THE OLD RÉGIME
Socola left Briarfield with the assurance of the President-elect of the
Confederacy that he might spend a week with the Bartons and yet be in
ample time for the inauguration at Montgomery.
He boarded the steamer at the Davis landing and floated lazily down to
Baton Rouge.
From Briarfield he carried an overwhelming impression of the folly of
Slavery from its economic point of view. The thing which amazed his
orderly New England mind was the confusion, the waste, the sentimental
extravagance, the sheer idiocy of the slave system of labor as
contrasted with the free labor of the North.
The one symbol before his vivid imagination was the sight of old Uncle
Bob and Aunt Rhinah seated in their rocking chairs gravely listening to
the patriarchal farewell of their master. The ancient seers dreamed of
Nirvana. These two wonderful old Africans had surely found it in the new
world. No wave of trouble could ever roll across their peaceful breasts
so long as their lord and master lived. He was their king, their
protector, their physician, their almoner, their friend. The burden of
life was on his shoulders, not on theirs. Their working days were over.
He must feed and clothe, house and care for their worthless bodies unto
the end. And the number of these helpless ones were constantly
increased.
He marveled at the folly that imagined such a system of labor possible
in a real world where the iron laws of economic survival were allowed
free play. He ceased to wonder why it still flourished in the South. The
South was yet an unsettled jungle of bewildering tropical beauty. One
might travel for miles and hundreds of miles without the sight of a
single important town. Vast reaches of untouched forests stretched away
in all directions. Apparently the foot of man had never pressed them.
Rich plantations of thousands of acres were only scratched in spots to
yield their marvelous harvests of cotton and cane, of rice and corn.
The idea of defending such a territory, extending over thousands of
miles, from the invading hosts of the rich and densely populated North
was preposterous. His heart leaped with the certainty of swift and sure
triumph for the Union should the question be submitted to the test of
the sword.
As the boat touched her landing at Baton Rouge, Jennie waved her welcome
from the shore. The graceful figure of her younger brother stood
straight and trim by her side in his new volunteer uniform. Whatever the
political leaders might think or do, these Southern people meant to
fight. There was no mistaking that fact. With every letter to his Chief
in Washington he had made this plain. The deeper he had penetrated the
lower South the more overwhelming this conviction had become.
For the moment he put the thought of his tragic mission out of his
heart. There was something wonderful in the breath of this early
Southern spring. The first week in February and flowers were blooming on
every lawn of every embowered cottage and every stately house! The song
of birds, the hum of bees, the sweet languor of the perfumed air found
his inmost soul. The snows lay cold and still and deathlike over the
Northern world.
This was fairyland.
And the Bartons' home on the banks of the river was the last touch that
completed the capture of his imagination. Through a vista of overhanging
boughs he caught the flash of its white fluted pillars in the distance.
The broad verandas were arched with climbing roses. In the center of the
sunlit space in front a fountain played, the splash of its cooling
waters keeping time to the song of mocking birds in shrubs and trees. In
the spacious grounds which swept to the water's edge more than a
thousand magnificent trees spread their cooling shade. The white rays of
the Southern sun shot through them like silver threads and glowed here
and there in the changing, shimmering splotches on the ground.
And everywhere the grinning faces of slowly moving negroes. The very
rhythm of their lazy walk seemed a part of the landscape.
This fairy world belonged to his country. His heart went out in renewed
devotion. Not one shining Southern star should ever be torn from her
diadem! He swore it.
For three days he bathed in the beauty and joy of a Southern home. He
saw but little of Jennie. The boys absorbed him. They were eager for
news. They plied him with a thousand questions. Tom was going to join
the navy, Jimmie and Billy the army.
"Would the United States Army stand by the old flag?" Tom asked with
painful eagerness.
Socola was non-committal.
"As a rule the sailor is loyal to the flag of his ship. It's the symbol
of home, of country, of all he holds dear."
"That's so, too," Tom answered thoughtfully. "Well, we'll build a navy.
We built the old one. We can build a new one!"
The last night he spent at Fairview was one never to be forgotten. It
gave him another picture of the old régime. They sat on the great
pillared front porch looking out on the silvery surface of the moonlit
river. Jennie's grandfather. Colonel James Barton, a stately man of
eighty-five, who had led a regiment with Jefferson Davis in the Mexican
War, though at that time long past the age of military service, honored
them with his presence to a late hour.
His eyes were failing but his voice was stentorian. Its tones had been
developed to even deeper power during the past ten years owing to the
deafness of his wife. This beautiful old woman sat softly rocking beside
the Colonel, answering in gentle monosyllables the questions he roared
into her ears.
To escape the volume of the Colonel's conversation Socola asked Jennie
to walk to the river's edge.
They sat down on a bench perched high on the bluff which rose abruptly
from the water at the lower end of the grounds. The scene was one of
memorable beauty.
He laughed at the folly of his schemes to learn the inner secrets of the
South. These people had no secrets. They wore their hearts on their
sleeves. He had only to ask a question to receive the answer direct
without reserve.
"Your three younger brothers will fight for the South, of course, Miss
Jennie?"
"Of course--I only wish I were a man!"
"You have an older brother in New Orleans, I believe?"
"Judge Barton, yes."
"He, too, will enter the army?"
The girl drew a deep breath and hesitated.
"He says he will not. He is bitterly opposed to my father's views."
Socola's eyes sparkled.
"He is for the Union then?"
"Yes."
"He is a man of decided views and character I take it."
"Yes--as firm and unyielding in his position as my father on the other
side."
"You will be very bitter towards him if war should come?"
"Bitter?" A little sob caught her voice. "He is my Big Brother. I love
him. It would break my heart--that's all--but I'll love him always."
Her tones were music, her loyalty to her own so sweet in its simplicity,
so utterly charming, he opened his lips to speak the first words to test
her personal attitude toward him. A flirtation would be delightful with
such a girl. And Mr. Dick Welford was a fearful temptation. He put the
thought out of his heart. She was too good and fine to be made a pawn in
such a game. Beside it was utterly unnecessary.
He had gotten exactly the information about this older brother in New
Orleans he desired and sat in brooding silence.
Jennie rose suddenly.
"Oh, I forgot--I must go in. My maids are waiting for me, I've an affair
to settle between them before they go to bed."
Socola accompanied her to the door and turned again on the lawn to enjoy
the white glory of the Southern moon. The lights were still twinkling in
the long rows of negro cabins that lined the way to the overseer's
house. Through the shadows of the trees he could see the dark figures in
the doorways of their cabins silhouetted against the lighted candles in
the background.
He strolled leisurely into the lower hall. The door of the library was
open. He paused at the scene within. A group of four little negro girls
surrounded Jennie. She was reading the Bible to them.
"Can't you say your prayers together to-night?" the young mistress
asked.
The kinky heads shook emphatically.
Lucy couldn't say hers with Amy:
"'Cause she ain't got no brother and sister to pray for."
Maggie couldn't say hers with Mandy:
"'Cause she ain't got no mother and father."
So each repeated her prayer alone and stood before their little mistress
who sat in judgment on their day's deeds.
Lucy had jabbed a carving knife into Amy's arm in a fit of temper. Her
prayer had made no mention of this important fact. The judge gave a
tender lecture on the need of repentance. The little sullen black figure
hung back stubbornly for a moment and walled her eyes at her enemy. A
sudden burst of tears and they were in each other's arms, crying and
begging forgiveness. And then they filed out, one by one.
"Good night, Miss Jennie!"
"Good night!"
"God bless you, Miss Jennie--"
"I'll never be bad no mo'!"
He had come to break the chains that cut through human flesh and he had
found this--great God!
For hours he lay awake, dreaming with wide staring eyes of the long
blood-stained history of human Slavery and its sharp contrast with the
strange travesty of such an institution which the South was giving to
the world.
He had barely lost consciousness when he leaped to the floor, roused by
loud voices, tramping feet and the flash of weird lights on the lawn.
Growls and long calls echoed from point to point on the spacious
grounds, hulloes and echoing answers and the tramp of many feet.
Some horrible thing had happened--sudden death, murder or war had broken
out. A voice was screaming from the balcony aloft that sounded like the
trumpet of the arch-angel calling the end of time.
He listened.
It was old Colonel Barton yelling at the sleepy negroes. In heaven's
high name what could they be doing?
Socola dressed hastily and rushed down-stairs. Jennie and the boys
appeared almost at the same moment.
"What is it?" Socola asked excitedly. "War has been declared? The slaves
have risen?"
Jennie laughed.
"No--no! Grandmamma smells a smell. She thinks something is burning
somewhere."
"Oh--"
The whole place, house, yard, grounds, outhouses, swarmed with bellowing
negroes. Those that were not bellowing were muttering in sleepy,
quarrelsome protest.
And they all carried candles to look for a fire in the dark!
There were at least seventy--two-thirds of them too old or too young to
be of any service, but they belonged to the house.
The old Colonel's voice could be heard a mile. In his nightgown he was
roaring from the balcony, giving his orders for the busy crowd hunting
for fire with their candles flickering in the shadows.
Old Mrs. Barton, serenely deaf, was of course oblivious of the sensation
she had created. The loss of her hearing had rendered doubly acute her
sense of smell. Candles had to be taken out of her room to be snuffed.
Lamps were extinguished only on the portico or on the lawn. Violets she
couldn't endure. A tea rose was never allowed in her room. Only one kind
of sweet rose would she tolerate at close range.
In the mildest voice she was suggesting places to be searched.
Far out at the negro quarters the candle brigade at length gathered--the
flickering lights closing in to a single point one by one.
The smell was found.
A family had been boiling soap--a slave-ridden plantation was a
miniature world which must be practically self-supporting. There could
be no economy of labor by its scientific division. Around the soap pot
the negro woman had swept some woolen rags. They were smoldering there
and the faint odor had been wafted to the great house.
Socola couldn't sleep. All night long he could hear that wild
commotion--the old Colonel's voice roaring from the balcony and seventy
sleepy, good-for-nothing negroes with lighted candles looking for a fire
in the dark. When at last he was tired of laughing at the ridiculous
picture, his foolish fancy took another turn and fixed itself again on
old Bob and Aunt Rhinah in their rocking chairs, swathed in cochineal
flannel.