Aunt Dice: the Story of a Faithful
Slave:
Electronic Edition.
Nina Hill Robinson
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First edition, 1999
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Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999.
Call number PS3568.0 313 A9 1897
(Davis Library, UNC-CH)
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Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition, 1998
LC Subject Headings:
African American women -- Tennessee -- Biography.
African Americans -- Tennessee -- Social life and customs.
Women slaves -- Tennessee -- Biography.
Slavery -- Tennessee -- History -- 19th century.
Plantation life -- Tennessee -- History -- 19th century.
1999-07-02,
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IN this little work the author has preferred to follow the simple
truth, feeling all interweaving of fiction to be out of keeping with
the character of whom she has written. Beyond the use of a story-teller's
license, sparingly indulged in, this story is strictly true.
As the details of everyday life would prove monotonous to the
reader, the writer has given but little more than the outlines of the
life of this beloved servant; and though a short work—only a
recreative hour for the busy American—a simple story simply
told, it is written as a tribute to the memory of one who was
faithful in all her ways, with the hope that her name may be
honored and remembered.
It is known that the speech of the Tennessee negro differs
slightly from his extreme southern kinsman. Aunt Dice was free
from many of the stumblings or more uncouth forms of the negro
dialect. The word "master" she used with an
"o" sound, as in "moster." Her way
was her own; she borrowed no form.
In conclusion, need it be said that it is yet the hope and desire
of the Family to remove the sacred dust of this honored servant to
her chosen place of burial, where Cæsar sleeps and the
Candlesticks bloom?
THERE are large possibilities to men of advantages. Material
help is a needful stepping-stone to greater things. A
cultured faith in a higher life aids much toward the
upbuilding of true worth and character.
But to the unlearned, whose rude surroundings hold no
uplifting element, to whom all books are forever sealed—their
lettering unmeaning hieroglyphics—what is the inspiration
to be faithful, to live uprightly? What is the stimulus to
noble living and well-doing in the kitchens of the ignorant?
Of such a one I write; nay, more than this: born a slave,
she called nothing on earth her own. Untutored, save in the
monotonous drudgery of work, she found only one help in
her way—the simple story of the cross, sung in many a
southern kitchen; the cross that uplifts wherever its blessed
shadow falls.
Of her simple, rugged life no poem need be
woven, though other lives of lesser merit have
found a way into prose or rhyme; but from oft-repeated
tales, the picked-up relics of her deeds and
sayings, the story of her life may at least prove her memory
wholesome.
Neither can be told of her any great achievement or
heroic action, for she had read no Psalm of Life, no Book of
Golden Deeds; but only one of humble plodding in the way
of duty—the only duty she saw plainly before her, that of
faithfulness.
The neighboring slave owners of South Afton were curious
when it was learned that William Macy had purchased the
negress Dice. Men of standing these were, in a well-to-do
neighborhood; of plethoric purses, of broad acres, and
crowded negro quarters; men who understood as well the
requisites of negro barter, the buying and selling prices, as
they were familiar with the good points of their best horses.
So the surprise was great when a generous sum was paid for
the negress by the owner of Riverside, known to be a wise
and cautious dealer, who for once overlooked the fact of her
thirty-four years, her delicate frame, her deficiency in bone,
muscle, and flesh.
It was talked of at the river mills, the cotton gin,
and the stillhouse among the hills, where men grouped on
Saturday afternoons to discuss the latest Whig news, the
prices of negroes and cotton, or the relative value of their
own prime whiskies or peach brandies.
But the question was settled at last by a quiet answer: "I
bought her to raise my children." Perhaps the wise owner
looked farther than bone
or muscle in the purchase of one to whom he could trust his
children. Hired to him for two years previous, he had found
her trustworthiness alone sufficient to uphold him in the
sum paid for her.
It was in the winter of eighteen hundred and thirty-four
(for she came in with the century) that Aunt Dice, with her
two children, was removed from a thinly-settled district
twenty miles distant, and installed as chief cook and general
superintendent at Riverside plantation. Beyond her kinship
to Uncle Amos, the most trusty and best beloved of the
slaves at Riverside, little was known of her or hers, save that
her mother was an excellent servant—a pioneer negress of
Middle Tennessee, brought from Virginia to the old
Nashville Fort, in the perilous days of Indian warfare. Her
one other recommendation was that she was reared "in the
house," an important element in the purchase or sale of a
negress: a raw "field hand" occupied no enviable position
beside the superior house girl; though in her case this did
not greatly add to her value, as, orphaned in early infancy,
she was brought up amid surroundings so rude and
uncouth that the wonder was that her thirty-four years had
found her true and worthy.
Concerning her own private griefs or wrongs Aunt Dice,
as she was called, was strangely reticent. If a burden were
hers to shoulder, she preferred to bear it proudly alone. It
was only after years of intimacy that her new mistress, who
delicately forbore to question her, learned that her
former master kept an inn or hostelry noted for its drunken
revelry and riotous living, where travelers passed the night
on their way to the "far west"; where negroes were bought
and sold, or gambled away; a home upon which civilization
had hardly turned its light, or religion its morals.
"My mistis was a good 'oman," Aunt Dice had said.
Perhaps the influence of this one "good 'oman" had much
to do toward the shaping of her character; if so, then indeed
the hard, bare existence of this "mistis" was not passed in
vain.
There were few places on the river so pleasantly situated
as Riverside plantation. Commanding a high and wide
outlook, the farmhouse, with its painted whiteness, its airy
rooms, and cool, wide galleries, looked inviting enough
through the surrounding maple grove and silver poplars. A
green lawn, ornamented with old-fashioned hedges of lilacs
and pink crepe myrtles, sloped from the steep bluff
overlooking the river to the great double gate leading to the
graveled drive by the water's edge. Beyond the house, and
farther up the river's side, were the negro quarters—a long
row of log cabins with double chimneys, and gardens
attached. There was the "loom house," where the spinning
and weaving were done. The cotton house stood near the
great, wide barns, and the "shop," with its charcoal forge.
Across the "big branch," and still farther up the heights,
was the family cemetery, solemn with its waving cedars and
white marble stones.
There were broad bottom fields skirting the river's edge;
rolling uplands sweeping out to the distant hills, where the
swine were fattened yearly; thence onward to the Barrens,
where the cattle grazed. Lucky the farmer who owned an
outlet to the Barrens—a wild, almost unsettled country, rich
only in native grass and cool springs.
A fair domain it was, set like a jewel within Tennessean
hills, fairer for its romantic scenery, its native wilds; dearer
for its crowning grace of southern life and cheer, which, alas!
is but a memory. The palmy days of Riverside have
departed with the changing times; but the river that swept
around the old homestead, whose blue waters silvered in the
sunshine and deepened in the shade, laughing over rocky
shoals and silent by the high, still cliffs—the river of "ye
olden" days—is still the same beautiful, lovely South Afton.
IT must be said that the whole plantation prospered
under the steady rule of Aunt Dice. No sooner was
she domiciled by her broad cabin hearth than she began to
enlarge her borders. Her two years' experience as a hired
underling held her in good stead: she understood her
master's needs, the merits and demerits of his slaves. Her
second coming was an era of greater importance. The
negroes, from venerable Uncle Amos to the smallest
pickaninny, realized that she held a certain amount of power—
how much, she herself did not stop to question; she only
knew that she was grateful to a kind master, and she proved
her gatitude with the remainder of her long life. For her, too,
the change was wholesome; whether from her comfortable
surroundings, or the kindly treatment of a new and
much-loved master, it is hard to say, but certain it was that the
frail, sickly negress gained new strength as the years passed
on, until the neighboring slave owners reluctantly acknowledged
her "the likeliest nigger on the whole creek."
Certainly she was the hardest worker: she often said there
was not a lazy bone in all her body. Not only did she help to
tend and rear the children, but she was the ruling spirit of all
the "hum and hustle" of each busy day. Her first
duty was to sound the long, wild call of the hunting horn
from the back gallery, and dole out to the slaves their
morning "drams" from the rum barrels in the
cellar before the day's work began.
It was here that she commenced her discipline. The long
row of rollicking laborers filing up the path from the quarters
hastened to a quickstep under her searching glance. Not
that she disapproved of merriment. "Light hearts make light
work" was a proverb at Riverside. But she received no
laggards at her early drink offerings. Uncle Jack knew to a
nicety how long to hold his inverted position, his usual
obeisance to his morning dram. Aunt Dice heard
complacently the rhythmic "pitapat" of merry feet, the
back-steps knocked out on the graveled walk, or the jokes
which were "swapped" in bantering tones and high good
humor—a form of greeting that varied little from morning to
morning.
"Hi, dar, nigger; stir yo' stumpers!"
"I takes no slack jaw dis mo'nin'. I walks right ober you
'reckly."
"Huh! ef yo' sasses me, I slams yo' down, chile, and puts
my -foot on yo' haid. What's de kon'squence ob dat?"
"A daid nigger! Dar'll be de kon'squence," is the cheerful
response, while a succession of calls, "hoorahs," and cries
of "Hear dat nigger now!" "Ain't he a steppin'?" sounded
clear and vibrant on the still air.
baring his head to Aunt Dice's courteous " Good-mo'nin',"
Uncle Silas following with his usual plea for a "leetle drap
mo' for de mis'ry in de back," and the sharp response, "Step
on, Silas; I want yo' room."
"Come, boys, be lively; daylight's burnin'." And the
dusky column moved on with boisterous shouts and
musical calls, startling the sleepy cocks from the barnyard
roosts, and echoing across the river, which lay aflush under
the eastern skies.
Aunt Dice, though supervisor, scorned an idle hour. It
was she who prepared the well-cooked meals for the
master's table; who ordered provisions for the quarters;
overlooked the butter-making, the spinning and weaving,
the cutting of garments, and the plain sewing for the
numerous slaves; never resting her weary feet until the last
laborer went back to the fields after the midday meal. Her
master sometimes gently interfered: "Two hours' rest at
noon, Dice. Man and beast should rest in the heat of the
day."
So when the songs of the laborers rang out from the
fields, and the music of wheel and loom went merrily on
within, Aunt Dice went out to her cabin to take her well-
earned rest and enjoy a quiet smoke, her only indulgence.
Her clean, fragrant pipe, used in unobtrusive hours, was
never offensive.
The master smiled over his purchase. He had made no
mistake. Conscious of his trust, she soon assumed control
of the slaves—in a way. Respectful they certainly were; man,
woman, and child
were under her imperious sway, and well she ruled. Aunt
Dice believed in discipline; while one and all liked and
admired her, she thought it best to instill into this liking a
little of fear, to make it wholesome. A lazy negro was her
special detestation. She delighted in scattering a crowd of
dusky forms, basking, lizard-like, in the sun. Few of the
laziest could stand the curious sidelong glance of her sharp
eyes, and many a step quickened under that searching look.
How far her rule extended even the master did not
question, nor the mistress, who began to lean upon her and
trust to her guidance in the manifold duties of a southern
matron. The rule of the house—its domestic duties—it was
hers to order. Her judgment was supreme, her counsel never
lost. The mistress, who as "Lady Bountiful" dispensed a
wide charity, had only to say to her, "Aunt Dice, our
neighbor is sick; she needs help." Aunt Dice packed a full
basket and started on her errand of mercy, ministering to the
poor in a way well fitted to heal a mind diseased. She fed
and nursed, she cleaned and swept, until the bare, rude
homes of the poor whites shone bright with the sick faces.
The master found himself referring to her wisdom: "Dicy,
shall we kill hogs this week?"
"They's eatin' they heads off, Mos William, an' fat as
mud."
was the busy answer; and the potatoes were planted.
But Aunt Dice was also learning. Within her wholesome
surroundings she found much to edify, to help her. The
nobility and upright character of her quiet master; the
influence of the mistress, a woman of kind speech and
gentle manner; the pure atmosphere and well-ordered
household; a house whose God was the Lord, the Bible the
most honored book in the quaint old bookcase; not a home
of pretentious superiority, but one of comfort and solid
standing, of quiet, far-reaching charity and Christian
excellence—all these elements were unfolding within the
stunted soul of the slave an inherent germ of rare worth and
beauty. Her observant eyes lost nothing that could serve to
strengthen or uplift her. Her hungry soul was feeding.
At night, within her cabin, sounds of mirth and revelry
reached her from the quarters, the patter of time-keeping
feet, the music of fiddle, banjo, and ringing clevis pins. But
the sound which pleased her most, which reached her soul,
came from the cabin of Uncle Amos, which was set apart
from the quarters in the shadow of the woods; a song
whose volume of sweetness and power poured its melody
into every chink and crevice of the crowded quarters,
hushing the ruder noise of viol and uproarious mirth:
"The mo' I pray the happier I am;
I love God, glory, halleluiah!"
On the still night air the melody trembled, soared, and
reached from glory to glory:
"This religion I believe,
Glory, halleluiah!
Soon we'll land our souls up yonder,
Glory, halleluiah!"
From Pisgah's top the venerable old patriarch sang:
"Happy people ober yonder;
Happy people ober yonder;
Soon we'll meet dem ober yonder,
On de oder bright sho'."
Aunt Dice listened, and prayed. This seed, sown in good
ground, rapidly grew and bore fruit. It was shortly
afterwards, as she lay on a sick bed in the early days of her
invalidism, that Aunt Dice found the wondrous peace and
realized the power of redeeming love. The prayer of Uncle
Amos, strong in its faith, the piled-up promises before a
throne of grace, the sure answer of peace, proved to the
purchased slave the"glorious liberty" of the soul. Aunt
Dice was "converted"; to put it plainly, she was born again.
The old-time religion of Tennessee, which blazed its way
with the pioneer ax, that held its own through civil strife—the
conflict of brother with brother—that holds good to-day, was
ever afterwards her stay and support. She received her
baptism from a white minister, held her membership with a
white congregation, and drank the wine in communion—an
honored and trusted member.
The negro quarters broadened and throve under the
humane treatment of a kind, much-loved master. To say that
Aunt Dice was a valued servant and trusted friend but
faintly expressed her worth. The children were objects of her
especial care. To tell of her stanch integrity, the faithful
performance of a duty imposed upon her, it is well to say
that the pure morals she set forth, the homely advice she
gave from her great, untutored soul, live yet with the
children's children.
Her cabin was a rendezvous for the little ones, which, as
best remembered, was a log room neatly papered, with a
wide fireplace, and a loft overhead. In front, below the bluff,
ran the river, ever the friend and companion of Aunt Dice's
solitary hours. From the back door a sunny garden
stretched, where it was her habit to sit and smoke her pipe in
summer afternoons, where she watched the broad sweep of
the cotton fields, and the silver sheen of the river through
the tall sycamores that fringed its winding course. The cabin
was comfortably furnished. The old-fashioned "four-poster"
was nearly hidden beneath a huge feather bed and drapery
of the snowy counterpane. A bureau with glass handles
stood under a swinging mirror. A cupboard, suggestive of
tempting edibles, occupied one corner, while a swinging
shelf full of quilts hung from the ceiling.
Aunt Dice, sitting in her split-bottomed chair by the
broad hearth, was a conspicuous and familiar figure. She
was of low stature, and, after her restored
health, just fleshy enough to hide the waistband of
her everyday apron. In her cotton gown she looked
comfortable enough, but in her "Sunday" costume she was
more impressive—really grand-looking—wearing her black
silk gown and mantle, or black lace shawl, to advantage. Her
face is more difficult to describe—a strong, homely face,
which, whether severe or pleasing, seemed to have
"character" written in every curve and expression. Her
forehead was expansive, her eyes—not the prominent
African's—were rather small, and full of fire, whether twinkling
in fun or in those curious sidelong glances which reminded
one to be up and doing. Her nose was slightly flattened; her
broad, roomy cheeks were smooth and glossy; but her
mouth—well, those great lips could drop an inch or more in a
seemingly senseless stupor, or twist almost to each ear in a
caricature of which the children were often unfortunate
victims; yet Aunt Dice was wont to draw them up with such
a majestic sweep, such grand curves, that her face was truly
inspiring.
Beyond her faithfulness and upright qualities, her next
distinctive characteristic was pride, not in 'herself alone, but
in her surroundings—the fair possession of her beloved
owners, and the children, with whom she spared no pains to
uphold the family standing. The "grown-up children" she
considered beyond her reach or discipline; she gave them
the respect due their years, kept a shining, spotless table,
laundered their linen, critically
inspected their toilets—and their visitors. But the three
youngest—two girls in long pinafores, and a toddling boy—
she called her very own; an appropriation they were not
slow to learn, since it involved a tutelage peculiarly Aunt
Dice's.
Annie Macy, gentle and quiet, was too much her
mother's counterpart to often need reproof; but long and
many were the times that the merry, careless Katherine sat
on the low stool by the cabin hearth—to her, in truth, the
stool of repentance. Both were careful to observe their
manners and bearing more closely in this humble cabin than
in wider territory and greater freedom; for well they knew
that this was Aunt Dice's vantage ground for a lecture. A
lecture—without words—they most dreaded. If one sprawled
in her chair in unfeminine negligence, Aunt Dice would
festoon herself on every available one in the room; if one
were unfortunate enough to let fall a silly remark or show an
unwonted stupidity in Aunt Dice's presence, she would
literally double herself on the low stool, showing a dull,
expressionless face, her great lips dropping, quivering, until
from sheer pity she would laugh suddenly, lay her black
hand on the delinquent head, and say with tender emphasis:
"Don't think Aunt Dice is an ole fool, chile." Now when she
laughed, remember, she laughed all over; her whole body
caught the enthusiasm of those short metallic sounds—
quickly over; but oh, how she enjoyed it! What a light in
those small,
dark eyes! What a glow over the dark face, which was
neither a yellow nor a gingerbread color, but a truly black.
Her tears were something like her laugh—a quick,
convulsive sobbing, short sounds of grief; then her face
was its own, its cheerfulness predominant.
The boy, whom she unceremoniously dubbed Sam—or
Sammy, as occasion required—was not so easily managed;
though, strange to say, she loved him most—a love he
returned with all his might. From his crawling age he loved
the space of her broad bosom, the shelter of her arms; and
many a journey did he take astride her neck to the cotton
fields, whither she went on her quiet tours of inspection. As
a toddler he was ever at her heels, though in her cabin he
soon learned the usage of the stool, and was often put
sobbing in the white bed after a wholesome spanking, when
the storm in his blue eyes had burst in unusual violence. His
awakening, however, found a solace and recompense
sufficient even for him: the cupboard doors were as wide
open as the arms of his dark monitress.
"Whar do the chile git his temper?" was her frequent
query. "Not from Mos William, nur Miss Mary."
Many a lesson in manners and morals did she teach the
children. Her natural instincts of true courtesy and
refinement were uniformly correct . She especially detested
a giggle, and never forgave a woman she knew for a rather
boisterous
sneeze in church. Indeed, her sharp eyes were ever quick to
detect a breach of etiquette or a charm of personal manner.
Still, her cabin had other attractions. Aunt Dice was wise.
She was careful to gloss over the irksome effect of her
"preaching." Though she never tolerated a ghost story,
being free from the superstition of her race, she kept in store
a number of Indian tales for the appetite of the little folk, and
stories of wolves which howled about her cabin in the early
days of the century.
When the girls were old enough for school, Aunt Dice
made them sing their "b-a ba's" to her. While she listened
gravely, and thought them prodigies of learning. When their
samplers, worked in gay crewels, were brought to her, she
inspected them critically: "Yours'll do, Miss Anne; that's
putty well done. You mus' have one now in silk, an' hang in
mistis' room."
Over Katherine's sampler her long lip quivered and
dropped.
"You don't like it, Aunt Dice!" cried the offender, almost
in tears.
"It's sorter so, Katherine—only sorter. Them letters may
do well 'nough; but I ain't neber seen yit red leaves an' blue
roses."
Aunt Dice ruled. The truth was plain. She had probed her
way into the very hearthstone of her mistress's household;
but she never repelled or nauseated one by a close
intimacy. Cleanly in speech and person, her nature was
strong and
sweet, her influence stimulating. Under her care children
were safe.
The master found for her a wider field of usefulness. The
cabin connecting with hers by the double chimney was set
apart for her use, and it was usually filled with motherless
slaves, children whom the kind master had picked up from
less fortunate homes; outcasts, vagrants, with little
reputation to lose and much to gain. The master stood
often at her door with a new purchase: "Dicy, take this boy
to your cabin. Teach him to bathe and be clean. Teach him
how to live."
Stimulated by her master's confidence, Aunt Dice began
to wield a powerful influence; not only among her orphaned
charges, but throughout the quarters she taught in homely
language the reward of virtue, the excellency of honest,
upright living.
AUNT DICE had her own romance, however; or her sorrow,
as it seems more fitting to term a negro's tale of love. Few
guess the tragedy that lies buried beneath the stoical
exterior of negro life: bravely bearing their domestic
troubles, even cheerfully taking them up as their allotted
portion.
The master was somewhat surprised when Aunt
Dice came to him one Christmas eve, and asked his consent
to her marriage with Cæsar, a handsome,
stately negro from a neighboring plantation.
"I am sorry to hear this, Dicy," he said slowly; and
perhaps this was the most lengthened advice he had ever
given her. "I hardly like the negro. He is too great a beau
among the women; too fond of gadding about. However, I
shall do the best I can for you."
Cæsar was ambitious. The beau of the colored
community, the gallant of every social gathering, he had
looked about for years for a suitable helpmeet—a "quality
nigger," whose position would insure him a promotion to a
higher standing. His inordinate vanity suggested Aunt Dice
to him—a power at Riverside, and already an aristocrat to
her finger-tips—as a means to this end. As her husband he
would acquire a preëminence among
his own which would place him on a higher scale as
a—gentleman. Riverside, too, was a fair field for his
ambition in a business way; that is, his possible purchase
and position as overseer.
It was evident in a quiet way that Aunt Dice "favored"
Cæsar. She approved of his spotless linen, his polite
address, his elegant manners. She was attracted. His
delicate attentions pleased her. She graciously consented
when he asked, with the bow of a Chesterfield: "Lady, will
you hab de goodness to 'low me to 'scort you to chu'ch?"
Aunt Dice, sitting at the rear of the "white
meetinghouse," could not help but notice that Cæsar led
all his colored brethren in grace and deportment, a steady
dignity that with all his faults never failed to command Aunt
Dice's respect.
The master made good his promise by buying Cæsar;
perhaps he did not tell Aunt Dice the stern talk he received
from his new master, when he was promised the hand of the
favorite slave.
So they were married. A great feast was spread, one that
the darkies long remembered. Uncle Jack stood on his head
until his strained sinews reminded him of a more convenient
performance. Uncle Silas forgot his aches, and "limbered
up" for the occasion. The scraping of fiddles, the tuning of
banjos, the jingle of clevis pins, told of a breakdown for the
late festivities.
In the mistress's own parlor they stood before the white
minister while he read the beautiful formula of the marriage
ceremony. Cæsar was
resplendent in a suit of broadcloth, ruffled linen, and white
satin waistcoat. From the top of his carefully carded hair to
the tip of his polished boot he was immaculate. Aunt Dice,
clothed in pure white, and not uncomely, was quiet and
thankful for the many kindnesses conferred upon her by the
white people, and for the blessing laid upon her head under
the trembling hands of Uncle Amos.
Cæsar proved a kind husband in many respects; indeed,
he always observed toward his wife a courteous bearing
and outward show of greatest deference and respect. He
executed the honors of his cabin with all the elaborate
manners of an old-school gentleman, and the careful
hospitality of a southern host. He himself was treated with
some distinction as the husband of the princess regent: his
meals were served on a white cloth in the master's kitchen,
his morning drams from the family sideboard. Gifted with
quick intelligence and business-like tact, he was trusted
with yearly sales of produce, and never failed his master in
accurate accounts and profitable transactions. Promoted to
overseer, he indulged his love of pomp and display, and
made a stately figure in the cotton fields astride his master's
handsome black horse, or riding with conscious superiority
beside the great wagons as they rolled into Nashville, laden
with the generous harvestings.
This last purchase proved a remunerative one. Cæsar
was a valuable slave. But the master's misgivings proved
too true. Cæsar was fickle.
His shallow nature found no rest beside the deep, still fount
of his wife's love and faithfulness. Married life for him had
hardly begun before he donned his tall silk hat and renewed
his gadding about—a veritable flirt to the day of his death.
Aunt Dice bore her wrongs in silence. None ever heard
her complain. There was only a closer application to duty; a
noticeable tenderness and devotion to children; an
unconscious leaning toward the gentle mistress, who
answered the mute appeal with unstinted sympathy.
Cæsar was still an object of grave consideration with
Aunt Dice. His wants were attended to with studied care;
his silk hat and black clothes always in readiness; his
snowy, ruffled shirts the wonder and admiration of his many
dusky friends. But her affections settled more surely,
perhaps, around her own children, a son and daughter;
particularly her son, Charley, who was growing up to
manhood, and who, as the unfolding years proved, brought
upon her the keenest trial of her life.
Charley was a bright-skinned youth, with jetty curls, and
eyes that sparkled with such changeful lights that no one
could tell what lay beneath the glittering surface. "The devil
is in 'em," said his playmates.
That Charley was "rapid and onsteady" Aunt Dice
realized with sorrow. Moreover, his companionship with
Sam, the youngest born of her beloved master, caused her
constant uneasiness. How far these boys ventured into
mischief or danger,
Aunt Dice could not determine. They tamed wild colts and
broke the oxen; they hunted, fished, swam, played, and
scuffled. Aunt Dice detested this scuffling, which often
ended seriously. Charley was ever sullen and hard to
control, but Sam, her nursling, had lately begun to measure
lances with her and declare his rights as the young master of
Riverside. These bold declarations, however, had only
ended ignominiously for Sam. She found them one day—Sam
and Charley—in a hand-to-hand encounter, rolling and
scuffling on her cabin floor.
"What's the cause o' this?" she demanded in a quiet,
stern way, which sent Charley cowed to his corner. Sam
stood up straight and faced her with his stormy, blue eyes.
"He told me a lie. If he lies, he'll steal. I told him so."
"Don't be so sho' o' that, Sammy. Come here and set
down."
Again they measured lances. Sam met her keen look
boldly.
"Don't call me 'Sammy.' Call me 'Mos Sam'—Aunt Dice—I—"
Aunt Dice led him by the ear with no gentle hand to the
stool in the opposite corner.
"Set yo'se'f down thar, twell you fin' yo' manners. I'll call
you 'Mos Sam' whenever you 'sarves it, chile—whenever
you 'sarves it. O, Sam," her voice dropping suddenly, "why
ain't you like Mos William?"
from the stool which he was careful not to leave. "I never
can be like him."
"It 'pears to me, Sammy," Aunt Dice continued,
"that you've rode ever' calf on the place, an' lamed up the
colts, an' you're jist a killin' off all ole mistis' geese. I
throwed a gander in the river t' other day, an' a goose to-
day. Who is it, you or Charley?"
Mos Sam caught the wicked sparkle in Charley's eyes,
and was silent. Aunt Dice looked the guilty culprits over.
"You've allus tried to shiel' Charley, chile, but lis'en to
me: keep way f'om him; he ain't no fit comp'ny fur you."
Mos Sam wriggled on his stool. Charley dug his toes in
the ashes on the hearth and eyed his mother sullenly.
Aunt Dice picked up her knitting. Out of doors the sun
shone brightly; the birds called and whistled; the river
rippled on its way and silvery trout leaped up from its blue
waters, gleaming in the sunlight. Farther up the bluff a
crowd of negro boys plunged headlong into the cool
depths of the "big hole," their laughing whoops and "dar
ye's" sounding tantalizingly clear to the two captives
within.
Mos Sam turned his eyes from the shining stretch of river
and sought the calm glance of Aunt Dice over her busy
needles: "Mammy, I'm hungry."
Aunt Dice opened wide her cupboard doors: "Here,
chile, go 'long now. Stop yo' fightin' an' be a man," she
said—to the flying heels which disappeared around the
corner of her cabin.
CORNSHUCKING! Not the New England
"husking bee," famed in song
and story, when stalwart youths and rosy
maidens were wont to meet and dance on rude
barn floors after the busy husking; when the fortunate
finder of a red ear of corn tendered his
prize to his lady love, the one with whom he
"kept company." Oh no! but the noisy, merry
cornshucking of the ante-bellum South, when
negroes held high carnival amid swinging ears of
corn and around the laden table of the harvest
feast; when master and mistress bowed cheerfully
to the grotesque rule of the merrymakers for a
season—the swift-winged hours of the
cornshucking night.
The negro's highest ideal of enjoyment has its necessary
accompaniment of a feast. Second only to the Christmas
festivities at Riverside, with the array of baked sweetmeats,
the crammed stockings of "goodies," the bowls of creamy
eggnog, the happy "Chris'mas gif's," was the yearly
cornshucking, with its merry misrule and harvest cheer. Next
in turn came the hog-killing in frosty November, where
visions of sparerib pies and backbone stews were realized
and enjoyed. The sugar-making in February broke the torpor
of winter; and lastly, the wheat harvest in June
brought the busy reapers, whose sickles swung amid the
yellow grain to the beat and measure of their harvest song,
while the "Bob Whites" called through the livelong day.
Within a shady inclosure, kept cooler still by swathings of
wet green leaves, was the keg of whisky, no less a feature of
the summer harvest than the savory dishes served at the
quarters, where the dinner horn rang a suggestive sound
that the "big pot was put in the little one."
"Cornshucking, boys!" shouted to the laborers at
supper in the quarters' kitchen at Riverside brought forth a
slapping and beating, a whoop and call, a general stampede
of broganed feet under the kitchen table.
"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" rolled from a pair of lusty
lungs.
Preparations began. On the next day invitations went
flying across the country, up and down the river, to the
colored acquaintances of neighboring plantations. On this
particular occasion, Cæsar, who omitted no chance to
celebrate his high position, found this a convenient time to
illustrate his authority and display his wisdom as a general
manager. Pigs, lambs, and a tender calf were slaughtered,
and lay roasting slowly over hot coals in the trenches. The
hills were scoured for game, the river dragged for fish;
chickens, turkeys,
and ducks were sacrificed, while at the quarters negro
women stirred their bowls of sweetened dough,
"whipped" their frosting, or tended the ovens
of rich, sweet corn lightbread.
Aunt Dice suspended her rule and smiled over the merry
quips and quirks of the waiting women, the antics and
pranks of the pickaninnies. She spread the long tables with
clean white linen, and piled them to fullness with jellies,
custards, and dainty furnishings of her own handiwork—not
forgetting, however, to lay by a generous store for the
schoolboy Sam, who was taking his first lessons in life
under the uncertain favor of a pedagogue's rule. His dinner
bucket, Aunt Dice considered, was naturally his greatest
consolation since he had arrived at the age of pies, tarts,
and flaky pastry. She was wiser than she knew. The
schoolboy's heart beat some of its truest throbs for her
when he opened his well-packed dinner pail after a trying
lesson in syntax.
But the cornshucking!
At nightfall the steady incoming of the invited guests
crowded from over the hills and up the valleys, by twos and
threes on horseback and muleback; by the dozen in heavy,
lumbering wagons; by the half dozen in swift-gliding
canoes. The work began. The heaps of corn, piled high in
the cribs, dwindled surely under the strong hands of the
shuckers. Cæsar, ever mindful of an opportune moment to
display his superior excellence, stepped grandly in his best
clothes from crib to crib,
ordering his troop of busy boys in gathering the huskings, or
stowing the corn into barrels. Old men passed the
compliments of the day or related their experiences, replete
with wisdom. Young men "swapped" their jokes, or
bantered for shucking races in braggadocio-like tones. A
low, monotonous chanting slowly gathered strength as the
dark, smart faces swayed back and forth under the gleaming
lamplight:
"Th'ow it up, shuck it up—
Corn pile, corn pile!
Shuck it up, round it up—
Corn pile!"
Louder grew the singing; musical intonations, a call, a beat,
a whistle, touched the chorus into life:
"Th'ow it up, shuck it up—
Corn, corn, corn pile, corn!
Shuck it up, round it up—
Corn, corn pile, corn!"
The golden ears swung high, swung low. Dusky forms
swayed to and fro, while high above the din floated the
melody of the cornshucking songs, rising, falling, swelling
in perfect measure.
Pickaninnies reveled in the shuck piles. Pickaninnies
scampered from barn to quarters' kitchen, and stared with
wide-eyed wonder at the fancifully decked tables and huge
trays of smoking meats. Sounds of life and bustle at the
quarters reached the workers in the cribs, while odors of
juicy meats drifted to them from the dying coals in the
trenches.
Faster flew the busy bands. The yellow corn swung low,
swung high. The sleepy birds- twittered from the trees. The
startled king of the barnyard dunghill rang his clarion call at
ten o'clock. A hundred voices flooded the air with music,
widening, swelling, pouring into the homes of neighbors, far
and near, rocking the babies to sleep; floods of music, in
resonant bass and glorious soprano; a note, a call, a whistle
filling in the measure harmoniously. The hearty cheer of the
opening lines blended well with the repeating chorus:
"Work away, boys;
Heave-ho!
Sing away, boys;
Heave-ho!"
Words of their own improvising did not disturb the steady
rhythm:
"Gimme dat co'n year;
Heave-ho!
Th'ow me dat co'n here;
Heave-ho!"
"Fetch up dar, nigger;
Heave-ho!
Limber up, nigger;
Heave-ho!"
Uncle Amos, though hardly in his element, worked
steadily from his corner in the great barn. Duty, not
inclination, called him there. He took no part in the singing:
those songs were not religious ones, therefore he failed to
respond to the riotous music. A song of redeeming love
would
have fired his old eyes and made nimble his fingers, which
all these merry jingles had failed to do. Nevertheless, he
endured patiently, sure of a halleluiah chorus in his honor
before the carnival ended. Uncle Amos knew that
throughout the quarters his venerable white head was
universally respected. One and all did him reverence, but
never more so than when in his walk among them, as if
treading the border land of another world, they sang
sometimes in smothered tones,
"Ole man, ole man, yo' head's gettin' nappy,"
followed by a burst of applause from lusty throats:
"Yes, my Lord! an' my soul's gettin' happy."
Charley was, as usual, the imp of the occasion; an imp of
the evil one himself, so thought many who had more than
once borne his overbearing insolence and sly trickery. He
coupled his merry buffoonery with a cunning which served
him well in shirking his duty. The harvest feast was his to
enjoy, not his to serve. He walked the joists of the barn,
swung head downward, and many a well-aimed ear of corn
struck the woolly head of a busy worker.
That Charley presumed upon his honored relationship
the men of the quarters felt deeply. There were none so bold
as to inform Aunt Dice that with all her discipline, her
moralizing and instruction, she had reared one so badly.
Their well-meant sympathy and deep respect for her
kept them silent. Perhaps Aunt Dice realized her failure more
than they knew, though as usual her mantle of proud
reserve shielded her from curious questions and unpleasant
advice.
But little cared Charley for their liking or dislike as he
swung high among the rafters, whooping, calling, or
blowing his flute-like canes. He jeered at the older and
bantered the younger men, and wound up his antics by
stepping coolly in front of the master himself, who looked in
occasionally, and executing a jig of fantastic figures with
wonderful rapidity.
"Bless dat boy!" said Uncle Jack cheerfully.
"He needs a tech o' Moses' rod," snarled Silas, whose
ear smarted from a recent blow.
"He sho' is a hard boy," declared Steven, whose wisdom
was seldom questioned.
"Dat he is!" responded a chorus of emphatic voices.
"But you is got dat up wrong, Uncle Silas,
suh," continued Steve, who considered no meeting complete
without an argument. "I ain't neber hear nothin' 'tall 'bout
Moses' rod; but Sol'mun do p'intedly say in fust Ginisis,
when he was libin' at—"
"Normandy," interpolated Jack.
"At Jerushalem, dat ef you spar de rod you sho' spile de
boy. Ain't dat so, Uncle Amos?"
"Do your own arguin'," said Uncle Amos.
"Where is Normandy, Jack?" queried Sam, an amused
listener from the window.
"Now listen at young moster!" exclaimed Jack busily. "I
don't 'zackly 'member, suh, whar dat kentry is; I suttenly see
it in my trabels, some'r's 'long 'bout Novy Scotia, Ontario, or
de Lowlands," he concluded, with all a negro's fondness for
musical names.
"Now to 'clude my disc'urse," persisted Steven, who
could read laboriously: "f'om de 'casion o' Uncle Amoses
last demark, it natchelly comes to min' dat to argefy we mus'
hab a toler'ble knowledge of de Bible; dat is, to 'lustrate, ef
we steal an' lie—I say ef—how cum us to know de wrong,
les'n de Bible speshelly say so. So de kon'squence is, an' de
natchel impersition mus' be, dat to be saved inter de
kingdom come, de Bible mus' p'int de way. How's dat, Uncle
Amos?"
"I don' know nothin' 'bout de Bible, 'cep'n what de white
folks say," said Uncle Amos.
"Den, suh, de question is, how cum you know you'se
bawn ag'in?"
"I wunst wus blind, but now I see," said the old slave
simply.
"Das so, das so," said wise Steven.
The shuffling of feet in the cribs, the triumphant
cheering, told of the last "rounding up." The tall clock in the
master's dining room pealed the hour of twelve.
"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" sang the workers.
Charley, from his high resting place, made a monkey
spring for Silas's aching back, and bounded out the door to
be first at the feast.
Uncle Amos quietly left his corner as the last heap of
corn was rapidly disappearing. He found his way to the
quarters where the waiting tables stood, and Cæsar waited
also to do the honors of Riverside.
"Aunt Dice, tell Mos William to hide—dey's nearly
done."
On such occasions the master little relished the
demonstrative affection of his slaves—a ceremonial ride
three times around his dwelling on the hands of a stalwart
pair of leaders. He chose to "hide" after ordering a keg of
his best brandy to the feast.
"Dram, dram; oh, dat bottle!" On they came in a
column of two abreast, marching to the stone steps of the
back gallery; but the master's significant absence and a
word from Aunt Dice turned the column with noisy
cheering back to the quarters.
And such a feast! Barbecues, brown and juicy, from a
rabbit to a fat porker. Fish, broiled, baked, and fried;
opossum and sweet potatoes; ducks, geese, and turkeys,
roasted and stuffed; enormous chicken potpies; gallons of
steaming coffee; mounds of frosted cakes; piles of
puddings, jellies, and elaborately trimmed pies!
The master and his household stood smiling in the
background. Uncle Amos lifted his hands and praised the
"good God fur de blessin' of de harvus' feas', fur de kin' ole
moster an' mistis, an' de glory of His name."
Negro women dressed in smart clothes served from the
heaped-up side tables, under the quiet orders of Aunt Dice.
Two hours afterwards the scraping fiddles and beating
feet signaled the grand finale. The "halleluiah" chorus,
which was not forgotten, aroused Uncle Amos from his
morning nap.
The galloping horses churning the river, the swish of
canoes, the soft stroke of paddles, the shouts and calls,
proclaimed the hour of dawn and the departure of the
guests.
With the sunrise Aunt Dice stood at her post by the rum
barrel and kindly greeted the advancing row of laborers.
Cæsar sat his horse like a king. The cornshucking was over.
THE eldest son of the house was married. The master settled
him on a plantation several miles up the river, and Charley
was given to him as part of his marriage portion, which
was a relief to Aunt Dice, as he disturbed the quarters with
a quarrelsome, dictatorial disposition.
Uncle Amos, too, though old in years, followed the
nursling of his heart with the same devotion as when, in his
younger days, he had followed his old master, then a tender
stripling, from far-off Virginia.
Two years were spent in busy life. Aunt Dice spared no
pains to uphold the open hospitality of prosperous
Riverside. She spread a tasteful and bounteous table. The
old-fashioned sideboard glittered with crystal goblets, bowls
of white loaf sugar, and quaint decanters of wine and
brandy, for the refreshing of guests and numerous callers—a
time-honored custom, now happily abolished.
The elder daughters, two, were married and
"settled in homes of their own," Aunt Dice said proudly.
The children, Anne and Katherine, were well provided for.
New lands were added to Riverside, new farms bought, and
Mos Sam was known now as the young master.
Mos Sam had earned his title at last—quite deservingly,
Aunt Dice thought, though she still brought him to his
senses occasionally, when his hot, imperious temper flashed
from the storm of his eyes. Charley no longer urged him on.
The fat steers chewed their cuds in peace; the colts frisked
and played in the pastures; the geese recovered their
dignity and breasted the blue waves of the river with their
wonted calmness.
Mos Sam was wrestling with mightier questions. He
pored over dry books of chemistry, he conned his Latin
verbs, he battled with his geometry, under the threatening
rod of the Yankee schoolmaster.
"Dat Yankee school-teacher! Whar he come
f'om?" asked Aunt Dice suddenly, after he was duly
installed at Riverside as a permanent boarder.
"From Vermont," answered Sam, shortly.
"Whar's dat?"
"Away up north."
"Furriner?"
"Oh no, Aunt Dice; he's an American."
"He talk cur'ous," she said, musingly, "an' he make too
free wid de niggers. Got any niggers?" she asked quickly.
"Yankees don't believe in niggers; or rather, they don't
believe in—slavery," stumbled Sam, with a southerner's
reluctance for the word. "They hold for equality."
"Hub! fine ekals niggers be—fur gen'l'mun an' ladies.
Who waits on 'em?"
"The Yankees? They wait on themselves commonly, or
hire white hands."
"Humph! I mistrus' him," she said, emphatically. "I'll sho'
speak to Mos William 'bout him. He furgits his learnin' when
he tries to beat it into you—an' his raisin'."
"I'll whip him, Aunt Dice, some day."
Aunt Dice laid her pipe on the shelf.
"Mos Sam, outside o' his whuppin' you, can't ye all see
how he's a follerin' 'long o' Miss Kath'rine—totin' of her
books to school, sailin' 'bout in the skyft together, an' a fillin'
of her han's wid flowers an' sich like? Who can tell what's in
dat chile's head; an' what would she do widout niggers to
wait on her?"
But Mos William smiled over Aunt Dice's warning, and
refused to part with the Yankee schoolmaster. Good schools
were rare in youthful Tennessee.
Aunt Dice was comforted somewhat. Mos William was
wise; he seldom made mistakes. Mos Sam was certainly on
the mend—but no niggers! What sort of folks could that
Yankee have? She would keep an eye upon him.
The old house echoed to the sounds of merriment and
pleasant life. The quarters flourished. Swarms of negro boys
fished and swam in the river; swarms of pickaninnies rolled
on the grass. Uncle Jack, with his wiry subalterns, led out
from the stables his master's thoroughbreds, whose sleek
coats shone like burnished copper, and started
for the Franklin and Triune races, singing the rather
stirring couplet:
"De fust time she cum roun' she open de way;
De nex' time she cum roun' she bid 'um 'Good-day.
The golden harvests filled the barns. Cæsar rode
pompously back and forth inspecting the daily work of busy
slaves. Aunt Dice stepped to the music of wheel and loom,
or quickened to the far-off melody of the workers' songs: she
was happy. Then came a rude awakening. Rumors floated
down the river: "Charley was quarrelsome." Aunt Dice was
filled with dread. "Charley kept strife in the quarters." A
season of suspense, and the news came, swift as the
dancing waves of the river: Charley was to be sold. Again
the waves came prattling by: "Sold to a slave dealer, to be
carried south!" Then it was that Aunt Dice knelt at her
master's feet; her proud reserve fled in the hour of her
agony: "Mos William! Mos William! save him!"
Charley was brought in, bound, to bid his mother good-by.
The master stood by and offered his worth, twice, three
times his value. But the slave dealer was obdurate. He had
bought him conditionally: he was not to sell him in
Tennessee. Tears and entreaties were of no avail; mother
and son were separated. The burden of her heart so proudly
guarded, the dread and suspense of a nameless fate for her
wayward son were at last revealed and realized. How she
took up the broken threads of life, wove into them her
uniform cheerfulness and steady devotion to duty, none can
judge. Yet it is well to say that through all this stormy period
she never lost her cheerful demeanor toward her white
people; more noticeably toward the children, where her
inexhaustible store of a rare, quaint humor never failed.
She passed a quiet winter. The fattened swine were killed,
and the great smokehouse hung full of brown, cured meat.
The cotton was picked, spun, and woven. Barrels of
homemade soap were stored away in March; then—but
perhaps the river could tell it best—how the floods came in
the springtime and lifted a hoarse cry; how her brown waters
crept over field and swamp and piled her bosom with
driftwood; how she laughed again when the summer
returned with its hot sunshine; how the bright blue waters
danced and rippled with a cruel mirth, or gurgled softly
around the gray cliffs of the cemetery, whispering of the
east-lying swamps and the deadly typhoid fever.
For silence reigned at Riverside. No longer the wagon
wheels creaked under heavy burdens; no longer the
negroes' songs rang out from the field in wild melody. The
charcoal forge had paled to ashes; the music of wheel and
loom had ceased, for the silence of death was within. In the
quarters dusky forms lay tossing in pain and wild delirium;
stiffened bodies were carried from cabin doors to people the
heights of Riverside cemetery.
winds blew with the breath of a thousand flowers. Deadly
white fogs crept up from the valleys and hung the rugged
cliffs in ghostly drapery. It was a bright morning in August,
when the birds sang aglee with life, that within the darkened
home of Riverside one of the master's sons lay dead.
Aunt Dice stood the battle bravely. With her master by
her side, she trod the rounds of her mission, tiring neither by
day nor night. Not that the blow fell less severely on her: her
only daughter was among the first to die, and left to her care
three orphan children; neither did her strength fail when
Cæsar fainted from the bleeding process then administered,
and was put to bed to fight the fever at this fearful
disadvantage.
Uncle Jack lay down with the rest—happy-hearted Uncle
Jack, who never spared a kindly deed nor hoarded a kindly
smile. He lay with a mute appeal in his fevered eyes until
Aunt Dice closed them forever.
"Will this never end, Dicy?" the master sometimes said,
as his tears fell on the stricken faces. He had borne his own
sorrow quietly, but the sufferings of these helpless blacks
appealed to his nature in strongest sympathy.
Still the fever raged on, and Cæsar went out one night on
the wings of its wrath. Cæsar was dead. Cæsar, the gallant
beau, the gay Lothario, but ever the polite and courteous
Cæsar, was dead. This was a blow to Aunt Dice. He was her
sorrow, but yet her pride. She would miss him
sorely—his delicate attentions, his unfailing courtesy, his
efficient help among the negroes; she would miss his
shrewd management. His stately figure in the cotton
fields she would see no more. His failings she
remembered, but they rested lightly upon her, now that
he was dead. He was laid away carefully in his black
clothes and snowy linen, and looked in his narrow bed
as if he needed but the tall silk hat to take up his gay
life again.
The end came at last. The fever was spent. There
were long days of rest at Riverside, days of calm while
the summer waned, and the convalescent negroes dozed
in their cabin doors, or fished lazily with hook and line under
the shady sycamores. With the frost came reaction. The axes
rang steadily and clear in the hills, and from the whitened
fields the harvest songs told in quavering music of renewed
hope and energy. There was little to tell of the fearful fever save
the fresh-heaped mounds of earth and the tall marble shafts
that gleamed amid the cedars at Riverside cemetery.
AUNT DICE went her quiet way. It
seemed as if she had taken up her mission
understandingly—bearing her own
troubles quietly, and assuming the burdens of
others. The cabin adjoining hers was filled with
orphan charges; but the three children of her
daughter Fanny she kept in her own room with
a faithful nurse whom the master had provided.
The youngest of the three, a tiny infant taken
from her dead mother's bosom, required her
constant oversight.
"How is our little pet, Dicy?" was the master's daily
question.
The "little pet" throve wonderfully. "Pet" she was
called, and a pet she was, fortunately for her, to the
end of her short life. At her crawling age she
developed a fondness for the "white folks' house," and
a veritable black crow she was by nature or
practice—always into mischief, or into forbidden
grounds, wherever her insatiable curiosity led her fat
little body. The mistress indulged and petted her, and
kept her often out of harm's way in the cozy sitting-room
corner, or claimed her attendance when she, the
mistress, went her weekly rounds among the sick and
poor.
Aunt Dice returned in full measure the kindness
heaped upon her during her late affliction.
The children of her mistress—always "the children" with
Aunt Dice, though they were growing to manhood and
womanhood—were objects of her unsparing devotion. Her
rebukes were a little more stern, perhaps; but even in this
she was never tiresome, always ending a lecture with a
quaint piece of drollery and inimitable grotesqueness that
one must have known to understand. Aunt Dice was never
loquacious. Her sentences were short, terse, and to the
point. Indeed, if an expressive gesture could avail, words
were not used. A shrug of her shoulders was a sign of
disapproval; her dropped lip a ridicule and sufficient lecture
in itself; her sidelong look a question that laid bare the heart;
but one of her broad, sunshiny smiles was a sufficient
recompense for all the golden deeds ever done at Riverside.
Katherine, the eldest of "the children," was thoroughly
initiated into these ways; and Katherine now was uppermost
in Aunt Dice's mind, for with the blooming womanhood and
brilliant beauty of this "merry maiden" the question of a
possible marriage forced itself upon Aunt Dice's mind. She
looked with some dismay upon the prospects of her
nursling. Who was her choice? Could it still be the Yankee
schoolmaster, who was soon to return to his northern home?
Aunt Dice only hoped he would depart in peace, and leave
the child where negroes were plentiful. Or was it her Cousin
Harry—handsome, good-natured Mos Harry, who had
strings of negroes to be sure,
but was much too fond of his wine cup and much too
generous to "save money"?
Aunt Dice put the question plainly when Katherine next
visited her cabin: "Who is you goin' to marry, chile?
"Guess, Aunt Dice," said the spoiled "chile," spreading
out her dainty skirts and resting her slippered feet on the old
dog iron.
"That Yankee school-teacher?" ventured the
interrogator, painfully.
Katherine pulled a soft, dark curl over her sparkling eyes
and smiled wickedly.
"Not yo' Cousin Harry? He's shiftless, chile, if he is a
Macy."
A ringing laugh caused the questioner to stumble sadly
in her guessing.
"Sho'ly not that ill- mannered upstart what brags on his
money? I'd ruther 'twould be that Yankee—"
The dark curls rested in Aunt Dice's lap. A little ear
showed rosy red. "Aunt Dice, you dear, blind old mammy,
where are your sharp eyes?"
"The preacher!" said mammy suddenly, dropping her
pipe in her surprise. "Who would a thought it? Well, well,
chile, you'll never be rich, that's sho', but you'll be kin'ly
keered fur all the same. You shall have some niggers to wait
on ye. Thar's Harriet an' Chany, Dick an' Joel—all Amos's
grandchildren. An' you've got a nice home all waitin' fur ye."
Aunt Dice had thought little of the "preacher" as a
possible suitor, though he was often at Riverside, as at
other plantations, preaching at the quarters, visiting the
sick, faithful in duty and earnest in action. He pleased Aunt
Dice. Earnest endeavor always pleased her.
The wedding came off quietly, and very beautiful
Katherine looked in her white gown and flowing veil; a new
dignity on her bright young face, a graver smile on her red
lips, which answered to the name of "wife."
With the following winter came a surprise which was a
joy and pain to Aunt Dice. It was at the time of sugar-making
in the hills, and the campers-out made merry over great
kettles of boiling maple sirup, their songs and laughter
floating out on the frosty air. Aunt Dice went out to the hills
on her daily round of inspection; but what was her surprise
to see her son Charley, the gayest of the gay, the central
figure of the group by the camp fires!
Charley had "run off"; had found his way, no one knew
how, through the trackless miles of forest and swamp, to
"home and old moster." But the master could avail nothing,
though he again tried to buy him when the slave dealer
appeared. Charley was not discouraged. He bestowed a
parting message, full of hope: "Sho' now, mammy, 'tain't no
use to grieve a'ter me. I'se gwine to keep on runnin' off twell
moster do buy me."
He was as good as his word. When the harvest feast was
spread, and the shuckers swung their corn to the measure of
musical rhyme, Charley surprised them by a spring to the
great barn floor, and a rapid "pitapat," executed with
wonderful agility for his worn shoes and weary legs.
"Dat 'strep'rous boy'll get his 'sarts some day,"
commented Steven.
"A rascally scound'el," said Silas, who had survived the
fever, and lived to anathematize his kind.
Charley was hardly a welcome visitor at the quarters,
even under this romantic guise, though his ability as a
"runaway nigger," and his varied experiences, true or
imaginary, surprised and interested them. His stay was
short. After the Christmas festivities, the reappearance of
the slave dealer caused him to turn his face toward southern
Mississippi.
Again the dreary length of miles was traversed, and again
Charley arrived at Riverside, footsore and weary; after which
the exasperated owner sold him—not to the master, but to a
neighboring planter across the river.
Soon afterwards Aunt Dice gave evidence of a weakness
that sorely puzzled her kind old master. "This is Dicy's only
slip," he was wont to say. The "slip" was a second marriage,
to an old half-witted negro, called Joe Cris, an overseer on
the plantation to which Charley belonged. The marriage was
sudden, and seemingly without reason.
Even Charley could not understand this foolish step.
The master's consent had not been asked; indeed, she had
been married some weeks before the news reached him.
Joe Cris was a standing theme for a joke at Riverside
quarters. He was a small, dark African—a Guinea negro, some
called him—with an unusual infliction of impediments: a
halting speech; an ambling, rolling gait; eyes that struggled
painfully to focus an object; and a brain which served him
well with its one merit—that of remaining true to its one idea,
which merit alone raised him to overseer. He did as he was
ordered, just that and no more. He lacked the ingenuity to
go farther, the cunning to do less; so he served well in his
place as second overseer.
None ever dreamed that Aunt Dice could look twice at
simple Joe Cris. His Saturday night visits had been barely
tolerated by her, though always accompanied by some
humble offering—a string of pepper, a hen and chickens, a
jug of molasses—which she accepted with a stately reserve
that made his humble attention more cringing.
With "Mrs. Cris" the joke came to a sudden end. Who
was bold enough to laugh at Aunt Dice? So in the quarters
there was a painful silence. Aunt Dice went about quietly,
very quietly, almost like one dreaming, while the
pickaninnies reveled in sunshine and idle hours,
disregarding her low call to duty.
first sore surprise, kindly let the matter rest, understanding
well Aunt Dice's proud reserve, and forbearing to question
the motive, wise or unwise, of her sudden marriage. His
confidence in her was not shaken. His sympathy, though
unasked, was tendered in various ways. Aunt Dice was still
the honored and trusty servant. Indeed, the bond between
her kind master and herself seemed more closely drawn as
her tender devotion upheld his approaching infirmities. His
dependence upon her was great, greater than she knew. She
watched him as he sat on the back gallery, the sunlight on
his silvered head, an open Bible across his knees. "That
Bible is jes' blistered with his tears," she said. She followed
him with anxious interest as he went his quiet way among his
slaves; his tenderness and care of them she never spoke of
without emotion. He carried them upon his heart; their
welfare was his constant study. He felt deeply the
responsibility of these ignorant souls upon his own. He
went to Aunt Dice one day with a message from Uncle
Amos, who was done with earthly things. "Go to him, Dicy;
see that he has a clean pillow to die on."
Aunt Dice departed on her mission. On a snow-white bed,
the dying saint prayed his last prayer and sang his last
halleluiah on earth. She returned home with an aching heart.
Mos William was failing; he would soon follow. She
watched him, waited upon him; she tended and served him,
her stern composure almost upset at times by his kindly
smile. A long talk they had together, after which Aunt Dice
was never quite the same: there was a greater devotion; a
steadier watchfulness, if possible; a tenderer interest in her
master's children, as if she had thrown aside her own
troubles as worthless things, and had consecrated herself
wholly to her master's own.
Still, with the undiminished confidence and esteem of her
dear master, Aunt Dice, though deeply grateful, could not
bring herself once to explain to him the cause of her sudden
marriage. Regarding her own private burdens she was, as
usual, mute and noncommittal.
A year afterwards, to her unspeakable sorrow, her master
sickened and died, after having at last succeeded in buying
Charley and restoring him to his mother. This last act
overcame her reserve—too late, indeed, for the master's ears,
but around the finished grave, when the white mourners had
departed, and the negroes, hitherto orderly and quiet, lifted a
wail for the dead master, there was heard a sharp note of
agony, and Aunt Dice knelt in passionate grief.
"O my master! my blessed master! I married him to be
kind to Charley; an' ye never knowed it! ye never knowed it!"
The negroes stood with bared heads and listened. In that
wild regret the mystery of the second marriage was
explained. To shield the wayward Charley—the insolent,
overbearing Charley—she had sacrificed herself.
IN the quiet days that followed, Aunt Dice recovered
her usual flow of spirits and wonted activity. The
plantation throve under her wise rule and industrious
example. The negroes respected, obeyed her. Charley was
married, and happier than formerly in the home of his youth.
Joe Cris no longer troubled Aunt Dice, but considerately
kept away, visiting her only once a year, bringing his humble
offering as an apology for his presence. These visits were
received with studied kindness, but great formality. Perhaps
the simple old soul felt dimly that he had greatly wronged
Aunt Dice; perhaps the enormity of her sacrifice dawned
upon him in a clearer afterthought, for he held to the day of
his death that "Miss Dicy" was as far above him as the stars.
To the mistress Aunt Dice was a trusted friend, a friend of
long-tried worth and human excellence. The young heir of
Riverside, who had returned from college, returned also—to
rule? Oh no! to the safe covert of Aunt Dice's ample wings
and to her almost idolatrous affection. Mos Sam was ever
afterwards the song of her heart and burden of her prayers.
But her next care was now her young mistress,
Anne, who was gentler than ever in her black
gown, growing more and more like her honored mother,
consequently more and more dear to Aunt Dice. The
question of her approaching marriage was a responsible
one, now that the master's wise counsel was no more. Aunt
Dice smoked many a pipe over the problem; she pondered
deeply, silently, as the fragrant puffs floated up the
broad-throated chimney.
Would he pass—that slender, boyish-looking doctor, who
was so kind to Mos William in his last illness—who had
already won her mistress's gentle respect; would he pass?
She learned that he had settled near a small village four
miles distant, and had begun the practice of medicine; but
who was he—Mos John Trevor? Mos Sam, who looked a
stranger through, had received him kindly, generously; a
sure sign of approval.
The "young doctor" himself had given Aunt Dice no
cause for disquietude; indeed, from the beginning of his
friendly footing at Riverside he had shown a fondness for
her—an honest admiration, which she had unconsciously
returned. How could she have felt otherwise when he had
shown from the first a respect and delicate consideration for
her, which she had never failed to appreciate? To her
surprise he followed at her heels, talking, laughing,
questioning, enthusiastic over the winding river, the high
cliffs, the blue hills. He praised her cooking, her feathered
brood of fowls, her neat dairy. He even found his way to her
cabin, and developed a fondness for her cupboard,
second only to Mos Sam himself. Aunt Dice soon found
herself appropriated. She cleaned his gun, mended his
fishing-net, and instructed him as to the "likeliest" holes in
the river for fishing. He reminded her of a boy turned loose
from school to a long holiday. And so it was: the fresh,
green beauty of Riverside was a rest indeed from the long
lecture room at the Nashville Medical College, which he had
quitted, however, with no small honor, it was said.
But this "boy," hardly turning twenty-one, was to wed
sweet Anne Macy, one of the children of Aunt Dice's heart.
The stern experience of her own sad life admonished her.
Would the boy make the man in this case? When trials
came—as they surely visited all—would he pass, would he hold
true? She resorted to the usual formula—a trying ordeal of
questions.
"Whar his folks live, Miss Anne?"
"In Nashville, Aunt Dice," answered Anne painfully.
"Humph! city folks! Ain't they bought a place roun' here
some'r's?"
"The plantation, Beechwood, near West Afton."
"I know where 'tis—a likely place, though West Afton
might be called 'Mud River,' fur its color. Is they got many
niggers at Beechwood?" she asked carelessly.
"I suppose so, Aunt Dice."
"I likes the boy, Miss Anne," Aunt Dice concluded,
noticing Anne's flushed face; "but he's
too young—too young. Seems ef he can't git 'nough fishin'
an' huntin' 'long o' Mos Sam. He ain't took life in earnest
yit, but he'll have to learn by'mby—then will he stan' by ye
faithful?"
"Brother Sam speaks well of him, Aunt Dice," said
patient Anne; "he says he is a man of fine morals and
upright character—"
"Oh, he's been well raised, that I knows; he's
well-behavin' an' p'lite, an' none too heavy-handed at the
sideboard, I notice. I never 'spect to see anuther Mos
William, but he may do well 'nough. I wish ye well, chile; I
wish ye well. You'll have my own gran'chilluns to wait on ye;
they're young, but I'll look a'ter ye."
John Trevor and sweet Anne Macy were married.
Riverside looked beautiful that soft October night. The
rooms shone brightly. From dining room to guest chamber,
all was complete under the finishing touch of Aunt Dice's
faithful fingers. The mistress, clad in a black satin gown
which hung in straight lustrous folds about her, her soft
muslin kerchief folded neatly over her bosom, her dark hair
parted smoothly over madonna-like brows, looked every
inch her real self—a sweet, old-fashioned southern woman.
John Trevor arrived from Nashville with his mother and
sisters—women Aunt Dice knew at a glance to be gracious
and womanly. She stood on the lawn in her best black silk as
the carriage, with its stately-stepping horses, drew up
through the double gate.
"I'm glad the chile was well fixed fur clo'es," Aunt Dice
said afterwards, by way of a cheerful remark to the lonely
mistress. "Thar was her white dress in co'se fur the weddin';
then her lavender-sprigged mull will do well 'nough over
lavender silk fur secon' mo'nin'; then thar's her bomb'zine, an'
black silk, an' bonnits to match, an' all them putty chintzes
made the new blouse waist. Mos John's folks is nice people.
I partic'lar favored one o' them gals."
"Which one, Aunt Dice?" asked the young master,
flashing a keen look upon her.
"The one that wus tall an' fair, with the sweet, proud
look—Miss Helen, they calls her."
Mos Sam whistled softly, looking far out at the silver-flashing
river, through the sunlit sycamores. Perhaps he "favored" her too—the tall, fair girl, with the "sweet, proud
look."
DOCTOR TREVOR and his young wife
were often at Riverside; a swift horse to
a light buggy soon covered the five-mile
distance. He was always sure of a welcome.
The mistress smiled upon him. The young
master greeted him cordially. Aunt Dice
ministered to him, gradually unbending from her
dignified demeanor and favoring him occasionally
with her grotesque figures, grimaces, and
caricatures, all of which conveyed a moral easily
interpreted by the wise observer. Notwithstanding,
she watched him closely. John Trevor was still
boyish and full of fun. He climbed the hills,
hunted in the Barrens, and fished for hours by the
deep blue "hole" under the bluff. When called
professionally, as he was now the family physician,
his first greeting from the double gate was:"Quick, Aunt
Dice—my pole and reel! I'll have
time for an hour's fishing." Aunt Dice began to wonder
if life would ever prove an earnest thing to the
pleasure-loving young physician.
True to her word, she rode over to Beechwood at stated
intervals on her mistress's riding horse, to look after Anne
and her household. These visits John Trevor usually
appropriated. To him Aunt Dice was an unfailing source of
amusement. He never tired of her droll ways and quaint
remarks.
He followed her from kitchen to garden; he chatted with her,
questioned her, smoked with her, ever on the alert for a new
gesture or original saying. To him she was a study. He
delighted in reading to her short, simple stories, content to
watch her grave, puzzled face. He ransacked the library for a
suitable story, one within the range of her understanding.
Ah! he had it—a simple thing, giving in connection with a
domestic scene a detailed account of choice eatables,
cooked to a turn.
Aunt Dice listened. For once she was on a level with the
story. The savor of imaginary viands on an imaginary table
smote her nostrils. She interrupted him: "Stop, Mos John!
stop! I'm a perishin' fur a piece o' co'nbread—I'm so
hungry." Mos John laughed delightedly and—lunched with
her.
Aunt Dice's intense pride, her grand air, the majestic
sweep of her broad lips, interested as well as amused John
Trevor. She never wore gaudy colors, nor used a head
handkerchief—a style too significant of the common
African type to suit her patrician fancy. Despite her color,
she never termed herself a negro. She had pondered long
over the problem of her lineage, contenting herself at last
with the concession that she sprang from the bluest "blue
blood" of far-away Africa. When suggested to her by John
Trevor—by reason of gout in her great toe—that she may have
descended from a long race of kings,
for centuries used to high living and princely diet
(cannibalism was omitted), she listened gravely, and
must have believed herself a princess in cotton, for ever
afterwards this particular toe received her tenderest
consideration. In spite of her precautions, Aunt Dice
found within her heart a growing fondness for Mos
John. "He ain't been tried yit," she argued; but she
carried home a cheerful report to the mistress. "Mos
John's a good purvider—a leetle too free-handed with
money, but Miss Anne's well keered fur."
Aunt Dice's services were often in demand at
Beechwood. One day in the following spring Anne
Trevor read in some dismay a note which her husband
had laid in her hand. It ran thus:
April 15, 185-
My Boy: I shall drive out next Thursday with a party of
friends to spend the day with you.
Have us a good dinner.
Affectionately,
JOHN TREVOR, SR.
"What shall we do?" asked Anne, helplessly. "Too
early for vegetables—Eliza so inexperienced—"
"Send for Aunt Dice," advised John, promptly.
Aunt Dice was sent for.
"Got many aigs?" she asked, after due explanations.
"Yes, several dozen."
"Then I'll make out. Kill me a sucking pig, Mos
John," she said, rising busily; "make the
niggers seine fur fish. Tell 'em I want a sof'-shell turtle,
sho', fur soup. Gimme one o' your fattes' hens, Miss
Anne, an' that'll do fur meat. Git out your bes' table
kiver, your gol' ban' chany, ole mistis giv' you, an' see
ef your silver needs a shine."
Thus strengthened, the work progressed. Aunt Dice
flitted hither and thither, retarded only by the persistent
attendance of John Trevor, who enjoyed the pleasant
bustle. "He's the wust sp'iled boy I knows of," she said
cheerfully. "You'll have to humor him all your days,
Miss Anne."
Thursday came, and with it the guests. Aunt Dice
surveyed the table with some pride. The sucking pig
lay roasted whole, with a rosy apple in his mouth; the
fat hen, garnished with parsley and boiled eggs, was
brown and juicy; the turtle soup, excellent; the salads,
fish, and potatoes, perfect. Crimson jellies and amber
wine gleamed rich and warm with the burnished silver
and sweet spring flowers. Strong black coffee, served
in tiny cups, was sent to the pleasant drawing-room.
John Trevor, Sr., recognized a good dinner. Before
his departure he sought Aunt Dice, bent on the
usual "tipping," a custom of the times.
"Aunt Dice," he said kindly, tendering
her a shining coin, "you gave us a
good dinner, a good dinner, ma'am. You are an
excellent cook, I see."
"Thanky, suh," said Aunt Dice, drawing up her
lips; "but I never 'ceive money, suh, fur duty."
"Take your money, madam!" roared the astonished
visitor, tossing the coin on the floor and retiring somewhat
discomfited. "Zounds! My son, it seems you have an
aristocrat in your kitchen."
"An aristocrat indeed, father!" laughed John Trevor. "A
true blue-blooded patrician."
It was ever a rule with Aunt Dice to make or earn her own
living: she kept her fowls and received a steady income for
her fancy cookery at the country stores. Beyond the many
presents bestowed upon her, which she accepted with a
grateful pride, her whole life was spent for others, "without
money and without price."
During the next fall Aunt Dice was sent for on quite a
different errand—to the bedside of a sick slave. Charity, the
laundress of the family, was ill—stout, able-bodied Charity,
who laughed and sang over her tubs and ironing table, but
who never found time to consider the possible failure of
strength or the ending of life. She was sick unto death, Aunt
Dice knew from the first. She watched the young master
keenly. He was attentive, skillful as a physician; but would
he nurse a sick slave as tenderly as her kind old master had
done? One night she went quietly to his room, where he sat
reading: "Mos John, Charity's dyin', an' she's—afeard. Can't
you send to Miss Kath'rine's fur the preacher?"
"He is not at home, Aunt Dice," he said,
rising; "I will do what I can."
"You?" She eyed him doubtfully as he took up a Bible
from the table.
"Come on."
"Turn them niggers out, Mos John," she said as they
entered the cabin.
John Trevor sternly ordered out a crowd of negro
women, who for hours had been chanting and moaning over
the wages of sin and the eternal damnation of the sinner.
Charity lay, with wild, fear-stricken eyes, tossing,
turning, muttering over and over the pleading cry, "I'se 'feard to
die, Mos John! I'se 'feard to die!"
John Trevor sat by her bedside, and talked to her quietly
of the Saviour's love, his plenteous redemption and free
grace; he knelt beside her, and poured out an earnest prayer
for peace, for the seal of divine forgiveness. But the wild
eyes gazed on him hopelessly; the restless head tossed over
the pillow. The horror of death enveloped her. The master
opened the Bible and read to her, words of life, of wonderful
promises, and of sure fulfillment. He sang to her, in rich, full
tones, songs of redeeming love. Still the dying negress
moaned and prayed in despair. Again the master knelt,
pleading, struggling, persevering, holding up the promises
on which he had built his faith.
Aunt Dice, sitting quietly by the hearth, looked at him
inquiringly. "Will you give it up?" the mute glance said.
"Until morning light, Aunt Dice," the master answered,
turning to the bed with a firm resolve
on his boyish face, as if he had said, as Jacob did, "I will
not let thee go, except thou bless me."
Aunt Dice listened reverently, though not without an
amazed surprise, as the young master held up before the
dying slave a crucified Redeemer—his boundless love and
mercy, his wonderful power. Could this be the gay,
fun-loving young physician into whose care she had almost
feared to trust the child of her rearing? Could this earnest
watcher by the bedside be the boy of a short year ago,
whom she had questioned so seriously? A beautiful light
was shining in his eyes, grown suddenly so dear to her.
Words fell from his lips in strange eloquence. Aunt Dice had
a higher conception of the Wonderful One that night than
she had ever had before. She listened surprisedly, and with
quickened pulses, as he told of living waters—of springs in
the wilderness and streams in the desert.
Through the long hours of the night the master pleaded,
prayed, sang, battling against death itself for a purchased
soul. The negress lay at last with her eyes upon his face,
listening, feeding upon the words of life. The restless
tossing ceased. The master sang, in clear, full tones—tones
that since have soothed many a dying pillow:
"Are not thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in thee?"
A look of peace stole over the dying face. He sang again,
softly:
"Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are."
There was a flash of light, a cry of joy: "Free,
Mos John! I'm free—free!"
The sunlight touched the chimney tops at Beechwood,
gilded the cabin walls of the quarters, as the soul of
the slave, in a transport of joy, sped out on the wings of the
morning.
Aunt Dice laid her rough, dark hand on the master's
head: "Thar—thar—Mos John; you've
done 'nough. Come up to the house, an' rest."
She entered the room where the young wife lay, listening.
"Git up f'om thar, Miss Anne!" she said sharply. "Why
ain't you had Mos John a cup o' hot coffee? O, chile!" she
cried, breaking into convulsive sobbing, as she noticed the
tear-wet pillow, "he'll do—Mos John'll do—ye needn't
never be afeard."
THE old conservative South had many virtues to call her own.
Not the least of these was the purity of her religion. Her
old aristocracy, her highborn dames and courtly men,
thought it no concession to honor the world's Redeemer.
In this respect the South may still be called conservative.
While she fills her homes with products of northern thrift
and invention, while she brightens her firesides with
periodicals of northern literary excellence, her libraries,
which still honor the well-worn volumes of Bacon,
Shakespeare, Bunyan, and Sir Walter Scott, are
subservient to and ever as things apart from the Bible,
whose living truths are accepted from cover to cover.
Aunt Dice was comforted. "Mos John'll allus be faithful,"
she said. She felt that her young mistress was safe in his
care. Her own grandchildren, the motherless ones, would
still look up to a kind master. These three grandchildren,
who were part of Anne Trevor's marriage portion, were
contented and happy at Beechwood. Eliza, the eldest, was
quiet and true, much like her honored grandmother; Julia
was tall, strong, and willing; while Pet—still a spoiled
pet—was very fat and saucy, very good-natured, and very
delinquent in her duty sometimes.
The years passed on. The "children" prospered. The olive
branches grew. Aunt Dice shared with her mistress the
honors of grandmother, and visited back and forth, always a
distinguished guest, and always a welcome home-comer. The
mistress, who now seldom left Riverside, leaned upon her
trusted servant. The young master was still the darling of
Aunt Dice's heart. The negroes were happy in the quarters.
Charley's children played about her; Aunt Dice was at
peace.
With her advancing years a season of rest was a grateful
respite to faithful Aunt Dice. But the serenity of her old age
was again to be broken by a rumor whose portentous
meaning she little understood. A civil war was threatened,
and the gloom that settled over the country spoke in
prophecy of a darker future.
Aunt Dice had thought but little of political questions.
She had lived through the days of ardent Whigism, but had
failed to respond to the enthusiasm of the "hard-cider
campaign," or any other campaign of political meaning. She
had heard of wars, certainly. She had a childish memory of
1812, a dim report that had reached her of Indian warfare and
troublous times, but the misfortunes of war she had never
realized. She had seen some of her neighbors drill in
cumbersome fashion for the Mexican war, and start out on
the long journey westward with much military pomp and
display. She had seen a remnant return
from its questionable glory, wasted by disease or toughened
in experience. Mexico was a dim, distant land to Aunt
Dice—too far away to hold her sympathy. Her little world she
counted within the boundary of her blue Tennessee hills, or
the twenty-mile length of the sparkling, winding river, her
loved South Afton.
A civil war, she was told, meant much. She pondered long
over the question. She studied with a new interest the
portrait of General Winfield Scott which hung over the
dining-room mantel at Riverside. Would Mos Sam ever be a
stern-faced soldier like this ? Her hot-blooded, imperious
master, she was sure, would be among the first to take up
arms; he who had known no use of arms save his unerring
rifle when he followed the baying of his hounds in his
famous deer hunting in the Barrens. How could she live
without Mos Sam, the light of Riverside?
"We niggers is g'wine ter be free," was the
whispered thought at the quarters. Aunt Dice received such
comments with a sharp repimand and a sidelong look which
invited no further arguement. But even her strong will could not
quell the rising spirit of freedom among the slaves. The meaning
of the war, so often spoken of in subdued accents throughout
the quarters, dawned slowly upon her. It meant, to her at least,
the ruin of Riverside.
The day came when the master, answering the call to
arms, prepared to depart; a sad day to
Aunt Dice, who summoned all her stern composure for this
strange parting. He knocked at her cabin door that night, as
she expected.
"Come in, Mos Sam; tak' a cheer." Her pipe trembled
slightly in her hand.
The master drew up his chair to the hearth, where a small
fire of "chunks" was kept smoldering the summer through.
He gave her directions concerning the negroes, the growing
cotton and wheat, and other details of plantation affairs.
"I un'erstan', Mos Sam," she answered.
He moved his chair restlessly. A shadow, which of late
had dimmed the luster of his smile, rested sadly on his brow.
Aunt Dice smoked in silence.
"Miss Mary ain't what she wus sence Mos William died."
"No?" sadly.
"This war'll go hard with her."
He turned with a quick, restless motion: "Watch after her,
Aunt Dice; take care of her."
He drew a folded paper from his pocket, looked over it
slowly, and handed it to Aunt Dice.
"Aunt Dice, this gives you your freedom, if you should
need it. My mother's name is signed, and my own. You can
use it as you choose."
Aunt Dice took the paper gingerly, between finger and
thumb, and laid it promptly on the coals.
"You don't know what may happen, Aunt Dice. You are
never to be sold again."
knows my business; Mos William tole me that afore he died.
I b'longs to ole mistis as long as she live—then I'm yourn,
'ceptin' I'm to look after the chillun when they's sick, or when
they needs help. You needn't bother 'bout me. The wust
trubble is all these nigger fam'lies you've bought in at the sale."
"You knew my father's request, Aunt Dice—they were not
to be sold or divided unwillingly."
"That's so. You wus to buy in all who wus onwillin' to be
'vided out, an' more'n plenty wus onwillin' enuff to make a
putty big debt—what ain't paid yit."
"Riverside will soon cancel it, Aunt Dice."
"But stop, Mos Sam. Mos William didn't know 'bout this
war a-comin' on. You'd sho' be ruined if the niggers wus sot
free."
"Aunt Dice," flashed the young master, "do you mean to
say the South will be whipped?"
"I jes' mean—I don' know," said Aunt Dice, sorrowfully.
She leaned over the coals, her head showing silvery in the
faint light. There was a pathetic droop about her shoulders,
an old look in her bent form.
"Cheer up, Granny Vic," said the master, turning upon
her the warmth of his sunny smile. "This war will soon be
over; then for a merry wedding at Riverside! You shall rule
master, mistress, niggers, and all."
"The little girl who minces when she walks, who fidgets
in church, and giggles incessantly."
Aunt Dice's long lip quivered, swung back and forth, and
dropped with the senseless stupor of a slobbering horse,
finishing with a smirk, a giggle, so successfully imitating
the "little girl" in question that the cabin rang with
the master's laughter.
"Oh well, Aunt Dice, the one-hundred-and-fifty-pounder,
who rides neck-to-neck with Fleetfoot, and is always 'in
at the death' in a fox chase."
"Too bold an' for'ard, Mos Sam—too bold an' for'ard, 'fur
Mos William's son," she said, sternly. There was silence.
Aunt Dice resumed her smoking.
"Why not some o' your neighbor gals—they're all likely."
"Indeed they are—and worthy," said the master.
Aunt Dice looked stolidly at the fire. Her calm
indifference betrayed no hint of curiosity.
"Aunt Dice, what about the girl with the sweet, proud
look?"
"Thar! I knowed it was a-comin'; I knowed it. She's a
good 'oman, Mos Sam—a fine 'oman. I've seen her time
an' ag'in at Beechwood. She'll make a likely mistis fur
Riverside—one you'll be proud of."
Mos Sam whistled softly, a shadow chasing away the
sunshine of his smile. After all, Riverside may never know
the woman of his choice as its
fair mistress. His own life may be offered up on a battlefield,
his body uncoffined, his very name unknown in a strange
land. "Good-night, Aunt Dice," he said, at length, turning to
the door.
"Mos Sam?" Aunt Dice considered that she had always
found a cheerful word to lighten a heavy heart. Her boy should not leave
her door without the memory of a smile. "I've allus been ag'in your fightin' as a boy," she continued, "but ef you sees that Yankee school-teacher, you may whup him—wunst."
"All right, Granny Vic!" laughed the master. "I'll thrash him
for your sake."
Next morning the master stood on the lawn with his
faithful servant, ready for his departure; a bright June
morning, when Riverside looked her fairest: the old home
smiling from her cool galleries and shady maples; her
pastures dotted with sheep and cattle, and tinkling with
sounds of peace; her gardens abloom with roses, and the
river shimmering and dreaming at her feet! The group of
negroes in the background did not detract from the picture,
though their wails mingled with the deep-mouthed baying of
the master's hounds, who were soon to forget the music of
his hunting horn.
But the master, whose keen eye had taken in his
surroundings at a glance, now lingered under the maples
with a restless tread, the strained pressure of his lips
revealing only a hard white line about his mouth. He little
heeded the glorious beauty of Riverside. His hounds
fawned upon
him, unnoticed. The group of friends, the grief-stricken faces
of his sisters—Anne and Katherine—the kindly sympathy in
John Trevor's eyes, he did not see; he only saw a delicate
figure gowned in gray standing on the gallery, whose hair
shone with faint gleams of silver through the soft muslin
cap.
In this supreme moment the questions of state or country
seemed strangely small beside the little mother who stood
before him, mighty in her love; the little mother within whose
arms all his childish griefs and pains had been rocked to
sleep. Friend and foe were alike to him for the
while—unworthy of a touch of her garments. Not even the
memory of a fair, proud face intruded upon this sacred
parting which tried the souls of mother and son; a parting
which she mercifully shortened by turning quietly into her
room without even a mother's caress, lest the action prove
too strong a test of her fortitude, or weaken the courage of
her soldier boy. The quick splashing of horses' feet crossing
the river cut the air with a sickening sense of grief and loss.
Aunt Dice was left the central figure of the thronging
group of slaves, her tears on her dusky cheeks, the sunlight
on her gray head, and a new care in her heart, for the master
had said at parting, "Aunt Dice, I leave to you my mother
and my home."
A YEAR passed slowly. The mistress, who had so
bravely hung up her blue chintz gowns and donned the
colors of her son, seemed to falter through the long
silence which brought no news of him. She followed
Aunt Dice about like a shadow, which often sent the
faithful watcher to her cabin in hot haste for a troubled
smoke and a struggle for fortitude.
"Aunt Dice, can you bring your knitting and
sit with me awhile at night?"
"To be sho' I kin. What's to hender me?"
Aunt Dice never knew how she smiled or brought
herself to gossip, and tell her "silly nothings," as they
sat together at night, knitting socks for "rebel" soldiers;
she never knew how she changed from a decisive,
short-spoken woman to a loquacious, ceaseless talker;
she only knew that she had gained her end when
rewarded by a patient smile. She discussed the
weather, the flight of wild geese, the soap-making, the
spinning and weaving, the young calves, the spring
lambs; she talked of old, old times, of far-away
memories—anything and everything but the children,
lest the thought bring up the absent boy, whose name
was never mentioned. She searched the place for an
atom of news. "Ole Topknot's in
fur anuther settin' spell. Sousin' in the river don' do no
good, so I sot her on goose aigs; she'll git settin' 'nough
now fur a spell, I reck'n. Topknots ain't noted fur
sense. The mockin' birds is splittin' they throats; they's
feelin' the springtime" —she would say, to tempt her
mistress out into the soft April sunshine; or, "The
dogwood's blossomin' an' the redbud in the hills—'tain't
long afore spring." Still the frail, tired body faded
slowly.
"Remember my poor, Aunt Dice," the mistress said
one day; and then the faithful watcher knew that, with
all her care, her multiplied words and cheerful
encouragement had been in vain. John Trevor was her
help and comfort; he gave to Riverside all the time that
his growing practice and growing family would admit.
But all the tenderness of faithful friends could not
avail. Before the close of spring the gentle soul of the
mistress went out, to know no sad to-morrow of that
gloomy time. Aunt Dice stood alone—terribly alone!
Shocked, amazed at the magnitude of her duty, but one
thought spurred her on—the thought of her master.
"Mos Sam is ruined," Aunt Dice said, as she closed
the doors of Riverside, after the sad funeral. The
negroes no longer made a show of submission.
Riverside was burdened with debt and crowded with
rebellious slaves; a turbulent spirit had risen among
them, which Aunt Dice found impossible to quell. She
managed
with difficulty to till the land and gather the crop. A
new suspicion filled her with dread. Charley, her own son,
whose purchase money had swelled the debt of Riverside,
was dictatorial, rebellious, a disturbing element in the
quarters. She upbraided him sternly; she commanded,
implored, entreated, but an angry, sullen look was the only
response. She pointed to a tall marble shaft which shone
solemnly from the cemetery: "Fur Mos William's sake,
Charley, don' leave Mos Sam."
"G'way f'om here, mammy; lemme 'lone. I'm g' wine to
Nashvul, I is, an' be a free gen'l'mun. I'll tote fur no man f'om
dis here on."
Her pleading was vain. Charley's cabin was empty one
morning. Aunt Dice was bereft.
Thus her long watch began. She saw the negroes depart,
slaves no longer, swelling day after day the number of them
who had "run off to the Yankees." But the glory of Riverside
had also departed. She saw the old home shorn of its
beauty; the fences were burned, the barns emptied, the
cattle, horses, and sheep driven off or slaughtered; the
home of her beloved mistress desecrated and pillaged under
the cruel ravages of war. Even the tall clock in the dining-room
corner, which had ticked in and out the happy years of
Riverside's prosperity, stood with a white, dismayed face, its
glass doors shattered, its pendulum crushed and broken, its
faithful hands ruthlessly torn from their place of duty; the
old clock, which had rung in
the births, chimed at the weddings, and tolled out the
deaths at Riverside, stared now from its corner like a human
thing bereft of a soul!
Aunt Dice heard nothing of the master; still her lonely
watch went on, and she said to herself sometimes as a sad
refrain: "Mos Sam, you're ruined—you're ruined!" The long
winters passed; the dull "wash-wash" of the river sounded
on her listening ears. The summers came and went; the
whippoorwills called from the cemetery, the mocking birds
trilled in the maples, the river murmured like a friend at her
feet—still the master came not. News of him floated to her
at last between the silences: Mos Sam was a brave soldier—was
captain of a company—was wounded—in prison; then she
heard no more.
Once only did her heart fail. A squad of Confederate
soldiers passing by one day saw a pathetic figure standing
over the bluff, beckoning to them.
"Whar is Mos Sam?" she quavered, thinking in her
innocent soul that all the world should know "Mos Sam."
"Dead!" "killed!" "shot!" came back to her in a rude,
laughing chorus.
"I jes' whooped an' hollered all night," she said to a kind
neighbor, who reassured her.
Her fidelity did not go unquestioned. Her own color eyed
her askance as a friend to the "rebels." Among her white
neighbors some looked on her with suspicion, as possibly
harboring Federals; she was accordingly visited by a
company
of blue-coated soldiers, who threatened her with fire, steel,
and ugly army pistols if she did not disclose to them the
hiding place of some "rebels" in the vicinity. But her stern
old eyes did not quail. She knew not the meaning of "martyr";
she had never heard of a "noble Roman"; but her one
lesson of faithfulness she had learned well. The soldiers
passed over the river with a rousing cheer for Aunt Dice;
then she realized sadly that she had been under trial.
Still she sowed her scanty seed and reaped her shattered
harvests. The little worn path over the bluff by the river told
of her weekly visits to the nearest store, where she sold her
chickens and eggs; told also of as many visits to the
cemetery, where, on these errands, it was her habit to sit and
rest, alone with her dead. Years before she had planted in
an oblong circle about Cæsar's grave those early harbingers
of spring—golden candlesticks—which, when aflame in early
March, lit up the somber cedars, and made a glorious
altarpiece of the simple headstone. Here she rested on her
weekly journeys.
Aunt Dice realized at last that the end of the great civil
war was near—a disastrous ending for the South, but peace
was none the less welcome. The golden candlesticks had
bloomed again around Cæsar's grave when the blessed
news came—the long war was over.
Where was Mos Sam? How she scraped and saved and
hoarded! How she watched and waited
in the silence! How she hoped and feared and prayed in
the solitude of her lonely cabin!
But the master rode in quietly one night in the light of the
young moon, stabled his Yankee mare, climbed the rickety
fence by the deserted quarters, and looked over his desolate
home. The river murmuring below, the lazy "swish-swish" of
her waters against the rocks, were the only sounds that
greeted him. At length a familiar figure came slowly down the
path, with bowed head, and hands folded behind her. "Aunt
Dice!" he called softly. She looked up quickly, knowing well
the square shoulders outlined against the twilight sky; then
running to him swiftly, she fell on her knees at his feet,
taking up the old refrain: "Mos Sam, you're ruined—you're
ruined!"
Her strength gave way at last; her strained nerves
relaxed. She had bravely dared those four long years alone.
Her trust was fulfilled. She continued sobbing at his feet.
"Don't grieve, Aunt Dice," the master said, sadly. "Your
boy has come back to you, and he is half starved."
Aunt Dice listened. She had heard complaints of a half-starved
boy before, though never so sadly as this. She dried her
tears suddenly. She hoarded her sweet surprise. "Nuthin' in
the house fitten' fur you to eat, Mos Sam—nuthin' but a piece o'
co'n bread."
"Give me one of your good, brown corn pones, Aunt
Dice," said the master, cheerfully.
She followed him to the house, unlocked the doors,
brought him cool water from the great spring under the
bluff; and while he looked over the silent rooms—so
strangely silent, without a mother's welcome—Aunt Dice
prepared her surprise, for which she had lived on husks!
She had long waited for this hour. With deft hands and
springing step she flitted back and forth, from kitchen to
dining room, grown young again in her great joy. Her dear
old eyes, dim with watching, shone bright through happy
tears.
And such a repast! Corn pones, brown enough; but such
flaky biscuits, such fragrant coffee; and chicken, fried a
delicate brown! She did not stop to consider or even
conjecture what stint and frugality, under the prevailing
prices, brought forth these treasures of coffee, lard, and
flour. She poured the coffee, waiting upon her master,
watching him, who ate as if all those pent-up years of
hunger and starvation were requited in that one meal!
Nor was this all. After she had built a fire in the late
mistress's room, where the little armchair beckoned silently
from its corner—which room was to be from henceforth Mos
Sam's own, with all its sacred memories—Aunt Dice laid out
before the master various articles of dress, sorely needed by
him, saying, with characteristic brevity: "The chillun
holped me. Miss Kath'rine made the clo'es, Miss Anne the
shurts. Mos John giv' you the boots—they cos' fifty dollars."
" Why, Aunt Dice, what a fortune!" the master said,
delightedly. "I shall be a gentleman again—not a poor
'Johnny Reb' " —stroking his ragged,
gray sleeve— "poor
'Johnny Reb!' "
Aunt Dice looked at her master with some asperity. She
had fed many a tramp who looked more decent. "I've sot
your bath tub at the door," she said, in the old tone of
command. "Th'ow them rags in the fire, Mos Sam. I never
thought Mos William's son'd a looked like that." She turned
to bid him good-night.
"Aunt Dice," said the master, looking far into the flaming
coals, "I saw your Yankee schoolmaster."
"Did you whup him?" she asked, quickly. Her added
knowledge of the Yankee had rather stimulated her desire
for this particular whipping.
"No," he answered slowly; "I must say your Yankee
friend whipped me."
Aunt Dice looked at her master in amazed inquiry. He met
her glance thoughtfully. "I was in prison, and he visited
me."
"Thar now!" said Aunt Dice. "Well, I'm glad I washed an'
orned his clo'es, an' dorned all his socks. I allus thought he
had a hankerin' a'ter Miss Kath'rine!"
"I think he liked her," said the master, musingly.
THROUGHOUT the year the table was supplied, the master
knew not how; not poorly or sparingly kept, but almost
with the generous excellency of former days. The master
little dreamed of the struggle as, weak from recent wounds,
he built fences, or plowed his Yankee mare beside a
venerable riding-horse which was once his mother's. Too
proud to acknowledge that she lived by her wits, Aunt
Dice smuggled to the country store her chickens, eggs,
and butter, her fancy cookies and gingerbread, so that her
slender purse held out as did the proverbial meal barrel.
Yet the year was a happy one. It was her pleasure to labor
with unceasing thrift to provide these luxuries; her pride to
lend a helping hand to the upbuilding of her master's broken
fortunes. It was a happy year, notwithstanding the new
burden of debt which lay heavily upon the master. He was
forced to borrow a sufficient sum to build up the waste
places, to buy grain and stock, and for the additional
expense of hire—a new experience for the impoverished
southerner. His impatient soul chafed under the fretting
weight. "What shall I do, Aunt Dice?" he asked one day, in
an extremity of doubt and distress.
in a swift trot for her cabin. A new problem this for her
sixty-sixth year! She smoked her faithful pipe while she
studied. What was to be done? Sell Riverside? Oh no! She
pondered, questioned, considered. After all there was but one
way, she concluded, as she laid her pipe on the shelf. She went
back cheerfully. "Shoulder your debts, Mos Sam; you can't
shift 'em. Go 'long now to work. Go 'long, les'n yon don't
want no br'iled chicken an' waffles fur supper."
Mos Sam was comforted, somehow.
At this time a message from Joe Cris, who was earning a
precarious living by basket-making near Nashville, startled
Aunt Dice into remembrance of her painful past. He sent her
his humble regards; also an invitation to share with him his
home and small living. Aunt Dice spurned the offer with
contempt, and returned a sharp answer, with the significant
question, "Is you a fool?" For this Aunt Dice may have
been censured. Indeed, it was evident that she, who had
ever been so responsive to the slightest call of duty, was
strangely delinquent in the obligations of her second
marriage. But her conscience in this respect was a matter of
education. Tutored in her one school of faithfulness—that of
allegiance to her white people—she scorned all persuasion,
advantageous or otherwise, to leave her beloved Riverside.
Perhaps, too, she felt that she had been unfairly bought. Joe
Cris had no great claim upon her. Moreover, in the days
following their
freedom, many of the negroes were uncertain breadwinners.
Improvident in summer; ragged, shivering, or homeless in
winter; they too often made a pitiable spectacle of gaunt
hunger and wretchedness. The question of bread, clothing,
and shelter had a broader meaning than they had realized.
The dependent slaves found in their freedom such cares
and responsibilities that robbed the word of much of its
sweetness and flavor. Many, chary of their wings, remained
within the security of their former homes; some stayed
through pure devotion to their masters, while a large
number, trained to divers trades, earned a comfortable
living. Aunt Dice had small confidence in the ability of the
negro, much less would she trust herself in the keeping of
one. Nevertheless, she made it her duty to send Joe Cris
gifts of clothing and money as long as he lived. Mos Sam
needed her; she would not leave him.
With the next year's increase Riverside began to assume
an ante-bellum look; not with the old prosperity, for loans
and mortgages were the questions of the day, but the long
deserted cabins were peopled with dusky forms, some of
whom were former slaves.
Aunt Dice began again her imperious rule and discipline.
The old fields crept into life. The rolling uplands were
covered in billowy wheat. The tinkling of sheep bells
sounded a call of peace, while the river sang in her old
happy way, for the master was to bring home a bride in the
late fall—
the woman with the "sweet, proud look," whose love had
bidden him hope through five dark years. Fortunately for
Aunt Dice, the soon-to-be mistress held a high place in her
esteem. As the time approached, she began preparations for
the wedding.
The day dawned cold and snowy. "Fix up things, Aunt
Dice," said the master, as he departed for his twenty-mile
ride to Nashville. She needed no further order. When the
wedding party returned she met them on the lawn in stately
fashion, her master's hounds baying about her. The old
home smiled with the warmth of old-fashioned southern
hospitality. The hickory fires roared up the chimneys in
generous welcome. The long table in the dining room
gleamed and glittered with the evidences that Aunt Dice's
faithful hands had not lost their cunning.
There were eight long years of quiet for Riverside; years
that were golden with hope and rich with its promises; years
of peace and rest after the turbulent season of war. Children
played again under the maples. Childish laughter rang
through the cool galleries. The new mistress reigned with a
queenly grace and charm of manner that held captive the
esteem of all South Afton. Indeed, the country folk soon
learned to love the strange woman in their midst, who was
so wondrous kind and sweet.
Aunt Dice never criticised her. She never made her
mistress a subject of her trying mimicry,
but invariably held her up to the numerous
grandchildren as a model of gracious dignity and charming
womanhood. But Mos Sam was still the darling of Aunt
Dice's heart. To him she filled the office of mother in more
ways than one. The responsibilities of this relation she did
not shirk. If she thought he needed reproof, she was quick
and stern in giving it. "Git up f'om thar, Mos Sam,
complainin' of your woun's, an' wishin' ye had a millyun. Go
to work. Money won't walk to ye." Such rebukes were
wholesome, and never out of place in the days when the
debt problem was an unanswered one and a grievous
burden to the southern landowner.
Aunt Dice may have saved her master from a fatal
despondency in his straitened circumstances by her kindly
words of cheer, or a caustic rebuke which she covered
adroitly with a quaint remark, sure to bring a smile; but much
more did she prefer to honor him with all the doting
fondness of a mother.
"Anything in your cupboard for me, Aunt Dice?" was
the frequent question.
"Dunno, Mos Sam," she would answer, almost ignoring
the question; "ye'd better look."
He was sure to find a generous store—whitest bread and
honey, cold chicken, her famous pies and cookies, which
were noted for their excellence.
These were her happy hours. He was all her own when
he sat with her in her cabin and talked with her of the old
times, the days of her kind old master.
THE subject of the war was a sore one to
Aunt Dice. She looked upon it as a personal matter,
deploring the thought that her own people had
caused the ruin of Riverside—had impoverished
her dear young master. She tried to bury this sorrow
quietly as she had buried her other griefs, but she
could not order the thoughts of her master nor bid
his bitter memories be gone. She knew that the war
spirit controlled him when she saw his restless
pacing back and forth; the nervous twitch of his
fingers, as if they longed to draw a sword; the
quick flash of his eyes, as if the vision of a
hard-fought battle rose up before him, or the roar
of cannon and musketry lingered in his ears.
"Debt ain't all he's a studyin' over," Aunt Dice said. She
watched him as he sat on the gallery, gazing with far-seeing
eyes across the dimpling, smiling river.
"Aunt Dice, I would gladly fight through four years
more—go hungry, ragged; sleep in snowdrifts, by the
wayside, anywhere—just to try the whole thing over."
"Mos Sam, let the war go. What good do it do to set an'
study over it? It's all pas' an' gone now; make the best of it."
But the blood of his comrades, so sadly spilled in vain,
called to him pleadingly. The negroes he did not care to
have, and would not own again. It was the stupendous
failure of a stupendous undertaking that chafed and nettled
his imperious nature. He felt whipped. The reflection was
anything but consoling. In these sad hours he felt that he
had offered upon the altar of his country all that was truest
and best within him. Only a soldier of fortune was left,
warped and frayed as the clothes he wore home. He turned
to his wife in the bitterness of his soul, and held her close in
his arms. "What can I promise my Helen, the wife of a poor
rebel soldier?"
"This 'poor rebel soldier' is my brave knight," she
answered, smiling.
These seasons of unrest were happily transient. .Life was
still before him. His winning smile and genial manner still
earned for him the honored title of the "Light of Riverside."
The hired "work hands" in the cabins were under the just and
temperate rule of a kind "boss," a convenient substitute for
the word master.
Aunt Dice's three granddaughters, after varied
experiences, were married and established at Riverside,
where their husbands worked "on shares," or for wages, for
their necessary food and clothing. But Charley belonged to
the numberless horde of swarthy citizens who termed
themselves the "new niggers." He had shaken the dust of
Riverside forever from his feet, save for an occasional
visit to his mother, whither he went sometimes in a
hired buggy, with jaunty horse and trappings; sometimes,
however, riding a gaunt, bony mule; but more often afoot,
ragged, unkempt, and hungry. After such visits Aunt Dice's
purse was left in a collapsed state.
But the "new niggers!" "Ho, for Nashville!" seemed to be
the watchword and cry of liberated thousands—a greater
problem by far than all the debts and mortgages that covered
the sunny lands of Tennessee. Into Nashville they poured, a
living stream of life, fearfully free. They swarmed the streets,
crowded the corners, obstructed the sidewalks, while dainty
ladies stepped aside, and white men muttered nameless
maledictions through their closed teeth. Whether in vehicles
or shining "turnouts," or shaky rattletraps, the new negroes
kept the center of the road, to see the "white man pass
round," without the customary greeting or doffing of hat or
cap. In the depths of the country the fields and woods were
strangely silent. There was a dearth of old-time melodies, of
feasting and revelry. The musical calls and sound of the
sweet cane flutes gave place to a new song, if song it could
be called, replete with a significant triumph:
"Possum up a gum stump, coon up a holler,
I met dat white man, an' he owed me a -dollar."
The word "master," too, had fallen into disuse, and "Mr.
and Mrs." Brown were substituted, and rolled under
tongues too thick to conceal a
malicious pleasure, which stung the southerner ofttimes to
quick resentment.
Aunt Dice knew at a glance the fortunate ones who
applied at Riverside for situations. The master, who still, as
he gave them to understand, was lord of his own domain,
kindly received the applicant who stood before him with
bared head and called him "Mos Sam" in the old-time way.
Not that he commanded or required this humble obeisance;
but knowing the negro well, he knew the conservative ones
to be the most worthy, and as such were apt to be for a
generation or more to follow.
When Archibald, a stalwart youth of twenty-one—a
former slave who had been "onwillin' to be 'vided out" at
the sale—appeared at Riverside for a comfortable dinner and a
possible job, Aunt Dice looked him over dubiously. His
dashing appearance, his display of brass jewelry, his
stylishly carded hair, betokened little favor from the master.
When about to pay his " 'spects to de boss," Aunt Dice
called out warningly: "Min' your manners, Arch, I tell you;
min' your manners."
But Archibald, brimful of freedom and the importance of
his twenty-one years, stepped jauntily to the master's front
door. "Howdy, Mr. Macy. How's Mrs. Macy, yo' lady?"
Archibald felt a grip of steel within his collar for answer, and
a kick which caused him to measure his length under the
maples.
"You might as well go now, Arch," said Aunt Dice,
quietly observant from the kitchen. "Manners is cheap, an'
mighty handy sometimes."
Aunt Dice, under the new order of things, was extremely
exclusive in her social life. Few colored people she tolerated,
fewer still she visited; on such occasions her "grand air" was
most noticeable. She still held her membership with her white
people's church, and condescended once a year to attend a
colored congregation near by, where their wild gestures and
noisy worship disgusted and annoyed her. Still she was not
without a certain interest in her own race. She deplored their
failings, encouraged every honest effort, and lent a helping
hand to every worthy applicant. She might have been what is
termed a "white folks' nigger," one who is cordially hated and
distrusted by his own people, especially as he prospers by
his white "liking." But certain it was that Aunt Dice, bravely
as she dared their suspicion, commanded the respect, if she
did not gain the love, of her colored acquaintances. Born a
slave, this unreconstructed soul never acknowledged her
freedom, and scorned the offer of wages at the close of the
war. Feeling that she belonged to her white people, and
almost one of them, no national proclamation of freedom
swerved her allegiance to them for an instant. Among her
white neighbors she was ever treated with distinguished
regard. On her usual church goings, or weekly visits to the
store, she never
lacked attention and courtesy due a lady. Indeed, so honest
was she in all her dealings, so well grounded in truth and
purity of character, that no instance was ever known when
her self-respect went begging.
The new mistress was not slow to learn the value of Aunt
Dice as friend and adviser; nor did she hesitate to accept her
companionship as a boon at lonely Riverside. Aunt Dice's
afternoon nap was an unvarying rule of the house—an hour
which the mistress found to be irksome waiting, as she was
usually favored with an afternoon call, now that the spinning
wheels were silent, and leisure hours numerous. The sight of
Aunt Dice's homely, squat figure, as she sat on the low
doorstep with her fragrant pipe, was a pleasant one to the
mistress, who began to look forward to these daily visits.
Aunt Dice, coming up the path from her cabin, often saw the
stately figure of her mistress pacing the length of the gallery,
and heard her clear, rich tones greeting her: "Aunt Dice, how
long your naps are! I have been waiting an hour or more for
you."
"Well, you wus in a hurry," Aunt Dice would say
composedly, seating herself on the step, and watching the
mistress's delicate hands flash in and out with her dainty
lace-making. Perhaps the lovely lady of Riverside was lonely
at times when the master was absent; perhaps she felt a
tender longing for her bright Nashville home—a home of
unusual affection and charming personalities.
Aunt Dice was considerate. She understood the tender look
across the river and up the long lane that stretched its way
toward Nashville. She interested her mistress in household
affairs, instructed her in the secrets of the dairy, the raising
of fowls, and other minor duties of the country housekeeper.
Helen Macy was a happy woman with her husband and
children about her, and frequent glimpses of her beloved
brother, John Trevor. Riverside was still a pleasant home,
and not without its comforts, though groaning still under
the burden of debt, and too poor by far to afford her the
luxury of a piano, or even her favorite books. But she loved
the smiling river—blue, dimpling South Afton; she never tired
of the rugged bluffs, the dizzy cliffs, clothed and crowned
with verdure; she loved the breezy uplands, the distant hills
sleeping in yellow sunshine; she was fond of the old house
with its quaint architecture, its cool, wide rooms; she was
happy at Riverside. "I am really thinking, Sam, of wearing
print gowns," she said one day. And print gowns she wore,
even to the critical eyes of her husband, as a queen "her
purple robe."
"Sing, Helen," the master sometimes said as they sat
together on the moonlit gallery; and Helen sang.
The negroes crowded to their cabin doors. "Hush! Miss
Helen's singin'."
The river lapped softly, while the sweet, rich voice of
the mistress trembled and soared with the song of a river
hardly more romantic in scene than the lovely one at her
feet: "Flow gently, sweet Afton." The old, old songs rang
full and clear: the music of "Convent Bells"; the lover's
old song, "When the stars are in the quiet sky";
and "Kathleen Mavourneen." The master, whose eyes
grew stormy under "Maryland, my Maryland," were quiet
and tender when he listened to a glad "Gloria,"
or "Come, ye disconsolate."
The new mistress found in Aunt Dice an efficient help in
dispensing hospitalities. With her conservative ways she
was a pleasant feature of social gatherings at Riverside. The
old sideboard, with its array of decanters and sparkling
crystal, was a thing of the past, but her ingenuity proved
more than equal to its loss. It was her pleasure to plan
surprises for guests or afternoon callers—to spread a table
under the maples, or improvise a dainty lunch on a tray
covered in spotless linen, for those only whom she favored.
If she felt that Riverside was honored, she "opened her
heart"; otherwise, she was significantly silent. Yet she made
a pathetic picture, bearing in her trembling hands these
offerings of old-fashioned hospitality, these testimonials of
her "family pride." The house, too, was brightened
occasionally with family gatherings, and often filled to
overflowing with the children—Aunt Dice's "gran'chillun," as
she
called them. They played on the lawn, waded in the
shallows of the river; gathered mussel shells and
periwinkles on the sand bar; "kept house," and played
"ladies," on the great rocks by the "Branch." They swarmed
on the galleries, up the quaint stairways, and peeped
fearfully into the depths of the dark "scuttle hole." A visit to
Aunt Dice's cabin was a ceremonial not to be overlooked;
there they were treated to the same discipline, the same
grimaces, contortions, and humiliating caricatures that their
mothers were of old, to say nothing of the open cupboard
doors as an aftermath. Valuable lessons, too, they learned in
that humble cabin; one of which, at least, was never
forgotten—to "speed the parting guest," a maxim which finds
an echo in many a hostess's heart. "I must go, Granny,"
said often and reluctantly, brought forth from her the
wholesome advice: "When ye say 'go,' go. Don't palaver
'bout it." A form of good-by which certainly speeded the
"parting guest."
The visits of these grandchildren Aunt Dice demanded.
She exacted a certain amount of deference due her. She
required them to pay their respects to her at stated intervals,
a duty which they were not loath to do; but " 'nough of a
thing wus 'nough," she said. "Time you chillun wus gittin'
'long home now," she would command, after a protracted
stay. When they pleaded for one day more, Aunt Dice was
firm. In spite of the protestations of the mistress, though
much to
the amusement of the master, who knew the hold she kept
upon his purse strings in those straitened times, Aunt Dice
ruled. "Go 'long, chillun"—be it whispered once, and
forever relegated to the shades in the interests of southern
hospitality; "go 'long—Mos Sam's flour barrel's a gittin'
low."
BEECHWOOD was a memory only. A cluster of tall chimneys
told where the pleasant mansion had stood, while grass
and weeds grew about the deserted cabins. The lands, no
longer a family possession, were divided into several farms
under enterprising owners. Doctor Trevor, who had
removed to the village of P—, close by, owned a small farm
within its limits, the cottage and office fronting the village
street or pike. "Vine Cottage" it was called, from the riotous
growth of vines—rose, clematis, and wild honeysuckle—over
the trees, porches, and fences. In front ran a brooklet,
falling across a bend in the pike, forming a miniature
cataract, which the children called "Niagara Falls"—in the
winter only; the summer found its dry bed a rich field for a
playground.
The farm, beyond a few acres in cultivation,
rounded into hills, bristled into thickets, or gaped
into gullies—another convenient playground for
the children, provided they were regardless of
clean frocks and constitutionally fond of clay pies;
a farm which conveyed less than half the meaning
of the word, and left a rich overplus in woody
depths and dewy dingles; in thickets musical with
birds and fragrant with wild flowers; in orchards
where bees hung drowsily over seas of pink and
white bloom, where the fruit was the rosiest and most
luscious; in gardens where big red roses ran riot over
squashes and melons, of the sweetest and best.
Morning-glories gloried in the corn, and flung their
purple banners from the topmost tasseling; raspberries
ripened along the hillsides and narrow paths; dewberry
vines scrambled over gullies and ran helter-skelter
through the best bottom field, bearing their luscious
fruit. The old beeches, crowning the hill pasture, were
the shadiest in the whole country round; while the
willows, fringing the streamlet at its base, listened to a
musical rhyme never dreamed of by the farmer's boy
who plowed his weary way on the opposite hillsides.
Rural beauty held here a peaceful reign; rural sights
and sounds were undisturbed by the hurrying bustle of
busy life. Hawks sailed lazily overhead; owls brooded
in hollow trees; the blue heron dreamed in the swamp;
while the crows cawed from the treetops through the
livelong days. The spirits of the woods—the birds, the
flowers—driven from the carefully husbanded soil of the
neighboring hills, gathered here for a continual jubilee,
and sang and grew and sported within their wonted
haunts—the leafy coverts of Vine Cottage farm.
John Trevor, though he had suffered reverses during
the trying times of war, and was struggling with others
to master the question of debt, possessed still a
characteristic buoyancy and hopefulness
of disposition. Busy with a heavy practice, and
his wife and children depending solely upon him, he
was still a "good purvider," as Aunt Dice had said. She
never had cause to retract her decision of his
faithfulness and worth. Stone by stone he had built an
honored name in the place of his adoption. Older
heads than his looked up to him, and steady farmers of
long experience and varied wisdom looked kindly upon
him and trusted him.
In his busy life he had little time for his wonted
sports and pleasures. Through the more leisure month
of May, a few hours spent on the banks of his beloved
South Afton with rod and line was the only recreation
permitted him from year's end to year's end. There,
while the soft swish of the waters against the rocks,
the smiling sky overhead, the calling of birds from the
fields, rested and refreshed him, he lived a different life
for the time—something apart from the pill-making,
prescription-writing duties of workyday hours.
"Mos John'll never grow ole," Aunt Dice said; "he
keep his heart young." All that she saw lovely and
beautiful in nature she called his. The blue skies and
sailing white clouds, the wayside flowers, all that the
country physician saw and noted through the long
lanes, by the hill ridge roads or the dusty pikes; even
the squirrels that chattered from the trees or sported
along rock walls and rail fences—all were his. "Mos
John's martins is come," she would say in the
spring; or, "I hear Mos John's little flute bird," of the
sweet-throated thrush. The cooing spring doves, the whistling
summer partridges, all were Mos John's. "The birds is singin'
fur Mos John," she was wont to say, as if she thought that
nature knew and loved her own, or that the skies smiled
more sweetly over the daily walk of one beneath who was so
earnest and true. She began to watch jealously the solitary
fisherman by the bluff spring in the spare hours of the
May-time seasons. "You'se got a call, Mos John; I hates to
tell ye," she said sometimes, showing her silvered head over
the bluff. "'Pears like ye might have a leetle res'."
"Never mind, Aunt Dice," answered the country
physician, cheerfully. "I shall take a trip to the mountains
some time in the near future, and for two whole weeks I shall
rest and forget all the world of aches and pains."
"To be sho' ye might," she said. The far-off mountains
had grown suddenly interesting to her, since they held in
reserve a rest and solace for the tired physician.
From the first year of his career John Trevor had resolved
upon this little recreation—two long weeks to spend upon the
mountains, among the mountain brooks and speckled trout.
It was a picture framed in his mind which cheered him often
by the lonely wayside. But the pleasant vision flitted before
him like a mirage of the desert. The earnestness of his
profession had
developed through sober experience. Resolutions formed
within him under the kindly admonitions of college lecturers
had grown to a steady purpose. The years of his youth, it
was true, had been spent mainly in the upbuilding of his
practice, in overcoming prejudices against his inexperience,
and perhaps more than all his outcropping progressive
ideas. None the less, too, did he know that he had run the
gauntlet through the length and breadth of his practice in
matters of religion, morals, and politics; in which he was
fairly successful, he was pleased to remember. His modest
little debt, though only the sum of a few hundreds, had
assumed a proportion to his income which caused him to
waken occasionally at night and stare blindly into darkness,
trying to conjecture the best possible mode of payment; a
problem he needed not to have considered, were all those
unpaid accounts which accumulated in his office desk
forthcoming. Nevertheless, in the prime of his manhood he
contemplated with some pleasure the wide bounds of his
substantial practice. He had won. He had paid his debt also,
laboriously it was true, dollar by dollar, but freedom was all
the more grateful. Still the vision of mountain brooks and
speckled trout was yet unrealized. He had never found time
to take his recreation of two long, whole weeks, when he
was to forget disease and all its unlovely aspects. New
duties crowded upon him, new calls upon his time and
purse. His growing family, his
church, his people, filled up the measure of his busy life.
Naturally, there were divers kinds to please among his
people, as he chose to call them: some who were shrewd and
calculating, weighing carefully the issues of life and death in
the balance with the doctor's bill; peremptory ones, who
excused no time or circumstance; and others, though few in
number, who were quick to censure and slow to
acknowledge a kindly deed. But the friends who loved and
trusted him, these were they whose homes were his resting
places along the way; within whose homes, too, he
remembered, he had done his most valiant battling with the
terror, death. Many a palm had he borne aloft, when patient
and nurse fell into line with him against the foe.
So the seasons rolled away year after year, and he
learned with their changes the coldest sweep of the windy
hillsides, the longest lanes of the hot summer's sun. Night
had grown as familiar to him as the broad light of day; he
knew its sights and sounds—the shadowy woods and cry of
night-birds, the pale, cold moonlight, the solemn stars. The
elements kept him familiar company—the whistling winds, the
shrouding snow, the down-pouring rain.
Many a night had he lifted the latch of the little gate,
tired, cold, and hungry; but never too tired or cold or
hungry to neglect his patient horse, the companion of his
journeyings. As was natural to his profession, he was a
careful man, and conscientious
in the smallest detail of everyday life. The little gate
was carefully latched, the stable door as carefully fastened,
the doors and windows of his home tested, the kitchen fire
inspected, and the andirons turned in a methodical way,
before the weary physician sought his couch—to rest?
Perhaps, did not a melancholy "halloo" arouse him to the
cold fact of another night ride.
Even the river used him ill at times—his beloved South
Afton—when she wrapped him in her chilly mists and
enveloped him in her fogs; she dealt him treacherously
when with her changeful fords she ingulfed him in her chill,
brown waters and gurgled cruelly about him. But this
country doctor had grown inured to hardships, to buffeting
wind and weather. He was a happy man, notwithstanding.
The little joys of life had kept his nature as sweet as charity.
He loved his home. No ride was so cold or dark that he
did not see in perspective a lamplit table crowded with
books, a waiting chair, and a welcome as warm as the light
that streamed from its windows. A steaming supper, with
many a dainty tidbit, rewarded his tardy home-comings.
Man and beast never went hungry at Vine Cottage, it was
said. "He's de bes' hoss-moster in dis whole kentry," said an
old darky, referring to his fat horses. Not only so, but there
was never a motherless chicken, a dethroned king of the
barnyard, or a lamed dog, within the precincts of John
Trevor's home but knew him for
their friend. Even the white Maltese cat that yearly reared
her young in his corncrib received his tenderest care. It was
no small duty to feed and tend this interesting family each
year—to turn the anxious mother in and out; no matter how
tired, to house them for the night; but this he did carefully,
almost with painful exactness. So when the prudent
housewife disposed of Patsy and her kittens, she
discovered surprisedly that her husband had sustained a
loss which amounted almost to an affliction.
With John Trevor's natural love of humor it is not
surprising that he kept in store many a coined and polished
phrase for the benefit of the local wits who visited the
village store front. Many a challenge he received when he
bared his head to the cool shade of the locust trees in front,
many a sharp retort did he send to the comfortable group on
the store porch—replies so quick and ready that the villagers
changed their quids in haste for a fresh onslaught, ere the
steady steps of the doctor's horse sounded far up the dusty
pike.
But there came a time when this country physician felt a
weariness in his limbs, a throbbing in his temples, that he
could not account for. A little malaria from the creek
bottoms, he argued; a little cold from continuous night
riding—surely that was all. He bought warmer flannels for
winter, prepared his quinine tonic for summer; but suddenly,
despite his will, and very reluctantly at last, this tired
physician had his vacation: not on
the breezy mountain heights, or under the quiet stretch of
dim pine forests; not beside the cool, green depths of
mountain brooks; but tossing on a sick bed in weariness
and pain, with restless hands and fevered tongue, he
babbled of crystal waters, he spun his reel and swung aloft
his speckled trout!
"The doctor is sick," the neighbors said. The news
traveled quickly from plain to hillside, from hamlet to
mansion house. Wine, fruits, and flowers crowded the
modest home of the sick physician; carriages and buggies
rolled up to the little front entrance; horses and braying
mules were hitched to outstanding posts. The poor came
toiling over the hills to the shadowed home, where they
listened through closed doors to the unconscious babbling
of their family doctor. Day by day they gathered and turned
away without a sight of his familiar face; day by day they
crowded the gallery, the adjoining room, the front lawn.
When the first uncertain news of a better change reached
them, they stood determinedly before his door.
"The doctor—we must see him."
"He is too sick, too sick," the watchers said. But when a
thin, weak voice bade them enter, they stole in quietly,
solemnly; content to grasp his hand, to look in his face, and
pass on.
"The doctor is getting well," they said. Then it was that
they vied with one another in kindly ministry, and with
strangely tender hands. The doctor's life was precious in
their sight.
John Trevor arose from his sick bed to a newer life; and
though he responded to a peremptory call with weak-kneed
haste, he felt that there was a bond between him and his
people that he could not forget. The old dream of mountain
brooks was fast slipping from him. Theories, too, had
vanished from his mind. Living facts he dealt with. Even
the "steady purpose" which strengthened his
youth had long given place to daily deeds and busy action.
The souls of the people were dear to him. It was not always
of ills of the body that he talked in his office, but of spiritual
needs and possibilities. Though the long lanes grew hotter
in summer, the hillsides more bleak in winter, and his tired
body more susceptible even to the steady jogging of his
horse, when urged to remove to Nashville by a brother physician of
precious memory, John Trevor was resolute: "I am attached
to my people; I cannot leave them."
AUNT DICE'S visits to Vine Cottage were
frequent in the days of peace following
the war. To John Trevor her companionship
was as wholesome as in earlier days; always
to him a subject of fresh interest and an object
of honest affection. In truth, Aunt Dice exerted
herself to be agreeable to him, in which she
succeeded admirably, being wise enough to know
when to be silent and when to be amusing. John
Trevor looked forward to the sight of her silvered
head over the little front gate, where she awaited
his return from a hot, dusty ride. Her unobtrusive
ministry—her offering of cool water dripping
from the spring, a palm-leaf fan put quietly within
his hand, his slippers laid beside him—he noted
gratefully. With what a delicate perception she
said: "Don't chillun! don't tell your pa he's
got a call no sooner'n he comes in; let him
res' fust." All of which the overworked physician
thoroughly appreciated. In her heart she loved
Mos John next to her own dear master, while her
fondness for the child of her rearing—sweet,
patient Anne Trevor—grew stronger and dearer
as the years slipped by.
These visits were ever seasons of rejoicing to
the children, though Aunt Dice often came on a
tour of inspection. It was no common occurrence
to see her pick up a handful of weeds or a bit of paper, on
her way from the side gate to the back entrance at Vine
Cottage: "It looks onsightly in de yard," her first greeting.
"Gethered any berries, Miss Anne?" she asked once, in
blackberry time.
Anne Trevor's negative reply called forth a happy
chorus from the little ones: "Let us go with you, Granny!"
"Git your buckets," ordered Granny, shortly, knocking
the ashes from her pipe.
The walk to the thicket was pleasant enough, wading
through fresh air and sunshine. Moreover, Granny's
drolleries were unusually entertaining; but picking berries
was quite another thing. Granny turned a stern face to the
little flock crowding after her. "I don't want no close
neighbors. Folks can't talk an' work too. Git yo' patch, an'
pick."
That long, hot afternoon was not soon forgotten. Not a
word was spoken until the tin pails were filled. The slanting
sunbeams fell on tired, flushed faces when the task-mistress
called out cheerily. "Come on, chillun; le's go home."
John Trevor renewed his old habit of reading aloud to
Aunt Dice, and laughingly declared that she had developed
into quite a literary woman. Though ofttimes puzzled—which
caused Anne Trevor to smile pityingly at her dark,
bewildered face—it interested John Trevor to note that the
elegant, flowing style of Irving charmed her; that
Dickens excited her to a quick laugh over his life-like
protrayals of men and things familiar to her; that poetry
soothed her. But it must be acknowledged that John Trevor
liked best to read to her some short, stirring romance, and
over the book watch her distressed face when the hero and
heroine were toiling through the mazes of the plot, or to
listen for her relieved "Thar now!" when all ended well and
blissfully. Aunt Dice, too, might have noticed a suspicious
shaking of the book and a certain vibration in John Trevor's
voice which hinted of his fun-loving propensities. But her
comments were worth remembering. Of fiction she
understood nothing; they were real living beings in those
books, men and women who sinned and suffered or lived
nobly. "He mus' a been a likely man," she would say,
respectfully, of some character who had patiently suffered
and borne his burden. A life of self-sacrifice, a deed of
charity, a duty faithfully done, caught her quick sympathy.
"What is your opinion, Aunt Dice?" asked John Trevor,
as he finished a well-known book from a well-known
author.
"Too much whisky, Mos John," she said decisively. "It's
a drink here, and a drink thar. More'n I ever heerd tell of in
ole moster's days, 'pears to me. Wine an' brandy'll git the
best o' men, if they tech it too often." The cleaner pages of
the present day would have pleased her. The punch bowl,
the mugs of ale and beer, so pleasingly
described, were odious things to her. "Whisky ruins a
man," she said. Even in the days of free distilleries, Aunt
Dice tasted alcohol, as a medicine, sparingly; but as a
beverage, never.
Notwithstanding her objections, Aunt Dice's respect for
books was great. She looked upon the knowledge contained
in them almost with awe—a wonderland to her that she
never hoped to explore—but she was decided in her opinion
that they were "not fur niggers." "Book larnin' spiles a
nigger," she argued. She might have thought differently had
she lived to this day, but she scored a triumph once. Uncle
Billy Barnes, a neighboring "cullud gen'l'mun" of some
property, was quite a leader among his own, and talked
education in every lane and byway, when not engrossed in
earning a penny or turning over a dime. On an occasion,
when Aunt Dice was enjoying one of her visits, Uncle Billy
appeared at Vine Cottage, his favorite market place—for, as
he said, "the doctor gives livin' prices" —trundling a
wheelbarrowful of turnips. Aunt Dice received him with
some deference, smoothing out her apron in a dignified
way. Standing by the fire, turning his huge feet to its
warmth, Uncle Billy discoursed upon his favorite theme in
broad, Tennessee-negro dialect: "Now, who'd a thought
thar wus so much in books? My gals kin stump me enny
nite outen dem books. My darter, Sally—you knows
her—axes me t'other nite, 'Pa, what make it col' in winter,
an' hot in summer?' Now, you knows
I ain't no fool, but dat wus de fus' time I uver thought of
sich a thing. I answers, 'I dunno; what you know 'bout it?'
So she sez, 'De teacher tol' me—'cause de sun is furder off in
winter, an' closter in summer.' Well, dat soun' reas'n'ble to
me, but I never would a knowed it ef it hadn't ben fur
books." Uncle Billy pocketed his fifty cents, took up his
worn hat, and departed.
"Mos John, is that so?" asked Aunt Dice suddenly.
John Trevor smiled: "Hardly, Aunt Dice."
"Thar! I tol' you a nigger couldn't larn."
Nevertheless, Uncle Billy's daughter Sally earns a
handsome living now teaching school, for she learned more
thoroughly at Fisk University.
Among the Trevor children Aunt Dice particularly
"favored" the eldest—a growing, winsome lassie, with
riotous, dark curls, delicate scarlet lips, and clear gray eyes
much like John Trevor's own, and much like him in a sunny,
hopeful disposition, a love for all human kind which
characterized her, and a tender regard for all dumb brutes.
"You are like your father, chile—jes' as faithful," Aunt Dice
would say, when some unselfish action brought to mind the
much beloved physician.
Like her father, Evelyn was fond of Aunt Dice, and spent
with her many a well-remembered, happy hour. That Evelyn
was a studious schoolgirl, Aunt Dice was pleased to notice;
and many an extra task she served rather than disturb those
hours
of study. "Let the chile alone," she would say, when Evelyn
was called upon for some household duty. "Let her alone;
she's got a book." When Evelyn had arrived at the age of
hero worship, she tried with painful earnestness to persuade
her dusky colaborer to comprehend with her the virtues of
her heroes. In this she was not so successful. Aunt Dice did
not call those valorous heroes great. She had her own ideas
of true valor and worth. Evelyn's histories puzzled her. She
could not understand the ceaseless battling for power and
earthly renown—the thirst for conquest, the crime and
intrigue that stained the centuries in blood. War, to her, was
a horrible butchery. She recognized no law of life but the
mighty one of peace and good will—the law of forgiveness
and loving-kindness. "Heavenly wisdom, chile, is better'n all
that," she said. "Sol'mon tol' 'bout it often 'nough in the
Bible, but 'pears like the world ain't learnt it yit."
Still Aunt Dice was interested; anything within the lids of
a book interested her, however much or little she
understood, or affected to ignore. "Git your book, Ev'lyn,
an' read," she said frequently.
On an occasion during an hour with her pipe, Aunt
Dice's most contemplative mood, Evelyn with a Life of
Napoleon in her lap, read to her eagerly, excitedly, portions
of the life of the Corsican boy, the soldier, the general, the
first consul, the emperor and conqueror, and the great
prisoner at St. Helena. Aunt Dice smoked her pipe in stolid
indifference.
"Now let me show you, Granny," said Evelyn, reaching
for her geography and pointing to pink and yellow patches
on the map. "See how many countries—kingdoms—he
conquered."
"What'd he want wid so many?" asked Granny, shortly.
"Why," said Evelyn, hesitatingly, "I suppose he wished
to make a greater conquest than Charlemagne or Cæsar or
Alexander, or any of those great men I read you about."
"He'd a better let well 'nough alone, then he might not er
ended in jail."
Evelyn insisted: "But say he was great, Granny. Do you
not think he was a great man?"
Aunt Dice would make no such concession. She turned
to her pipe with the crushing answer: "What fur?"
John Trevor, an amused listener, took up from the table a
small Bible. "Stop, Evelyn. You do not understand Aunt
Dice. This is her Book of books, and this is her Hero of
heroes," he said, turning to the twenty-fourth Psalm, and
reading in clear tones: " 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even
lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory
shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory.' "
Aunt Dice sat erect, her smoking pipe forgotten in her
hand. There was a flash in her old eyes, a
quiver about her lips as if they struggled for utterance. But
the power of language she could not grasp. A silver tongue
was not hers. Perhaps ere this the crippled speech of the
grand old slave has found a voice for eloquent praise before
her King of glory.
John Trevor was not mistaken. The world's Redeemer was
her Hero, her King of glory. All others beside him were poor
and blind and wretched. All the worship, the adulation
within her heart she laid at his feet. Perhaps the love of the
wonderful, so inherent in her race, found vent in the
enthusiasm of her imagination, which vested in this one
grand character all the attributes that power and beauty
could suggest. To him nothing was impossible. He was the
Mighty One of all the ages, everlasting, omnipotent,
supreme. Lord of earth and sky, Conqueror of death and life,
he rode the storm, he soared upon the wings of the wind, he
healed the sick, he raised the dead. In him was centered all
that loveliness could but dream. He published the doctrine
of peace and forgiveness. He loved the poor, the blind, the
weak. He was a refuge for the weary, the heavy-laden. He
gave his life a ransom for the world. He died for her—for her.
He was "altogether lovely," this Lily of the valley, this
bright and morning Star, the "chiefest among ten
thousand," this beautiful One; he was her Hero. The Bible
truly was her Book of books. Of her Christian character, her
great and
simple faith was the prominent trait. She, who scorned an
exaggeration, accepted the Bible literally. She rejected none
of its mysterious figures, whose sublime conceptions she
little understood. "The mountains skipped like rams, and
the little hills like lambs," she commented upon with a
childlike faith, beautiful to behold: "If the Bible say so, it
mus' be so."
EVELYN TREVOR, always a favorite with Aunt Dice, spent
many a pleasant hour at Riverside. It was often her
privilege to visit the old homestead, and it was ever a
time of joyous expectancy, when the blue hills of South
Afton came into view, and the venerable old beech by
the ford trailed its branches in the river with a gurgling
welcome. Then the venturesome plunge into the clear
freestone waters, the grating of wheels on the graveled
drive, the rush and baying of the hounds at the great
double gate, and the welcome figure of Aunt Dice
coming across the lawn, her hands folded behind her,
her bare head silvery in the sunlight, all were happy
experiences not to be forgotten.
The charming mistress, the master, whose smile
always gladdened the hearts of John Trevor's children,
received her with affectionate regard. The old home,
with the familiar surroundings of Anne Macy's
childhood, had for Evelyn a peculiar interest. The
bright, changeful river always charmed her. The
slow-waving cedars of the cemetery impressed her
solemnly. The house held its attractions: the cunning
little rooms back of the galleries, painted in pure white;
the pale yellow walls of the dining room, hung still
with the
portraits of Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor; the
ample fireplace and brass-knobbed andirons; the
antique sideboard, which now did duty of a more
substantial kind.
Evelyn spent hours by the quaint old bookcase,
which contained volumes of history, heavy works of
astronomy and chemistry, Latin grammars and books
of mathematics, religious works, prayer books, poetry,
and curious fiction. Evelyn handled them tenderly,
reading on the fly leaves faintly legible but familiar
family names. The old-fashioned paper on the parlor
walls, an indistinct pattern of grayish, wavy lines and
trailing roses; the great four-posted bedstead which
stood in state in the best bedchamber, with its imposing
canopy, a marvel of mahogany, silk, and lace, Evelyn
felt could belong to no other so charmingly as to the
pleasant old mansion at Riverside.
The dark "scuttle hole," too, had a curious interest
to her: within its gloomy recesses Aunt Dice had
hidden the bedding and family valuables during the
war. Now the old clock, which had been removed
from the dining room, stood here, staring still, with a
white, dismayed face, as when its tones had been
rudely bushed under hostile hands.
War-time memories were growing indistinct to
Evelyn; already the days of slavery seemed far away
and dim. Her remembrances were those of a little
child, but its saddest chapters she now recalled as an
unpleasant dream; not only the day
when her mother, brave Anne Trevor, coolly gathered her
eggs under guard and pointed bayonet of a blue-coated
negro soldier; the dark days when her father lay in Franklin
jail, a prisoner of war; the sad farewells when all the slaves,
weeping and wailing, departed forever; but the dull
suspense of the gloomy time, the days of want and
privation—the musty meal and sugarless parched rye coffee.
Other things Evelyn remembered not so unpleasantly.
There were merry gatherings around the table, and merry
comments on the uncertain flavor of uncertain dishes—the
results of her mother's ludicrous attempts at cooking. There
were exciting incidents of Yankee raids and rebel feasts at
Vine Cottage. On one occasion she stood on the lawn with
her mother and Julia, the nurse, watching with interest a
squad of flying rebel horsemen and a dozen or more
Yankees in full pursuit.
Anne Trevor's blue eyes flashed. Verily she had about
her just then a look of Mos Sam himself.
"Open the gate, Julia; let them come in."
Julia flew to open the gate. The rebels passed through
with a yell of triumph.
"Leave the gate open!" shouted the leading Yankee.
"Shut it, Julia!"
"Leave it open!" he commanded, with raised pistol.
Julia shut the gate quickly, amid the threatening oaths of
the baffled leader, and thereby considered herself a martyr
to principle, and heroine of the war.
But Evelyn could never forget when she, a little child, sat
upon the knee of a Federal officer, and wondered that one in
the objectionable blue uniform could look so kindly upon
her, and stroke her hair with such tender hands, as he said,
sadly: "You are very like my own little daughter." Evelyn
still hoped that he lived to see his "own little daughter"
again; and she regretted sorrowfully that wiser heads than
hers had not settled the questions of the war peaceably, so
that all this bloodshed might have been avoided.
Her mother's former slaves—Eliza, Julia, and
Pet—now occupied part of the old quarters at
Riverside. Eliza was much the same, quiet and
earnest, almost as faithful as Aunt Dice; Julia
was still strong and comely, full of fun and spirits;
but Pet—still a very spoiled pet—was a "fine
lady," a development of her short stay in Nashville
and her late freedom. Her husband, a valuable farm hand,
worked early and late to provide her with all possible
comforts and to keep her in idleness.
Evelyn went out to the quarters one sunny morning to
find Pet reclining her ample figure in a chair by the cabin
hearth, and sipping her nine o'clock coffee.
"Why, Pet, we have breakfasted hours ago," said Evelyn,
amused at the "fashionably late" breakfast.
"Yo' see, Miss Evelyn," Pet said, complacently, "Joe
don't want me to git up early. I has a smoth'rin' in my breas'
uver mornin', an' I don't have to wuk hard nohow. Joe takes
his meals at de hous', an' I gits de chillun a little some'n to
eat, no sooner'n I'm rested, an' has my coffee ready. I ain't
'bleeged to wuk, yo' know. Joe gits fifteen dollars a mont'."
"I am glad you are doing well, Pet," said Evelyn, kindly.
From her earliest remembrance she had ever had an
unreasonable fondness for saucy, good-natured Pet.
"Yessum, Miss Ev'lyn, Joe g'wine to be rich fo' long, an'
he say I shan't wuk no mo' 'tall. Dat ain't all nuther. He
g'wine to buy me a sewin' m'chine, an' a red silk dress, an'
shoes wid gol' heels to 'um."
Evelyn's clear eyes wandered from the unkempt bed to
the ash-strewn hearth, where two small boys sopped their
bread and molasses from tin plates, their bacon and gravy
from an iron skillet, back to the worn cotton gown which Pet
spread grandly about her.
"You will be a fine lady, Pet," smiled Evelyn.
"Oh, yessum'; Joe say I got ter be. He'll buy me a
car'idge some day, an' de red silk dress, an' de gol'-heel
shoes—"
Evelyn, puzzled. She remembered a childish admiration of
hers for her mother's negro women, when dressed in their
smart Sunday gowns—silks, muslins, merinos—gowns of a
season's wearing, bestowed indulgently upon them. She
glanced again at Pet's soiled cotton gown.
"How can you have those things at Riverside, Pet?"
"Lor' bless you, Miss Ev'lyn!" exclaimed loquacious Pet,
"we ain't g'wine ter stay here. We's g'wine ter Nashvul.
Country don't 'gree wid me. 'Sides, money can't keep me
here," she continued, whimperingly; "dis place is sho'ly
ha'nted. Somebody g'wine to die here soon. De screech
owels is hollerin' in de grabeyard, an' dat mak' me knows it.
Dey screeches an' screeches up dar; den dey lights on de
hous', an' somebody got ter go."
Evelyn listened dreamily. Riverside was haunted, the
negroes said. Strange sounds were heard on the stairways
of the "white folks' house"; familiar faces looked forth from
its windows. The tall clock tolled from the garret, and
ghostly figures trod the long galleries. At night the scraping
of fiddles, the ringing of clevis pins, accompanied by the
measured beat of heavy feet, sounded from the old quarters'
kitchen. Uncle Amos sang from his cabin, while the little
negro boy who was drowned in the river sported with his
dog on its waters. Riverside was haunted; the negroes
were "boun' ter go."
"Don't lis'n to her, Ev'lyn. Pet talks like a fool," said Aunt
Dice suddenly from the doorway.
Evelyn followed Aunt Dice to the old loom house, where
she tended a brood of chickens, and looked curiously over
the relics of slavery days: a spinning machine, turned with a
crank and rollers; spinning wheels, reels, and cards; a
cunning little flax wheel, and the ponderous loom which
stood with silent shuttles in a corner. Aunt Dice answered
Evelyn's questions patiently.
As said before, Aunt Dice was a woman of few words.
Her sentences were short and decisive. An intelligent
question she answered plainly, concisely; a bright remark
she received with a pleased "Thar now," which kept one on
the hunt for brighter ones; but one of her keen, searching
looks was the only answer vouchsafed a silly question.
"What is this, Granny?" asked Evelyn, lifting a corner of
a large fishing net, spread over the loom to dry.
"A seine, chile; a seine."
Evelyn, reared in her dry little village, knew nothing of
fishing tackle or the technicalities of the art.
"Why, how can one man manage all this?"
"One man don't manage it. Some gits on one side o' the
river, some on t' other—"
in a steady trot for her cabin. Evelyn followed. Though
conscious of a greatly deplored ignorance, she determined
to try Aunt Dice's patience to the uttermost: "Granny, do
explain," she ventured boldly.
Granny turned suddenly: "I putty—near—despise ye!"
Then they stood together in the pleasant morning
sunlight, looking into each other's eyes, and laughing in
perfect good humor.
AUNT DICE was growing old. This she did not show in looks.
Her eyes still held their fire, and her face had few wrinkles.
There was no querulousness in tone or manner, no
childishness in speech or action. The broad sweep of her
brow was still smooth and placid, for she was never wont to
corrugate her forehead in useless frowns. Her carefully
brushed hair still had its silvery sheen, but her strength was
perceptibly fading. Her low figure seemed a little more squat
and short. Her rough hands trembled; her massive chin
quivered and appeared to hang slightly, which gave the
effect of a double chin; "a sign of age," Aunt Dice said.
She had little to do; came and went as she pleased, and
spent much of her time visiting the sick and poor, with
whom her name was a household word. At Riverside she
was content. Her social visits were noticeably shorter, as if
she would fain have hurried back to the cool quiet of her
beloved home. "'Pears like I can't stay nowhar," she would
apologize. "I'm gittin' a fool 'bout home." The children of
her dear master she caressed and dandled upon her knees,
or treated them occasionally to the wholesome discipline of
their father before them, though with greater leniency,
natural to her age. The eldest she would admonish
frequently: "You've got Mos William's name, son; min'
how you han'le it."
John Trevor, the second, whose clear-cut face had the
same proud, sweet look of his mother, Aunt Dice had
sometimes to uphold when the imperious William proved
too domineering. But the youngest, a tender, delicate girl,
white and pure as a star-eyed daisy, Aunt Dice held upon
her bosom with an anxious care, as if she feared that the
angels had loved this one too well.
The days passed by, days that were blessed. Aunt Dice
was reaping the fruits of her well-spent years. Among all her
acquaintances she bore an honored name, and by her white
friends was treated with distinguished courtesy. Wherever
known she was never forgotten. Strangers remembered her.
A missionary in far-off Brazil, who had spent a short week at
Vine Cottage, wrote to John Trevor: "Remember me to Aunt
Dice; I do not forget her." It is needless to add that among
all her "children" and "grandchildren" she was very highly
honored and beloved.
In all her long life Aunt Dice had but one glimpse of the
world and its way—an unfavorable one truly, within the walls
of Nashville's courthouse. Summoned as a witness in a trial
for murder—a strange, new duty for her seventy-four
years—she prepared to answer the call, after many instructions
from the master. She donned her best bonnet and gown.
"Don't get confused, Aunt Dice," cautioned the
mistress.
"I ain't never done nothin' to be 'shamed of that I knows
on," she replied bravely.
Though it required some courage to meet this demand,
Aunt Dice proved equal to the occasion. It was learned that
she caused many a smile in the court room by her droll
expressions, her caustic wit, and commanded the gentle
respect of the Judge himself when she bared her white head
to the defendant's lawyer: "Do ye see my gray head? Do
you think I'd tell a lie?" After this there was no more "cross-questioning."
When her duty was done the judge spoke to her: "Aunt
Dice, with whom do you stay?"
"I b'longs to Cap'n Macy, suh—Mos Sam," she
answered quickly.
"Mos Sam?" he questioned, smiling. "Would you feel
free enough to come to Nashville, if I offered you good
wages and a comfortable home?"
"Thanky, suh," she rejoined proudly. "I don't 'ceive
wages, an' I wouldn't leave Mos Sam for all the comf'ble
homes in Tennessee."
As might be expected, Aunt Dice came home from
Nashville brimful of news. Her trip to the courthouse was an
amusing theme for many a day after. She interested her
friends by her original sketches of strange sights and the
grotesque mimicry of the characters she met, in which the
defendant's lawyer was least flattered. Of the judge she
spoke respectfully, a sign of her high regard. "He wus a
well-mannered man, a p'lite gen'l'mun," she said. "I made him
my bes' curt'sy."
Her "curt'sy" was a low bow, which brings a smile to
remember. The downward sweep of the body, the outspread
palms, the backward step, were ungracefully executed; but
the effect of her earnestness and pride was stimulating, if
nothing more.
In summing up the qualities of Aunt Dice, the
superiority of her character above the average negro is
apparent. She was an exception, in many respects,
even from the talkative, superstitious, but time-honored
"black mammy," who has earned her place in the hearts
of the southern people. Aunt Dice had few equals
among her kind. Her faults she had, doubtless, but they
do not live to reproach her memory. With her progressive
mind, her broad intellect, her intelligence and wonderful
accuracy of judgment, it is impossible to say what
she might have been had she lived at the present time.
The progress of the world in peace and good will,
in Christian philanthropy and excellence, would have
pleased her much, though it is interesting to imagine
what her opinion would have been of the bloomer-costumed,
strong-minded woman. She would perhaps have turned
rather to the straight-hanging skirts and soft muslin
kerchief of the old-time woman, who did not ape the
manners and dress of the stronger sex. Aunt Dice would
have been pleased to see also, in many instances, the
upbuilding and outgrowing of mind, capability, and worth
in her own race and people. But she served well her day
and generation.
Many under more promising circumstances have done
less.
Much more could be told of her deeds and sayings
during her seventy-five years of toil and earnest endeavor.
Perhaps the numerous "grandchildren," every one of whom
looked first into her dusky face, could each tell a story of her
love and faithfulness.
It had been a special wish of Aunt Dice's to see born to
John Trevor a son; but it was only after long years of
waiting that her wish was gratified. Daughter after daughter
had she taken from the mother's side and laid in his arms—all
of whom he gathered tenderly to his heart; but when, in her
seventieth year, she placed in his lap a real kicking boy, with
a pleased "Thar now, Mos John," the father's smile was not
prouder than her own. "John Willlian" she named him—a
homely name enough, but one that meant much to her.
It was four years later, during one of her last social visits
to Vine Cottage—a visit grown sacred now with the memory
of it—she sat with this rosy-cheeked boy in her lap. A pretty
picture it was: the boy of four years playing with his white
terrier, Roy, at his feet; the gray-haired nurse, with one
toil-worn hand on his knee—pleasant, dignified, not one whit
childish or peevish in her old age.
"John," asked his father suddenly, with a twinkle in his
eye—, "mind you think well, my son—which one do you love
best, Aunt Dice or Roy?"
homely face, looked down at the dog who wagged his tail
knowingly, and answered, "Roy."
"That's right, chile; tell the truth," said Aunt Dice, in no
wise ruffled.
But the visits of this faithful nurse, the sight of her
well-known figure, her dear companionship, were soon to
be no more at Vine Cottage. The days crept by—days that
were golden. The seasons waned slowly, as if loath to leave
the quiet landscapes. The sun rose and set, kissing the river
in a myriad dimples, slanting in long golden bars through the
maples, silvering the whitened harvest fields at Riverside
and gilding the hazy November woods. The eight long,
bright years closed in darkness, nevermore to be lifted.
The mistress, lovely in her life, lay down in death after a
short week's illness, and Riverside was desolate! Nay,
more; all South Afton mourned for one who had lived among
them so graciously, whose memory yet lingers amid the
sunlit hills and quiet vales as the perfume of a flower
crushed in its bloom. Aunt Dice went about with a still face,
trying to be as brave in her old age as in the days of her
strength.
When the family friends arrived from Nashville they
found the house in quiet keeping, as in the presence of
death. The severe plainness of the table where coffee and
bread were served, the noiseless tread of servants, the
solemn stillness, betokened the faithful management of
Aunt Dice, who knew what was befitting and seemly.
After the lovely mistress was laid away among the
myrtles of the cemetery, Aunt Dice's health visibly declined.
For a year she bore up bravely against a malignant disease,
striving to be housekeeper and mother to the children,
striving with all her might to bring back the force of her
younger days, the steady step of her prime. Not a sorrowful
fight this seemed, but a cheerful struggle, even with
occasional glimpses of her old, grotesque humor, which was
the chief charm of her youth. Above all, there was a sublime
faith in an all-wise Creator, who was able both to make and
unmake, to give and to take.
On her last solemn visit to Anne Trevor, with the shadow
of death upon her, it was her daily habit to take up the
family Bible, lay it reverently in the lap of some one to read
aloud, while she listened gravely, a peaceful look in her dear
old eyes, so soon to see in his beauty the One she had
followed so humbly.
It was John Trevor's duty to tell her of her incurable
illness. She received the news quietly, saying with cheerful
emphasis: "Well, I can't 'spect to live allus. Death is a sho'
thing." She sat in silence for awhile; then, as if the dawning
of a new day had broken in upon her soul, she said slowly:
"I'll soon see—Mos William."
WITH all her indomitable will, and the sad fact that Mos Sam
needed her sorely, the end of the year found Aunt Dice
bedridden; but withal the year's end found her determined.
She was to spend her last days with Charley— "Mos Sam
had trubble ernuff."
This was perhaps the second and last mistake of her life;
but what fortitude and self-sacrifice this decision called for,
none can judge. In spite of her long years of active service,
Aunt Dice could not reconcile herself to be ministered unto
by her white people. The sight of her master standing over
her at night troubled her.
"What can I do for you, Aunt Dice?" he would ask, when
the thought of her kept him awake.
"A little water, Mos Sam; then go to bed."
That long, cold winter was a sad experience. The stricken
master, with the care of his motherless ones, often sought
her cabin at midnight hours to find her deserted by her hired
nurse, keeping her uncomplaining watch alone. He built her
fires, administered her medicine, brought her cool water from
the great bluff spring—no longer the willful, imperious master,
but the strangely gentle, patient nurse.
Evelyn Trevor, who rode over often during the Christmas
holidays, looked in one day upon a touching scene. The old
servant lay tossing on a bed of pain, talking wildly,
deliriously, the result of a neuralgic affection of the
brain—a reflex action of the deadly tumor. "The cotton fiel's
white; stir 'em up, Cæsar; don' let Mos William fin' 'em 'sleep.
Be lively, boys; daylight's burnin'!" cried the sufferer, in
the old imperious tone, followed by a moaning, "Mos Sam,
you're ruined, you're ruined!" or quieting suddenly, "Hush!
Miss Helen's singin'."
The master leaned over the hearth, warming a bran
poultice. Evelyn's heart ached as she watched his bowed
figure, the big salt tears that rolled from his careworn face
dropping silently on the unconscious brow of the sufferer.
Under Dr. Trevor's prompt treatment Aunt Dice was
relieved, her reason restored, and she gained strength so
rapidly that she bade Evelyn a cheerful good-by from the
cabin door when the holidays were ended.
The long winter passed. Aunt Dice made arrangements
for her final departure. All the loving service and tender care
of a grateful family were offered her; still Aunt Dice was
resolute. Not even the protestations and entreaties of her
beloved master availed. To Charley she would go, leaving
one request—to be buried near Cæsar, at Riverside; a sunny
slope of the cemetery overlooking the river, which her kind
old master
himself had chosen as her last resting place, where the
golden candlesticks she had planted bloomed and burned in
the early spring. One should prefer to order the ending of
this story as in fiction, to frame the picture fittingly. But
Charley came for his mother one bleak day in March
—quarrelsome, dictatorial Charley, who was more careful, it
was said, of her numerous bedquilts and the wonderful
bureau with glass handles than of her precious sick body.
"Good-by, Mos Sam; take keer yo'se'f"; and a black,
trembling band reached forth from the covered "express."
The last link was gone that bound the stricken master to
Riverside. Her empty cabin stood desolate. No homely
advice, no cheering word or caustic rebuke, no sound of her
steady step! Her work was done. The master was alone—the
happy home no more. The lonely call of the river tortured
him. Never again would the flash and smile of her dimpling
waters soothe or charm him! Never for him the full, free
breath of the rolling uplands, the billowy sweep of gold!
With the light of his home and the hopes of his youth, the
glorious beauty of Riverside had departed, to return
nevermore. The tender green of spring, the wanton beauty
of the summer, though the mocking bird in the maple poured
out his heart in melody for the love of it, were never for him
again. Riverside was but the grave of his buried hopes.
Restless and unhappy, he sold his inheritance
and wandered abroad, with the moaning cry of the river
still lingering in his ears.
In Nashville the whereabouts of Aunt Dice soon ceased
to be known. The negro habit of flitting hither and thither in
the hurrying quest for bread and shelter soon left her friends
no trace of her. Rumors drifted occasionally in an uncertain
way from the noise of the city: Aunt Dice was better, was
walking about, was in bed again; but only once a message,
more like a despairing cry: "Tell Mos Sam I'd die happy fur
one mo' sight of his face." Perhaps it was well that she did
not know that her master was away and her beloved
Riverside in the hands of strangers. In her self-banishment,
one could but imagine the change for the proud old negress.
For years accustomed to cleanly and wholesome
surroundings, she was yet in her old age to realize the filth
and squalor, the uncertain maintenance of real negro life.
Then the busy, bustling city; the ceaseless passing back
and forth, the strange sounds breaking in upon the weary
exile, whose ears had been for forty years tuned to the soft
lapping of her loved South Afton!
EVELYN TREVOR sat within her pleasant
room at a boarding house in Nashville,
holding in her hands a letter with a well-known
signature, a sweet conceit: "Your dear father,
John Trevor."
Through the open window the February winds, drifting
from the sunny uplands of Riverside, from the hillside
playground of Vine Cottage farm, lifted the curls from her
brow and stirred the ruffling of her dainty gown, whispering
of the spring's glad coming. Her books lay unopened at her
side. Nine o'clock would find her on her way to Nashville's
Seminary for Young Ladies; still she sat looking far away
over the western hills, thinking—thinking over the letter
she held in her hands. The classic shades of Locust Grove
Academy, the school of her earlier days, were to her now
only dear memories. The free or public schools had crowded
out this modest hall of learning, where the schoolmistress
and principal moved with queenly grace among her
satellites—assistant and music teachers.
Evelyn could not remember whenever this wise, firm
mistress had failed in look or word to encourage her
inquiring mind, or to smooth a difficult step. She could not
remember during those four
long terms a neglectful breach of courtesy from
preceptress, or a failure to reward the smallest favor by a
bow and smile or gentle thanks. Yet what a steely grip in
those delicate hands! A look was a command; a slight
tremor of her chin, an ominous warning; but her smile,
lighting up the compass of her strong, intellectual face, was
worth many an hour of laborious effort. Evelyn felt
sometimes that she could have reached any height whither
this smile might have led.
Not without danger of "cramming," she peeped into
science, pored over history; she read, composed, and
copied; she transposed and analyzed sentences, reaching to
Milton's intricate verse; but, sad to say, she stumbled
continuously over the dull problems of her arithmetic.
Nevertheless, duty was pleasant here. There were "sermons
in stones"; flowers were ruthlessly pulled apart and
dissected; the use of globes made her geography an easy
study; and she learned that the stars were not mere golden
things, studding the sky for glory and beauty.
To please her fancy more, the surrounding groves and
lanes of the academy were peopled with airy forms from her
own mythology. Flora smiled from the garden; Pomona
showed her rosy face from the depths of the orchard;
dolphins sported in the miniature lake; while farther down a
charming bit of landscape, where the streamlet gurgled over
rocks and eddied into pools, there was—ah yes!—Scylla
and Charybdis. Over the
brow of the hill the great god Pan himself, not dead—oh
no!—played his pipe where the wild grapes grew.
But this February morning Evelyn was not dreaming of
the well-remembered haunts of Locust Grove Academy, nor
was she longing for the dewy dells of her country home; but
her thoughts were far beyond the western horizon, where
the rippling waters of dear South Afton caressed the rugged
bluffs at Riverside. In a cabin door she saw a short, squat
figure; a homely face, with kind old eyes that looked a sad
good-by at parting.
"Now, 'member, chile," Aunt Dice had said,
"tain't all to larn in schoolin' an' books. Ef yo' is a lady,
yo'll go with ladies, an' gen'l'muns."
These words were useful to Evelyn. She had not
forgotten. She read her father's letter, her eyes growing dim
over the words, "Look for Aunt Dice, and bring her home;
we think she is in distress."
All day at school the babbling of sweet South Afton
sounded in Evelyn's ears; all day a dark, homely face smiled
from the pages of her book. At her earliest hour she started
on her quest, only to return at nightfall weary and
disappointed.
Of Aunt Dice's granddaughters, all of whom had some
years before removed to Nashville, Eliza was the only one
living. Pet—poor spoiled Pet—had indulged her love of finery
to her heart's content at the "second-hand" stores, but died
all too soon for the "car'idge an' hosses," and the
"shoes wid gol' heels." Evelyn had seen Julia once
only. When passing down the street with a friend she
heard a frantic voice calling behind her, "Miss Ev'lyn, O
Miss Ev'lyn!" Evelyn turned in surprise to see Julia—no
longer the comely Julia—kneeling at her feet, gathering
up the skirt of her gown and kissing it passionately.
Julia, too, was soon laid away in the colored burying
ground at Mt. Ararat. Eliza was still in Nashville; but
where, Evelyn could not tell, owing to the varying life
of the colored poor.
Next day after school hours Evelyn resumed her
search from street to street, tracing painfully the
whereabouts of the changeful, flitting Charley. He had
gone "furder up town"—on "t'other side o' the riber";
and lastly, "He ain't here; he's moved som'r's 'long o'
Front street."
On the third day's search Evelyn passed down an
ill-smelling alley, and knocked at the grimy door of a
basement room. Entering, she noticed a group of noisy,
dirty children; recognized slowly the wrinkled remnant
of Charley's wife, Maria; then her quick eyes saw in
the opposite corner a narrow iron bedstead, which she
knew to be Aunt Dice's—on which the honored servant
of Riverside had been wont to take her afternoon
naps. Passing quickly to the dark corner, she knelt by
the bedside, where lay a shrunken figure, who passed
one withered arm around Evelyn's neck, while the bed
shook with her silent grief.
could only hold the rough, fevered hand, or pass her
cool fingers over the throbbing temples.
Aunt Dice grew quiet at length: "How's Mos Sam?"
"He was well when we heard from him last—"
"Mos John an' Miss Anne?"
"All well, dear Granny; we only want you."
Aunt Dice lay silent for awhile. Evelyn stroked her
hand, which twitched nervously.
"Ev'lyn, tell Mos Sam—not to sen' me—any mo'
money."
Evelyn hesitated. She understood the old reserve.
Aunt Dice's private griefs had always been respected,
but surely in her helpless old age she might share her
griefs for once. "Tell me why, Granny. Tell me why."
"I never see—de money."
"Granny, never mind the money. I have come for
you. You shall go home with me at the close of the
week. That is day after to-morrow. They are waiting
for you at home. You will come?" pleaded Evelyn.
Aunt Dice lifted her face with a new interest. She
raised herself on her elbow. "It mus' be lookin' fresh
an' cool at Mos John's. Yes, I'll go—ef I kin." She
looked toward the dark doorway. "Ain't the grass
comin' out?"
"Yes, Granny; spring is waiting for you at home, at
dear Vine Cottage."
"Yes, chile." Eternal spring was waiting for her.
Evelyn sank, sobbing, by her bed. Aunt
Dice put out her thin, wrinkled hand. "Don't, Ev'lyn,
don't take on so. Yo' Granny is nuther afeard ter die
nur ter live. I'm mo' comf'ble than ye knows of," she
continued. "Riah does de bes' she knows how, an' Liza
brings me things ter eat, an' keeps my bed clean."
"But you will go with me, Granny?" asked Evelyn,
opening her basket and piling her fruit, rolls, and
coffee about the bed.
Aunt Dice turned restlessly, and passed one hand
wearily over her face. "Mebbe so, Ev'lyn—ef nuthin'
don't happen."
"What can happen?" asked Evelyn, cheerfully.
"You will get well at Vine Cottage, with dear mother
and the girls to nurse you." After a fond good-by, she
closed the door and hastened homeward.
Next day at school it was not the babbling of the
river in her ears; not the vision of a stout, low figure in
a cabin door; but a dark, shrunken form in a dark
corner beckoned to her sadly.
On the following Saturday Evelyn stood again
at the basement door, staring blankly at the deserted
room. Charley had flown again, no one knew whither.
Evelyn turned away in sore disappointment. What
was the meaning of Aunt Dice's reticence about the
"money," her hesitating acceptance of a home at
Vine Cottage? Could it be—oh no, surely it could
not be—that Charley used her monthly pittance, and
smuggled her sick body back and forth across the city,
that no communication pass between her and her
friends!
Another search was instituted. There was a season
of suspense, an unavoidable delay of several weeks,
when John Trevor found Eliza, and learned that Aunt
Dice had passed away at Eliza's home, and not with
Charley, for whom she had borne so much.
Just here, while the pen may be ready to censure,
the heart prompts a feeling of leniency for the
wayward, mistaken Charley. That he was Aunt Dice's
son precludes a hasty judgment. Were she here to
plead for him, she would perhaps find some trait of
character worthy of her son; some charm of manner
or person, some redeeming quality that others know
not of. That he loved her, she did not doubt. He was
her own, her son. Let Charley's failings be forgotten,
now that he sleeps quietly at last by his mother's side,
after the "fitful fever" of his erring but unfortunate life.
Aunt Dice was tended with care and devotion by
faithful Eliza, who secured the privilege by renouncing
all claim to her grandmother's possessions. Aunt Dice
died in peace. She was laid away in her plain coffin,
robed in her black silk gown, with the lace shawl
pinned about her; and in the early spring, when the
golden candlesticks were aflame around Cæsar's
grave, when the laughing waters of her native river
danced and rippled in the spring sunshine, Aunt Dice,
the
faithful slave, the beloved servant, was lowered into her
grave on a bleak slope of Mt. Ararat, within sound of the
city's roar and tumult.
It was also learned that Aunt Dice was very patient
through all the dreary days of her illness, very quiet and
"peaceful-like," waiting in simple faith the time of her
departure; for the reunion with those who had gone before,
whom she had loved and served so faithfully. But a fairer
One she saw, perhaps, than any of earth she had known,
when in her dying moments she lifted a radiant face and
said, "Glory—glo-r-y!"
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