change to-day that I can hand you for the buttons.” I was thankful that my
occupation permitted me to keep my face from Mammy.
“Oh, ez fer that, Mahs William, yo' needn't bother. I got 'nough change
'round 'most all de time.”
Mammy's tone was patronizing, and brought home to me such a realization of
my changed and waning fortunes as no other circumstance could have done.
Possibly I may have imagined it in my hypersensitiveness, but Mammy's voice
in that sentence seemed transformed, and it was another mammy who spoke.
I apparently reserved my protest until some intricate passage in my shaving
was passed. At least I thought that Mammy would think so. I was really
trying to put my reply in shape.
I was anticipated.
“You know you is really 'titled to yo' fif's by law, Mahs William,” resumed
Mammy, in her natural manner, “because still bein' bond, you could call on
me, an' I don't begrudge you; in fact, Ise beholden to you.”
“Not at all, Mammy. Don't talk any more about my fifth. You are as good as
free, you know.”
“I knows that, Mahs William; but right is right, and I gwine to pay for
them buttons.”
“Well, you may do that this time, Mammy, but I shall certainly return you
the money.”
“Jess as you choose, Mahs William, but you's 'titled to yo' fif' all the
same.”
I must note here a characteristic of Mammy's which had strengthened as her
powers failed, namely, “nearness.” The euphemism applied at first, though
Mammy yielded to temptations in the way of outfit as long as she deemed
herself “likely.” After that period a stronger expression was required. She
was always in possession of money, and was frequently our banker for a day,
when, in emergencies, our parents were not on hand.
Monday I found my garment with its full complement of buttons, but of such
diversity of pattern that I planned a protest for Mammy's next visit.
But when she explained that the bill was only fo'pence--six and a quarter
cents, Spanish--and that it was the fashion now, so she was told, “to have
they buttons diffunt, so they could dentrify they clothes,” I settled
without remark. Mammy's financial skill and resource in imagination
condoned everything.
It is painful to record that Mammy, encouraged by immunity from inquiry and
investigation, no doubt, was tempted, as thousands of her betters have been
and will be, and yielded under subsequent and similar circumstances.
My affairs took an unexpected turn now, and circumstances which have no
place here made it possible for me to go to New York, with the intention of
studying for my long-cherished purpose of making art my calling.
I heard from Mammy from time to time--occasionally got a letter dictated by
her. They opened with the same formula, beginning with the fiction that she
“took her pen in her hand,” and continuing, “these few lines leaves me
tollerbul, and hoping to find you the same.” My friend, the amanuensis,
took great pleasure in reporting Mammy verbatim and phonetically. The times
were always hard for Mammy in these letters, but she “was scufflin' 'long,
thank Gawd, an' ain't don' forgot my duty to the 'state 'bout them fif's.”
On my periodical visits home I always called upon her, and had a royal
reception. I had casually said in a message to her in one of my letters
that I never would forget her black tea and brown sugar. The old dame
remembered this, and on my first visit home and to her, and on all
succeeding visits, treated me to a brew of my favorite.
“Jess the same, Mahs William. Come from Mr. Blar's jess the same.”
But we become sophisticated in time. I found that Mammy's tea lingered in
my memory, it is true; and the prospect of a recurrence very nearly
operated against future visits. But virtue asserted herself, and I always
went.
War now supervened. To it the brushes and the palette yielded. I returned
home, and to arms. While all this made a complete revolution in my affairs,
those of Mammy seemed to hold the even tenor of their way.
I saw Mammy every time I had a furlough, and she repaired for me damages of
long standing. In sentiment she was immovably on my side. She objected
decidedly to any more of “them no-'count men bein' sot free,” and was very
doubtful whether any more of her own sex should be so favored, except
“settled women.”
I do not know whether Mammy had a lurking suspicion that general
manumission meant competition or not. So far as I could make out, she fared
as she had long elected to do. Bacon and greens and her perennial tea were
good enough for her. And here may be noted the average negro's indifference
to cates. In my experience I never knew them to give up “strong food” for
delicate fare except on prescription.
The next phase of my intercourse with Mammy was after the evacuation of the
city and the event of Appomattox. The first incident was, with the negroes'
usual talent that way, so transmogrified in pronunciation that it could
mean nothing to them. It stood to them for a tremendous change, one which
could not be condensed into a word, even though it exceeded their powers to
pronounce it.
I had come back, as had thousands of others, with nothing in my hands, and
only a few days' rations accorded by the enemy in my haversack; had come
back to a mass of smoking débris and a wide area of ruin which opened
unrecognized vistas that puzzled, dazed, and pained the home-seeker.
By instinct, I suppose, I drifted towards my _ante bellum_ quarters. My
former landlord gave me a speechless welcome. To my inquiry as to the
possibility of my reinhabiting my old quarters, he simply nodded and handed
me the key. The tears that I had seen standing on his lids rolled down as
he did so.
The room was cumbered with the chattels of the last tenant. There was no
bed amongst them, but a roll of tattered carpet served me perfectly. I fell
asleep over a slab of hardtack. That evening, on waking, I bethought me of
Mammy.
My kind host allowed me to make a toilet in his back room behind the store.
It consisted of a superficial ablution and the loan of a handkerchief.
Mammy was not in. A neighbor of her sex and color offered me a chair in her
house, but I sat in Mammy's tiny porch.
This part of the city was unchanged, but I missed a familiar steeple which
had always been visible from Mammy's door.
It was late afternoon when Mammy came. She did not recognize me, but paused
at the gate.
“Ef you's a sick soldier you must go to the hospital; you kain' stay here,”
I heard her say before I roused myself sufficiently to speak.
“Mammy.”
An ejaculation of the name of the Lord that brought the neighbor to her
door went up, and Mammy caught my hands and wept.
“Come in, my Gawd! Mahs William! you ain' hurted, is you?”
She pushed a chair to me and took one herself. For a few moments she
confined herself to ejaculations of “Well! well! well!” and the name of the
Deity. Then, “The town is bu'nt up; the army done 'rendered, an' Mahs
William come back ragged ez a buzzard!”
I did not interrupt her. I could think of nothing to say, and began to be
afraid that something was the matter with my brains. Meanwhile Mammy was
bustling about, and before I knew it she had started the little fire into a
blaze and the tea was boiling.
The flickering light glinted over the walls. At first I did not heed what
it revealed; then I saw it glow and fade over some early efforts of my own,
frame-less crudities, to which Mammy had fallen heir. They had become old
masters! What centuries ranged themselves between the birth of those
pictures and now!
This time tea was nectar, and after I had eaten a little cold middling
bacon and hoe-cake, that she had put before me on a fractured member of our
old Canton set, I took a more cheerful view of life. I believe that I would
have shed tears over these poor relics from happier days, except that I was
not quite conscious that anything was real that day. I told Mammy where I
was. She seemed to think it perfectly in the nature of things that I should
be there. Indeed, she appeared singularly calm in this cataclysm.
I encountered friends on my return to my quarters, and had invitations
innumerable to meals and shelter. My costume was no drawback. Nobody knew
how anybody was dressed.
The city was in a fever of excitement over the probable fate of those who
had not yet returned, and in making provision for the homeless. Mammy
turned up next morning with some of my civilian clothes that had been
confided to her.
Mammy's simple “What you gwine do now, Mabs William?” thrown in whilst she
assisted by her presence at my complete change of toilet--lapse of time was
nothing to her--woke me to the momentous problem. There was no commissary
sergeant to distribute even the meagre rations that so long left us
ravenous after every meal. I could not camp in the Capitol Square, even if
I had wished so to do.
Mammy left me with the injunction to call on her “ef I didn't have nowhar
else to go.”
I went with unbroken fast to see what was left of the city. I met many
acquaintances on the same errand. None of us seemed to realize that day
what was to be done. For four years our campaigns had been planned for us.
I learned from one acquaintance, however, that I could have rations for the
asking, and not long after found myself in line at the United States
Commissary Department, along with hundreds of others, and departed thence
bearing a goodly portion of hardtack and codfish. These I took to Mammy,
who cooked the fish for me under loud protests against the smell.
Not long thereafter a number of us paroled soldiers made a mess, and cooked
for ourselves at the room of one of them.
On one of these indeterminate days--dates had become nothing to me--I saw a
dapper young man sketching about the ruins. I spoke to him, and mentioned
that his had been my profession. This acquaintance was the beginning of
hope.
I showed the young man places of interest, gave him points about a good
many things, and at last fell to making sketches to help him out. They were
perfectly satisfactory and liberally paid for. With this capital I set
myself up in another place, which had a north light--by-the-way, I had been
dispossessed of the asylum where I first found shelter, as the previous
tenant returned. I was able to purchase material and apparel. But what was
I to paint, and where to sell the product? My hand was out, I discovered,
so I set to studying still life, and painting those of my friends who had
the patience to sit.
I would have gone back to my old haunts in New York but for the material
reason that my funds were too low, and the sentimental one that I not only
was not in the humor for appealing to citizens of that section for
patronage, but was not sure that it would not be withheld, from an
analogous state of mind towards me.
Summer ran into fall. Mammy's visits increased in frequency, and her
conversation drifted towards the difficulties of living.
I had long ago discharged all of her claims for material and repairs, but I
noticed a tendency on her part to prepare my mind for a regular subsidy. I
ignored these hints because it was impossible for me to carry out Mammy's
plan, and painful for me to say so.
She approached the matter in a different way finally, and said, one day:
“Mahs William, you been cayin' on yo' fif' for some time now. Doan you
think it's time for some of the yothers to look after them?”
I suggested that the whole family was about on a parity financially; that
one brother was drifting in the trans-Mississippi, another living more
precariously than I was. Suddenly a thought struck me, and I proposed that
Mammy should apply to my married sister in the country, who could at least
give her a home.
Mammy was very nearly indignant in her rejection of the proposition.
“Me live in de country! Why, Mahs William, I'm town-bred to de backbone.
What I gwine do thar? Whar's anybody whar'll want my sponge-cake, jelly,
and blue-monge, whar I can git ez much ez I wants to do in town? Who gwine
want my clar-starchin' an' pickle-makin' an' ketchups? Dem tacky people
doan want none of my makin's.”
I ventured to remind Mammy that all dwellers in the country were not
tackies.
“I know dat, sah; but whole parcel of um is. Besides, heap uv de quality
folks is poor an' in trouble sence the revackeration. I'd rather give up my
other fif's fust.”
Of course Mammy's propositions were contradictory, but I had long known
that she was not gifted with a logical mind, so I made no attempt to
convict her of inconsistency.
From time to time I got small jobs of drawings for architects, as people
had begun to bestir themselves and rebuild. I had been assured that I would
find no prejudice against me in New York, but would stand on my own merits.
I was not profoundly convinced that this was a safe risk for me to take.
But living here was becoming impossible. Our own people were out of the
question as purchasers of pictures. My still-lifes, from long exposure in
the window of a friendly merchant in Broad Street, were becoming the
camping-ground of the flies, and deteriorating rapidly. I was not strong in
landscape, and the only subjects which suggested themselves were military,
taken from my point of view politically, and not likely to be convertible
into cash by persons of other convictions.
I was leaning against my ceiling one gray afternoon--at least I suppose it
should be called ceiling, for it ran from the highest part of the chamber
on an angle to the floor, and was pierced by a dormer--and contemplating a
bunch of withered flowers which I had studied almost into dissolution, when
Mammy knocked.
I had laid my palette on the floor, and was standing with my hands in my
pockets. They fumbled, on one side with my bunch of keys, on the other with
a small roll of small bills, the dreadful fractional currency of that era,
whilst, in imagination, I projected my motive on the bare canvas, a twenty
by twenty-four. I was sorry that Mammy had come, because a subject was
beginning to take form in my mind. It was suggested by the withered
flowers.
I thought that it would be a good idea to group them with a bundle of
letters, some showing age, the top one with a recent postmark, and call the
composition “Dead Hopes.” My thoughts were divided between the selection of
a postmark for the top letter and the possibility of getting a frame,
whilst Mammy was going through the process of finding a chair and seating
herself. The invitation to come in implied the other courtesies.
The old lady was marvellously attired, and I wondered what could be the
occasion of it. She had on a plaid shawl of purple, green, and red
checkers, crossed on her bosom. Around her throat there was a lace collar
of some common sort, held by a breastpin of enormous value if calculated by
the square inch. She wore her usual turban of red and white, but on the top
of it to-day was a straw bonnet of about the fashion of 1835, with flowers
inside, and from it depended a green veil. Her frock was silk of an
indescribable tint, the result of years of fading, and was flounced. The
old lady had freed herself of her black cotton gloves, and was rolling them
into a ball. I sighed inwardly, for this was the outward sign of
undeterminable sitting.
Suddenly the self-arranged color scheme struck me as the cool light fell
over Mammy. I seated myself and seized my palette.
“Sit still, Mammy, right where you are. I'm going to paint you.”
“Namer Gawd! paint me, Mahs William? After all dem pretty things whar you
kin paint, paint yo' old Mammy?” She slapped herself on the knees, called
the name of the Lord several times, and burst into the heartiest laugh that
I had heard from her for some time.
“Yes, Mammy, just sit right still, and don't talk much, and I won't make
you tired.”
I worked frantically, getting in the drawing as surely as I could, then
attacked the face in color. The result was a success that astonished me.
Mammy's evident fatigue stopped me. It was fortunate. I might have painted
more and spoiled my study. I thought that she would go now, but her mission
was not fulfilled. She had come to consult me on an important matter.
“You know this Freedman's Bureau, Mahs William? Well, they tells me--Lawd
knows what they calls it bureau for!--they tells me that of a colored
pusson goes down thar and gives in what he wuz worth--women either, mind
you--that the guv'mint would pay um.”
Mammy paused for corroboration, but I determined to hear what she might add
to this remarkable statement. “Well?”
“Well, sah, I didn't want to go down thar without no price, so I called in
to arst you what you might consider yo' fif' worth, an' five times ovah.”
I did not laugh at Mammy. The emancipated negroes had such utterly wild
notions of what was going to be done for them that Mammy's statement did
not surprise me very much. I let her go with the assurance that I would
inquire into the matter. She left enjoining me not to put that “fif' too
cheap,” and I insisting that she should not go to the Bureau, in deference
to whose officials her astonishing toilet had evidently been made.
I was so much pleased with my own work that it was nearly twilight before
the knock of a familiar friend roused me. He was a clever amateur, and took
the greatest interest in my work. His enthusiasm over Mammy's effigy made
me glow. He agreed to pose for me in Mammy's costume.
Next day I borrowed the outfit without intimating that it was to be worn by
anybody. Mammy was over-nervous about its being properly cared for. I think
that she still contemplated appearing in it at the Bureau.
In a week the picture was complete. My model and I went out and celebrated
appropriately but frugally.
A small label in the corner gave the title to the picture--“My old Mammy.”
My friend gave my work a place in his window, and my acquaintances
generally accorded unqualified praise. The older ones recognized Mammy at
once.
Pending a purchaser for this, I started my deferred subject, and changed it
into a figure piece. A lovely friend was my model. She contemplated the
flowers and letters. Above the old piece of furniture on which she leaned
there hung a photograph, a sword, and a sash--a more striking suggestion of
my first title, “Dead Hopes.” How little I dreamed, as I worked, that there
was such happy irony in the name, and that Mammy could ever, in the
remotest way, conduce to such a result!
Nearly every morning I hovered about my friend's establishment at a
sufficient distance to elude suspicion of my anxiety, but easily in visual
range of my exhibit.
One morning it was not visible. I rushed to the store with a throbbing
breast. Alas! the picture had only been shifted to another light. Before
the revulsion of feeling had time to overpower me I was seized by my friend
the merchant.
“It's a regular play,” he exclaimed.
He forced me to a seat on a pile of cheese-boxes, and facing me, began:
“Yesterday, the old lady,” pointing to the picture, “came in. She took no
notice of her portrait, but said that she had failed to find you; that she
was anxious to hear what you had done about the Bureau business.” (I had
forgotten it utterly.) “Well, I could tell her nothing, and she started to
go out just as a group opened the door to come in. Mammy made one of her
courtly bows, and gave place. The young lady who was one of the three
coming in, the others evidently her parents, said, in a loud whisper, 'Why,
it's she!' Mammy, who either did not hear or did not understand, was about
to pass out, when the young lady accosted her with, 'I beg your pardon, but
isn't that your portrait?'
“'I grant you grace, young mistiss, but sence I looks, hit is. Hit wuz did
by my young mahster, which he can do all kinds of pictures lovely.'
“'Your young master?' the young lady said--sweet voice, too; dev'lish
handsome girl--'your young master?' Then she said aside to the others,
'Isn't it charmingly interesting?'
“'Yes, 'm, I call him so. But really I'm only his'n a fif'.'
“'His fif?' the young lady said, looking puzzled. I stepped up to them to
explain, just for politeness, though I was sure that they weren't
customers, 'She means that he owned a fifth interest in her previous
to--the recent change in affairs.'
“'That's hit,' said Mammy, nodding to them. 'But I don't expect to hear
from the other fif's. It don't make much diffunce, howsomever, bein' ez how
the Bureau is gwine settle up.'
“The visitors evidently did not understand this. I explained what Mammy was
after--you had told me, you know. They were very much amused, and asked a
heap of questions. After a little talk between themselves, in which I could
not help seeing that the young lady was very earnest, the gentleman asked:
“'Is the work for sale?' Was it for sale!”
My friend nearly prostrated me with a hearty punch by way of expressing his
feelings, whilst I was choking for an answer.
“Well, sir, I gave him the figger. He bought so quick that it made me sick
I hadn't asked more. Looker here!”
He displayed two new greenbacks which covered the amount. We embraced.
At last Mammy had become a source of revenue. I must, in justice to myself,
record the fact that a resolve immediately took form in my mind that she
also should be a beneficiary of my good fortune.
My friend wanted me to take the picture down myself. I told him that it was
not ethical to do so. The precious burden was confided to his porter. When
we returned to his store we found the gentleman there who had made the
purchase. I was duly presented by my friend.
The gentleman said that he had not noticed my name on the picture
particularly, nor on the receipt given by the merchant for the money, which
gave the title and painter of the work, until he had gotten back to the
hotel, when his wife recognized it and remembered having been in my
studio--a fine name for a small concern--in New York, and that we had many
friends in common there.
The upshot of the matter was that the gentleman gave me an invitation to
call at the Spottswood. I went the next day.
They were immensely amused and interested with any particulars about her.
The father--the names are immaterial, the young lady's was Elaine--asked me
jocularly at what sum I estimated my fifth in Mammy. I had previously
convinced him that we never had the remotest idea of parting with the old
lady. Consequently we had never estimated her value, but that I thought my
fifth at the time of the settling of the estate would have been about one
hundred dollars. After I had made several visits, the three came to see my
other picture.
The day after their departure Mammy called. She was in fine spirits over a
visit that she had made to my new friends, at their earnest request. All
the time that she was speaking she was working at a knot in the corner of
her handkerchief. I knew that she kept her small valuables there, but was
thunderstruck when she extracted two fifty-dollar bills.
“Why, Mammy! Where--”
“Dat's all right, honey. The Bureau gent'man fix it all, jess like I tole
you. He said dat he done 'nquired, an' yo' fif' was wuth dat--two fifties,
one hundred--an' I let him off de res.”
“But what gentleman?”
“Dat gent'man whar was at de Spottswood Hotel. He tole me he wuz agent for
de Bureau. An' I tell you, Mahs William, dey's quality, dem folks. You
kain' fool Becky.”
Of course I did not enlighten Mammy. What would have been the use?
Not many days thereafter I got a request to ship my “Dead Hopes,” at my
price, to the address of a frame-maker in New York. Elaine's father said
that he had a purchaser for it. I discovered later that he was a master of
pleasant fiction.
When I wondered, long after, to him that he should have bought a
Confederate picture, he convinced me that my picture had nothing
confederate in it; that he had inferred that I had painted it in a catholic
spirit. The lady was in mourning, the flowers faded, the letters too small
for postmark, the picture on the wall a colorless photograph, and the sword
a regulation pattern common to both armies. He thought it very skilfully
planned, and complimented me on it. I was silent. All the Confederate part
and point had been in my mind.
About a year after this--I had been located in New York some months--Elaine
and I came on a visit to Richmond. I might just as well say that it was our
bridal trip.