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An Arkansas Planter
BY
OPIE READ,
AUTHOR OF
"A Yankee from the West,"
"The Waters of Caney Fork,"
"Mrs. Annie Green,"
"Up Terrapin River."
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
AN ARKANSAS PLANTER.
CHAPTER I.
Lying along the Arkansas River, a few miles below Little Rock, there is
a broad strip of country that was once the domain of a lordly race of
men. They were not lordly in the sense of conquest; no rusting armor
hung upon their walls; no ancient blood-stains blotched their
stairways--there were no skeletons in dungeons deep beneath the banquet
hall. But in their own opinion they were just as great as if they had
possessed these gracious marks of medieval distinction. Their country
was comparatively new, but their fathers came mostly from Virginia and
their whisky came wholly from Kentucky. Their cotton brought a high
price in the Liverpool market, their daughters were celebrated for
beauty, and their sons could hold their own with the poker players that
traveled up and down the Mississippi River. The slave trade had been
abolished, and, therefore, what remained of slavery was right; and in
proof of it the pulpit contributed its argument. Negro preachers with
wives scattered throughout the community urged their fellow bondsmen to
drop upon their knees and thank God for the privilege of following a
mule in a Christian land. The merciless work of driving the negroes to
their tasks was performed by men from the North. Many a son of New
England, who, with emotion, had listened to Phillips and to Garrison,
had afterward hired his harsh energies to the slave owner. And it was
this hard driving that taught the negro vaguely to despise the
abolitionist. But as a class the slaves were not unhappy. They were
ignorant, but the happiest song is sometimes sung by ignorance. They
believed the Bible as read to them by the preachers, and the Bible told
them that God had made them slaves; so, at evening, they twanged rude
strings and danced the "buck" under the boughs of the cottonwood tree.
On the vine-shaded veranda the typical old planter was wont to sit,
looking up and down the road, watching for a friend or a stranger--any
one worthy to drink a gentleman's liquor, sir. His library was stocked
with romances. He knew English history as handed down to him by the
sentimentalist. He hated the name of king, but revered an aristocracy.
No business was transacted under his roof; the affairs of his estate
were administered in a small office, situated at the corner of the yard.
His wife and daughters, arrayed in imported finery, drove about in a
carriage. New Orleans was his social center, and he had been known to
pay as much as a thousand dollars for a family ticket to a ball at the
St. Charles hotel. His hospitality was known everywhere. He was slow to
anger, except when his honor was touched upon, and then he demanded an
apology or forced a fight. He was humorous, and yet the consciousness of
his own dignity often restrained his enjoyment of the ludicrous. When
the cotton was in bloom his possessions were beautiful. On a knoll he
could stand and imagine that the world was a sea of purple.
That was the Arkansas planter years ago, before the great sentimental
storm swept down upon him, before an evening's tea-table talk in
Massachusetts became a tornado of iron in Virginia. When ragged and
heart-sore he returned from the army, from as brave a fight as man ever
engaged in, he sat down to dream over his vanished greatness. But his
dream was short. He went to work, not to re-establish his former
condition of ease--for that hope was beyond him--but to make a living
for his family.
On a knoll overlooking the Arkansas River stood the Cranceford
homestead. The site was settled in 1832, by Captain Luke Cranceford, who
had distinguished himself in an Indian war. And here, not long
afterward, was born John Cranceford, who years later won applause as
commander of one of the most stubborn batteries of the Confederate
Army. The house was originally built of cypress logs, but as time passed
additions of boards and brick were made, resulting in a formless but
comfortable habitation, with broad passage ways and odd lolling places
set to entrap cool breezes. The plantation comprised about one thousand
acres. The land for the most part was level, but here and there a hill
arose, like a sudden jolt. From right to left the tract was divided by a
bayou, slow and dark. The land was so valuable that most of it had been
cleared years ago, but in the wooded stretches the timber was thick, and
in places the tops of the trees were laced together with wild grape
vines. Far away was a range of pine-covered hills, blue cones in the
distance. And here lived the poorer class of people, farmers who could
not hope to look to the production of cotton, but who for a mere
existence raised thin hogs and nubbins of corn. In the lowlands the
plantations were so large and the residences so far apart that the
country would have appeared thinly settled but for the negro quarters
here and there, log villages along the bayous.
In this neighborhood Major John Cranceford was the most prominent
figure. The county was named in honor of his family. He was called a
progressive man. He accepted the yoke of reconstruction and wore it with
a laugh, until it pinched, and then he said nothing, except to tell his
neighbors that a better time was coming. And it came. The years passed,
and a man who had been prominent in the Confederate council became
Attorney-General of the American Nation, and men who had led desperate
charges against the Federal forces made speeches in the old capitol at
Washington. And thus the world was taught a lesson of forgiveness--of
the true greatness of man.
In New Orleans the Major was known as a character, and his nerve was not
merely a matter of conjecture. Courage is supposed to hold a solemn
aspect, but the Major was the embodiment of heartiness. His laugh was
catching; even the negroes had it, slow, loud and long. Sometimes at
morning when a change of season had influenced him, he would slowly
stride up and down the porch, seeming to shake with joviality as he
walked. Years ago he had served as captain of a large steamboat, and
this at times gave him an air of bluff authority. He was a successful
river man, and was therefore noted for the vigor and newness of his
profanity. His wife was deeply religious, and year after year she
besought him to join the church, pleaded with him at evening when the
two children were kissed good night--and at last he stood the rector's
cross-examination and had his name placed upon the register. It was a
hard struggle, but he weeded out his oaths until but one was left--a
bold "by the blood." He said that he would part even with this safety
valve but that it would require time; and it did. The Major believed in
the gradual moral improvement of mankind, but he swore that the world
intellectually was going to the devil. And for this conviction he had a
graded proof. "Listen to me a minute," he was wont to say. "I'll make it
clear to you. My grandfather was graduated with great honors from
Harvard, my father was graduated with honor, I got through all right,
but my son Tom failed."