annoyance. “Nay, my dear,” said she to her husband, who would have checked her, “you know we were looking back the other day through the nine years we have lived here, and we found” —and here she turned to me—“that the attempts to kill somebody or other have been, on an average, four a week for the whole nine years.”
“Is it possible?” I exclaimed. “And do the whites kill the most blacks, or the reverse?”
“Oh! it has nothing to do with the negroes at all,” Anna replied. “That is, I mean that I am speaking of white gentlemen attacking one another.”
“Gentlemen!” I involuntarily exclaimed.
“You should be aware, sir,” said the overseer, in a singularly disagreeable way, “that we are all gentlemen here. We have no white labourers, except when you send us a scamp here and there from the North.”
As I took no notice, feeling no call to teach the overseer that brawling and manslaughter are not signs of good-breeding, Anna went on to tell me that a neighbouring clergyman had lately excited a strong sensation by preaching from the Sixth Commandment, and in the course of his sermon giving the statistics of manslaughter in Alabama for the last ten years in comparison with that of New and Old England. The facts were so extraordinary that the preacher had been requested to publish his sermon; but when it was half through the press he had been so threatened that he was obliged to stop. The overseer growled out that this was all right; and even D observed that it was injudicious to bring accusations against a state of society which the pastor did not, in fact, understand. Anna shook her head, and said no more.
The fields were worth visiting that fine spring day. The field-hands were hideous, especially the women, with their scanty, dingy, coarse dresses, their floundering gait, and their vacant countenances streaming with perspiration. The ridges left by the plough were being converted into little mounds by hand, and the seed was already dropped into some of the holes. Elsewhere there were young cotton-plants to be kept clean from weeds; and we also saw some corn growing within another fence. D differs from his neighbours in choosing to grow more food than they do, saying that he may make less money by that part of his land, but that he gains in security. Recent events have reminded me of this, and I am hoping that he may have food enough within his own boundary to save him and his people from the alarm of famine in case of Mobile being blockaded. The young cotton-plants, of the most vivid green, were flourishing when I last saw them—each one with a handful of cotton-seed about its stem as manure.
The sun was getting high, and we turned homewards, while the overseer resumed his watch.
Minnie was absorbed in writing, though the younger children seemed to me to need some other supervision than that of their negro nurse. She roused herself when the cake and wine appeared, and was willing to take a drive in the afternoon— the drive promising charms both of nature and friendship. In plain words, we were to go and see a pretty little prairie, five miles off, and to make two or three calls on our way home.
Two gentlemen dropped in, and stayed to dinner at two. I could have fancied this a continuation of my last visit, but for the growth of the young people. There was the old story of indifferent soup, roast turkey (rather skinny), and ham (excellent); and of course a salad to be dressed with the gravy of the ham—a real hit in the eating way, in my opinion. There was a boiled fowl set down in one odd place, and a tongue in another: a lump of pork, stewed or somehow disguised; a vast variety of pickles, and the usual rice, hominy, high-spiced mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, radishes, and hot corn bread. Then pumpkin pies, apple pies, and custard, and half a dozen West India preserves; almonds and raisins, nuts of various kinds, and vast blocks of ice-cream, of two or three sorts. Wine, cider, and a bottle of ale, for my special indulgence, were provided; but the main consumption was of claret.
After dinner, a retreat to the piazza was a matter of course; and there Minnie’s admirers were wont to make the best of their time by drawing her apart, getting her to sing, or walking to and fro in the shade, whispering poetry or jokes. The lawyer was thus occupied this afternoon while we were enjoying our cigars, and Anna amusing the children, when a messenger came on a heated and panting horse. The lawyer was wanted to take a deposition and make a will, Mr. Tr having been shot in the back as he was entering his own gate. Nobody was surprised. This was one of the remote consequences of a duel fought in the preceding year, which was presided over by the Governor of the State. When I expressed my surprise, I was told that there was scarcely an official person in the State, from the Governor to the humblest postman or customhouse servant, who had not fought, or been shot or stabbed without opportunity to fight. The lawyer himself had been stabbed in the back while looking over his newspaper in the reading-room. Lawyer as he was, he had not followed up the perpetrator. “It was considered best to let the matter drop.” On hearing this, I settled in my own mind that he would not succeed with the romantic Minnie. She who wanted a Bayard would not accept a man who lived in a society where he could be stabbed in the back in a defenceless moment, and then be induced to let the thing pass. They certainly are an odd sort of “chivalry” in that region. In other States than South Carolina the citizens of whole towns and districts extolled Preston Brooks as a brave man for nearly killing another unarmed and unsuspecting man in the Senate Chamber. They presented him with testimonials, instead of sending him to Coventry (as you English say) as a traitor and a coward.
The carriage appeared, and the saddle-horses. Minnie and her brother rode with their father, and my sister and I took charge of all the other children in the carriage. She never ventures to leave them at home without her for so long as an afternoon drive or visit. Every one of her children has been born on the plantation, because she can,