The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, April, 1862

'Who's looking after Sam?' asked the Colonel.

'Nobody, Cunnul; de ma'am leff him gwo.'

'How dare you disobey me? Didn't I tell you to give him a hundred?'

'Yas, massa, but de ma'am tole me notter.'

'Well, another time you mind what I say—do you hear?' said his master.

'Yas, massa,' said the negro, with a broad grin, 'I allers do dat.'

'You never do it, you d– nigger; I ought to have flogged you long ago.'

Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and we entered the carriage. I afterwards learned from him that he had never been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master's. They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.

As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, 'Well, you see that the best people have to flog their niggers sometimes.'

'Yes, I should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least. I think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P– had not had him flogged.'

'But she generally goes against it. I don't remember of her having it done in ten years before. And yet, though I've the worst gang of niggers in the district, they obey her like so many children.'

'Why is that?'

'Well, there's a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little things for their comfort; that attaches them to her. She is an extraordinary woman.'

'Whose negroes are those, Colonel?' I asked, as, after a while, we passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside. Some were tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.

'They are mine, but they are working now for themselves. I let such as will, work on Sunday. I furnish the "raw material," and pay them for what they do, as I would a white man.'

'Would'nt it be better to make them go to hear the old preacher; could'nt they learn something from him?'

'Not much; Old Pomp never read anything but the Bible, and he don't understand that; besides, they can't be taught. You can't make "a whistle out of a pig's tail;" you can't make a nigger into a white man.'

Just here the carriage stopped suddenly, and we looked out to see the cause. The road by which we had come was a mere opening through the pines; no fences separated it from the wooded land, and being seldom traveled, the track was scarcely visible. In many places it widened to a hundred feet, but in others tall trees had grown up on its opposite sides, and there was scarcely width enough for a single carriage to pass along. In one of these narrow passages, just before us, a queer-looking vehicle had upset, and scattered its contents in the road. We had no alternative but to wait till it got out of the way; and we all alighted to reconnoitre.

The vehicle was a little larger than an ordinary hand-cart, and was mounted on wheels that had probably served their time on a Boston dray before commencing their travels in Secessiondom. Its box of pine boarding and its shafts of rough oak poles were evidently of Southern home manufacture. Attached to it by a rope harness, with a primitive bridle of decidedly original construction, was—not a horse, nor a mule, nor even an alligator, but a 'three-year-old heifer.'

The wooden linch-pin of the cart had given way, and the weight of a half-dozen barrels of turpentine had thrown the box off its balance, and rolled the contents about in all directions.

The appearance of the proprietor of this nondescript vehicle was in keeping with the establishment. His coat, which was much too short in the waist and much too long in the skirts, was of the common reddish gray linsey, and his nether garments, of the same material, stopped just below the knees. From there downwards, he wore only the covering that is said to have been the fashion in Paradise before Adam took to fig-leaves. His hat had a rim broader than a political platform, and his skin a color half way between that of tobacco-juice and a tallow candle.

'Wal, Cunnul, how dy'ge?' said the stranger, as we stepped from the carriage.

'Very well, Ned; how are you?'

'Purty wal, Cunnul; had the nagur lately, right smart, but'm gittin' 'roun.'

'You're in a bad fix here, I see. Can't Jim help you?'

'Wal, p'raps he moight. Jim, how dy'ge?'

'Sort o' smart, ole feller. But come, stir yerseff; we want ter gwo 'long,' replied Jim, with a manifest lack of courtesy that showed he regarded the white man as altogether too 'trashy' to be treated with much ceremony.

With the aid of Jim, a new linch-pin was soon whittled out, the turpentine rolled on to the cart, and the vehicle put in a moving condition.

'Where are you hauling your turpentine?' asked the Colonel.

'To Sam Bell's, at the "Boro'."'

'What will he pay you?'

'Wal, I've four barr'ls of "dip," and tu of "hard." For the hull, I reckon he'll give three dollars a barr'l.'

'By tale?'

'No, for two hun'red and eighty pound.'

'Well, I'll give you two dollars and a half by weight.'

'Can't take it, Cunnel; must get three dollar.'

'What, will you go sixty miles with this team, and waste five or six days, for fifty cents on six barrels—three dollars?'

'Can't 'ford the time, Cunnel, but must git three dollar a barr'l.'

'That fellow is a specimen of our "natives,"' said the Colonel, as we resumed our seats in the carriage. 'You'll see more of them before we get back to the plantation.'

'He puts a young cow to a decidedly original use,' I remarked.

'Oh no, not original here; the ox and the cow with us are both used for labor.'

'You don't mean to say that cows are generally worked here?'

'Of course I do. Our breeds are good for nothing as milkers, and we put them to the next best use. I never have cow's milk on my plantation.'

'You don't! why, I could have sworn it was in my coffee this morning.'

'I wouldn't trust you to buy brandy for me, if your organs of taste are not keener than that. It was goat's milk.'

'Then how do you get your butter?'

'From the North. I've had mine from my New York factors for over two years.'

We soon arrived at Sandy the negro-hunter's, and halted to allow the Colonel to inquire as to the health of his family of children and dogs,—the latter the less numerous, but, if I might judge by appearances, the more valued of the two.

Southern Aids To The North

II