Page:Once a Week Dec 1860 to June 61.pdf/301

 290 on her round of morning duties, it seemed to me that there were various things that son and daughter might have seen to. In the negro quarter there was a sick man cowering over the fire, with nobody to attend to him. His wife was amusing herself in the sun, and had given him no breakfast. We had to stay till we saw him properly fed by his sulky wife. In another cabin there was a wretched baby, all skin and bone, moaning on a mat; and the mother was absent in that case, too. My sister observed that Diana would be the death of her baby, by such neglect. There was no making her attend to her own child.

“Diana!” said I. “Was not that the name of the woman who nursed you so admirably through your fever? But it is not the same woman, of course.”

“The same,” my sister replied. “You will constantly find among these people that they nurse any white person with great ostentation, while they will not trouble themselves to wait on husband or child. I don’t mean that it is so with all. The number of runaways shows that women will dare everything to meet a husband or free a child; but those that we call contented negroes behave like Diana, or like that exemplary wife that we stood over till she fed her husband.”

It struck me that here was something for Minnie to do; and so I thought when the old woman who collected and took care of the infants while the mothers were in the field had a score of complaints and petitions to make about all manner of unreasonable things; and when Flora and Bet, Juliet and Sal, waylaid us with handfuls of eggs or a fowl which the mistress was expected to buy. I supposed she had supplied the cocks and hens and the food, and would hardly, therefore, pay for the eggs and the chickens; but she said it was expected. Her only doubt was as to whether these really came from the proper poultry-yard. She was always afraid they might be stolen from a neighbour. Her husband did all he could to keep the people at home at night; but he was aware that they could and did get out and visit other plantations; and when there were any Mean-whites in the neighbourhood there was seldom a night in which some robbery did not take place.

Just at the moment we met D coming from the stables. He never looks otherwise than goodhumoured; but his wife divined that something teas wrong. As she looked in his face, he said aloud that he had found the ice-house door standing wide, and the ice melting as fast as it could this warm morning; and if Tippoo did not mind his duty better, it would be necessary to punish him. Still my sister led the way to a spot where we could speak in private; and there, leaning over the fence, as if admiring the prospect, we heard what had happened. D’s saddle and bridle had disappeared in the night—a handsome saddle; but that was not the worst of it. He was to be compelled to ride under difficulties, or not at all. Moreover, the best part of the blacksmith’s tools were gone. For some weeks there had been petty thefts of eggs, vegetables, bacon, fodder, and articles of dress; now a hat, now a pair of boots, or a razor and strop. D or Anna looked over the knives every night, and locked them up. I observed that both assumed at once that the white labourer I had seen, or some other neighbour of the same class, must be at the bottom of these thefts. The inconvenience was becoming so serious that something must be done. Anna asked her husband which of the people he would have flogged, to obtain a confession. D replied that he wished he could get to the bottom of it in some other way. There was so little satisfaction in what was confessed by the people. Any one of them would say it was A who set him on to steal, or B, or C, or the mistress, or the Devil, or the President, according to the supposed suspicion of the master. This was true, Anna said; but something must be done—some example must be made. We must consult the overseer.

To the overseer’s house we went, followed by many eyes. But it was natural that I should wish to see the place; and, besides, the man was not at home. The cottage was like what it used to be, but more bare, ugly, and comfortless. A few fowls were strutting about within the zigzag pole-fence; the piazza was dirty, and had two broken chairs in it. There was fishing tackle against the wall, and a worn-out rifle over the mantelpiece. This was for show, the serviceable arms being out of sight. There was a shelf of books and a medicine-chest, and a chair and bare table, and that was all. We had hardly looked round us when the overseer came in from the |field. He was as full of wrath against the thieves as could be desired, I remember; but that is nearly all I can recal, for his talk was as full of oaths as Minnie’s was of sighs and raptures, or Madison’s of technical terms. I always thought that D’s habit of swearing was something out of all ordinary measure; but it was moderate and gentlemanly in comparison with his overseer’s. Of course I omit this characteristic in citing their conversation. The overseer’s information amounted to little. He told of another theft or two, was certain that three or four of the negroes whom he mentioned had been on foot all night, by their laziness and their appearance this morning, and intended to flog them if they did not confess before the day was out. Anna walked away out of earshot at this moment. She “makes it a principle not to know what negroes are to be whipped, or when, or where. It could do no good; and if her feelings were excited, it might change her manner towards those particular negroes, or perhaps towards them all.”

We followed her when all was said; and as we overtook her, the overseer was telling D that the driver of the nearest stage-coach had been “hit” that morning; not very seriously, but a great quarrel would come of it.

“Shot,” my sister exclaimed, in answer to my look of inquiry.

“A man shot!” I exclaimed.

“You look as if you had never heard of such a thing before,” said D. And the overseer eyed me with evident contempt.

“There never was anything like this country for quarrels,” exclaimed my sister, in a tone of