and she could have drank herself to death long ago. Just say yes,
and be done with it, for it has worried me to death all day, and I want it
settled, and off my mind."
"Well, do as you like," said Captain Moore, "but remember, it will be your
fault if any thing happens."
"Nothing is going to happen," said Mrs. Moore, jumping up, and seizing the
wine and brandy bottles by the necks, and descending to the lower regions
with them.
"Here they are, Aunt Polly. William consents to your having them; and mind
you keep them out of sight."
"Set 'em down in the cheer thar, I'll take care of 'em, I jist wanted some
brandy to put in these potato puddins. I wonder what they'd taste like
without it."
But Mrs. Moore could not wait to talk about it, she was up stairs in
another moment, holding her baby on Neptune's back, and more at ease in her
mind than she had been since the subject was started, twenty-four hours
before.
There was but one other servant in the house, a middle-aged woman, who had
run away from her mistress in Boston; or rather, she had been seduced off
by the Abolitionists. While many would have done well under the
circumstances, Susan had never been happy, or comfortable, since this
occurred. Besides the self-reproach that annoyed her, (for she had been
brought on from Georgia to nurse a sick child, and its mother, a very
feeble person, had placed her dependence upon her,) Susan was illy
calculated to shift for herself. She was a timid, delicate woman, with
rather a romantic cast of mind; her mistress had always been an invalid,
and was fond of hearing her favorite books read aloud. For the style of
books that Susan had been accustomed to listen to, as she sat at her
sewing, Lalla Rookh would be a good specimen; and, as she had never been
put to hard work, but had merely been an attendant about her mistress'
room, most of her time was occupied in a literary way. Thus, having an
excellent memory, her head was a sort of store-room for lovesick snatches
of song. The Museum men would represent her as having snatched a feather of
the bird of song; but as this is a matter-of-fact kind of story, we will
observe, that Susan not being naturally very strong-minded, and her
education not more advanced than to enable her to spell out an antiquated
valentine, or to write a letter with a great many small i's in it, she is
rather to be considered the victim of circumstances and a soft heart. She
was, nevertheless, a conscientious woman; and when she left Georgia, to
come North, had any one told her that she would run away, she would have
answered in the spirit, if not the expression, of the oft quoted, "Is thy
servant a dog?"
She enjoyed the journey to the North, the more that the little baby
improved very much in strength; she had had, at her own wish, the entire
charge of him from his birth.
The family had not been two days at the Revere House before Susan found
herself an object of interest to men who were gentlemen, if broadcloth and
patent-leather boots could constitute that valuable article. These
individuals seemed to know as much of her as she did of herself, though
they plied her with questions to a degree that quite disarranged her usual
calm and poetic flow of ideas. As to "Whether she had been born a slave, or
had been kidnapped? Whether she had ever been sold? How many times a week
she had been whipped, and what with? Had she ever been shut up in a dark
cellar and nearly starved? Was she allowed more than one meal a day? Did
she ever have any thing but sweet potato pealings? Had she ever been
ducked? And, finally, she was desired to open her mouth, that they might
see whether her teeth had been extracted to sell to the dentist?"
Poor Susan! after one or two interviews her feelings were terribly
agitated; all these horrible suggestions _might become_ realities, and
though she loved her home, her mistress, and the baby too, yet she was
finally convinced that though born a slave, it was not the intention of
Providence, but a mistake, and that she had been miraculously led to this
Western Holy Land, of which Boston is the Jerusalem, as the means by which
things could be set to rights again.
One beautiful, bright evening, when her mistress had rode out to see the
State House by moonlight, Susan kissed the baby, not without many tears,
and then threw herself, trembling and dismayed, into the arms and tender
mercies of the Abolitionists. They led her into a distant part of the city,
and placed her for the night under the charge of some people who made their
living by receiving the newly ransomed. The next morning she was to go off,
but she found she had reckoned without her host, for when she thanked the
good people for her night's lodging and the hashed cod-fish on which she
had tried to breakfast, she had a bill to pay, and where was the money?
Poor Susan! she had only a quarter of a dollar, and that she had asked her
mistress for a week before, to buy a pair of side-combs.
"Why, what a fool you be," said one of the men; "Didn't I tell you to bring
your mistress' purse along?"
"And did you think I was going to steal besides running off from her and
the poor baby?" answered Susan.
"It's not stealing," said the Abolitionist. "Haven't you been a slaving of
yourself all your life for her, and I guess you've a right to be paid for
it. I guess you think the rags on your back good wages enough?"
Susan looked at her neat dress, and thought they were very nice rags,
compared to the clothes her landlady had on; but the Abolitionist was in a
hurry.
"Come," said he, "I'm not going to spend all my time on you; if you want to
be free, come along; pay what you owe and start."
"But I have only this quarter," said Susan, despairingly.
"I don't calculate to give runaway niggers their supper, and night's
lodging and breakfast for twenty-five cents," said the woman. "I aint so
green as that, I can tell you. If you've got no money, open your bundle,
and we can make a trade, like as not."
Susan opened her bundle, (which was a good strong carpet-bag her mistress
had given her,) and after some hesitation, the woman selected as her due a
nice imitation of Cashmere shawl, the last present her mistress had given
her. It had cost four dollars. Susan could hardly give it up; she wanted to
keep it as a remembrance, but she already felt herself in the hands of the
Philistines, and she fastened up her carpet-bag and set forward. She was
carried off in the cars to an interior town, and directed to the house of
an Abolitionist, to whom she was to hire herself.
Her fare was paid by this person, and then deducted from her wages--her
wages were four dollars a month. She cooked and washed for ten in family;
cleaned the whole house, and did all _the chores_, except sawing the wood,
which the gentleman of the house did himself. She was only required to
split the hard, large knots--the oldest son splitting the easy sticks for
her. On Saturday, the only extra duty required of her was to mend every
item of clothing worn in the family; the lady of the house making them
herself. Susan felt very much as if it was out of the frying pan into the
fire; or rather, as if she had been transferred from one master to another.
She found it took all her wages to buy her shoes and stockings and flannel,
for her health suffered very much from the harsh climate and her new mode
of life, so she ventured to ask for an increase of a dollar a month.
"Is that your gratitude," was the indignant reply, "for all that we've done
for you? The idea of a nigger wanting over four dollars a month, when
you've been working all your life, too, for nothing at all. Why everybody
in town is wondering that I keep you, when white help is so much better."
"But, ma'am," replied Susan, "they tell me here that a woman gets six
dollars a month, when she does the whole work of a family."
"A _white_ woman does," said this Abolitionist lady, "but not a nigger, I
guess. Besides, if they do, you ought to be willing to work cheaper for
Abolitionists, for they are your friends."
If "save me from my friends," had been in Lalla Rookh, Susan would
certainly have applied it, but as the quotation belonged to the heroic
rather than the sentimental department, she could not avail herself of it,
and therefore went on chopping her codfish and onions together, at the rate
of four dollars a month, and very weak eyes, till some good wind blew
Captain Moore to the command of his company, in the Fort near the town.
After Mrs. Moore's housekeeping operations had fairly commenced, she found
it would be necessary to have a person to clean the house of four rooms,
and to help Neptune mind the baby. Aunt Polly accordingly set forward on an
exploration. She presented quite an unusual appearance as regards her style
of dress. She wore a plaid domestic gingham gown; she had several stuff
ones, but she declared she never put one of them on for any thing less than
"meetin." She had a black satin Methodist bonnet, very much the shape of a
coal hod, and the color of her own complexion, only there was a slight
shade of blue in it. Thick gloves, and shoes, and stockings; a white cotton
apron, and a tremendous blanket shawl completed her costume. She had a most
determined expression of countenance; the fact is, she had gone out to get
a house-servant, and she didn't intend to return without one.
I forgot to mention that she walked with a cane, having had a severe attack
of rheumatics since her arrival in "the great Norrurd," and at every step
she hit the pavements in such a manner as to startle the rising generation
of Abolitionists, and it had the good effect of preventing any of them from
calling out to her, "Where did you get your face painted, you black nigger,
you?" which would otherwise have occurred.
Susan was just returning from a grocery store with three codfish in one
hand, and a piece of salt pork and a jug of molasses in the other, when she
was startled by Aunt Polly's unexpected appearance, bearing down upon her
like a man of war.
Aunt Polly stopped for a moment and looked at her intensely, while Susan's
feelings, which, like her poetry, had for some time been quite subdued by
constant collision with a cooking stove, got the better of her, and she
burst into tears. Aunt Polly made up her mind on the spot; it was, as she
afterwards expressed it, "'A meracle,' meeting that poor girl, with all
that codfish and other stuff in her hand."
Susan did not require too much encouragement to tell her lamentable tale,
and Aunt Polly in return advised her to leave her place when her month was
up, informing the family of her intention, that they might supply
themselves. This Susan promised to do, with a full heart, and Aunt Polly
having accomplished her mission, set out on her return, first saying to
Susan, however, "We'll wait for you, you needn't be afeard, and I'll do
your work 'till you come, 'taint much, for we puts out our washin. And you
need'nt be sceard when you see the sogers, they aint gwine to hurt you,
though they do look so savage."
Susan gave notice of her intention, and after a season of martyrdom set
forward to find Captain Moore's quarters. She had no difficulty, for Polly
was looking out for her, with her pipe in her mouth. "Come in, child," said
she, "and warm yourself; how is your cough? I stewed some molasses for you,
'gin you come. We'll go up and see Miss Emmy, presently; she 'spects you."
Susan was duly introduced to Mrs. Moore who was at the time sitting in the
captain's lap with the baby in hers, and Neptune's forepaws in the baby's.
The captain's temperance principles did not forbid him smoking a good
cigar, and at the moment of Susan's entrance, he was in the act of emitting
stealthily a cloud of smoke into his wife's face. After letting the baby
fall out of her lap, and taking two or three short breaths with strong
symptoms of choking, Mrs. Moore with a husky voice and very red eyes,
welcomed Susan, and introduced her to the baby and Neptune, then told Aunt
Polly to show her where to put her clothes, and to make her comfortable in
every respect.
Aunt Polly did so by baking her a hoe-cake, and broiling a herring, and
drawing a cup of strong tea. Susan went to bed scared with her new
happiness, and dreamed she was in Georgia, in her old room, with the sick
baby in her arms.
Susan's _friends_, the Abolitionists, were highly indignant at the turn
affairs had taken. They had accordingly a new and fruitful subject of
discussion at the sewing societies and quilting bees of the town. In solemn
conclave it was decided to vote army people down as utterly disagreeable.
One old maid suggested the propriety of their immediately getting up a
petition for disbanding the army; but the motion was laid on the table in
consideration of John Quincy Adams being dead and buried, and therefore not
in a condition to present the petition. Susan became quite cheerful, and
gained twenty pounds in an incredibly short space of time, though strange
rumors continued to float about the army. It was stated at a meeting of the
F.S.F.S.T.W.T.R. (Female Society for Setting the World to Rights) that
"army folks were a low, dissipated set, for they put wine in their _puddin_
sauce."
I do not mean to say liberty is not, next to life, the greatest of God's
earthly gifts, and that men and women ought not to be happier free than
slaves. God forbid that I should so have read my Bible. But such cases as
Susan's do occur, and far oftener than the raw-head and bloody-bones'
stories with which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe has seen fit to embellish
that interesting romance, Uncle Tom's Cabin.