The Desert Home: The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness
Page 6
CHAPTER SIX.
THE VIRGINIA PLANTATION.
"I found the farm everything he had described it--a large plantationwith a good wooden house, and well-enclosed fields. I immediately setabout `stocking' it with my remaining cash. What was my surprise tofind that I must spend the greater part of this in _buying men_! Yes--there was no alternative. There were no labourers to be had in theplace--except such as were slaves--and these I must either buy formyself, or hire from their masters, which, in point of morality,amounted to the same thing.
"Thinking that I might treat them with at least as much humanity, asthey appeared to receive from others, I chose the former course; andpurchasing a number of blacks, both men and women, I began life as aplanter. After such a bargain as that, I did not deserve to prosper;and I did not prosper, as you shall see.
"My first crop failed; in fact, it scarcely returned me the seed. Thesecond was still worse; and to my mortification I now ascertained thecause of the failure. I had come into possession of a `worn-out' farm.The land looked well, and on sight you would have called it a fertiletract. When I first saw it myself, I was delighted with my purchase--which seemed indeed a great bargain for the small sum of money I hadpaid. But appearances are often deceptive; and never was there agreater deception than my beautiful plantation in Virginia. It wasutterly worthless. It had been cropped for many years with maize, andcotton, and tobacco. These had been regularly carried off the land, andnot a stalk or blade suffered to return to the soil. As a natural fact,known to almost every one, the vegetable or organic matter will thus intime become exhausted, and nothing will remain but inorganic or purelymineral substances, which of themselves cannot nourish vegetation, andof course can give no crop. This is the reason why manure is spreadupon land--the manure consisting of substances that are for the mostpart organic, and contain the principles of life and vegetation. Ofcourse, gentlemen, these things are known to you; but you will pardon mydigression, as my children are listening to me, and I never lose anopportunity of instructing them in facts that may hereafter be useful tothem.
"Well, as I have said, I had no crops, or rather very bad ones, for thefirst and second years. On the third it was, if possible, still worse;and on the fourth and fifth no better than ever. I need hardly add thatby this time I was ruined, or very nearly so. The expense of feedingand clothing my poor negroes had brought me in debt to a considerableamount. I could not have lived longer on my worthless plantation, evenhad I desired it. I was compelled, in order to pay my debts, to sellout everything--farm, cattle, and negroes. No, I did not sell all.There was one honest fellow to whom both Mary and I had become attached.I was resolved not to sell him into slavery. He had served usfaithfully. It was he who first told me how I had been tricked; and,sympathising in my misfortune, he endeavoured--both by industry on hisown part, and by encouraging his fellow-labourers--to make theungrateful soil yield me a return. His efforts had been vain, but Idetermined to repay him for his rude but honest friendship. I gave himhis liberty. He would not accept it. He would not part from us. He isthere!"
As the narrator said this, he pointed to Cudjo, who stood hanging by thedoor-post; and, delighted at these compliments which were being paidhim, was showing his white teeth in a broad and affectionate smile.
Rolfe continued:--
"When the sale was completed, and the account settled, I found that Ihad just five hundred pounds left. I had now some experience infarming; and I resolved to move out to the West--into the great valleyof the Mississippi. I knew that there my five hundred pounds wouldstill set me up again in a farm as big as I wanted, where the timber wasstill growing upon it.
"Just at this time my eye fell upon some flaming advertisements in thenewspapers, about a new city which was then being built at the junctionof the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. It was called `Cairo,' and as itwas situated on the fork between two of the largest and most navigablerivers in the world, it could not fail in a few years to become one ofthe largest cities in the world. So said the advertisement. There weremaps of the new city everywhere, and on these were represented theatres,and banks, and court-houses, and churches of different religiousdenominations. There were lots offered for sale, and, along with these,small tracts of land adjoining the town--so that the inhabitants mightcombine the occupations of merchant and agriculturist. These lots wereoffered very cheap, thought I; and I did not rest, night nor day, untilI had purchased one of them, and also a small farm in the adjacentcountry.
"Almost as soon as I had made the purchase, I set out to takepossession. Of course, I took with me my wife and children. I had nowthree--the two eldest being twins and about nine years old. I did notintend to return to Virginia any more. Our faithful Cudjo accompaniedus to our far Western home.
"It was a severe journey, but not so severe as the trial that awaited uson our arrival at `Cairo.' As soon as I came within sight of the place,I saw, to use an expressive phrase, that I had been `sold' again. Therewas but one house, and that stood upon the only ground that was not aswamp. Nearly the whole site of the proposed city was under water, andthe part not wholly inundated consisted of a dark morass, covered withtrees and tall reeds! There were no theatres, no churches, nocourt-houses, no banks, nor any likelihood there ever would be, exceptsuch as might be built to keep back the water from the only house in theplace--a sort of rough hotel, filled with swearing boatmen.
"I had landed, of course; and, after putting up at the hotel, proceededin search of my `property.' I found my town-lot in a marsh, which tookme over the ankles in mud. As for my farm, I was compelled to get aboat to visit it; and after sailing all over it without being able totouch bottom, I returned to the hotel, heartless and disgusted.
"By the next steamboat that came along, I embarked for Saint Louis--where I sold both lot and farm for a mere trifle.
"I need not say that I was mortified at all this. I was almostheart-broken when I reflected on my repeated failures, and thought of myyoung wife and children. I could have bitterly cursed both America andthe Americans, had that been of any use; and yet such a thing would havebeen as unjust as immoral. It is true I had been twice outrageouslyswindled; but the same thing had happened to me in my own country, and Ihad suffered in the same way by those who professed to be my friends.There are bad men in every country--men willing to take advantage ofgenerosity and inexperience. It does not follow that all are so; and wehope far less than the half--for it must be remembered that the badpoints of one country are more certain to be heard of in another thanits good ones. When I look to the schemes and speculations which havebeen got up in England, and which have enriched a few accomplishedrogues, by the ruin of thousands of honest men, I cannot, as anEnglishman, accuse our American cousins of being greater swindlers thanourselves. It is true I have been deceived by them, but it was from thewant of proper judgment in myself, arising from a foolish andill-directed education. I should have been equally ill-treated in thepurchase of a horse at Tattersall's, or a pound of tea in Piccadilly,had I been equally unacquainted with the value of the articles. Weboth, as nations, have erred. Neither of us can, with grace, cast astone at the other; and as for myself, why, look there!" said Rolfe,smiling and pointing to his family, "two of my children only areEnglishmen; the others are little Yankees. Almost every Englishman cansay something similar. Why, then, should we sow jealousy between them?"