Among the Pines Part 22

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

'roun'."

"You're in a bad fix here, I see. Can 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 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 dollar a barr'l."

"By tale?"

"No, for tu 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! 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 b.u.t.ter?"

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

[Footnote G: The negro-whippers and field overseers.]

[Footnote H: Referring to the common practice of bathing the raw and bleeding backs of the punished slaves with a strong solution of salt and water.]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE NEGRO HUNTER.

Alighting from the carriage, I entered, with my host, the cabin of the negro-hunter. So far as external appearance went, the shanty was a slight improvement on the "Mills House," described in a previous chapter; but internally, it was hard to say whether it resembled more a pig-sty or a dog-kennel. The floor was of the bare earth, covered in patches with loose plank of various descriptions, and littered over with billets of "lightwood," unwashed cooking utensils, two or three cheap stools, a pine settee--made from the rough log and hewn smooth on the upper side--a full-grown bloodhound, two younger canines, and nine half-clad juveniles of the flax-head species. Over against the fire-place three low beds afforded sleeping accommodation to nearly a dozen human beings (of a.s.sorted sizes, and dove-tailed together with heads and feet alternating), and in the opposite corner a lower couch, whose finer furnishings told plainly it was the peculiar property of the "wee ones" of the family--a mother's tenderness for her youngest thus cropping out even in the midst of filth and degradation--furnished quarters for an unwashed, uncombed, unclothed, saffron-hued little fellow about fifteen months old, and--the dog "Lady." She was of a dark hazel color--a cross between a pointer and a bloodhound--and one of the most beautiful creatures I ever saw. Her neck and breast were bound about with a coa.r.s.e cotton cloth, saturated with blood, and emitting a strong odor of bad whiskey; and her whole appearance showed the desperate nature of the encounter with the overseer.

The nine young democrats who were lolling about the room in various att.i.tudes, rose as we entered, and with a familiar but rather deferential "How-dy'ge," to the Colonel, huddled around and stared at me with open mouths and distended eyes, as if I were some strange being, dropped from another sphere. The two eldest were of the male gender, as was shown by their clothes--cast-off suits of the inevitable reddish-gray, much too large, and out at the elbows and the knees--but the s.e.x of the others I was at a loss to determine, for they wore only a single robe, reaching, like their mother's, from the neck to the knees.

Not one of the occupants of the cabin boasted a pair of stockings, but the father and mother did enjoy the luxury of shoes--coa.r.s.e, stout brogans, untanned, and of the color of the legs which they encased.

"Well, Sandy, how is 'Lady?'" asked the Colonel, as he stepped to the bed of the wounded dog.

"Reckon she's a goner, Cunnel; the d---- Yankee orter swing fur it."

This intimation that the overseer was a countryman of mine, took me by surprise, nothing I had observed in his speech or manners having indicated it, but I consoled myself with the reflection that Connecticut had reared him--as she makes wooden hams and nutmegs--expressly for the Southern market.

"He _shall_ swing for it, by ----. But are you sure the s.l.u.t will die?"

"Not sh.o.r.e, Cunnel, but she can't stand, and the blood _will_ run. I reckon a hun'red and fifty ar done for thar, sartin."

"D---- the money--I'll make that right. Go to the house and get some ointment from Madam--she can save her--go at once," said my host.

"I will, Cunnel," replied the dirt-eater, taking his broad-brim from a wooden peg, and leisurely leaving the cabin. Making our way then over the piles of rubbish and crowds of children that c.u.mbered the apartment, the Colonel and I returned to the carriage.

"Dogs must be rare in this region," I remarked, as we resumed our seats.

"Yes, well-trained bloodhounds are scarce everywhere. That dog is well worth a hundred and fifty dollars."

"The business of n.i.g.g.e.r-catching, then, is brisk, just now?"

"No, not more brisk than usual. We always have more or less runaways."

"Do most of them take to the swamps?"

"Yes, nine out of ten do, though now and then one gets off on a trading vessel. It is almost impossible for a strange n.i.g.g.e.r to make his way by land from here to the free states."

"Then why do you Carolinians make such an outcry about the violation of the Fugitive Slave Law?"

"For the same reason that dogs quarrel over a naked bone. We should be unhappy if we couldn't growl at the Yankees," replied the Colonel, laughing.

"_We_, you say; you mean by that, the hundred and eighty thousand nabobs who own five-sixths of your slaves?"[I]