Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/300

 9, 1861.] of youthful freedom and improvement in the case of her own girls; and every mother is disappointed when the time comes.

“And what of Madison?” I asked. “What sort of a fellow shall I find him, I wonder.”

Anna looked proud. D laughed.

“Madison will soon show you his quality,” said he.

“Yes,” said Anna, “you will see at once the turn that he takes.”

“So he is to be a character, is he?” I inquired.

“Why, yes,” replied D. “Our young men are ambitious, and almost every one has some particular notion of distinguishing himself. It may not be amiss. It may give them a purpose. It makes them show character early.”

“So much character! So much character!” exclaimed my sister, complacently.

“Plenty of peculiarity,” I thought, when Madison came in to dinner, with his glass in his eye, a solemn demeanour, and a condescending notice of me, his uncle. I soon gathered from his oracular words, that the boy had discovered the Perpetual Motion, and considered himself already separated from the common herd of mankind. He had travelled to the north—even to Harvard University—to communicate his discovery to the Professor of Natural Philosophy there; and he had returned, more than ever satisfied with his achievement. The Professor being ill, he had seen the Professor’s lady. Sounding her about the probability of a candid hearing from the great man, he had obtained the reply, kind but jocose, that the Professor would no doubt be happy to attend to what he had to propose, on any subject, she might say, except perhaps Perpetual Motion, on which he had so many applications, and had suffered so much waste of time.

Madison here rose, and made a flourishing bow, and turned homewards to provide for communicating his discovery to the world, without hindrance from old dons, ignorant, envious, and obstructive.

When we rose from table, Madison kept his seat, preaching about perpetual motion. To my surprise, D shut the door behind Anna and the children, and sat down again. When the lad had finished his lecture, he withdrew to his studies, and D said to me,

“What would you do with such a lad as that?”

“That depends on what his notions are worth.”

“I don’t put any confidence in them, myself; but, if he really has a turn for study—”

“Just so. Only let it be study. Don’t keep him here, puffing himself up with the fancy of being a philosopher. Send him to college. Why not send him to Harvard, where he would be near us? He would find his level there, and discover that our Professors may possibly know more than he does.”

“Ah! that is exactly what can’t be done,” replied D. “It is a disadvantage for life to a man here to have been to a northern college. He never gets over the suspicion of being tainted with bad opinions on the negro question.”

“Send him to a southern college, then. They do not stand so high as Harvard and New York; but probably they can teach Madison something.”

“No doubt; and it would be a great blessing, I’m sure, to us all. But the students of our southern colleges are apt to be so intemperate in politics that more and more parents are unwilling to send their sons there. A few weeks ago, these ‘sons of the Chivalry’ learned that a sister of Mrs. Beecher Stowe was staying in one of the Professors’ houses; and they serenaded her with marrow-bones and cleavers, and insulting songs.”

“Is it possible?”

“Yes; that is their notion of patriotism; and I should not exactly like Madison to take that turn, though I hope he will do his duty by his State the first time the North goes too far.”

The end of the matter was that no decision seemed feasible, and I saw plainly that Madison would go on with “his studies,” as his mother said, but as I should have put it with “his dreams,” till some strong reality should bring out something more natural than was to be seen at present. He must be a planter, D said. His parents would not hear of the Church for him. They owned that, while entirely convinced that Slavery was a scriptural institution, they did not like to see clergymen turning slaveowners, setting an overseer over their negroes, and themselves watching the overseer. It was better that their clergy should come from the North, fresh to the institution. They could be more free than a southern man to board out, or hire negroes for house-service, as an alternative to having a plantation of their own. They usually fell into this last way of life by marriage or otherwise; but it did not quite suit D’s notions of a clergyman’s position. He could see no way for Madison but beginning life on cotton-land, in the usual way: and whatever fancies the lads might have while in their teens, they always did come round to this at last, unless they early entered the army or navy.

It seemed to me that one part of education might have been better attended to, both in my nieces’ and nephews’ case; that of assisting their parents in their every-day business, and preventing some of the discomforts which are always occurring where slaves are left to themselves for an hour. On the first morning, for instance, we were all roused unconscionably early. While dressing, I supposed my watch must have stopped for an hour and a half in the night; and when we met at the breakfast-table it appeared that others had supposed the same. It was then half-past six; but the hot waffles, buck-wheat cakes, eggs and beefsteak, hominy and broiled ham, were on the table, as if it was the proper eight o’clock. The cook had been too lazy to ask the “body-servants” to inquire the time, and had served breakfast by guess. The family laughed; but it seemed to me that Minnie might undertake to announce the hour to the servants, if it was really impossible to trust them with the care of a kitchen clock. I found, however, that no confidence was felt in the watches; for I was appealed to, nearly every half-hour in the day, within doors or in the field, by the negroes, to know what o’clock it was.

After breakfast, again, when I went with Anna