The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863

'Yes, sir. We Yankee girls are accustomed to taking care of ourselves.'

'I admire your independence. But you pass the night in town; you will, I trust, spend it at my residence?'

'Thank you, sir.'

Ordering a carriage and stopping on the way at a hotel to get the single trunk which contained her wardrobe, I conveyed her at once to my residence.

After supper we all gathered in the parlor, and I set about entertaining our guest. I had to make little effort to do that, for her conversation soon displayed a knowledge of books and people, and a wit and keenness of intellect, as decidedly entertained me. She was not only brilliant, but agreeable; and in the course of the evening made some pleasant overtures to the children. Frank, with a book in his hand, had drawn his chair off to another part of the room, and showed, at first, uncommon reserve for a lad of his warm and genial nature; but gradually, as if in spite of himself, he edged his chair nearer to her. Our little 'four year old,' however, resisting the offered temptation of watch and chain, and even sugar-plums, repelled her advances, and hid his curly head only the more closely in the folds of his mother's dress. Kate listened and laughed, but I caught occasionally, as her eyes studied the visitor attentively, a troubled expression, which I well understood. After a while the lady expressed a readiness to retire that she might obtain the rest needed for an early start by the morning train, and Kate conducted her to her apartment.

I felt highly delighted with the idea of being able to send Mrs. Preston so agreeable a companion, and not a little vexed with my wife for not sharing my enthusiasm. When she returned to the parlor, I said:

'Kate, why do you not like her?'

'I can hardly tell why,' she replied, 'but my first impression is confirmed. I would not trust her. Why does she go South for the same salary she has had in New Hampshire?'

'Because she wants to see the world; she's a stirring Yankee woman.'

'No; because you told her of Mr. Preston's position in society; and because she hopes to win a plantation and a rich planter.'

'Nonsense,' I replied. 'You misjudge her.'

'I tell you, Edmund, she is a cold, selfish, sordid woman; all intellect, and no heart. If I had never seen her face, I should have known that by her voice, and the shake of her hand.'

But it was too late—I had engaged her; and at seven o'clock on the following morning she was on her way to the South.

I soon received information of her safe arrival at her destination, and the warm thanks of Preston for having sent him so agreeable a person, and one so well fitted to instruct his children.

The turpentine location was soon secured, and early in the following spring, Joe, with about a hundred 'prime hands,' commenced operations in the new field. Constantly increasing shipments soon gave evidence of the energy with which the negro entered upon his work; and by the end of the year, Preston had not only paid the advances we made on receiving the deed of the land, but also the note I had given for the purchase of Phyllis. For the first time in five years he was entirely out of our debt.

The next season he hired a force of nearly two hundred negroes, and generously gave Joe a small interest in the new business, with a view to the black's ultimately buying his freedom. His transactions soon became large and profitable both to him and to us. Shortly afterward he paid off the last of his floating debt, and his balances in our hands grew from nothing till they reached five and seven and often ten thousand dollars.

But heavy affliction overtook him in the midst of his prosperity. His wife and two eldest daughters were stricken down by a prevailing epidemic, and died within a fortnight of each other. A letter which I received from him at this time, will best relate these events. It was as follows:

My dear Friend:—I have sad, very sad news to tell you. A week ago to-day I followed the remains of my beloved wife to the grave. Overcome by watching with our children, and grief at their loss, about three weeks since she took their disease, and sinking rapidly, soon resigned her spotless spirit to the hands of her Maker. Overwhelmed by this treble affliction, I have not been able to write you before. Even now I can hardly hold a pen. I am perfectly paralyzed; I can neither act nor think—I can only feel.

You, who have seen her in our home, can realize what she was to my family, but none can know what she was to me: companion, friend, guide! My stay and support through long years of trial, she is taken from me just as prosperity is dawning on me, and I was hoping to repay, by a life of devotion, some part of what she had borne and suffered on my account. Another angel has been welcomed in heaven, but I am left here alone—alone with my grief and my remorse!

My son is inconsolable, and even little Selly seems to realize the full extent of her loss. The poor little thing will not leave me for a moment. She is now the only comfort I have. Miss Walley has been unremitting in her kindness and attention, taking the burden of everything upon herself. Indeed, I do not know what I should have done without her.

Time may temper my affliction, but now, my dear friend, I am not

    Robert Preston.

Nothing worthy of special mention occurred to the persons whose history I am relating till about a year after the death of Mrs. Preston. Then, one day late in the autumn, I received information of her husband's approaching marriage with the governess. In the letter which invited me to be present at the ceremony, Preston said: 'No one can ever fill the place in my heart that is occupied, and ever will be occupied by the memory of my sainted wife; but Miss Walley has rendered herself indispensable to me and my family. My studious habits and ignorance of business made me, as you know, even in my full health and strength, a poor manager; and during the past year, grief has so broken my spirits that I have been utterly unfitted for attending to the commonest duties. But for Miss Walley, everything would have gone to waste and ruin. With the efficiency of a business man, she has attended to my household, overseen my plantation, and managed my entire affairs. In the first moments of my bereavement, when grief so entirely overwhelmed me that I saw no one, I did not know to what censurious remark her disinterested devotion to my interests was subjecting her; but recently I have realized the impropriety of a young, unmarried woman occupying the position she holds in my household. Miss Walley, also, has felt this, and some time since notified me, though with evident reluctance, that she felt it imperatively necessary to leave my service. What, then, could I do? My people needed a mistress; my children a mother. She was both. Only one course seemed open, and after mature deliberation I offered her my hand, frankly stating that my heart was with the angel who, lost to me here, will be mine hereafter. Satisfied with my friendship and esteem, she has accepted me; and we are to be married on the 26th inst.; when I most sincerely trust that you, my dear friend, and your estimable wife, will be present.

That night I took the letter home to my wife. She read it, and laying it down, sadly said:

'Oh, Edmund! He is, indeed, 'among the rocks!''

Two years went by, and I did not meet Preston, but our business relations kept us in frequent correspondence, and his letters occasionally alluded to his domestic affairs.

Very soon after his marriage with the governess, his son went to live with his uncle, Mr. James Preston, of Mobile, a wealthy bachelor, who long before had expressed the intention of having the boy succeed to his business and estate. 'Boss Joe' continued in charge of the turpentine plantation, and had built him a house, and removed his wife and aged mother to his new home. On one of my visits to the South I stopped overnight with him, and was delighted with his model establishment. Two hundred as cheerful-looking darkies as ever swung a turpentine axe, were gathered in tents and small shanties around his neat log cabin, and Joe seemed as happy as if he were governor of a province.

His operations had grown to such magnitude that Preston then ranked among the largest producers of the North Carolina staple, and his 'account' had become one of the most valuable on our books. Though we sent 'account currents' and duplicates of each 'account sales' to his master, our regular 'returns' were made to Joe, and no one of our correspondents held us to so strict an accountability, or so often expressed dissatisfaction with the result of his shipments, as he.

'I thinks a heap of you, Mr. Kirke,' he said at the close of one of his letters about this time; 'but the fact am, thar's no friendship in trade, and you did sell that lass pile of truck jess one day too sudden.'

CHAPTER XIV

Two more years rolled away. Frank was nearly sixteen. He had grown up a fine, manly lad, and never for one moment had Kate or I regretted the care we had bestowed on his education and training. He was all we could have wished for in our own son, and in his warm love and cheerful obedience we both found the blessing invoked on us by his dying mother.

His affection for Kate was something more than the common feeling of a child for a parent. With that was blended a sort of half worship, which made him listen to her every word, and hang on her every look, as if she were a being of some higher order than he. They were inseparable. He preferred her society to that of his young companions, and often, when he was a child, seated by her knee, and listening, when she told of his 'other mother' in the 'beautiful heaven,' have I seen his eye wander to her face with an expression, which plainly said: 'My heart knows no 'other mother' than you.' Kate was proud of him, and well she might be, for he was a comely youth; and his straight, closely knit, sinewy frame; dark, deepset eyes; and broad, open forehead, overhung with thick, brown hair; only outshadowed a beautiful mind, an open, upright, manly nature, whose firm and steady integrity nothing could shake.

About this time I received a letter from his father, which, as it had an important bearing on the lad's future career, I give to the reader:

    Boston, September 20th, 185-.

Dear Sir:—A recent illness has brought my past life in its true light before me. I see its sin, and I would make all the atonement in my power. I cannot undo the wrong I have done to one who is gone, but I can do my duty to her child. You, I am told, have been a father to him. I would now assume that relation, and make you such recompense for what you have done, as you may require. I am too weak to travel, or indeed, to leave my house, but I am impatient to see my son. May I not ask you to bring him to me at once? Then I will arrange all things to your satisfaction.

I need not tell you, after saying what I have, that I should feel greatly gratified to once more possess your confidence, and regard.

    I am, sincerely yours,
    John Hallet.

In another hand was the following postscript:

My dear Boy:—John is sincere. Thee can trust him. He has told me all. He will do the right thing. Come on with the lad as soon as thee can.

    Love to Kate.
    Thy old friend,
    David.

After conferring with my wife, I sent the following reply to these communications:

    New York, September 22d, 185-.

David of Old;—Thou man after the Lord's own heart. I have Hallet's letter, seasoned with your P.S. He is shrewd; he knew that nothing but your old-fashioned hand would draw a reply from me, to anything written by him.

I've no faith in sick-bed repentances; and none in John Hallet, sick or well:

'When the devil was sick,
The devil a monk would be;
When the devil got well,
The devil a monk was he.'

However, as Hallet is capable of cheating his best friend, even the devil, I will take his letter into consideration; but it having taken him sixteen years to make up his mind to do a right action, it may take me as many days to come to a decision on this subject.

Frank is everything to us, and nothing but the clearest conviction that his ultimate good will be promoted by going to his father, will induce us to consent to it.