Among the Pines Part 18

"Such cases are not rare, sir. They show the paternal character of our 'inst.i.tution.' We are _forced_ to care for our servants in their old age."

"But have your other aged slaves the same comforts that Aunt Lucy has?"

"No; they don't need them. She has been accustomed to live in my house, and to fare better than the plantation hands; she therefore requires better treatment."

"Is not the support of that cla.s.s a heavy tax upon you?"

"Yes, it _is_ heavy. We have, of course, to deduct it from the labor of the able-bodied hands."

"What is the usual proportion of sick and infirm on your plantation?"

"Counting in the child-bearing women, I reckon about twenty per cent."

"And what does it cost you to support each hand?"

"Well, it costs _me_, for children and all, about seventy-five dollars a year. In some places it costs less. _I_ have to buy all my provisions."

"What proportion of your slaves are able-bodied hands?"

"Somewhere about sixty per cent. I have, all told, old and young--men, women, and children--two hundred and seventy. Out of that number I have now equal to a hundred and fifty-four _full_ hands. You understand that we cla.s.sify them: some do only half tasks, some three-quarters. I have _more_ than a hundred and fifty-four working-men and women, but they do only that number of full tasks."

"What does the labor of a _full_ hand yield?"

"At the present price of turpentine, my calculation is about two hundred dollars a year."

"Then your crop brings you about thirty-one thousand dollars, and the support of your negroes costs you twenty thousand."

"Yes."

"If that's the case, my friend, let me advise you to sell your plantation, free your n.i.g.g.e.rs, and go North."

"Why so, my dear fellow?" asked the Colonel laughing.

"Because you'd make money by the operation."

"I never was good at arithmetic; go into the figures," he replied, still laughing, while Madam P----, who had laid aside her book, listened very attentively.

"Well, you have two hundred and seventy negroes, whom you value, we'll say, with your mules, 'stills,' and movable property, at two hundred thousand dollars; and twenty thousand acres of land, worth about three dollars and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you could realize eight per cent.--five thousand six hundred dollars--and live at ease; and that, I judge, if you have many runaways, or many die on your hands, is as much as you really _clear_ now. Besides, if you should invest seventy thousand dollars in almost any legitimate business at the North, and should add to it, _as you now do_, your _time_ and _labor_, you would realize far more than you do at present from your entire capital."

"I never looked at the matter in that light. But I have given you my profits as they _now_ are; some years I make more; six years ago I made twenty-five thousand dollars."

"Yes; and six years hence you may make nothing."

"That's true. But it would cost me more to live at the North."

"There you are mistaken. What do you pay for your corn, your pork, and your hay, for instance?"

"Well, my corn I have to bring round by vessel from Washington (North Carolina), and it costs me high when it gets here--about ten bits (a dollar and twenty-five cents), I think."

"And in New York you could buy it now at sixty to seventy cents. What does your hay cost?"

"Thirty-five dollars. I pay twenty for it in New York--the balance is freight and hauling."

"Your pork costs you two or three dollars, I suppose, for freight and hauling."

"Yes; about that."

"Then in those items you might save nearly a hundred per cent.; and they are the princ.i.p.al articles you consume."

"Yes; there's no denying that. But another thing is just as certain: it costs less to support one of my n.i.g.g.e.rs than one of your laboring men."

"That may be true. But it only shows that our laborers fare better than your slaves."

"I am not sure of that. I _am_ sure, however, that our slaves are more contented than the run of laboring men at the North."

"That proves nothing. Your blacks have no hope, no chance to rise; and they submit--though I judge not cheerfully--to an iron necessity. The Northern laborer, if very poor, may be discontented; but discontent urges him to effort, and leads to the bettering of his condition. I tell you, my friend, slavery is an expensive luxury. You Southern nabobs _will_ have it; and you have to _pay for it_."

"Well, we don't complain. But, seriously, my good fellow, I feel that I am carrying out the design of the Almighty in holding my n.i.g.g.e.rs. I think he made the black to serve the white."

"_I_ think," I replied, "that whatever He designs works perfectly. Your inst.i.tution certainly does not. It keeps the producer, who, in every society, is the really valuable citizen, in the lowest poverty, while it allows those who do nothing to be 'clad in fine linen, and to fare sumptuously every day.'"

"It does more than that, sir," said Madam P----, with animation; "it brutalizes and degrades the _master_ and the _slave_; it separates husband and wife, parent and child; it sacrifices virtuous women to the l.u.s.t of brutal men; and it shuts millions out from the knowledge of their duty and their destiny. A good and just G.o.d could not have designed it; and it _must_ come to an end."

If lightning had struck in the room I could not have been more startled than I was by the abrupt utterance of such language in a planter's house, in his very presence, and _by his slave_. The Colonel, however, expressed no surprise and no disapprobation. It was evidently no new thing to him.

"It is rare, madam," I said, "to hear such sentiments from a Southern lady--one reared among slaves."

Before she could reply, the Colonel laughingly said:

"Bless you, Mr. K----, madam is an out-and-out abolitionist, worse by fifty per cent. than Garrison or Wendell Phillips. If she were at the North she would take to pantaloons, and 'stump' the entire free States; wouldn't you, Alice?"

"I have no doubt of it," rejoined the lady, smiling. "But I fear I should have poor success. I've tried for ten years to convert _you_, and Mr. K---- can see the result."

It had grown late; and with my head full of working n.i.g.g.e.rs and white slave-women, I went to my apartment.

The next day was Sunday. It was near the close of December, yet the air was as mild and the sun as warm as in our Northern October. It was arranged at the breakfast-table that we all should attend service at "the meeting-house," a church of the Methodist persuasion, located some eight miles away; but as it wanted some hours of the time for religious exercises to commence, I strolled out after breakfast, with the Colonel, to inspect the stables of the plantation. "Ma.s.sa Tommy" accompanied us, without invitation; and in the Colonel's intercourse with him I observed as much freedom and familiarity as he would have shown to an acknowledged son. The youth's manners and conversation showed that great attention had been given to his education and training, and made it evident that the mother whose influence was forming his character, whatever a false system of society had made her life, possessed some of the best traits of her s.e.x.

The stables, a collection of one-story framed buildings, about a hundred rods from the house, were well lighted and ventilated, and contained all "the modern improvements." They were better built, warmer, more commodious, and in every way more comfortable than the shanties occupied by the human cattle of the plantation. I remarked as much to the Colonel, adding that one who did not know would infer that he valued his horses more than his slaves.

"That may be true," he replied, laughing. "Two of my horses are worth more than any eight of my slaves;" at the same time calling my attention to two magnificent thorough-breds, one of which had made "2.32" on the Charleston course. The establishment of a Southern gentleman is not complete until it includes one or two of these useless appendages. I had an argument with my host as to their value compared with that of the steam-engine, in which I forced him to admit that the iron horse is the better of the two, because it performs more work, eats less, has greater speed, and is not liable to the spavin or the heaves; but he wound up by saying, "After all, I go for the thorough-breds. You Yankees have but one test of value--use."

A ramble through the negro-quarters, which followed our visit to the stables, gave me some further glimpses of plantation life. Many of the hands were still away in pursuit of Moye, but enough remained to make it evident that Sunday is the happiest day in the darky calendar. Groups of all ages and colors were gathered in front of several of the cabins, some singing, some dancing, and others chatting quietly together, but all enjoying themselves as heartily as so many young animals let loose in a pasture. They saluted the Colonel and me respectfully, but each one had a free, good-natured word for "Ma.s.sa Tommy," who seemed an especial favorite with them. The lad took their greetings in good part, but preserved an easy, unconscious dignity of manner that plainly showed he did not know that _he_ too was of their despised, degraded race.

The Colonel, in a rapid way, gave me the character and peculiarities of nearly every one we met. The t.i.tles of some of them amused me greatly.

At every step we encountered individuals whose names have become household words in every civilized country.[F] Julius Caesar, slightly stouter than when he swam the Tiber, and somewhat tanned from long exposure to a Southern sun, was seated on a wood-pile, quietly smoking a pipe; while near him, Washington, divested of regimentals, and clad in a modest suit of reddish-gray, his thin locks frosted by time, and his fleshless visage showing great age, was gazing, in rapt admiration, at a group of dancers in front of old Lucy's cabin.

In this group about thirty men and women were making the ground quake and the woods ring with their unrestrained jollity. Marc Antony was rattling away at the bones, Nero fiddling as if Rome were burning, and Hannibal clawing at a banjo as if the fate of Carthage hung on its strings. Napoleon, as young and as lean as when he mounted the bridge of Lodi, with the battle-smoke still on his face, was moving his legs even faster than in the Russian retreat; and Wesley was using his heels in a way that showed _they_ didn't belong to the Methodist church. But the central figures of the group were Cato and Victoria. The lady had a face like a thunder-cloud, and a form that, if whitewashed, would have outsold the "Greek Slave." She was built on springs, and "floated in the dance" like a feather in a high wind. Cato's mouth was like an alligator's, but when it opened, it issued notes that would draw the specie even in this time of general suspension. As we approached he was singing a song, but he paused on perceiving us, when the Colonel, tossing a handful of coin among them, called out, "Go on, boys; let the gentleman have some music; and you, Vic, show your heels like a beauty."

A general scramble followed, in which "Vic's" sense of decorum forbade her to join, and she consequently got nothing. Seeing that, I tossed her a silver piece, which she caught. Grinning her thanks, she shouted, "Now, clar de track, you nigs; start de music. I'se gwine to gib de gemman de breakdown."