AUNT NESBIT'S LOSS.
On entering the house, Nina was met at the door by Milly, with a
countenance of some anxiety.
"Miss Nina," she said, "your aunt has heard bad news this morning."
"Bad news!" said Nina, quickly,--"what?"
"Well, honey, ye see dere has been a lawyer here," said Milly, following
Nina as she was going up stairs; "and she has been shut up with him all
de mornin'; and when he come out I found her taking on quite dreadful!
And she says she has lost all her property."
"Oh! is that all?" said Nina. "I didn't know what dreadful thing might
have happened. Why, Milly, this isn't so very bad. She hadn't much to
lose."
"Oh, bless you, chile! nobody wants to lose all they got, much or
little!"
"Yes; but," said Nina, "you know she can always live here with us; and
what little money she wants to fuss with, to buy new caps, and paregoric
for her cough, and all such little matters, we can give her, easily
enough."
"Ah, Miss Nina, your heart is free enough; you'd give away both ends of
the rainbow, if you had 'em to give. But the trouble is, chile, you
_haven't got 'em_. Why, chile, dis yer great place, and so many mouths
opened to eat and eat, chile, I tell you it takes heaps to keep it a
going. And Harry, I tell you, finds it hard work to bring it even all
the year round, though he never says nothing to you about his
troubles,--wants you always to walk on flowers, with both hands full,
and never think where they come from. I tell you what, chile, we's boun'
to think for you a little; and I tell you what, I's jist a going to hire
out."
"Why, Milly, how ridiculous!"
"It an't ridiculous, now. Why, just look on it, Miss Nina. Here's Miss
Loo, dat's one; here's me, dat's two; here's Polly,--great grown
girl,--three; dere's Tomtit, four; all on us eating your bread, and not
bringing in a cent to you, 'cause all on us together an't done much more
than wait on Miss Loo. Why, you's got servants enough of your own to do
every turn that wants doing in dis yer house. I know, Miss Nina, young
ladies don't like to hear about dese things; but the fac' is, victuals
cost something, and dere must be some on us to bring in something. Now,
dat ar gentleman what talked with your aunt, he said he could find me a
right good place up dar to the town, and I was jest a going. Sally, she
is big enough now to do everything that I have been used to doing for
Miss Loo, and I am jest a going; besides, to tell you the truth, I think
Miss Loo has kind o' set her heart upon it. You know she is a weakly
kind of thing,--don't know how to do much 'cept sit in her chair and
groan. She has always been so used to having me make a way for her; and
when I told her about dis yer, she kind o' brightened up."
"But, Milly, what shall I do? I can't spare you at all," said Nina.
"Law bless _you_, chile! don't you suppose I's got eyes? I tell you,
Miss Nina, I looked that gen'leman over pretty well for you, and my
opinion is _he'll do_."
"Oh, come, you hush!" said Nina.
"You see, chile, it wouldn't be everybody that our people would be
willing to have come on to de place, here, but there an't one of 'em
that wouldn't go in for dis yar, now I tell you. Dere's Old Hundred, as
you calls him, told me 'twas just as good as a meeting to hear him
reading de prayers dat ar day at de funeral. Now, you see, I's seen
gen'lemen handsome, and rich, and right pleasant, too, dat de people
wouldn't want at all; 'cause why? dey has dere frolics and drinks, and
de money flies one way for dis ting and one way for dat, till by and by
it's all gone. Den comes de sheriff, and de people is all sold, some one
way and some another way. Now, Mr. Clayton, he an't none of dem."
"But, Milly, all this may be very well; but if I couldn't love him?"
"Law sakes, Miss Nina! You look me in the face and tell me dat ar? Why,
chile, it's plain enough to see through _you_. 'Tis so! The people's all
pretty sure, by this time. Sakes alive, we's used to looking out for the
weather; and we knows pretty well what's coming. And now, Miss Nina, you
go right along and give him a good word, 'cause you see, dear lamb, you
_need_ a good, husband to take care of you,--dat's what you want, chile.
Girls like you has a hard life being at the head of a place, especially
your brother being just what he is. Now, if you had a husband here,
Mas'r Tom 'ud be quiet, 'cause he knows he couldn't do nothing. But just
as long as you's alone he'll plague you. But, now, chile, it's time for
you to be getting ready for dinner."
"Oh, but, do you know, Milly," said Nina, "I've something to tell you,
which I had liked to have forgotten! I have been out to the Belleville
plantation, and bought Harry's wife."
"You has, Miss Nina! Why, de Lord bless _you_! Why, Harry was dreadful
worked, dis yer morning, 'bout what Mas'r Tom said. 'Peared like he was
most crazy."
"Well," said Nina, "I've done it. I've got the receipt here."
"Why, but, chile, where alive did you get all the money to pay right
sudden so?"
"Mr. Clayton lent it to me," said Nina.
"Mr. Clayton! Now, chile, didn't I tell you so? Do you suppose, now,
you'd a let him lend you dat ar money if you hadn't liked him? But,
come, chile, hurry! Dere's Mas'r Tom and dat other gen'leman coming
back, and you must be down to dinner."
The company assembled at the dinner-table was not particularly
enlivening. Tom Gordon, who, in the course of his morning ride, had
discovered the march which his sister had stolen upon him, was more
sulky and irritable than usual, though too proud to make any allusion to
the subject. Nina was annoyed by the presence of Mr. Jekyl, whom her
brother insisted should remain to dinner. Aunt Nesbit was uncommonly
doleful, of course. Clayton, who, in mixed society, generally took the
part of a listener rather than a talker, said very little; and had it
not been for Carson, there's no saying whether any of the company could
have spoken. Every kind of creature has its uses, and there are times
when a lively, unthinking chatterbox is a perfect godsend. Those
unperceiving people, who never notice the embarrassment of others, and
who walk with the greatest facility into the gaps of conversation,
simply because they have no perception of any difficulty there, have
their hour; and Nina felt positively grateful to Mr. Carson for the
continuous and cheerful rattle which had so annoyed her the day before.
Carson drove a brisk talk with the lawyer about the value of property,
percentage, etc.; he sympathized with Aunt Nesbit on her last-caught
cold; rallied Tom on his preoccupation; complimented Nina on her
improved color from her ride; and seemed on such excellent terms both
with himself and everybody else, that the thing was really infectious.
"What do you call your best investments, down here,--land, eh?" he said
to Mr. Jekyl.
Mr. Jekyl shook his head.
"Land deteriorates too fast. Besides, there's all the trouble and risk
of overseers, and all that. I've looked this thing over pretty well, and
I always invest in niggers."
"Ah!" said Mr. Carson, "you do?"
"Yes, sir, I invest in niggers; that's what I do; and I hire them out,
sir,--hire them out. Why, sir, if a man has a knowledge of human nature,
knows where to buy and when to buy, and watches his opportunity, he gets
a better percentage on his money that way than any other. Now, that was
what I was telling Mrs. Nesbit, this morning. Say, now, that you give
one thousand dollars for a man,--and I always buy the best sort, that's
economy,--well, and he gets--put it at the lowest figure--ten dollars a
month wages, and his living. Well, you see there, that gives you a
pretty handsome sum for your money. I have a good talent of buying. I
generally prefer mechanics. I have got now working for me three
bricklayers. I own two first-rate carpenters, and last month I bought a
perfect jewel of a blacksmith. He is an uncommonly ingenious man; a
fellow that will make, easy, his fifteen dollars a month; and he is the
more valuable because he has been religiously brought up. Why, some of
them, now, will cheat you if they can; but this fellow has been brought
up in a district where they have a missionary, and a great deal of
pains has been taken to form his religious principles. Now, this fellow
would no more think of touching a cent of his earnings than he would of
stealing right out of my pocket. I tell people about him, sometimes,
when I find them opposed to religious instruction. I tell them, 'See
there, now--you see how godliness is profitable to the life that now
is.' You know the Scriptures, Mrs. Nesbit?"
"Yes," said Aunt Nesbit, "I always believed in religious education."
"Confound it all!" said Tom, "I _don't_! I don't see the use of making a
set of hypocritical sneaks of them! I'd make niggers bring me my money;
but, hang it all, if he came snuffling to me, pretending 'twas his duty,
I'd choke him! They never think so,--they don't and they can't--and it's
all hypocrisy, this religious instruction, as you call it!"
"No, it isn't," said the undiscouraged Mr. Jekyl, "not when you found it
on right principles. Take them early enough, and work them right, you'll
get it ground into them. Now, when they begun religious instruction,
there was a great prejudice against it in our part of the country. You
see they were afraid that the niggers would get _uppish_. Ah, but you
see the missionaries are pretty careful; they put it in strong in the
catechisms about the rights of the master. You see the instruction is
just grounded on this, that the master stands in God's place to them."
"D--d bosh!" said Tom Gordon.
Aunt Nesbit looked across the table as if she were going to faint. But
Mr. Jekyl's composure was not in the slightest degree interrupted.
"I can tell you," he said, "that, in a business, practical view,--for I
am used to investments,--that, since the publishing of those catechisms,
and the missionaries' work among the niggers, the value of that kind of
property has risen ten per cent. They are better contented. They don't
run away, as they used to. Just that simple idea that their master
stands in God's place to them. Why, you see, it cuts its way."
"I have a radical objection to all that kind of instruction," said
Clayton.
Aunt Nesbit opened her eyes, as if she could hardly believe her hearing.
"And pray what is your objection?" said Mr. Jekyl, with an unmoved
countenance.
"My objection is that it is all a lie," said Clayton, in such a positive
tone that everybody looked at him with a start.
Clayton was one of those silent men who are seldom roused to talk, but
who go with a rush when they are. Not seeming to notice the startled
looks of the company, he went on: "It's a worse lie, because it's told
to bewilder a simple, ignorant, confiding creature. I never could
conceive how a decent man could ever look another man in the face and
say such things. I remember reading, in one of the missionary reports,
that when this doctrine was first propounded in an assembly of negroes
somewhere, all the most intelligent of them got up and walked
deliberately out of the house; and I honor them for it."
"Good for them!" said Tom Gordon. "I can keep my niggers down without
any such stuff as that!"
"I have no doubt," said Clayton, "that these missionaries are
well-intending, good men, and that they actually think the only way to
get access to the negroes at all is to be very positive in what will
please the masters. But I think they fall into the same error that the
Jesuits did when they adulterated Christianity with idolatry in order to
get admission in Japan. A lie never works well in religion, nor in
morals."
"That's what I believe," said Nina, warmly.
"But, then, if you can't teach them this, what can you teach them?" said
Mr. Jekyl.
"Confound it all!" said Tom Gordon, "teach them that you've _got the
power_!--teach them the weight of your fist! That's enough for them. I
am bad enough, I know; but I can't bear hypocrisy. I show a fellow my
pistol. I say to him, You see that, sir! I tell him, You do so and so,
and you shall have a good time with me. But, you do that, and I'll
thrash you within an inch of your life! That's my short method with
niggers, and poor whites, too. When one of these canting fellows comes
round to my plantation, let him see what he'll get, that's all!"
Mr. Jekyl appeared properly shocked at this declaration. Aunt Nesbit
looked as if it was just what she had expected, and went on eating her
potato with a mournful air, as if nothing could surprise her. Nina
looked excessively annoyed, and turned a sort of appealing glance upon
Clayton.
"For my part," said Clayton, "I base my religious instruction to my
people on the ground that every man and every woman must give an account
of themselves _to God alone_; and that God is to be obeyed first, and
before me."
"Why," said Mr. Jekyl, "that would be destructive of all discipline. If
you are going to allow every fellow to judge for himself, among a parcel
of ignorant, selfish wretches, what the will of God is, one will think
it's one thing, another will think it's another; and there will be an
end of all order. It would be absolutely impossible to govern a place in
that way."
"They must not be left an ignorant set," said Clayton. "They must be
taught to read the Scriptures for themselves, and be able to see that my
authority accords with it. If I command anything contrary to it, they
ought to oppose it!"
"Ah! I should like to see a plantation managed in that way!" said Tom
Gordon, scornfully.
"Please God, you shall see such an one, if you'll come to mine," said
Clayton, "where I should be very happy to see you, sir."
The tone in which this was said was so frank and sincere, that Tom was
silenced, and could not help a rather sullen acknowledgment.
"I think," said Mr. Jekyl, "that you'll find such a course, however well
it may work at first, will fail at last. You begin to let people think,
and they won't stop where you want them to; they'll go too far; it's
human nature. The more you give, the more you may give. You once get
your fellows to thinking, and asking all sorts of questions, and they
get discontented at once. I've seen that thing tried in one or two
instances, and it didn't turn out well. Fellows got restless and
discontented. The more was given to them, the more dissatisfied they
grew, till finally they put for the free states."
"Very well," said Clayton; "if that's to be the result, they may all
'put' as soon as they can get ready. If my title to them won't bear an
intelligent investigation, I don't wish to keep them. But I never will
consent to keep them by making false statements to them in the name of
religion, and presuming to put myself as an object of obedience before
my Maker."
"I think," said Mr. Carson, "Mr. Clayton shows an excellent
spirit--excellent spirit! On my word, I think so. I wish some of our
northern agitators, who make such a fuss on the the subject, could hear
him. I'm always disgusted with these abolitionists producing such an
unpleasantness between the north and the south, interrupting trade, and
friendship, and all that sort of thing."
"He shows an excellent spirit," said Mr. Jekyl; "but I must think he is
mistaken if he thinks that he can bring up people in that way, under our
institutions, and not do them more harm than good. It's a notorious fact
that the worst insurrections have arisen from the reading of the Bible
by these ignorant fellows. That was the case with Nat Turner, in
Virginia. That was the case with Denmark Vesey, and his crew, in South
Carolina. I tell you, sir, it will never do, this turning out a set of
ignorant people to pasture in the Bible! That blessed book is a savor of
life unto life when it's used right; but it's a savor of death unto
death when ignorant people take hold of it. The proper way is this:
administer such portions only as these creatures are capable of
understanding. This admirable system of religious instruction keeps the
matter in our own hands, by allowing us to select for them such portions
of the word as are best fitted to keep them quiet, dutiful, and
obedient; and I venture to predict that whoever undertakes to manage a
plantation on any other system will soon find it getting out of his
hands."
"So you are afraid to trust the Lord's word without holding the bridle!"
said Tom, with a sneer. "That's pretty well for you!"
"_I_ am not!" said Clayton. "I'm willing to resign any rights to any one
that I am not able to defend in God's word--any that I cannot make
apparent to any man's cultivated reason. I scorn the idea that I must
dwarf a man's mind, and keep him ignorant and childish, in order to make
him believe any lie I choose to tell him about my rights over him! I
intend to have an educated, intelligent people, who shall submit to me
because they think it clearly for their best interests to do so;
because they shall feel that what I command is right in the sight of
God."
"It's my opinion," said Tom, "that both these ways of managing are
humbugs. One way makes hypocrites, and the other makes rebels. The best
way of educating is, to show folks that they can't help themselves. All
the fussing and arguing in the world isn't worth one dose of certainty
on that point. Just let them know that there are no two ways about it,
and you'll have all still enough."
From this point the conversation was pursued with considerable warmth,
till Nina and Aunt Nesbit rose and retired to the drawing-room. Perhaps
it did not materially discourage Clayton, in the position he had taken,
that Nina, with the frankness usual to her, expressed the most eager and
undisguised admiration of all that he said.
"Didn't he talk beautifully? Wasn't it noble?" she said to Aunt Nesbit,
as she came in the drawing-room. "And that hateful Jekyl! isn't he
mean?"
"Child!" said Aunt Nesbit, "I'm surprised to hear you speak so! Mr.
Jekyl is a very respectable lawyer, an elder in the church, and a very
pious man. He has given me some most excellent advice about my affairs;
and he is going to take Milly with him, and find her a good place. He's
been making some investigations, Nina, and he's going to talk to you
about them, after dinner. He's discovered that there's an estate in
Mississippi worth a hundred thousand dollars, that ought properly to
come to you!"
"I don't believe a word of it!" said Nina. "Don't like the man!--think
he is hateful!--don't want to hear anything he has to say!--don't
believe in him!"
"Nina, how often have I warned you against such sudden
prejudices--against such a good man, too!"
"You won't make me believe he is good, not if he were elder in twenty
churches!"
"Well, but, child, at any rate you must listen to what he has got to
say. Your brother will be very angry if you don't, and it's really very
important. At any rate, you ought not to offend Tom, when you can help
it."
"That's true enough," said Nina; "and I'll hear, and try and behave as
well as I can. I hope the man will go, some time or other! I don't know
why, but his talk makes me feel worse than Tom's swearing! That's
certain."
Aunt Nesbit looked at Nina as if she considered her in a most hopeless
condition.