Palmetto-Leaves

After we left, the same scholars were wont to surround one of the remaining ladies. Sometimes the evening would be so hot and oppressive, she would beg to be excused. "O misse, but two of us will fan you all the time!" And "misse" could not but yield to the plea.

One of the most dreaded characters on the place was the dairy-woman and cook Minnah. She had been a field-hand in North Carolina, and worked at cutting down trees, grubbing land, and mauling rails. She was a tall, lank, powerfully-built woman, with a pair of arms like windmill-sails, and a tongue that never hesitated to speak her mind to high or low. Democracy never assumes a more rampant form than in some of these old negresses, who would say their screed to the king on his throne, if they died for it the next minute. Accordingly, Minnah's back was all marked and scored with the tyrant's answers to free speech. Her old master was accustomed to reply to her unpleasant observations by stretching her over a log, staking down her hands and feet, and flaying her alive, as a most convincing style of argument. For all that, Minnah was neither broken nor humbled: she still asserted her rights as a human being to talk to any other human being as seemed to her good and proper; and many an amusing specimen of this she gave us. Minnah had learned to do up gentlemen's shirts passably, to iron and to cook after a certain fashion, to make butter, and do some other household tasks: and so, before the wives of the gentlemen arrived on the place, she had been selected as a sort of general housekeeper and manager in doors; and, as we arrived on the ground first, we found Minnah in full command, – the only female presence in the house.

It was at the close of a day in May, corresponding to our August, that Mrs. F – and baby and myself, with sundry bales of furniture and household stuff, arrived at the place. We dropped down in a lazy little sail-boat which had lain half the day becalmed, with the blue, hazy shores on either side melting into indefinite distance, and cast anchor far out in the stream; and had to be rowed in a smaller boat to the long wharf that stretched far out into the waters. Thence, in the thickening twilight, we ascended, passed through the belt of forest-trees that overhung the shore, and crossed the wide fields of fine white sand devoted to the raising of cotton. The planter's house was a one-story cottage, far in the distance, rising up under the shelter of a lofty tuft of Spanish oaks.

Never shall we forget the impression of weird and almost ludicrous dreariness which took possession of us as Mrs. F – and myself sat down in the wide veranda of the one-story cottage to wait for the gentlemen, who had gone down to assist in landing our trunks and furniture. The black laborers were coming up from the field; and, as one and another passed by, they seemed blacker, stranger, and more dismal, than any thing we had ever seen.

The women wore men's hats and boots, and had the gait and stride of men; but now and then an old hooped petticoat, or some cast-off, thin, bedraggled garment that had once been fine, told the tale of sex, and had a wofully funny effect.

As we sat waiting, Minnah loomed up upon us in the twilight veranda like a gaunt Libyan sibyl, walking round and round, surveying us with apparent curiosity, and responding to all our inquiries as to who and what she was by a peculiarly uncanny chuckle. It appeared to amuse her extremely that Mr. F – had gone off and left the pantry locked up, so that she could not get us any supper; we being faint and almost famished with our day's sail. The sight of a white baby dressed in delicate white robes, with lace and embroidery, also appeared greatly to excite her; and she stalked round and round with a curious simmer of giggle, appearing and disappearing at uncertain intervals, like a black sprite, during the mortal hour and a half that it cost our friends to land the goods from the vessel.

After a while, some supper was got for us in a wide, desolate apartment, fitted up with a small cooking-stove in the corner.

Never shall we forget the experience of endeavoring to improvise a corn-cake the next morning for breakfast.

We went into the room, and found the table standing just as we had left it the night before, – not a dish washed, not a thing done in the way of clearing. On inquiry for Minnah, she was gone out to milking. It appeared that there were sixteen cows to be milked before her return. A little colored girl stood ready to wait on us with ample good nature.

"Lizzie," said we, "have you corn-meal?"

"Oh, yes'm!" and she brought it just as the corn had been ground, with the bran unsifted.

"A sieve, Lizzie."

It was brought.

"A clean pan, Lizzie. Quick!"

"All right," said Lizzie: "let me get a pail of water." The water was to be drawn from a deep well in the yard. That done, Lizzie took a pan, went out the door, produced a small bit of rag, and rinsed the pan, dashing the contents upon the sand.

"Lizzie, haven't you any dish-cloth?"

"No'm."

"No towels?"

"No'm."

"Do you always wash dishes this way?"

"Yes'm."

"Well, then, wash this spoon and these two bake-pans."

Lizzie, good-natured and zealous as the day is long, bent over her pail, and slopped and scrubbed with her bit of rag.

"Now for a pan of sour milk," said we.

It was brought, with saleratus and other condiments; and the cake was made.

But, on examination, the flues of the little cooking-stove were so choked with the resinous soot of the "light-wood" which had been used in it, that it would scarcely draw at all; and the baking did not progress as in our nice Stuart stove in our Northern home. Still the whole experience was so weirdly original, that, considering this was only a picnic excursion, we rather enjoyed it.

When we came to unpack china and crockery and carpets, bureau and bedsteads and dressing-glass, Minnah's excitement knew no bounds. Evidently she considered these articles (cast-off remnants of our Northern home) as the height of splendor.

When our upper chamber was matted, and furnished with white curtains and shades, and bed, chairs, and dressing-glass, Minnah came in to look; and her delight was boundless.

"Dear me! O Lord, O Lord!" she exclaimed, turning round and round. "Dese yer Northern ladies – they hes every thing, and they does every thing!"

More especially was she taken with the pictures we hung on the walls. Before one of these (Raphael's Madonna of the Veil) Minnah knelt down in a kind of ecstatic trance, and thus delivered herself: —

"O good Lord! if there ain't de Good Man when he was a baby! How harmless he lies there! so innocent! And here we be, we wicked sinners, turning our backs on him, and going to the Old Boy. O Lord, O Lord! we ought to be better than we be: we sartin ought."

This invocation came forth with streaming tears in the most natural way in the world; and Minnah seemed, for the time being, perfectly subdued. It is only one of many instances we have seen of the overpowering influence of works of art on the impressible nervous system of the negro.

But it is one thing to have an amusing and picturesque specimen of a human being, as Minnah certainly was, and another to make one useful in the traces of domestic life.

As the first white ladies upon the ground, Mrs. F – and myself had the task of organizing this barbaric household, and of bringing it into the forms of civilized life. We commenced with the washing.

Before the time of our coming, it had been customary for the gentlemen to give their washing into the hands of Minnah or Judy, to be done at such times and in such form and manner as best suited them.

The manner which did suit them best was to put all the articles to soak indefinitely, in soapsuds, till such time as to them seemed good. On being pressed for some particular article, and roundly scolded by any of the proprietors, they would get up a shirt, a pair of drawers, a collar or two, with abundant promises for the rest when they had time.

The helpless male individuals of the establishments had no refuge from the feminine ruses and expedients, and the fifty incontrovertible reasons which were always on hand to prove to them that things could be done no other way than just as they were done; and, in fact, found it easier to get their washing back again by blandishments than by bullying.

We ladies announced a regular washing-day, and endeavored to explain it to our kitchen cabinet; our staff consisting of Minnah and Judy, detailed for house-service.

Judy was a fat, lazy, crafty, roly-poly negress, the Florida wife of the foreman Mose, and devoted to his will and pleasure in hopes to supplant the "Virginny" and "Carliny" wives. Judy said yes to every thing we proposed; but Minnah was "kinky" and argumentative: but finally, when we represented to her that the proposed arrangement was customary in good Northern society, she gave her assent.

We first proceeded to make a barrel of soda washing-soap in a great iron sugar-kettle, which stood out under the fig-trees, and which had formerly been used for evaporating sugar.

Minnah took the greatest interest in the operation, and, when the soap was finished, took the boiling liquid in pailfuls, setting them on the top of her head, and marching off to the barrel in the house with them, without ever lifting a finger.

We screamed after her in horror, —

"Minnah, Minnah! If that should fall, it would kill you!"

A laugh of barbaric exultation was the only response, as she actually persisted in carrying pailful after pailful of scalding soap on her head till all was disposed of.

The next day the washing was all brought out under the trees and sorted, Mrs. F – and myself presiding; and soon Minnah and Judy were briskly engaged at their respective tubs. For half an hour, "all went merry as a marriage-bell." Judy was about half through her first tubful, when Mose came back from his morning turn in the fields, and summoned her to come home and get his breakfast. With Judy's very leisurely and promiscuous habits of doing business, this took her away for half the forenoon. Meanwhile, Minnah murmured excessively at being left alone, and more especially at the continuous nature of the task.

Such a heap of clothes to be washed all in one day! It was a mountain of labor in Minnah's imagination; and it took all our eloquence and our constant presence to keep her in good humor. We kept at Minnah as the only means of keeping her at her work.

But, after all, it was no bad picnic to spend a day in the open air in the golden spring-time of Florida. The birds were singing from every covert; the air was perfectly intoxicating in its dreamy softness; and so we spread a camp for the baby, who was surrounded by a retinue of little giggling, adoring negroes, and gave ourselves up to the amusement of the scene. Our encampment was under the broad leaves of a group of fig-trees; and we hung our clothes to dry on the sharp thorns of a gigantic clump of Yucca gloriosa, which made an admirable clothes-frame.

By night, with chuckling admiration, Minnah surveyed a great basketful of clean clothes, – all done in one day.

The next day came the lesson on ironing; and the only means of securing Minnah and Judy to constant work at the ironing-table was the exercise of our own individual powers of entertainment and conversation. We had our own table, and ironed with them; and all went well till Judy remembered she had preparations for Mose's dinner, and deserted. Minnah kept up some time longer; till finally, when we went in the next room on an errand, she improved the opportunity to desert. On returning, we saw Minnah's place vacant, a half-finished shirt lying drying on the table.

Searching and calling, we at last discovered her far in the distance, smoking her pipe, and lolling tranquilly over the fence of a small enclosure where were sixteen calves shut up together, so that maternal longings might bring the cow mothers home to them at night.

"Why, Minnah, what are you doing?" we said as we came up breathless.

"Laws, missis, I wanted to feed my calves. I jest happened to think on't." And forthwith she turned, started to the barn, and came back with a perfect hay-mow on her head. Then, crossing the fence into the enclosure, she proceeded to make division of the same among the calves, who tumultuously surrounded her. She patted one, and cuffed another, and labored in a most maternal style to make them share their commons equally; laughing in full content of heart, and appearing to have forgotten her ironing-table and all about it.

It was in vain to talk. "She was tired ironing. Did anybody ever hear of doing up all one's things in a day? Besides, she wanted to see her calves: she felt just like it." And Minnah planted her elbows on the fence, and gazed and smoked and laughed, and talked baby-talk to her calves, till we were quite provoked; yet we could not help laughing. In fact, long before that day was done, we were out of breath, used up and exhausted with the strain of getting the work out of Minnah. It was the more tantalizing, as she could do with a fair amount of skill any thing she pleased, and could easily have done the whole in a day had she chosen.

It is true, she was droll enough, in a literary and artistic view, to make one's fortune in a magazine or story; but, when one had a house to manage, a practical humorist is less in point than in some other places.

The fact was, Minnah, like all other women bred to the fields, abominated housework like a man. She could do here and there, and by fits and starts and snatches; but to go on in any thing like a regular domestic routine was simply disgusting in her eyes. So, after a short period of struggle, it was agreed that Minnah was to go back to field-work, where she was one of the most valuable hands; and a trained house-servant was hired from Jacksonville.

Minnah returned to the field with enthusiasm. We heard her swinging her long arms, and shouting to her gang, "Come on, den, boys and gals! I'm for the fields! I was born, I was raised, I was fairly begot, in de fields; and I don't want none o' your housework."

In time we obtained a cook from Jacksonville, trained, accomplished, neat, who made beautiful bread, biscuit, and rolls, and was a comfort to our souls.

But this phœnix was soon called for by the wants of the time, and was worth more than we could give, and went from us to enjoy forty dollars per month as cook in a hotel.

Such has been the good fortune of all the well-trained house-servants since emancipation. They command their own price.

The untrained plantation hands and their children are and will be just what education may make them.

The education which comes to them from the State from being freemen and voters, able to make contracts, choose locations, and pursue their own course like other men, is a great deal; and it is operating constantly and efficaciously.

We give the judgment of a practical farmer accustomed to hire laborers at the North and the South; and, as a result of five years' experiment on this subject, he says that the negro laborer carefully looked after is as good as any that can be hired at the North.

In some respects they are better. As a class they are more obedient, better natured, more joyous, and easily satisfied.

The question as to whether, on the whole, the negroes are valuable members of society, and increasing the material wealth of the State, is best answered by the returns of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, – an institution under the patronage of government.

The report of this institution for the year 1872 is before us; and from this it appears that negro laborers in the different Southern States have deposited with this Trust Company this year the sum of THIRTY-ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY-NINE DOLLARS.

The report also shows, that, year by year, the amount deposited has increased. Thus, in 1867, it was only $1,624,883; in 1868 it was three million odd; in 1869 it was seven million and odd; in 1870, twelve million and odd; in 1871, nineteen million and odd.

These results are conclusive to the fact, that, as a body, the Southern laborers are a thrifty, industrious, advancing set; and such as they are proved by the large evidence of these figures, such we have observed them in our more limited experience.

Our negro laborers, with all the inevitable defects of imperfect training, ignorance, and the negligent habits induced by slavery, have still been, as a whole, satisfactory laborers. They keep their contracts, do their work, and save their earnings. We could point to more than one black family about us steadily growing up to competence by industry and saving.

All that is wanted to supply the South with a set of the most desirable skilled laborers is simply education. The negro children are bright; they can be taught any thing: and if the whites, who cannot bear tropical suns and fierce extremes, neglect to educate a docile race who both can and will bear it for them, they throw away their best chance of success in a most foolish manner. No community that properly and carefully educates the negro children now growing up need complain of having an idle, thriftless, dishonest population about them. Common schools ought to prevent that. The teaching in the common schools ought to be largely industrial, and do what it can to prepare the children to get a living by doing something well. Practical sewing, cutting and fitting, for girls, and the general principles of agriculture for boys, might be taught with advantage.

The negroes are largely accused of being thievish and dishonest.

A priori we should expect that they would be so. We should imagine, that to labor without wages for generations, in a state of childish dependence, would so confuse every idea of right and wrong, that the negro would be a hopeless thief.

Our own experience, however, is due in justice to those we have known.

On the first plantation, as we have said, were about thirty families from all the different Southern States. It might be supposed that they were a fair sample.

Now as to facts. It was the habit of the family to go to bed nights, and leave the house doors unlocked, and often standing wide open. The keys that locked the provisions hung up in a very accessible place; and yet no robbery was ever committed. We used to set the breakfast-table over night, and leave it with all the silver upon it, yet lost nothing.

In our own apartment we put our rings and pins on our toilet-cushions, as had been our habit. We had bits of bright calico and ribbons, and other attractive articles, lying about; and the girl that did the chamber-work was usually followed by a tribe of little curious, observing negroes: and yet we never missed so much as a shred of calico. Neither was this because they did not want them; for the gift of a strip of calico or ribbon would throw them into raptures: it was simply that they did not steal.

Again: nothing is more common, when we visit at the North, than to have the complaint made that fruit is stolen out of gardens. We have had people tell us that the vexation of having fruit carried off was so great, that it took away all the pleasure of a garden.

Now, no fruit is more beautiful, more tempting, than the orange. We live in an orange-grove surrounded by negroes, and yet never have any trouble of this kind. We have often seen bags of fine oranges lying all night under the trees; and yet never have we met with any perceptible loss. Certainly it is due to the negroes that we have known to say that they are above the average of many in the lower classes at the North for honesty.

We have spoken now for the average negro: what we have said is by no means the best that can with truth be said of the finer specimens among them.

We know some whose dignity of character, delicacy, good principle, and generosity, are admirable, and more to be admired because these fine traits have come up under the most adverse circumstances.

In leaving this subject, we have only to repeat our conviction, that the prosperity of the more Southern States must depend, in a large degree, on the right treatment and education of the negro population.