THE morning is misty and damp, as father, mother, Carlotta, Lulie and
I stand under the great shed at the dépôt, waiting for the car doors
to be unlocked. It is very early, and nobody seems stirring except
those immediately connected with the train about to start. There are a
dozen or more people standing in groups, waiting on the same event as
ourselves. They all yawn a great deal, rub their eyes, wish they were
back in bed, and wonder how long before the brakesman comes to open the
car doors. The train itself lies on the track like a great headless
serpent (for the engine has not yet been put on), whose red and yellow
sides are full of latticed eyes. At last the brakesman, in a blue coat,
striped shirt and glazed cap, comes along, whistling the last popular
ballad, unlocks the door with a rattle, and shouts “Walk in, ladies and
gentlemen.”
We crowd in and select our seats on the side from the sun, if it should
come out. Father turns over the seat in front, that it may face the
other one, lays his shawl in the corner, hangs up the basket containing
our lunch, sits down, pulls off his glove with his teeth, thrusts his
hand under his duster, draws out and looks at his watch, shuts it with
a snap, and says indistinctly, through the fingers of his glove:
“It will be fifteen minutes before we start.”
People continue to arrive and crowd in, singly and in parties. The
individuals consist of a very fat old gentleman, with a broad hat
soiled around the band, a duster too short by six inches for his long
black coat, and a large red bandanna handkerchief, worn altogether in
his hand; a fancy dressed young gentleman, who looks in the door a
moment and concludes to finish his cigar upon the platform, with one
foot lifted to the railing, where he can tap the heel of his boot with
a leg-headed cane; a rather rough man with a very large moustache, who
passes through the coach very often and slams the door very hard, gets
between two seats to lean half way out of the window to tell some one,
who is named Bill, “Hello!” and to ask “when will you be up?” lets down
the window with a bang, and lolls across the seat with one foot hanging
in the aisle; a middle aged maiden lady, dressed, of course, in black
bombazine, with a green veil, a large basket with a scolloped top, a
canary of yellow and black dignity in a white and green cage, furnished
with seed, sand, and inconvenient water cups; an old lady under the
care of the conductor, walking very slow, with a horn handled stick,
a large flowered bandbox and a white cloth bag; she wears a dark fly
bonnet, which she takes off when she sits down and displays a white
cap, ruffled around her face, which is very much wrinkled, and has
white, thin hairs about the chin; she shows a disposition to breathe
hard, and to look around vacantly from the side seat at the end of the
cars, where the conductor has placed her, and to talk to no one in
particular with a voice like a cat-bird’s with a bad cold.
The parties who enter are generally composed of tall, resigned looking
gentlemen, burdened with innumerable boxes and bundles, patient and
pale wives, in gray travelling dresses and lead colored veils, which
they hold in one corner of their mouths, to show only one fourth of
the face: sleepy looking, large boys, with badly fitting clothes, who
stumble along the aisle behind their parents, as if they were still
dreaming; smaller boys and girls following, holding each other by the
hand, each in the fallacious belief that they are taking care of the
other; and mulatto nurses, carrying in their arms very white headed
babies, naturally lachrymose and nasally aqueous.
Having seen all these and many more come in, I raise the window.
Everything is dripping with fog, and the moisture is trickling in
little crooked streams down the sides of the coaches. The express
wagon comes rattling down, and I can hear them unloading, with an
occasional ejaculation bordering on the profane. Then I hear the bell
of the engine as it comes out of the yard, and stews and hisses,
backing down the track, nearer and nearer till it touches—then, with
a loud clack-up of the coaches, everybody is jerked forward, the train
glides back a foot or two, and it is coupled on. All is comparatively
still now, and there is nothing to remind us of the immense power to
which we are attached, except the odor of the smoke, which is rolling
in black masses along the roof of the shed, and the faint singing of
the steam.
I take my head in and find everybody either dozing or staring stupidly
out of the window. Father is reclining in his seat, mother is resting
her cheek upon her hand, with closed eyes, and Carlotta and Lulie,
finding it too damp to raise the window, have looked through the glass
till their breath has dimmed it, and wiping it with their hands, have
left the print of their fingers in circles on the pane.
William now brings father the checks for the baggage, the whistle
sounds, the bell rings, a few loud coughs from the great monster that
draws us, and we glide from under the roof, creep under the bridge, jog
along the suburbs, rattle into full speed, and roar out of sight of the
town; the last sign of which is a little negro, standing in the door of
a hut on the embankment above, waving his rag of a hat, as if to wish
us good speed. Trees fly by, fences like long serpents wriggle past,
and the whole country becomes a passing panorama!
The sun rises, and, dispelling the fog, shines out bright and sultry.
People, aroused by the stir, begin to talk. Children become thirsty.
The lady opposite, with two little girls and a baby, tells the nurse to
hand her the basket, and opening it to get out the silver mug, sends
the nurse after water. The nurse totters down the coach, rocks backward
and forward while drawing the water, and totters back, steadying
herself by the arms of the seats, and spilling a little water at every
step. The little camels gulp it down as if the cars were Sahara!
The conductor staggers in and calls for tickets. Old gentlemen untie
many-stringed pocket-books, old ladies open their reticules, and young
gentlemen point to their hat bands. He passes out, and the whistle
sounds. The brakes-man rushes to the wheel and gives a turn, then
holds his cap on with one hand, and swings off by the railing to
look ahead. Another whistle, another turn, and we grind into a small
station, where we stop for a minute or two; then on and on we fly,
faster for the short delay. The morning wears away, and we get out our
luncheon. Broiled chicken and cold tongue! how they are associated with
travelling! Their very odor is suggestive of the rattle of the train!
We had scarce finished eating when the whistle sounded for Goldsboro’.
We got off and found Aleck, one of the farm hands, waiting for us with
the spring wagon, as Horace, he said, had not yet got up with the
carriage. We all clambered up, and were soon rolling over a level,
though dusty, road to our country place.
As the rattling wagon was not a very pleasant place for conversation, I
had leisure to observe Carlotta, and to mark the effects of diversion
on her beautiful face. Many traces of sadness were gone, and there
was even brightness in her eyes. Such eyes I have never seen. There
was a _velvet_ expression about them, for to the soft rich effect of
that fabric alone can I compare those orbs and their setting; and I
thought, as I gazed at them, that the soul must be a rare one indeed
that possessed such windows. She seemed trying to shake off reflections
on her own misfortunes, and for others’ sake, if not her own, to be
cheerful. She sat next to mother, to whom she was already fondly
attached, and whose tender heart fully reciprocated her love. Lulie was
all gaiety, and father was undignified enough to be droll; some of his
remarks even drawing a smile from Carlotta, though only such a smile a
soul in serge can wear; a smile that seems begun in forgetfulness, and
finished with repentance for its levity.
The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of
trees that led to the house.
The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all
the premises were on the old style.
The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story
one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas
running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and
were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front
porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff
benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one
corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese
were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious
kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged
the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the
yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and
little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a
small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As
we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel,
commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house
half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were
followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate,
shouting in great glee:
“Yon’s marster and mistis.”
Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill
chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the
steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where
she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then
conducted them to their chambers. She soon returned to father and
myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.
“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs.
Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready
whenever you wish to go up.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to
mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place
I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up
the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a
key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move
over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I
couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things
in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a
fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from
the great’us to home.”
I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her
impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting
room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze
generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as
if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle
of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that
it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in
and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The
floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with
my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its
yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover,
that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad
fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery
fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images,
sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose
knocked off, and very erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs,
one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him
faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians
were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision.
There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze
looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with
a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for
the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner—the long
pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom,
as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not.
And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he
could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat,
with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which
sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching
at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs.
Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short
residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill,
under those great shady poplars.
Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat
out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing
her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to
let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room.
I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique,
and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet
I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and
we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In
the old parlor, in the library—with long high shelves of books—up in
the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was
anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s
bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brightening beauty. From the
house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our
hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green
mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats
together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first
little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud
was—and I blushed for shame at the thought—Carlotta’s presence. I
knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all
to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that
I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must
be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as
Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring
Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful
that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was
too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar
to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing
we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up
indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have
them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.
While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on
my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and
indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment,
when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the
door, who said:
“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her
house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat
with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh
when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”
We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to
Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large dark man, with a kind, pleasant
face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much
at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us
cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:
“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen
you sence you was a mighty little chap.”
As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt
that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very
tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently
not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but
that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was
prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful
operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from
the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under
lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he
showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow
from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for
a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate
people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two
or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within
came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of
his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened
almost to groans—one beginning as the other left off; if he was only
laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The
best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud—first
the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from
within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet
lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.
Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in
her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of
the table, and make the tea and coffee. Mrs. B—— accordingly took
her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her
more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with
thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small
blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper,
giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with
scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened
with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been
fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that
she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of
that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you
were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that
everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one
always enjoys after a journey.
Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby
unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon
observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.
“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B—— to father, after grace had been said,
“will you take some tea or coffee?”
“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that,
and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”
“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”
“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”
“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”
“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”
“Well, Miss Carlotta?”
“A cup of tea, if you please.”
“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, I believe, madam.”
“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, putting the sugar in
Mr. B—— ‘s cup.
Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide
what was _au fait_ under the circumstances, so that when his turn came
he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in
response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of
both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”
Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his
answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since
she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben
replied by a grin, without a sound.
“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you
must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”
There was silence for some time, and then father said:
“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”
“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”
“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing
the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”
“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”
Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all
earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.
Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail,
but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”
“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.
I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.
Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the
crumbs:
“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this
mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”
“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”
“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the
tree when I shot.”
Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they
repeated them.
Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.
“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”
Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B—— talked about
the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in
silence.
After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to
take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to
the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the
library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch
but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the
way.