Chapter X

Mrs. Preston and master Joe were on the piazza awaiting us, and in the doorway we were met by the younger children. Preston lifted one of them upon his shoulder, and taking another in his arms, led the way to the supper room. However disturbed might be my friend's relations with the outer world, all was peace by his cheerful fireside. No man was ever more blessed in his home. His children were intelligent, loving, and obedient; his wife was one of those rare women--seen nowhere more often than in the South--who, to a cultivated mind and polished manners, add the more homely accomplishments of a good housewife. It is years since she laid aside the weary cares of her plantation home, and entered on the higher duties of another life; but her gentle words are still as fresh in my memory, her kindly image as warm in my heart, as on that autumn day, when she placed her hand in mine for the last time, and spoke the last 'God bless you' which was to fall on my ears from her lips on this side of the grave. She was a perfect woman--a faithful mistress, a loving wife, a devoted mother. Anticipating every want of her husband, cheerfully instructing her children, overseeing every detail of her household, meting out the weekly allowance of the negroes, visiting daily the cabins of the sick and the infirm, and with her own hand dispensing the soothing cordial or the healing medicine,--or, when all medicine failed, bending over the lowly bed of the dying, and pointing him to the 'better home on high,'--she was a ministering angel--a joy and a blessing to all about her. She wore no costly silks, no diamonds on her fingers, or jewels in her hair; but she was arrayed in garments all rich and beautiful with human love. She knew nothing--cared nothing--about the right or the wrong of slavery; but cheerfully and prayerfully, never wearying and never doubting, she went on in the lowly round of duties allotted her, leaning lovingly on the arm of the GOOD ALL-FATHER, and looking steadfastly to HIM for guidance and support. And, truly, she had her reward. 'Her children rose up and called her blessed; her husband, also, and he praised her.'

Supper was soon over, when my hostess rose and conducted me to the library. That apartment was in an L, detached from the mansion, and communicating with it by a covered passage way. It was plainly furnished, but had a cosy, homelike appearance. Its four walls were lined with books, some standing on end, some resting on their sides, and some leaning negligently against each other; and over the massive centre table were scattered open volumes, old newspapers, and unfinished manuscripts, in most delightful confusion. A half dozen old-fashioned chairs straggled about the floor, as if they did not know exactly what to do with themselves, and a score of old worthies--their faces white as chalk, and their long hair and beards powdered with a whole generation of dust, looked complacently down from the top of the bookshelves. Dust was on the table, on the chairs, on the floor, on the ceiling, and on the musty old volumes ranged along the walls, and dust everywhere told unmistakably that no profane hand ever disturbed the dusty repose which reigned in the apartment.

Two or three oaken logs, supported on bright brass andirons--the only bright things in the room--were blazing cheerfully on the broad hearthstone; and drawing our chairs near, we sat down before them.

'May I come in?' said master Joe, thrusting his head in at the half-closed doorway.

'No, my son,' answered his father; 'Mr. Kirke and I are to talk over business matters.'

'Do let him come, Robert,' said Mrs. Preston; 'he is old enough to learn something of such affairs.'

The lad entered, and seating himself on a low stool by the side of his mother, and burying his head in her lap, was soon fast asleep.

'This room, Mr. Kirke,' said the lady, 'is sacred to Robert and the dust. I beg you will not think I have the care of it.'

'Oh no, madam; it is plain that a _man_ has exclusive dominion here; but your husband has been away from it for some time.'

'That does not account for the dust; it hasn't been stirred for a twelve-month;' and after a pause, she added, a thin moisture glistening in her eyes, 'I have not yet thanked you, sir, for saving Phyllis and the children from the clutches of that wretched trader.'

'No thanks are requisite, madam. It was a mere matter of business; we are in the practice of making advances to our consignors.'

'Nevertheless we thank you, sir; Robert and I will ever be grateful for it.'

'Do not speak of it, madam; I would be glad to serve you to a much greater extent.'

The lady made no reply, and a rather embarrassing silence followed for some minutes, when I said:

'Preston, Joe is a remarkable negro; I think I never met one so intelligent and well informed.'

'He _is_ very intelligent,' he replied; 'he has fine natural abilities.'

'It is a pity Nature gave him so dark a skin, and made him a--slave.'

'Not a _pity_, Mr. Kirke,' rejoined Mrs. Preston; 'Nature, or rather God, always puts us in our right places. Joseph is more useful where he is than he would be anywhere else.'

'I understood him that he was raised on the plantation,' I added.

'Yes,' replied my host; 'my grandfather bought his mother, who is a native African, when she was a girl; she was a favorite house-servant, and Joe was born in a room over where we are sitting. This building was then all there was of the mansion.'

'And how did he pick up so much information?'

'The old gentleman, who gave little heed to either law or gospel, taught them both to read and write.' (Years after the date of this conversation I learned that Joe was the son of that lawless, graceless old gentleman.) 'And Joe, when a boy, read everything he could lay his hands on. Since I brought my library here, he has devoured about half of the books in it. He devotes every night, from eight o'clock to twelve, to reading.'

'I am surprised that with so much reading he uses so entirely the negro dialect.'

'But he does not. In common conversation he expresses himself in it, for it is the dialect in which a black does his ordinary thinking; but let him get upon an elevated subject, as he does frequently in his sermons, and you will hear words as strong, pure, and simple as any found in the Bible, flow from him like a stream.'

'Does he preach every Sunday?'

'Yes; I usually catechize the people in the morning, and he preaches in the evening.'

'But do you learn all your negroes to read?'

'No, the law does not allow it. I teach them to repeat the catechism, texts of Scripture, and passages from good books, and I explain these to them.'

'And Joe is your overseer?'

'Not exactly that. My father made him overseer about thirty years ago, but the law requires a white man in that situation; and when I took charge of the plantation, the neighbors made a clamor about my having a black. The result was, I 'whipped the devil round the stump,' by hiring a white distiller, and _calling_ him 'overseer.' I let Joe, however, 'oversee' him, as you have seen to-day.'

A rap came then at the door, and master Joe, springing up, ushered the subject of our conversation into the room. He held his hat in his hand, and had under his arm a couple of account books.

'This is Joseph the First,' said the lad, taking the black by the coat-tail, and bowing gravely to me.

'And you are Joseph the Second, eh?' I said, laughing.

'Yas, sar, he'm dat 'stinguished gemman,' replied the negro, stroking affectionately the lad's head; 'and he don't dishonor de name, sar. He'm de true blue, dyed in de wool.'

'He was named for Joseph,' said the lady, smiling kindly on the black. 'Bring up a chair, Joseph.'

'Tank you, missus,' and the negro seated himself by the fire, between Preston and me.

'You have brought the documents, I see, Joe; let me look at them,' I said, reaching out my hand for the books.

'Yas, sar, and dey'm all written up till a week back. I reckon _you_ kin pick 'em out, Mr. Kirke, dough master Robert he say he don't understand my way ob keepin' 'em.'

I opened the books, and any man of business will appreciate my surprise to find them kept by 'double entry.' Cotton, corn, and turpentine had each its separate account, and at a glance I could see how much had been made or lost by the production of each staple. The handwriting was plain and bold, and the general appearance of the ledger compared favorably with that of a much larger one I knew of, which was the pride of an experienced bookkeeper.

'Why, Joe, I'm astonished,' I exclaimed with unaffected gratification; 'you write like a schoolmaster.'

A flush, which would have been a blush on a lighter skin, overspread the negro's face, as he replied:

'I don't hab practice 'nuff, Mr. Kirke, to write bery well.'

'Practice!' said Preston, 'he has constant practice; he writes the love letters of all the darkies in the district.'

'It am so, dat's a fac, sar', said Joe, a quiet humor twinkling in his eye. 'One ob Cunnel Dawsey's folk came to me tother day--his wife had been sold down Souf, an' he wanted to say to har, dat dough ribers rose, and mountins run atween 'em, he'd neber hab nuffin to do wid no oder 'ooman--so he come to me, and I wrote de letter; an' when I'd a put in all de ribers, an' de mountins, an' eber so many runs, an' thought I'd done it right smart, I read it ober to him, but he say he sort o' reckoned it warnt quite done up 'pletely, not 'xactly 'cluded; an' he 'sisted dat I muss 'sert a pose scrip, axin' her to ''scuse de bad writin'.''

'And you did it?'

'Yes, sar, I done it.'

'Well, Joe, the important thing just now, is how much you owe. Give me a slip of paper, and let me put these balances together.'

'I'se done dat, Mr. Kirke; here dey am,' and he handed me a correctly drawn-up statement, showing Preston's exact liabilities. I glanced over it, compared it with the footings in the ledger, and said:

'I see by this, Preston, that you owe seventeen hundred dollars, floating debt; twelve hundred dollars, interest on your mortgage, and are overdrawn five hundred dollars on our house.'

'Yes, so Joe makes it, and I reckon he's correct.'

'But dar'm de six hunderd you 'cepted fur master Robert, de oder day, in Newbern--dat ain't counted in,' said Joe.

'Well, all told, it's four thousand, besides the note I have given for Phyllis. What do you calculate on to pay it, Preston?'

'I don't know. How can we pay it, Joe?'

'We moight sell de two stills, and some ob de hosses; I reckon dey'd be 'nuff,' replied the black; 'but de raal trubble, master Robert, am what's cummin'; we'm gwine ahind ebery day, 'case we lose money on ebery crop ob turpentine. Nuffin pay now but de corn and de cotton, and we don't raise 'nuff ob dem to do no good.'

I turned to the ledger, and found that it showed what the black said to be true--corn and cotton had made a handsome profit, but turpentine had 'paid a loss.'

'That is because your trees are old, and now yield scarcely anything but scrape,'[1] I said.

'Yas, sar, and 'case dey am so thin like, sense we cleaned out de pore ones, dat it take a hand long time to git 'round 'mong 'em.'

'Why not drop turpentine, and cut shingles from the swamp? You've a fortune in those cypress trees.'

'My negroes are not accustomed to swamp work--it would kill them,' replied Preston.

'Mr. Kirke,' said Joe,--'you'll take no 'fence, master Robert, if I says dis?'

'No, go on,' said his master.

'De ting am right in a nutshell, an' jess so clar as apple jack: we owes a heap; we'se gittin' inter debt deeper an' deeper ebery yar; we lose money workin' de ole trees; we hain't got no new ones; an', dar's no use to talk,--master Robert _won't_ put de hands inter de swamp. What, den, shill we do?'

Avoiding the darky's question, I said: 'I never before understood why slavery is so clamorous for new fields. I see now--it can draw support only from the virgin soil. It exhausts an old country: like the locusts of Egypt, it blasts the very face of the earth!'

'That is true,' replied Preston; 'but Joe has stated the case correctly, _What shall we do?_'

'One of two things. Sell your plantation and negroes, or take your hands to a new section, where you can raise virgin turpentine.'[2]

'I cannot sell my negroes--they were all raised with me; and the plantation--it was my ancestors', over a hundred years ago. I would move the hands to a new section, but I have not the means to buy land.'

'Ay, dar's de rub, as Shakspeare say,' said Joe, with a pleasant humor, intended, I thought, to cheer his master, whose face was clouding over with grave thought; 'dat's de ting dat spile de 'gestion ob de king; and in him sleep, such dreams do come ob suffin' better'n dis, some undiscobered country, whar de virgin trees weep tears so white as crystal, and turn to gole de moment dey'm barrled up, dat--'

'Come, Joe, that'll do,' said his master, laughing; 'don't give us any more, or you'll murder _us_, as well as Shakspeare.'

'You don't 'preciate dat great man, master Robert,' rejoined Joe, also laughing.

'No, I don't--not just now.'

'If you could satisfy your outside creditors that things were likely to go better with you in future, could you put off the payment of the three thousand dollars for a time?' I asked.

'I reckon I could--nearly all of it,' replied Preston.

'Well, then, I'll make you a proposition. Buy ten thousand acres on the line of the Manchester railroad. It is finished to Whitesville, and you can buy land within twenty miles of that station, at seventy-five cents an acre. We'll advance the twenty per cent. you'll have to pay down, and five hundred dollars more to start you there, and hold the deed of the land to secure us. Ship your produce to us, and agree to forfeit the land, if, at the end of three years, you have not paid all the original advance. Move your stills, and your able-bodied men and women there, leaving the old and the young negroes here to raise corn and cotton. _Hire_ fifty more prime hands, and put Joe over the whole, with unlimited power to work them to death if he pleases.'

Preston leaned his head on his hand, as if bewildered. He seemed not to understand me, but Joe's face lighted as if a stream of electricity were playing under his dark skin. Mrs. Preston was the first to speak. Rising and taking my hand, she said: 'Robert will do it, Mr. Kirke; and how can we ever thank you enough for your generous--your _noble_ conduct toward us? You have taken a weary load off our hearts.'

'It is a simple business transaction, madam; I expect to make money by it. I insist on your husband's consigning his produce to us, and I shall require the forfeit of the land and the improvements, if he does not pay our advances within three years.'

'We kin pay 'em in _one_ year, an' you knows it, sar!' exclaimed Joe, springing to his feet, and almost dancing around the room. 'Come, master Robert, look up, an' tell 'im we'll do it, for ole Joe'll make de chips fly as you neber seed 'em fly afore.'

Preston looked up, and a tear rolled down his face, as he said, 'I thank you, my friend. I need not say more.'

'You need not say _that_; only buy the land, and make Joe autocrat of the new plantation, and your bacon is cured.'

'Joe'll show you how bacon am cured, Mr. Kirke, an' he'll name his fuss boy af'er you--_shore_!' shouted the black, grinning all over.

'He can safely promise that,' said the lady, laughing through her tears; 'for Aggy is fifty, and never had a child.'

A half-hour's conversation over the details of the proposed arrangement followed; then Joe rose, and taking the account books under his arm, bade us 'good evenin'.' As he was leaving the room, I asked, 'Do you preach to-morrow?'

'Yas, sar, an' I'se gwine home to study ober de sermon. You'll come dar, sar? You won't har no raal preachin', 'less master Robert feel de sperrit move, fur de Lord don't gib de black man de tongue he gib de white.'

'I'm not sure of that; but I'll be there. Good night.'

'Good night, sar, an' de Lord bless you.'

When he had gone, I said to Preston: 'You have admitted me to your confidence, my friend, and asked my advice; therefore, I think you will pardon me, if I make you a few business suggestions.'

'Most certainly, and I shall be guided by what you say.'

'With a hundred hands in those thick woods, Joe will turn out a vast amount of produce. His ambition is excited with the idea of being his own master, and he will coin money for you; but you need to be prudent. You owe a mortgage of twenty thousand dollars--and mortgage debts are the worst in the world. Your plantation and negroes may be worth three times the amount, but they are in jeopardy so long as it exists. If it were called in on you suddenly, you couldn't pay it--your property would be sacrificed--everything might be lost. Now, I would suggest that you sell, at once, your three hundred acres of swamp land, all your surplus live stock and materials, and appropriate the proceeds to paying your floating debt, and reducing the mortgage.'

'And we might reduce our family expenses, Robert,' said his wife; 'we have too many house-servants. We could hire out five or six of them in Newbern. And Joseph's schooling costs us five hundred dollars a year; he might come home--_I_ could teach him.'

'You would take too much on yourself, Lucy,' replied her husband. 'You are not strong, and you can't spare a single servant.'

'How many have you?' I asked.

'Nine,' said Preston.

'For a family of two adults and three children?'

'It strikes you as too many, Mr. Kirke,' said the lady, 'and it _is_. It is our Southern way; but every additional servant makes additional work for the mistress.'

'I think you are right, madam,' I replied; 'a Northern lady that you know of, takes care of me, Frank, the two young children, and a large house, with only two servants and an errand boy; and she never has anything to do after two o'clock in the day.'

'But you have the Irish; they are better house-servants than our blacks; and you can discharge them if they won't work,' said Preston.

'I would rather have Phyllis than any servant I ever saw at the North. With her, the cook, and one more, I will promise to get on beautifully,' remarked his wife.

Preston gave her a look of indescribable tenderness and affection. What the negro trader had said to me, gave me a key to the thoughts that were passing in his mind. His wife's trust in him was so great, that she was willing to again admit into her family the woman who had made him forget, through long years, the promises he made her in their youth! Truly, the angel of perfect love and forgiveness makes its earthly home in the breast of woman.

Preston's voice quivered as he replied: 'I--I appreciate what you say--Lucy. Do as you think best.'

'But, madam,' I said, 'I think you are really taking too much on yourself--the care of the children will be a great tax on your strength. Would it not be better to employ a governess to instruct them? What is now expended on Joe would pay a competent person.'

'What do you say to that, Joe?' asked his father; 'would you like to come home, and have a woman teacher?'

'I'd like to do what mother wants me to,' said the lad, putting his arms about her neck, and kissing her.

'You're a good boy, Joseph,' said his mother.

'But, you'll let me keep the pony, won't you, father?' said the lad.

'Yes, my son, and if you learn well, you shall go with uncle James when you're fifteen.'

Shortly afterward we separated for the night.