The Garies and Their Friends Part 6

"Just let things remain as they are, will you, Caddy dear," said her father. "Please be quiet until I get out of the house," he continued, as she began to make unmistakeable demonstrations towards raising a dust. "In a few moments you shall have the house to yourself, only give me time to finish my dinner in peace."

Esther, her mother, and their sewing were summarily banished to an upstairs room, whilst Caddy took undivided possession of the little parlour, which she soon brought into an astonishing state of cleanliness. The ornaments were arranged at exact distances from the corners of the mantelpiece, the looking-gla.s.s was polished, until it appeared to be without spot or blemish, and its gilt frame was newly adorned with cut paper to protect it from the flies. The best china was brought out, carefully dusted, and set upon the waiter, and all things within doors placed in a state of forwardness to receive their expected guest. The door-steps were, however, not as white and clean as they might be, and that circ.u.mstance pressed upon Caddy's mind. She therefore determined to give them a hasty wipe before retiring to dress for the evening.

Having done this, and dressed herself to her satisfaction, she came down stairs to prepare the refreshments for tea. In doing this, she continually found herself exposing her new silk dress to great risks. She therefore donned an old petticoat over her skirt, and tied an old silk handkerchief over her head to protect her hair from flying particles of dust; and thus arrayed she pa.s.sed the time in a state of great excitement, frequently looking out of the window to see if her father and their guest were approaching.

In one of these excursions, she, to her intense indignation, found a beggar boy endeavouring to draw, with a piece of charcoal, an ill.u.s.tration of a horse-race upon her so recently cleaned door-steps.

"You young villain," she almost screamed, "go away from there. How dare you make those marks upon the steps? Go off at once, or I'll give you to a constable." To these behests the daring young gentleman only returned a contemptuous laugh, and put his thumb to his nose in the most provoking manner. "Ain't you going?" continued the irate Caddy, almost choked with wrath at the sight of the steps, over which she had so recently toiled, scored in every direction with black marks.

"Just wait till I come down, I'll give it to you, you audacious villain, you," she cried, as she closed the window; "I'll see if I can't move you!"

Caddy hastily seized a broom, and descended the stairs with the intention of inflicting summary vengeance upon the dirty delinquent who had so rashly made himself liable to her wrath. Stealing softly down the alley beside the house, she sprang suddenly forward, and brought the broom with all her energy down upon the head of Mr. Winston, who was standing on the place just left by the beggar. She struck with such force as to completely crush his hat down over his eyes, and was about to repeat the blow, when her father caught her arm, and she became aware of the awful mistake she had made.

"Why, my child!" exclaimed her father, "what on earth, is the matter with you, have you lost your senses?" and as he spoke, he held her at arm's length from him to get a better look at her. "What are you dressed up in this style for?" he continued, as he surveyed her from head to foot; and then bursting into a loud laugh at her comical appearance, he released her, and she made the quickest possible retreat into the house by the way she came out.

Bushing breathless upstairs, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, mother, I've done it now! They've come, and I've beat him over the head with a broom!"

"Beat whom over the head with a broom?" asked Mrs. Ellis.

"Oh, mother, I'm so ashamed, I don't know what to do with myself. I struck Mr. Winston with a broom. Mr. Winston, the gentleman father has brought home."

"I really believe the child is crazy," said Mrs. Ellis, surveying the chagrined girl. "Beat Mr. Winston over the head with a broom! how came you to do it?"

"Oh, mother, I made a great mistake; I thought he was a beggar."

"He must be a very different looking person from what we have been led to expect," here interrupted Esther. "I understood father to say that he was very gentlemanlike in appearance."

"So he is," replied Caddy.

"But you just said you took him for a beggar?" replied her mother.

"Oh, don't bother me, don't bother me! my head is all turned upside down.

Do, Esther, go down and let them in--hear how furiously father is knocking!

Oh, go--do go!"

Esther quickly descended and opened the door for Winston and her father; and whilst the former was having the dust removed and his hat straightened, Mrs. Ellis came down and was introduced by her husband. She laughingly apologized for the ludicrous mistake Caddy had made, which afforded great amus.e.m.e.nt to all parties, and divers were the jokes perpetrated at her expense during the remainder of the evening. Her equanimity having been restored by Winston's a.s.surances that he rather enjoyed the joke than otherwise--and an opportunity having been afforded her to obliterate the obnoxious marks from the door-steps--she exhibited great activity in forwarding all the arrangements for tea.

They sat a long while round the table--much time that, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, would have been given to the demolition of the food before them, being occupied by the elders of the party in inquiries after mutual friends, and in relating the many incidents that had occurred since they last met.

Tea being at length finished, and the things cleared away, Mrs. Ellis gave the girls permission to go out. "Where are you going?" asked their father.

"To the library company's room--to-night is their last lecture."

"I thought," said Winston, "that coloured persons were excluded from such places. I certainly have been told so several times."

"It is quite true," replied Mr. Ellis; "at the lectures of the white library societies a coloured person would no more be permitted to enter than a donkey or a rattle-snake. This a.s.sociation they speak of is entirely composed of people of colour. They have a fine library, a debating club, chemical apparatus, collections of minerals, &c. They have been having a course of lectures delivered before them this winter, and to-night is the last of the course."

"Wouldn't you like to go, Mr. Winston?" asked Mrs. Ellis, who had a mother's desire to secure so fine an escort for her daughters.

"No, no--don't, George," quickly interposed Mr. Ellis; "I am selfish enough to want you entirely to myself to-night. The girls will find beaux enough, I'll warrant you." At this request the girls did not seem greatly pleased, and Miss Caddy, who already, in imagination, had excited the envy of all her female friends by the grand _entree_ she was to make at the Lyceum, leaning on the arm of Winston, gave her father a by no means affectionate look, and tying her bonnet-strings with a hasty jerk, started out in company with her sister.

"You appear to be very comfortable here, Ellis," said Mr. Winston, looking round the apartment. "If I am not too inquisitive--what rent do you pay for this house?"

"It's mine!" replied Ellis, with an air of satisfaction; "house, ground, and all, bought and paid for since I settled here."

"Why, you are getting on well! I suppose," remarked Winston, "that you are much better off than the majority of your coloured friends. From all I can learn, the free coloured people in the Northern cities are very badly off.

I've been frequently told that they suffer dreadfully from want and privations of various kinds."

"Oh, I see you have been swallowing the usual dose that is poured down Southern throats by those Northern negro-haters, who seem to think it a duty they owe the South to tell all manner of infamous lies upon us free coloured people. I really get so indignant and provoked sometimes, that I scarcely know what to do with myself. Badly off, and in want, indeed! Why, my dear sir, we not only support our own poor, but a.s.sist the whites to support theirs, and enemies are continually filling the public ear with the most distressing tales of our dest.i.tution! Only the other day the Colonization Society had the a.s.surance to present a pet.i.tion to the legislature of this State, asking for an appropriation to a.s.sist them in sending us all to Africa, that we might no longer remain a burthen upon the State--and they came very near getting it, too; had it not been for the timely a.s.sistance of young Denbigh, the son of Judge Denbigh, they would have succeeded, such was the gross ignorance that prevailed respecting our real condition, amongst the members of the legislature. He moved a postponement of the vote until he could have time to bring forward facts to support the ground that he had a.s.sumed in opposition to the appropriation being made. It was granted; and, in a speech that does him honour, he brought forward facts that proved us to be in a much superior condition to that in which our imaginative enemies had described us. Ay! he did more--he proved us to be in advance of the whites in wealth and general intelligence: for whilst it was one in fifteen amongst the whites unable to read and write, it was but one in eighteen amongst the coloured (I won't pretend to be correct about the figures, but that was about the relative proportions); and also, that we paid, in the shape of taxes upon our real estate, more than our proportion for the support of paupers, insane, convicts, &c."

"Well," said the astonished Winston, "that is turning the tables completely. You must take me to visit amongst the coloured people; I want to see as much of them as possible during my stay."

"I'll do what I can for you, George. I am unable to spare you much time just at present, but I'll put you in the hands of one who has abundance of it at his disposal--I will call with you and introduce you to Walters."

"Who is Walters?" asked Mr. Winston.

"A friend of mine--a dealer in real estate."

"Oh, then he is a white man?"

"Not by any means," laughingly replied Mr. Ellis. "He is as black as a man can conveniently be. He is very wealthy; some say that he is worth half a million of dollars. He owns, to my certain knowledge, one hundred brick houses. I met him the other day in a towering rage: it appears, that he owns ten thousand dollars' worth of stock, in a railroad extending from this to a neighbouring city. Having occasion to travel in it for some little distance, he got into the first-cla.s.s cars; the conductor, seeing him there, ordered him out--he refused to go, and stated that he was a shareholder. The conductor replied, that he did not care how much stock he owned, he was a n.i.g.g.e.r, and that no n.i.g.g.e.r should ride in those cars; so he called help, and after a great deal of trouble they succeeded in ejecting him." "And he a stockholder! It was outrageous," exclaimed Winston. "And was there no redress?"

"No, none, practically. He would have been obliged to inst.i.tute a suit against the company; and, as public opinion now is, it would be impossible for him to obtain a verdict in his favour."

The next day Winston was introduced to Mr. Walters, who expressed great pleasure in making his acquaintance, and spent a week in showing him everything of any interest connected with coloured people.

Winston was greatly delighted with the acquaintances he made; and the kindness and hospitality with which he was received made a most agreeable impression upon him.

It was during this period that he wrote the glowing letters to Mr. and Mrs.

Garie, the effects of which will be discerned in the next chapter.

CHAPTER V.

The Garies decide on a Change.

We must now return to the Garies, whom we left listening to Mr. Winston's description of what he saw in Philadelphia, and we need not add anything respecting it to what the reader has already gathered from the last chapter; our object being now to describe the effect his narrative produced.

On the evening succeeding the departure of Winston for New Orleans, Mr. and Mrs. Garie were seated in a little arbour at a short distance from the house, and which commanded a magnificent prospect up and down the river. It was overshadowed by tall trees, from the topmost branches of which depended large bunches of Georgian moss, swayed to and fro by the soft spring breeze that came gently sweeping down the long avenue of magnolias, laden with the sweet breath of the flowers with which the trees were covered.

A climbing rose and Cape jessamine had almost covered the arbour, and their intermingled blossoms, contrasting with the rich brown colour of the branches of which it was constructed, gave it an exceedingly beautiful and picturesque appearance.

This arbour was their favourite resort in the afternoons of summer, as they could see from it the sun go down behind the low hills opposite, casting his gleams of golden light upon the tops of the trees that crowned their summits. Northward, where the chain of hills was broken, the waters of the river would be brilliant with waves of gold long after the other parts of it were shrouded in the gloom of twilight. Mr. and Mrs. Garie sat looking at the children, who were scampering about the garden in pursuit of a pet rabbit which had escaped, and seemed determined not to be caught upon any pretence whatever.

"Are they not beautiful?" said Mr. Garie, with pride, as they bounded past him. "There are not two prettier children in all Georgia. You don't seem half proud enough of them," he continued, looking down upon his wife affectionately.

Mrs. Garie, who was half reclining on the seat, and leaning her head upon his shoulder, replied, "Oh, yes, I am, Garie; I'm sure I love them dearly--oh, so dearly!" continued she, fervently--"and I only wish"--here she paused, as if she felt she had been going to say something that had better remain unspoken.