A NIGHT IN A TENNESSEE FARM-HOUSE
We went into the house, and gathered around the sitting-room fire for a
social evening’s talk. As it grew dark, the doors were closed, and we
sat in the beautiful firelight. And now I learned a fact, and formed a
theory, concerning doors.
The fact was this: not a door on the premises had either lock or bolt.
Mule-pen, meat-house, and both divisions of the dwelling-house, were
left every night without other fastening than the rude wooden latches of
the country. This was a very common practice among the small farmers of
that region. “It was a rare chance we ever used to hear of anything
being stolen. My house was never robbed, and I never lost a mule or
piece of meat till after war broke out.”
The closing of the doors at dark, not because the weather had grown
colder, but apparently because there was no longer any daylight to
admit, suggested to my mind the origin of the universal Southern custom
of leaving doors open during the severest winter weather. The poor
whites and negroes live very generally in huts and cabins without
windows. Even the houses of the well-to-do small farmers are scantily
supplied with these modern luxuries. The ancestors of the wealthier
middle class dwelt not many years ago in similar habitations. Such is
the strength of habit, and so strong the conservatism of imitative
mankind, that I suppose a public statute would be necessary to compel
now the shutting of doors of windowed houses against the piercing winds
of the cold season; just as, according to Charles Lamb, the Chinese
people’s method of obtaining roast pig by burning their dwellings over a
tender suckling—that ravishing delicacy having been accidentally
discovered to the world by the conflagration of a house with its
adjoining pig-sty—had to be stopped by an imperial edict.
We sat without lamp or candle in the red gleaming firelight; and the
faces of the little girls, who had been shrinking and shivering with the
cold all day, took on a glow of comfort and pleasure, now that the house
was shut. However, I could still feel gusts of the wintry air blowing
upon me from openings between the logs. I have been in many Southern
farm-houses; and I have heard the custom of open doors commended as
necessary to give plenty of air and to toughen the inmates by wholesome
exposure; but I do not now remember the habitation that was not more
than sufficiently supplied with air, both for ventilating and toughening
purposes, with every door closed.
Mr. —— talked quite sensibly of the origin and results of the war. He
and the majority of the farmers in that region were originally Union
men, and remained so to the last. “Some of the hottest secesh, too, got
to be right good Union before the wa’ was over,—they found the Yankees
treated ’em so much better ’n they expected, and the Rebs so much wuss.”
He accepted emancipation. “The way I look at it, the thing had growed up
till it got ripe, and it fell on us in this age. It was the universal
opinion before the wa’, that the country would be a heap better off
without niggers. But we couldn’t go with the Abolitionists of the No’th,
nor with the secesh fire-eaters. We stood as it were between two fires.
That was what made it so hard.”
But he shared the common prejudice against permitting the negroes to
remain and enjoy the land. “’T won’t do to have ’em settled among us. ’T
would, if everybody was honest. But the whites, I’m ashamed to say it,
will just prey upon them. They’re bound to be the poorest set of
vagabonds that ever walked the earth. O yes, they’ll work. It’s just
this way,—they’ll work if they have encouragement; and no man will
without, unless he’s driven. All around hyere, and up in Middle
Tennessy, whur I’ve been, they’re doing right smart. But it has seemed
to bear on their minds that they wanted to rent land, and have a little
place of their own. They get treated right rough by some unprincipled
men, and by some that ought to know how to give ’em Christian treatment,
now they’re free. But the truth is, a white man can’t take impudence
from ’em. It may be a long ways removed from what you or I would think
impudence, but these passionate men call it that, and pitch in.”
“Blair, an old nigger down to the saw-mill whur I went to-day,” said
Zeek, “got his head split open with an axe by a man two days ago. He
said Old Blair sassed him. He fell plumb crossways of the fire, and they
had to roll him off.”
“That’s the way,” said Mr. ——. “Befo’e the wa’ the owner of the nigger’d
have had the man arrested. He was so much property. It was as if you
should kill or maim my horse. But now the nigger has no protection.”
“That’s very true, if the government does not protect him.”
We talked of the depredations of the two armies. “I never feared one
party more than the other,” said Mrs. ——. “If anything, the Rebels was
worst.”
“Both took hosses and mules,” said Mr. ——. “At fust, I used to try to
get my property back. I’d go to head-quarters and get authority to take
it whur I could find it; but always by that time ’t would be
hocus-pocussed out of the way. It was all an understood thing. Aside
from that, the regular armies, neither of them, didn’t steal from us.
But as soon as they’d passed, then the thieves would come in. They’d
take what we had, and cus us for not having mo’e. Sheep, chickens,
geese, corn, watches, and money,—whatever they could lay hands on
suffered. Men never thought of carrying money about them, them times,
but always give it to the weemun to hide. Thar was scouts belonging to
both armies, but which was mo’e robbers than scouts, that was the
scourge of the country. If a man had anything, they’d be sure to h’ist
it. They’d pretend to come with an order to search for gov’ment arms. It
was only an excuse for robbing. They’d search for gov’ment arms in a
tin-cup. They had what they called a cash rope. That was a rope to slip
about a man’s neck, and swing him up with, till he’d tell whur his money
was. They had a gimblet, which they said was for boring for treasures;
and they always knew just whur to bore to find ’em. That was right
hyere” (in a man’s temples). “They’d bore into him, till he couldn’t
stand the pain, then if he had any money he’d be only too glad to give
it up. These was generally Confederates. We was pestered powerful by
’em. But Harrison’s scouts was as bad as any. They pretended to be
acting on the Union side. They was made up of Southern men, mostly from
Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessy. They was a torn-down bad set of men;
bad as the Rebs. They’d no respect for anybody or anything. One Sunday a
neighbor of mine met them coming up the road. He knew them very well;
and he said to them, it was Sunday, and he hoped thar’d be no
disturbances that day; the people, he said, had all gone to preaching.
That’s right, they said; they believed in means of grace; and they asked
whur the preaching was to be, and who was going to preach. He told them,
and said he was going thar himself. They said they believed a man did
right to go to preaching, though they was deprived of that privilege
themselves. He told ’em he hoped they’d look more after their eternal
interest in futur’, and they said they intended to, and inquired mo’e
particular whur the preaching was to be, and thanked him, and rode on.
They then just went to plund’ring, cl’aring out his house about the fust
one. Then they said they thought they’d take his advice, and look a
little after their eternal interests, and go and hunt up the preaching.
Then they just went over and robbed the meeting. There was seventeen
horses with sidesaddles on ’em; the men generally went on foot, but the
weemun rode. They tuke every horse, and left the weemun to walk home,
and carry their saddles, or leave ’em.”
“Some Rebel bushwhackers,” said Mrs. ——, “went to the house of a woman I
know as well as I know my own sisters, and because she wouldn’t give ’em
her money—she had it in a belt under her dress tied around her
waist—they knocked her eye out; then they took their knives, and cut
right through to her flesh, cutting her money out.”
Both Zeek and his father kept out of the war. The latter was too old,
and the former too young, to be swept in by the conscription act. “Zeek
escaped well!” said the mother, with a gleam of exultation. “But I was
just in dread he’d be taken!” And I gathered that a little innocent
maternal fiction, as to his years, had been employed to shield him.
“Some of the hardest times we saw, hyere in the Union parts of Tennessy,
was when they come hunting conscripts. They got up some dogs now that
would track a man. One of my neighbors turned and shot a hound that was
after him, and got away. The men come up, and they was torn-down mad
when they saw the dog killed. They pressed a man and his wagon to take
the carcase back to town; they lived in Adamsville, eight miles from
hyere. They stopped to my house over night, going back.”
“They just bemoaned the loss of that dog,” said Mrs. ——. “They said
they’d sooner have lost one of their company.”
“They got back to town, and they buried that dog now with great
solemnity. They put a monument over his grave, with an epitaph on it.
But some of the conscripts they’d been hunting, dug him up, and hung him
to a tree, and shot him full of bullets, and made a writing which they
pinned to the tree, with these words on it: ‘_We’ll serve the owners of
the dogs the same way next._’”
“Was Owl Crick swimming to-day, Zeek?” Mrs. —— asked; meaning, was it so
high that our beasts had to swim. And that led to a remark as to the
origin of the name.
“Thar’s right smart of owls on this Crick,” said Mr. ——; “sometimes
we’re pestered powerful by ’em; they steal our chickens so.”
Just then we heard a wild squawking in the direction of the hen-roost.
“Thar’s one catching a chicken now,” quietly observed the farmer. I
certainly expected to see either him or Zeek run out to the poor thing’s
rescue. But they sat unconcernedly in their chairs. It was the chicken’s
business, not theirs. The squawking grew fainter and fainter, and then
ceased.
“The people all through this section I allow will never forget the
battle,” said Mr. ——. “Friday night Johnson’s left wing was at
Brooks’s,—the last house you passed to-day befo’e you fo’ded Owl Crick.
The woods was just full of men. They took Brooks, to make him show ’em
the way. He said he didn’t know the woods, and that was the fact; but
they swo’e he lied, and he must go with ’em, and they’d shoot him if he
led ’em amiss. He was in a powerful bad fix; but, lucky for him they
hadn’t gone fur when they met Dammern, an old hunter, that knew every
branch and thicket in the country. So they swapped off Brooks for
Dammern.
“The Federals was on the other side of us, and I allowed there was going
to be a battle. And it looked to me as if it was going to be right on my
farm.”
“That was the awfulest night I ever had in my life,” said Mrs. ——. “My
husband was for leaving at once. But it didn’t appear like I could bear
the idea of it. Though what to do with ourselves if we staid? We’ve no
cellar, and if we’d had one, and got into it, a shell might have set the
house afire, and buried us under it. So I proposed we should dig a hole
to get into. He allowed that might be the best thing. So the next
morning I got off betimes, and went over and counselled with our
neighbors through the grove, and told ’em I thought it would be a grand
idee to dig a pit for both our families, and so they came over hyere and
went to digging.”
“You never see men work so earnest as we did till about ’leven o’clock,”
said Mr. ——. “Finally we got the pit dug, between the house and the
spring. But when it was done it looked so much like a grave the weemun
dreaded to get into it, and so much like a breastwork we men was afraid
both armies would just play their artilleries onto it. So my wife give
her consent we should take to the swamps. But what to do with the pit?
for if it got shelled, the house would be destroyed; and then thar was
danger the armies would use the hole to bury their dead in, and the
bodies would spoil our spring. And as we couldn’t take the pit with us,
it appeared like thar was but one thing to do. So we put in and worked
right earnest till we’d filled it up again. A rain had come on Friday
night, and bogged down some of Johnson’s artillery between hyere and
Corinth, and that’s my understanding why the fight didn’t come off
Saturday. That give us time to git off. I took my family three miles
back to a cabin in the swamp, and thar they staid till it was all over;
only Zeek and me come back for some loads of goods. We took one load
Saturday, and come for another Monday. That was the second day of the
fight. We found the place covered with Rebel soldiers. The battle was
going on then. The roar of artillery was so loud you couldn’t converse
at one end of the house, whur the echo was. The musketry sounded like a
roaring wind; the artillery was like peals of thunder.
“Thar was one family caught on the battle-field. They had staid, because
the man was laying dangerously sick, and they dreaded to move him. After
the fighting begun, they started to get away. The little boy was shot
through the head, and the horse killed. The weemun then just took up the
sick man and run with him down into the swamp.”
“We had a nephew living on the battle-field,” said Mrs. ——. “The family
was down with the measles at the time. But when they see thar was to be
a fight, they just moved a plank in the ceiling over head, and hid up
all their bacon, and lard, and corn-meal, and everything to eat they
couldn’t take with ’em. Then they tuke up a child apiece and come on for
us; we’d done gone when they got hyere, and they come tearing through
the swampy ground after us, toting their babes. They staid with us in
the cabin till after the battle. But by that time his house was occupied
by soldiers. He’d been right ingenious hiding his provisions, so nobody
could find ’em; but the soldiers went to tearing off ceilings to get
planks to make boxes, and down come the corn-meal and bacon; so they had
a pretty rich supply.”
“After that,” said Mr. ——, “his house got burnt. Nearly all the houses
and fences for miles, on the battle-field, was burnt, so that it was
just one common. Thar was nobody left. You never see such desolation.
Then the armies moved off, leaving a rich pasture. I had my cattle
pastured thar all that summer.”
Mrs. —— proposed that the children should sing for me a little piece
called “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” Her husband favored the suggestion,
saying it was “a right nice composed little song.”
“I’ve plumb forgotten it,” said Zeek. And the little girls, who
blushingly undertook it after much solicitation, could remember only a
few lines here and there, greatly to the parents’ chagrin.
Mrs. —— was at times very thoughtful; and she told me a newly married
elder daughter had that day left home with her husband.
“We’ll go by their house in the morning, and I’ll show it to you,” said
Zeek.
I congratulated the parents on having their child settled so near them;
yet Mrs. —— could scarcely speak of the separation without rising tears.
All were eloquent in their praises of the young husband. He was doing
right well, when the war, the cruel, wasteful war, swept him in, and he
fought for the slave despotism four years, without a dollar of pay. That
left him plumb flat. But he was a right smart worker. He was a splendid
hand to make rails. He could write also. After the surrender, he just
let in to work, and made a crop; and after the crop was laid by, (_i.
e._, when the corn was hoed for the last time,) he pitched into writing.
He employed himself as a teacher of that art. He had already taught nine
schools, of ten successive lessons each, at two dollars a scholar. He
had had as many as sixty pupils of an evening. I sympathized sincerely
with the satisfaction they all felt in having their Maggie married to so
smart a man. Indeed, I was beginning greatly to like this little family,
and to feel a personal interest in all their affairs. It delights me now
to recall that December evening, spent in the red firelight of that
humble farm-house; and if I record their peculiarities of speech and
manners, it is because they were characteristic and pleasing.
At eight o’clock, Zeek, weary with his long ride that day, said, “I
believe I’ll lie down,” and, without further ceremony, took off his
clothes and got into one of the beds in the room. Mrs. —— thought I also
must be tired, and said I could go to bed when I pleased. Thinking it
possible I might be assigned to the same apartment, I concluded to sit
up until the audience became somewhat smaller. The girls presently went
up-stairs, lighted to their beds by the fire, which shone up the
stairway and through the cracks in the chamber floor. I took courage
then to say that I was ready to retire; and, to my gratification, saw a
candle lighted to show me to my chamber,—though I marvelled where that
could be, for I supposed I had seen every room in the house, except the
loft to which the girls had gone, when I had seen the sitting-room and
kitchen.
Mr. —— took me first out-doors, to a stoop on the side of the house
opposite the great opening. Thence a door opened into a little framed
box of a room built up against the log-house, as an addition. There was
scarcely space to turn in it. The walls consisted of the naked, rough
boards. There was not even a latch to the door, which opened into the
universal night, and which the wind kept pushing in. Mr. —— advised me
to place the chair against it, which I did. I set the candle in the
chair, and blew it out after I had got into bed. Then looking up, I saw
with calm joy a star through the roof. It was interesting to know that
this was the bridal chamber.
The bed was deep and comfortable, and I did not suffer from cold,
although I could feel the fingers of the wind toying with my hair. The
night was full of noises, like the reports of pistols. It was the old
house cracking its joints.