SCENES ON THE PLANTATION.
Autumn came at last. The heart of the great Republic throbbed with
unsteady pulsation, and, every nerve in the body politic thrilled with
excitement as the looked-for crisis drew near. There were faint
whisperings in each breeze, so low at first that every ear was strained
to the uttermost tension to catch the vibrating strains, but soon they
became louder and louder until the foundations of peace and prosperity
were shaken to their very center. "War, war!" It was talked of
everywhere. In the salon, in the dining hall, not even were the parlor
and boudoir exempt from the unwelcome sounds. The politicians discussed
it over their wine, and unfledged aspirants for fame probed the bare
possibilities in secret conclaves. Ebony forms crowded beneath windows
and balconies with eyes and lips protruded, eager to catch the
mysterious meaning of the universal subject, "war!" Aristocracy in the
brilliant halls of pleasure and revelry saw the strange hand appear and
the finger writing upon the wall. How flushed cheeks paled, and rosy
lips changed to ashy hue, and how knees smote together with fear. "War!
war!" A cloud, dark and murky, rolled up from the horizon full of
terrible mutterings, and loaded with death and devastation, moving
steadily onward, until the broad clear sky was covered, and the rays
that had so long fallen upon a prosperous people were shut out, and
shadows deep and portentous drooped their heavy folds about the agitated
nation. Mothers all over the land gazed through blinding tears upon
their noble sons, who stood with elevated brows around the home fires.
Wives thrust back their true devotion into the secret chambers of
agonized hearts, and pressed more closely the pallid lips, and remained
silent.
Perhaps there was not another in the whole land who was more bitter
towards those who had caused these preparations of calamity than was
Mrs. Belmont. True, she had her own ideas who these were, as well as all
others throughout both sections of the Republic. Having been for so many
years upheld in her present position of luxury and ease by sable hands,
it was no very agreeable prospect, surely, to discover a mere
possibility that they might at some future time be giving way beneath
her.
The lady of Rosedale with her son and daughter had been in the habit of
spending several weeks during the winter in Savannah, but now her
arrangements for the season were materially changed, Lillian having gone
to New Orleans with her cousin Grace for an unlimited time, the mother
and son would go immediately without her.
The cloud had never disappeared from the family horizon since that
eventful day when George St. Clair left Rosedale a rejected lover. The
daughter would not recall him with a promise of her love or her hand,
and consequently the shadow of her mother's anger hung over her, dark
and gloomy. There were no filial tears shed at parting, nor were there
words of regret, or even one sweet, maternal kiss. How sad, how very
sad, that such things must be. Can human love die? That healthful seed
which God planted so tenderly in every heart to make life endurable as
well as beautiful with its buds and blossoms--can all this ever be
rooted up? True, its flowers may wither, its bright green leaves may
fade and fall, its tender stalks even be broken, but the roots, the
deeply imbedded roots--_they_ can never, never die. Smother them with
cruelties and wrongs, if you will, bury them beneath the accumulated
rubbish of selfishness and misconduct, there will come a time when the
warm sunshine of tender memories and the soft dews of genial affections,
which the hand of divinity shall scatter over it, will bring forth fresh
shoots from the hidden life of the heart's immortal love.
No, it cannot die; or why did Mrs. Belmont hurry into her private
apartment, as soon as the sound of the rolling wheels that were bearing
her daughter from her was lost in the distance, to give vent there to
pent up tears? It might have been remorse, it is true, for the last look
on that pale face, as Lillian waved her adieus from the carriage window,
would not leave her. There were tears also on Aunt Vina's cheeks,
although she endeavored to hide them, amid her merry laughter, as she
took off her well-worn shoe to throw after her departing darling. But
Lillian felt that there was more good luck in her parting words and
benediction than in this. "De good Lord bress ye, honey, and bring ye
back to poo' old Vina!"
"Pray for me, Auntie, while I am gone," was the feeble response from the
sore and aching heart.
"Dat I will ebery day, sartin! And don't ye mind nothin'! Just ye be
happy; dat's all!"
But there came an hour when the warm sunshine gathered up its little
gems of joy from out the poor twisted life of the humble slave, and left
the heart bleeding beneath the gloomy shadows where it had been
stricken. No one knew how it came about--but one bright morning when the
orange groves were full of birds, who had arrived from their northern
homes before the wintry blasts had reached them, little Shady was found
in the store-house lying beneath a huge bale of cotton quite dead! The
overseer "had seen him frolicking like a kitten among them and told him
not to climb to the top one, as he seemed inclined to do"; and that was
all that could be revealed of the sad story! It was night now to old
Vina! Nowhere in her desolate heart could she find the sweet balm she
had so often poured into the wounds of other's griefs. Above her shone
no star with silvery ray to light up the dark despair! Grief has many
fangs, all sharp and poisonous and hard to be borne as they pierce
through the sensitive nerves of the human heart; but some strike deeper
than others, letting out the very life of the soul and flooding the
secret chambers with the malaria of woe! Aunt Vina felt all this when at
last the little form she had so loved and cherished was laid away in its
cheerless bed among the buttonwood trees, where her hand could reach him
no more with its cheery good-night. What was there now to keep her tired
feet from faltering by the way, or her heart from sinking under its
weight of life's sorrows? When the last sod was laid tenderly on the
little grave, and "Parson Tom" had said in his most solemn tones "de
Lord gabe and de Lord hab taken away; and bressed be de name ob de
Lord," she turned away from it all with no responsive "bress de Lord"
bubbling up through the torn fissures of her bleeding heart, and sought
her accustomed place by the kitchen grate. Without a tear or moan she
sank down upon a chair, her head drooping low upon her broad chest,
sitting there as motionless and still as though the lamp of her
existence had also been blown out. In vain did dark forms gather about
her with their tears of sympathy and words of condolence and love! She
heeded them not! The soft, warm beams of the noonday sun came in through
the door and gathered themselves about her bowed form, but she moved
not. When the shadows of night crept in she arose and stole away into
the thick darkness of her chamber to pray alone! No eye but His who wept
tears of sympathy at the tomb of Lazarus witnessed the agony that night
of the poor heart-broken slave. No ear but His who will wipe away all
tears listened to the moans and prayers that were borne upward on the
wings of departing night from that humble chamber! God heard them,
however, and a register was made in that book which is to be opened on
that great day of accounts when one more spotless robe of white was
ready for her who had "come up through much tribulation!"
The next morning, earlier than usual, Aunt Vina appeared in her
accustomed place. Her cheeks were hollow and her eyes sunken, yet she
moved about with steady step gathering up every trace of her lost
darling, burning the few scattered blocks he had brought in that sad day
he went out to come in no more, throwing far back into the dark closet
the tattered hat and much-used whip, as if by so doing she could hide
the sorrow that was eating away her life. And thus she labored on.
The house was indeed empty now! "Pete" had gone with his young master,
and Emily, the particular favorite of her mistress, was with her in
Savannah, and poor Aunt Vina turned her heart's longings towards the
absent Lillian. "If she was only here," she would say over and over
again; "de wee lamb! De Lord knows how to pity dem dat lub Him!"
"And don't you lub Him, Vina?" asked the kind old preacher, who strove
in his feeble way to comfort the bereaved one.
"Yes--yes--brudder Tom; but somehow dese old eyes can't see out
straight. He was all that was left; it seems as how I might hab dat one
little head to lie on dis lone bosom! It won't be long 'fore I shall be
'tro wid it all--and it wouldn't 'a' hurt nothin' if he been lef till I
went home!" Tears mingled with her sobs as she bewailed her loneliness.
"De Lord say 'come unto me when tired and can't find nowhere for de sole
ob de foot, and He will gib you rest"; and the good man laid his ebony
hand on the bowed head as he spoke.
"Don't I know it, brudder Tom? He's all right; but it's hard to bress de
Lord when He makes it so dark; maybe by and by old Vina can look up! If
Miss Lillian was here _she_ would tell me how."
How many have thus bent beneath the rod as they hid the light of faith
from them, "refusing to be comforted" when the pitying Father was so
ready to bind up the heart His careful love had wounded? "Before I was
stricken I went astray" is the testimony of many a happy soul. The
clouds are about us but the sun shines above them all.
Lillian was gone and Rosedale somehow seemed deserted and dreary.
Perhaps it was because the flowers were all withered and nature seemed
going to sleep; at any rate Mrs. Belmont and her son concluded to go to
the city immediately, even should one or both of them be obliged to
return to the plantation during Christmas week.
"The servants always expect their holiday gifts, and it would be too bad
to disappoint them," so the mistress said, "but it is insufferable
here!" Besides, Ellen St. Clair was to give a birthday entertainment in
two or three weeks, and as everybody hinted the betrothal of the fair
heiress with Charles Belmont it really did seem a necessity that he at
least should be there. The mother of the young gentleman also was
exceedingly desirous of satisfying herself upon this one point, not
feeling quite as sure as the veracious "Mrs. Grundy." The reason being,
no doubt, that the said son, who had inherited from the maternal side an
abundance of the very commendable element of secretiveness, did not seem
at all disposed to satisfy any one in regard to the matter as _he_
understood it. Neither was the mother quite sure that he would from any
cause be persuaded to sacrifice any of his self-will for her
accommodation, for he was fully aware that her heart was unswervingly
set on this union. Thus she was kept in ignorance which she was
determined should, if possible, be dispelled. All these things were
taken into consideration by the intriguing mother--and the son, not at
all averse to the arrangements, the next week found Aunt Vina sole
mistress of the great house at Rosedale.
Little Shady was in high spirits. Every day the hall door was thrown
wide open for the free circulation of fresh air, then such a scrambling
up the broad stairs on all fours and such rapid rides down the heavy
balustrades! "Bress de chile! Can't see no hurt no how! Missus say she
lick him, but she don't see him!" and the good old grandmother turned
her own head that her eyes might not be at fault in the matter. The love
for this child was all the earth-spot the withered old heart contained.
All of her children, not excepting her last, the mother of little Shady,
had been taken from her, some by death, others by the greedy hands that
snapped the tenderest cords of the human hearts that its own mercenary
ends might be reached. "But it's a mercy dat I'se got dis one," she
would often repeat to herself as if not quite sure of her resignation in
the matter. Certain it was that the merry gambols of the frolicsome boy
as her loving eyes followed him through the day, and the joy of feeling
his plump arms around her neck at night, shut out in a great measure the
dark agonizing past from her view.
Outside of the elegant appointments of the home and its surroundings all
was left as usual in the hands of the overseer, who was expected to
administer kindness and justice with wisdom, if not with discretion; but
as Pete had often said in the quiet of Aunt Vina's kitchen fire, "Massa
Firey and old Tige look jist like 's do' day was brudders," and as to
disposition and characters it could not be disputed that they were
similar. Still, at the "quarters" he was not only feared but regarded
with a kind of respect and awe. Three weeks passed away and little had
been thought of the dark cloud spreading itself over the nation, for
"Massa Firey" said nothing to those under his care, if indeed he knew
what was really going on in the outside world.
There was plenty of work in the cotton-fields, for Mrs. Belmont had said
before her departure that Charles would want some money and the product
of the plantation must be put into the market as soon as it was open.
Shady was in high glee, snapping his whip at some imaginary intruder
about the extensive grounds or rolling his hoop, when the sweet voice of
the child would steal in through the open windows and doors into Aunt
Vina's kitchen, awaking the worn-out melodies of her own heart which
would come forth in answering chorus. A little curly head was often
thrust in through some aperture near, when the song would suddenly
change as the dark eyes sparkled with mock terror at the words caught
from the sabbath services,
"Git away you Satan, fo' de Lo'd is on the way,"
and the rotund figure of the old grandmother would shake with suppressed
merriment.
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