Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

  CHAPTER XIX.

  THE REORGANIZATION OF SOUTHERN LABOR IS CONTINUED WITH VIGOR.

  By six o'clock in the morning the Doctor was out visiting the quartersof his sable dependants. Having on the previous evening told MajorScott, the head man or overseer of the gang, that he should expect thepeople to rise by daybreak and get their breakfasts immediately, so asto be ready for early work, he was a little astonished to find half ofthem still asleep, and two or three absent. The Major himself was justleaving the water-butt in rear of the plantation house, where he hadevidently been performing his morning ablutions.

  "Scott," said the Doctor, "you shouldn't use that water. The butt holdshardly enough for the family."

  "Yes sah," answered with a reverential bow the Major. "But the butt thatwe has is mighty dry."

  "But there is the bayou, close by."

  "Yes sah, so 'tis," assented the Major, with another bow. "I guess I'llthink of that nex' time."

  "But what are you all about?" asked the Doctor. "I understood that youwere all to be up and ready for work by this time."

  "I tole the boys so," said the Major in a tone of indignant virtue. "Itole 'em every one to be up an' about right smart this mornin'. I tole'em this was the fust mornin' an' they orter be up right smart, coseverythin' 'pended on how we took a start. 'Pears like they didn't minemuch about it some of 'em."

  "I'm afraid you didn't set them an example, Scott. Have you had yourbreakfast?"

  "No sah. 'Pears like the ole woman couldn't fetch nothin' to pass thismornin'."

  "Well, Scott, you must set them an example, if you want to influencethem. Never enjoin any duty upon a man without setting him an example."

  "Yes sah; that's the true way," coincided the unabashed Major. "That'sthe way Abraham an' Isaac an' Jacob went at it," he added, turning hislarge eyes upward with a sanctimoniousness of effect which, most mencould not have equalled without the aid of lifted hands, tonsures andpriestly gowns. "An' they was God's 'ticlar child'n, an 'lightened byhis holy sperrit."

  The Doctor studied him for a moment with the interest of a philosopherin a moral curiosity, and said to himself, rather sadly, that a monkeyor a parrot might be educated to very nearly the same show of piety.

  "Are all the people here?" he inquired, reverting from a considerationof the spiritual harvest to matters connected with temporal agriculture.

  "No sah. I'se feared not. Tom an' Jim is gone fo' suah. Tom he went offlas' night down to the fote. 'Pears like he's foun' a gal down thar thathe's a co'ting. Then Jim;--don' know whar Jim is nohow. Mighty poor meannigger he is, I specs. Sort o' no 'count nigger."

  "Is he?" said the Doctor, eyeing Scott with a suspicious air, as ifconsidering the possibility that he too might be a negro of no account."I must have a talk with these people. Get them all together, every man,woman and pickaninny."

  The Major's face was radiant at the prospect of a speech, a scene, aspectacle, an excitement. He went at his subordinates with a will,dragging them out of their slumbers by the heels, jerking the littleones along by the shoulder, and shouting in a grand bass voice, "Come,start 'long! Pile out! Git away frum hyer. Mars Ravenel gwine to make aspeech."

  In a few minutes he had them drawn up in two ranks, men in front, womenin the rear, tallest on the right, younglings on the left.

  "I knows how to form 'em," he said with a broad smile of satisfiedvanity. "I used to c'mand a comp'ny under Gineral Phelps. I was headboss of his cullud 'campment. He fus' give me the title of Major."

  He took his post on the right of the line, honored the Doctor with amilitary salute, and commanded in a hollow roar, "'Tention!"

  "My friends," said the Doctor, "we are all here to earn our living."

  "That's so. Bress the Lawd! The good time am a comin'," from the notunintelligent audience.

  "Hear me patiently and don't interrupt," continued the Doctor. "I seethat you understand and appreciate your good fortune in being able atlast to work for the wages of freedom."

  "Yes, Mars'r," in a subdued hoarse whisper from Major Scott, whoimmediately apologized for his liberty by a particularly grand militarysalute.

  "I want to impress upon you," said Ravenel, "that the true dignity offreedom does not consist in laziness. A lazy man is sure to be a poorman, and a poor man is never quite a free man. He is not free to buywhat he would like, because he has no money. He is not free to respecthimself, for a lazy man is not worthy even of his own respect. We mustall work to get any thing or deserve any thing. In old times you used towork because you were afraid of the overseer." "Whip," he was about tosay, but skipped the degrading word.

  "Now you are to work from hope, and not from fear. The good time hascome when our nation has resolved to declare that the laborer is worthyof his hire."

  "Oh, the blessed Scripter!" shouted Madam Scott in a piercing pipe,whereupon her husband gave her a white-eyed glare of reproof for daringto speak when he was silent.

  "Your future depends upon yourselves," the Doctor went on. "You canbecome useful and even influential citizens, if you will. But you mustbe industrious and honest, and faithful to your engagements. I want youto understand this perfectly. I will talk more to you about it someother time. Just now I wish chiefly to impress upon you your immediateduties while you are on this plantation. I shall expect you all to sleepin your quarters. I shall expect you to be up at daybreak, get yourbreakfasts as soon as possible, and be ready to go to work at once. Youmust not leave the plantation during the day without my permission. Youwill work ten hours a day during the working season. You will beorderly, honest, virtuous and respectable. In return I am to give yourations, clothing, quarters, fuel, medical attendance, and instructionfor children. I am also to pay you as wages eight dollars a month forfirst-class hands, and six for second-class. Each of you will have hislittle plot of land. Finally, I will endeavor to see that you are all,old and young, taught to read."

  Here there was an unanimous shout of delight, followed by articulateblessings and utterances of gratitude.

  "Whenever any one gets dissatisfied," concluded the Doctor, "I willapply to find him another place. You know that, if you go off alone andwithout authority, you are exposed to be picked up by theprovost-marshal, and put in the army. Now then, get your breakfasts.Major Scott, you will report to me when they are ready to go to work."

  While the Major offered up a ponderous salute, the line dispersed ingleesome confusion, which was a sore disappointment to him, as hewanted to make it right face, clap hands, and break ranks in militaryfashion. The Doctor went to breakfast with the most cheerful confidencein his retainers, notwithstanding the idle opening of this morning. Assoon as the poor fellows knew what he expected of them, they would besure to do it, if it was anything in reason, he said to Lillie. Thenegroes were ignorant of their duty, and often thoughtless of it, butthey were at bottom zealous to do right, and honestly disposed towardpeople who paid them for their labor. And here the author ventures tointroduce the historical doubt as to whether any other half-barbarousrace was ever blessed and beautified with such a lovingly gratefulspirit as descended, like the flames of the day of Pentecost, upon thebondsmen of America when their chains were broken by the just hands ofthe great Republic. Impure in life by reason of their immemorialdegradation, first as savages, and then as slaves, they were pure inheart by reason of their fervent joy and love.

  Under no urgency but that of their own thankfulness the Doctor's negroesdid more work that summer than the Robertsons had ever got from doubletheir number by the agency of a white overseer, drivers, whips andpaddles. On the second morning they were all present and up at daybreak,including even Tom the lovelorn, and Jim the "no 'count nigger." In acouple of weeks they had split out many wagon-loads of rails from theforest in rear of the plantation, put the broken-down fences in order,and prepared a sufficient tract of ground for planting. Not a pig nor achicken disappeared from the Doctor's flocks and herds, if I may beallowed to apply such magnificent terms to bristly and featheredcreatures.
On the contrary, his small store of live-stock increased witha rapidity which seemed miraculous, and which was inadequately explainedby the non-committal commentary of Major Scott, "Specs it mebbe in anserto prayer." Ravenel finally learned, to his intense mortification, thathis over-zealous henchmen were in the habit of depredating nightly onthe property of adjacent planters of the old Secession stock, and addingsuch of their spoils as they did not need, to his limited zoologicalcollection. Under the pangs of this discovery he made a tour of apologyand restitution through the neighborhood, and on returning from it,called his hands together and delivered them a lecture on the universalapplication of the law of honesty. They heard him with suppressedtitters and hastily eclipsed grins, nudging each other in the side, andexhibiting a keen perception of the practical humor and poetical justiceof their roguery.

  "'Pears like you don' wan' to spile the 'Gyptians, Mars Ravenel,"observed a smirking, shining darkey known as Mr. Mo. "You's one o' God'schosen people, an' you's been in slavery somethin' like we has, an' youhas a right to dese yere rebel chickins."

  "My good people," replied the Doctor, "I don't say but that _you_ have aright to all the rebel chickens in Louisiana. I deny that I have. I havealways been well paid for my labor. And even to you I would say, beforgiving,--be magnanimous,--avoid even the appearance of evil. It isyour great business, your great duty toward yourselves, to establish acharacter for perfect honesty and harmlessness. If you haven't enough toeat, I don't, mind adding something to your rations."

  "We _has_ 'nuff to eat," thundered Major Scott. "Let the man as says wehasn't step out _yere_."

  Nobody stepped out; everybody was full of nourishment and content; andthe interview terminated in a buzz of satisfaction and suppressedlaughter. Thenceforward the Doctor had the virtuous pleasure ofobserving that his legitimate pigs and chickens were left to theirnatural means of increase.

  Lillie's reading schools, held every evening in one of the unfurnishedrooms of the second story, were attended regularly by both sexes, andall ages of this black population. The rapidity of their progress atfirst astonished and eventually delighted her, in proportion as shegradually took her ignorant but zealous scholars to her heart. Theeagerness, the joy, the gratitude even to tears, with which theyaccepted her tuition was touching. They pronounced the words "MissLillie" with a tone and manner which seemed to lay soul and body at herfeet; and when the Doctor entered the schoolroom on one of his visits ofinspection they gave him a dazzling welcome of grins and rolling eyes;the spectacle reminded him vaguely of such spiritual expressions crownsof glory and stars in the firmament. If the gratitude of the humble is abenediction, few people have ever been more blessed than were theRavenels at this period.

  As a truthful historian I must admit that there were some rotten specksin the social fruit which the Doctor was trying to raise from thisbarbarous stock. Lillie was annoyed, was even put out of all patiencetemporarily, by occasional scandals which came to light among her sablepupils and were referred to her or to her father for settlement. Thateminent dignitary and supposed exemplar of purity, Major Scott, was thevery first to be detected in capital sin, the scandal being all the moregrievous because he was not only the appointed industrial manager, butthe self-elected spiritual overseer of the colored community. Hepreached to them every Sunday afternoon, and secretly plumed himself onbeing more fluent by many degrees than Mars Ravenel, who conducted themorning exercises chiefly through the agency of Bible and prayer-book.His copiousness of language, and abundance of Scriptural quotation wasquite wonderful. In volume of sound his praying was as if a bull ofBashan had had a gift in prayer; and if Heaven could have been taken,like Jericho, by mere noise, Major Scott was able to take it alone. Hadhe been born white and decently educated, he would probably have made apopular orator either of the pulpit or forum. He had the lungs for it,the volubility and the imagination. In pious conversation, venerableair, grand physique, superb bass voice, musical ear, perfection ofteeth, and shining white of the eyes, he was a counterpart of Mrs.Stowe's immortal idealism, Uncle Tom. But, like some white Christians,this tolerably exemplary black had not yet arrived at the ability tokeep the whole decalogue. He sometimes got a fall in his wrestlings withthe sin of lying, and in regard to the seventh commandment he was evenmore liable to overthrow than King David. Ravenel had much ado to healsome social heart-burnings caused by the Major's want of illuminationconcerning the binding nature of the marriage contract. He got himmarried over again by the chaplain of the garrison at Fort Winthrop, andthen informed him that, in case of any more scandals, he should reporthim to the provost-marshal as a proper character to enter the army.

  "I'se very sorry for what's come to pass, Mars Ravenel," said thealarmed and repentant culprit. "But now I 'specs to go right forrad inthe path of duty. I s'pose now Mars Chaplain has done it strong. Ye see,afore it wasn't done strong. I wasn't rightly married, like 'spectablefolks is, nohow. Ef I'd been married right strong, like 'spectable whitefolks is, I wouldn't got into this muss an fotched down shame on'ligion, for which I'se mighty sorry an' been about repentin in secretplaces with many tears. That's so, Mars Ravenel, as true as I hopes tobe forgiven."

  Here the Major's manhood, what he had of it, broke down, or, perhaps Iought to say, showed itself honorably, and he wept copious tears of whatI must charitably accept as true compunction.

  "I am a little disappointed, but not much astonished," said the Doctor,discussing this matter with the Chaplain. "I was inclined to hope at onetime that I had found an actual Uncle Tom. I was anxious and even readyto believe that the mere gift of freedom had exalted and purified thenegro character notwithstanding uncounted centuries of barbarism or ofoppression. But in hoping a moral miracle I was hoping too much. Iought not to have expected that a St. Vincent de Paul could be raisedunder the injustice and dissoluteness of the sugar-planting system.After all, the Major is no worse than David. That is pretty well for aman whom the American Republic, thirty millions strong, has repressedand kept brutish with its whole power from his birth down to about ayear ago."

  "It seems to me," answered the Chaplain,--"I beg your pardon,--but itseems to me that you don't sufficiently consider the enlightening powerof divine grace. If this man had ever been truly regenerated (which Ifear is not the case), I doubt whether he would have fallen into thissin."

  "My dear sir," said the Doctor warmly, "renewing a man's heart is only apartial reformation, unless you illuminate his mind. He wants to doright, but how is he to know what is right? Suppose he can't read.Suppose half of the Bible is not told him. Suppose he is misled by halfthe teaching, and all the example of those whom he looks up to as inevery respect his superiors. I am disposed to regard Scott as a veryfair attempt at a Christian, considering his chances. I am grieved overhis error, but I do not think it a case for righteous indignation,except against men who brought this poor fellow up so badly."

  "But Uncle Tom," instanced the Chaplain, who had not been long in theSouth.

  "My dear sir, Uncle Tom is a pure fiction. There never was such a slave,and there never will be. A man educated under the degrading influencesof bondage must always have some taint of uncommon grossness andlowness. I don't believe that Onesimus was a pattern of piety. But St.Paul had the moral sense, the Christianity, to make allowance for hisdisadvantages, and he recommended him to Philemon, no doubt as a weakbrother who required special charity and instruction."

  Injured husbands of the slave-grown breed are rarely implacable intheir anger; and before a fortnight had passed, Major Scott waspreaching and praying among his colored brethren with as much confidenceand acceptance as ever.

  The season opened delightfully with the Ravenels. Lillie wasoccasionally doleful at not getting letters from her husband, andsometimes depressed by the solitude and monotony of plantation life. Herfather, being more steadily occupied, and having no affectionate worryon his mind, was constantly and almost boyishly cheerful. It was one ofhis characteristics to be contented under nearly any circumstances.Wherever he happened
to be he thought it was a very nice place; and ifhe afterwards found a spot with superior advantages, he simply liked itbetter still. I can easily believe that, but for the stigma of forcedconfinement, he would have been quite happy in a prison, and that, onregaining his liberty, he would simply have remarked, "Why, it is evenpleasanter outside than in."

  But I am running ahead of some important events in my story. Lilliereceived a letter from her husband saying that he should visit thefamily soon, and then another informing her that in consequence of anunforeseen press of business, he should be obliged to postpone the visitfor a few days. His two next letters were written from Brashear City onthe Atchafalaya river, but contained no explanation of his presencethere. Then came a silence of three days, which caused her to tortureherself with all sorts of gloomy doubts and fears, and made her fly forforgetfulness or comfort to her housekeeping, her school, and her nowfrequent private devotions. The riddle was explained when the Doctorprocured a New Orleans paper at the fort, with the news that Banks hadcrossed the Atchafalaya and beaten the enemy at Camp Beasland.

  "It's all right," he said, as he entered the house. He waved the papertriumphantly, and smiled with a counterfeit delight, anxious toforestall her alarm.

  "Oh! what is it?" asked Lillie with a choking sensation, fearful thatit might not be quite as right as she wanted.

  "Banks has defeated the enemy in a great battle. Colonel Carter isunhurt, and honorably mentioned for bravery and ability."

  "Oh, papa!"

  She had turned very white at the thought of the peril through which herhusband had passed, and the possibility, instantaneously foreseen, thathe might be called to encounter yet other dangers.

  "We ought to be very grateful, my darling."

  "Oh! why has he gone? Why didn't he tell me that he was going? Why didhe leave me so in the dark?" was all that Lillie could say in the way ofthankfulness.

  "My child, don't be unreasonable. He wished of course to save you fromunnecessary anxiety. It was very kind and wise in him."

  Lillie snatched the paper, ran to her own room and read the officialbulletin over and over, dropping her tears upon it and kissing the placewhere her husband was praised and recommended for promotion. Then shethought how generous and grand he was to go forth to battle in silence,without uttering a word to alarm her, without making an appeal for hersympathy. The greatest men of history have not seemed so great to theworld as did this almost unknown colonel of volunteers to his wife. Shewas in a passion, an almost unearthly ecstasy of grief, terror,admiration and love. It is well that we cannot always feel thusstrongly; if we did, we should not average twenty years of life; if wedid, the human race would perish.

  Next day came two letters from Carter, one written before and one afterthe battle. In his description of the fighting he was as professional,brief and unenthusiastic as usual, merely mentioning the fact ofsuccess, narrating in two sentences the part which his brigade had takenin the action, and saying nothing of his own dangers or performances.But there was another subject on which he was more copious, and thispart of the letter Lillie prized most of all. "I am afraid I sicken youwith such fondness," he concluded. "It seems to me that you must gettired of reading over and over again the same endearing phrases and petnames."

  "Oh, never imagine that I can sicken of hearing or reading that you loveme," she answered. "You must not cheat me of a single pet name; you mustcall me by such names over and over in every letter. I always skimthrough your letters to read those dear words first. I should be utterlyand forever miserable if I did not believe that you love me, and did nothear so from you constantly."

  At this time Lillie knew by heart all her husband's letters. Let her eyerest on the envelope of one which she had received a week or a fortnightprevious, and she could repeat its contents almost verbatim, certainlynot missing one of the loving phrases aforesaid. Through the New Orleanspapers and these same wonderful epistles she followed the victoriousarmy in its onward march, now at Franklin, now at Opelousas, and now atAlexandria. It was all good news, except that her husband was forevergoing farther away; the Rebels were always flying, the triumphantUnionists were always pursuing, and there were no more battles. Sheflattered herself that the summer campaign was over, and that Carterwould soon get a leave of absence and come to his own home to be pettedand worshipped.

  From Alexandria arrived a letter of Colburne's to the Doctor. The youngman had needed all this time and these events to fortify him for thetask of writing to the Ravenels. For a while after that marriage itseemed to him as if he never could have the courage to meet them, noreven call to their attention the fact of his continued existence. Hiscongratulations were written with labored care, and the rest of theletter in a style of affected gayety. I shall copy from it a singleextract, because it bears some relation to the grand reconstructionexperiment of the Doctor.

  "I hear that you are doing your part towards organizing free labor inLouisiana. I fear that you will find it an up-hill business, not onlyfrom the nature of your surroundings but from that of your material. Iam as much of an abolitionist as ever, but not so much of a'nigger-worshipper.' I don't know but that I shall yet become anadvocate of slavery. I frequently think that my boy Henry will fetch meto it. He is an awful boy. He dances and gambles all night, and thenwants to sleep all day. If the nights and days were a thousand yearslong apiece, he would keep it up in the same fashion. In order that hemay not be disturbed in his rest by my voice, he goes away from camp andcurls up in some refuge which I have not yet discovered. I pass hoursevery day in shouting for Henry. Of course his labors are small and farbetween. He brushes my boots in the morning because he doesn't go to bedtill after I get up; but if I want them polished during the day,--atdress-parade, for instance,--it is not Henry who polishes them. When Iscold him for his worthlessness, he laughs most obstropolously (I valuemyself on this word, because to my ear it describes Henry's laughterexactly). For his services, or rather for what he ought to do anddoesn't, I pay him ten dollars a month, with rations and clothing. Hemight earn two or three times as much on the levee at New Orleans; butthe lazy creature would rather not earn anything; he likes to get hisliving gratis, as he does with me. This is the way he came to join me.When I was last in New Orleans, Henry, whom I had previously known asthe body servant of one of my sergeants, paid me a visit. Said I, 'Whatare you doing?'"

  "'Workin' on 'ee levee.'

  "'How much do you get?'

  "'It's 'cordin' to what I doos. Ef I totes a big stent, I gits twodollars; an' ef I totes 'nuff to kill a hoss, I gits two dollars 'n 'affa day.'

  "'Why, that is grand pay. That is a great deal better than hangingaround camp for nothing but your board and clothes. I am glad you havegone at some profitable and manly labor. Stick to it, and make a man ofyourself. Get some money in the bank, and then give yourself a littleschooling. You can make yourself as truly respectable as any white man,Henry.'

  "'Ya-as,' he said hesitatingly, as if he thought the result hardly worththe trouble; for which opinion I hardly blame him, considering thenature of a great many white men of this country. 'But it am right hardwork, Cap'm.'--Here he chuckled causelessly and absurdly.--'Sometimes Ithinks I'd like to come and do chores for you, Cap'm.'

  "'Oh no,' I remonstrated. 'Don't think of giving up your respectable andprofitable industry. I couldn't afford to pay you more than ten dollarsa month."

  Here he laughed in his obstropolous and irrational fashion, signifyingthereby, I think, that he was embarrassed by my arguments.

  "Well, I kinder likes dem terms," he said. "'Pears like I wants to havea good time better'n to have a heap o' money."

  "And so here he is with me, having a good time, and getting more moneythan he deserves. Now when you have freed with your own right hand asmany of these lazy bumpkins as I have, you will feel at liberty to speakof them with the same disrespectful levity. Wendell Phillips says thatthe negro is the only man in America who can afford to fold his arms andquietly await his future. That is just what th
e critter is doing, andjust what puts me out of patience with him. Moreover, he can't affordit; if he doesn't fall to work pretty soon, we shall cease to benegrophilists; we shall kick him out of doors and get in somebody whois not satisfied with folding his arms and waiting his future."

  "He is too impatient," said the Doctor, after he had finished readingthe letter to Lillie. "Just like all young people--and some old ones.God has chosen to allow himself a hundred years to free the negro. Wemust not grumble if He chooses to use up a hundred more in civilizinghim. I can answer that letter, to my own satisfaction. What right hasCaptain Colburne to demand roses or potatoes of land which has been sownfor centuries with nothing but thistles? We ought to be thankful if itmerely lies barren for a while."