_Pine Grove, April 29._ Our days pass pretty much after this fashion.
Mr. Philbrick gets up about six, calls me, and I obey, having
stipulated for a full hour in which to dress. After we get downstairs
it takes the united efforts of most of the family to get the breakfast
on the table, and we are fortunate if we get up from that meal by
half-past eight. It generally consists of hominy, very delicious eaten
with either milk, butter, or molasses, corn-cake, or waffles of
corn-flour--the best of their kind--concentrated coffee, chocolate, or
tea, army bread--when we can get it--crackers, when we can't, and
boiled eggs or fried fish, as the case may be. The important
operations of dish-washing and arranging the rooms upstairs take
longer than you can imagine, and things are not always done when I go
to school at ten, which with our simple style of living is rather a
nuisance. H. begins to pity the Southern housekeepers. This morning,
after making the starch in our little kitchen in the house, she waited
about for two hours, before she could get hold of one of the three
servants. They were all off at the kitchen, smoking and talking and
taking things easy. Joe was nominally cleaning knives, Flora had gone
to empty a pail of water, and Sukey had no thought about her starched
clothes!
Well, I walk off to school, under the white umbrella if the sun
shines, dressed as warmly as I can if it does not. My way lies between
a row of large "Heshaberry" trees, as the negroes call them; a
corruption, I suppose, of Asia Berry, as it is the "Pride of Asia," in
full blossom now, with scent something like our lilac, but more
delicate. On each side of these trees are the corn-houses, stables,
cotton-houses, and near the house a few cabins for house-servants, and
the well. They stretch an eighth of a mile, when a gate (left open)
shuts off the nigger-house and field. Another eighth brings me to the
cabins, which have trees scattered among them, figs and others. The
children begin to gather round me before I get there, with their bow
and curtsey and "goo' mornin, Marm," and as I go through the quarters
I send them in to wash their hands and faces. The praise-house
reached, one of the children rings the bell out of the door to summon
all, and they gather quickly, some to be sent off to wash their
faces--alas, they cannot change their clothes, which are of the
raggedest. But now enough clothes have come to begin to sell, I hope
to have a better dressed set before long. I keep them in for about two
hours--there are about thirty of the little ones who come in the
morning, ten and under; all older are in the field, and come in the
afternoon, as they finish work by noon always.
I go back to lunch at half-past twelve, a cold one generally,
sometimes a few waffles or some hominy for variety, but crackers,
sardines, and blackberries which we have in abundance now, make a
refreshing meal, with tea or coffee when we please. Shop[24] has to be
tended in the afternoon principally, and I sometimes take a turn at it
till I go off at half-past three to school again. We use for shop the
little room between Mr. G.'s and the entry, selling out of the window
over a box for a counter, to the groups on the porch. It is a funny
sight and funny work for us, albeit interesting, for they have had no
clothes for a year, and buy eagerly. Mr. Philbrick has not been able
to let them have any clothing before, as there has only been enough to
give a garment to one in ten, and they have been so used to being
treated alike that their jealousy is very easily roused, and it is a
difficult matter to deal with them. For the same reason the clothes
have to be sold, the money going back to the Commission, to be used
again for their benefit. It would be very much better if only the
goods were sent, for they prefer to make their own clothes and all
know how to sew.
These people show their subserviency in the way they put Marm or Sir
into their sentences every other word and emphasize it as the one
important word, and in always agreeing to everything you say. In
school it is rather annoying to have them say, "Yes Marm, 'zackly
Marm," before it is possible for an idea to have reached their brains.
Flora, our housemaid, who is a character, has a great deal of dignity
and influence among the other negroes, and takes the greatest care of
us. She is most jealous for what she considers our interests, and
moreover is quite an interpreter, though it is hard enough to
understand her sometimes. "Learning" with these people I find means a
knowledge of medicine, and a person is valued accordingly. Flora
wanted to know how much "learning" Miss Helen[25] had had, and it was
a long time before I could make out what she meant.
H. says she never saw me look so well, so you see I thrive in spite of
fleas, which have almost flayed me alive. I understand what it means
by eels getting _used_ to being skinned.
_May 1._ Took a ride through the quarters. We stopped to see Doll and
her week-old baby. H. had quite a talk with Mily, the nurse, who told
her it did them good to see white ladies about, and hoped we were
going to stay. She seemed very much disappointed when H. told her we
should be here [at Pine Grove] only a short time longer. I think it
does them good just to have me walk through the quarters four times a
day--they always curtsey and say a word.
In the afternoon, as I came out of school, Cuffy said, "You promise to
jine praise with we some night dis week, Missus," so I told him I
would go up in the evening if Mr. G. would go with me. When we went up
after eight they were just lighting the two candles. I sat down on the
women's side next a window, and one of the men soon struck up a hymn
in which the others joined and which seemed to answer the purpose of a
bell, for the congregation immediately began to assemble, and after
one or two hymns, Old Peter offered a prayer, using very good
language, ending every sentence with "For Jesus' sake." He prayed for
us, Massa and Missus, that we might be "boun' up in de belly-band of
faith." Then Mr. G. read to them and made a few remarks to which they
listened very attentively; then some hymn-singing, Cuffy deaconing out
the lines two at a time. Then some one suddenly started up and
pronounced a sort of benediction, in which he used the expression
"when we done chawing all de hard bones and swallow all de bitter
pills." They then shook hands all round, when one of the young girls
struck up one of their wild songs, and we waited listening to them for
twenty minutes more. It was not a regular "shout,"[26] but some of
them clapped their hands, and they stamped in time. It was very
difficult to understand the words, though there was so much repetition
that I generally managed to make out a good deal, but could not
remember it much, still less the music, which is indescribable, and no
one person could imitate it at all. As we walked home we asked Cuffy
if they considered the "shout" as part of their religious worship; he
said yes, that "it exercise the frame." Mr. G. told him that some of
the old people had told him they did not like the shouts, or think
them religious, but he said old Binah did not object to them in the
praise-house, but she did not like the shout "out in de world," _i.
e._ before they joined the Church or came to "strive behind the
Elders." He makes his own hymns, "praying to de Lord Jesus to teach
him as he in de woods--jine one word 'ginst toder." They were almost
unintelligible as he deaconed them out, but I daresay they were his
own, unconsciously caught, perhaps, in part from what he had heard in
the white people's church. The only song I could remember ran somewhat
after this fashion:
Oh, Jacob's ladder.
Climb high, climb higher!
Oh sodier of de jubilee,
When you git dere 'member me,
Oh! sodier of de cross!
In the introduction to "Slave Songs of the United States," a
collection made chiefly at Port Royal and published in 1867,
this particular song is set down as spurious, that is, as
being sung to a well-known "white folks'" tune. But most of
the negro music is described as "civilized in its character,
partly composed under the influence of association with the
whites, partly actually imitated from their music. In the
main it appears to be original in the best sense of the word."
The same writer goes on:
"On the other hand there are very few which are of an
intrinsically barbaric character, and where this character
does appear, it is chiefly in short passages, intermingled
with others of a different character.... It is very likely
that if we had found it possible to get at more of their
secular music, we should have come to another conclusion as
to the proportion of the barbaric element.... Mr. E. S.
Philbrick was struck with the resemblance of some of the
rowing tunes at Port Royal to the boatmen's songs he had
heard upon the Nile....
"The words are, of course, in a large measure taken from
Scripture, and from the hymns heard at church; and for this
reason these religious songs do not by any means illustrate
the full extent of the debasement of the dialect." Of words
funnily distorted through failure to understand their
meaning there are, however, many examples. "Paul and Silas,
bound in jail," was often sung "Bounden Cyrus born in jail;"
"Ring Jerusalem" appeared as "Ring Rosy Land," etc., etc. "I
never fairly heard a secular song among the Port Royal
freedmen, and never saw a musical instrument among them. The
last violin, owned by a 'worldly man,' disappeared from
Coffin's Point 'de year gun shoot at Bay Pint.'"
The negroes' manner of singing is pretty well suggested by
the following:
"The voices of the colored people have a peculiar quality
that nothing can imitate; and the intonations and delicate
variations of even one singer cannot be reproduced on paper.
And I despair of conveying any notion of the effect of a
number singing together, especially in a complicated
shout.... There is no singing in _parts_, as we understand
it, and yet no two appear to be singing the same thing--the
leading singer starts the words of each verse, often
improvising, and the others, who 'base' him, as it is
called, strike in with the refrain, or even join in the
solo, when the words are familiar. When the 'base' begins,
the leader often stops, leaving the rest of his words to be
guessed at, or it may be they are taken up by one of the
other singers. And the 'basers' themselves seem to follow
their own whims, beginning when they please and leaving off
when they please, striking an octave above or below (in case
they have pitched the tune too low or too high), or hitting
some other note that chords, so as to produce the effect of
a marvellous complication and variety, and yet with the most
perfect time, and rarely with any discord. And what makes it
all the harder to unravel a thread of melody out of this
strange network is that, like birds, they seem not
infrequently to strike sounds that cannot be precisely
represented by the gamut, and abound in 'slides from one
note to another, and turns and cadences not in articulated
notes.'"
How the same songs could be sung equally well at all sorts
of work is explained by another writer,[27] as follows: "Of
course the _tempo_ is not always alike. On the water, the
oars dip 'Poor Rosy' to an even andante, a stout boy and
girl at the hominy-mill will make the same 'Poor Rosy' fly,
to keep up with the whirling stone; and in the evening,
after the day's work is done, 'Heab'n shall-a be my home' [a
line from 'Poor Rosy'] peals up slowly and mournfully from
the distant quarters. One woman--a respectable
house-servant, who had lost all but one of her twenty-two
children--said to me: 'Pshaw! don't har to dese yer chil'en,
misse. Dey just rattles it off,--dey don't know how for sing
it. I likes "Poor Rosy" better dan all de songs, but it
can't be sung widout a full heart and a troubled sperrit!'"