CHAPTER VI.

AN UNSETTLED QUESTION-THE DIPLOMACY OF BABES.

THE

HE Colonel's trip bad been too much for him. He was not at breakfast the next morning. The remainder of the family were, and as chirrupy and careless of danger as ever I had known them. I did detect an aversion to any discussion of the "insurrection," however, and it seemed to me that they all looked a little "sheepish like" when I spoke of it. Certain it is that they had only very mild thanks for my devotion, and the topic of conversation that morning, as indeed, during the greater part of the remainder of my stay there, was chiefly of their progenitors, of whom they never ceased to feel proud.

They came of an old South Carolina family, and were able, though but faintly, to trace their lineage back to William the Conqueror on one side, and to an old Scotch laird on the other. Still, as Americans, they had never considered the fact worth mentioning until now, when the "leveling process, inaugurated by the radicals," was undermining and destroying the "props that had heretofore sustained as chivalrous a people as had ever risen to bless the world in the tide of time."

While passing the usual hour or so in the sitting-room with the young ladies that evening, one of them, looking up from her crocheting, or whatever it was, with a rather bewitching smile playing around the corners of her mouth, and much

mischief peeping from out the rims of her large eyes over which long lashes hung like drapery, poutingly inquired:

"Colonel Mawgan, there weren't very many like you in the Yankee ahmy, was there?"*

I am sure I may readily be excused from recording here what my answer was, and my reader be content with the following, from the same young Miss:

"Well, if he weren't a baboon why was he such a hairy man?" This of " Abe Lincoln," and

"What made him love the nigros so?" and the expression of her face became a profound study.

Again

"We all were so very happy, and ouah nigros so contented and happy, too! How could you all wish to steal them from us?"

And

"How could you all fight against we all for them? I won't believe yo' did. Yo' don't look a bit like that. Paw says you all fought for the Union, not to take our slaves away from us. Yo'r not a Yankee, yo'r from the West, arn't ye?"

Then"But I can't understand it at all, anyway. I don't believe any of we all do. Paw was a Union man and talked strong against the wab, till he had to go with his State, and Judge Syam and paw and maw all 'low we could have kept our nigros only foah President Davis breaking up the Union." And again

"But what you all g'wain to do with them, now they are all free? They can't take car' themselves, po' things! We all will have to provide foa'h them just the same as befo' the wah."

Not getting very much comfort out of my responses she finally somewhat peevishly exclaimed :

"Well, they'll always be just what they are—servants, and I reckon it won't be a great while befo' we'll have them back on ouah hands again. Yo'll see!"

*The war had interrupted the school training of others as well as myself.

Now I had seen enough of the world to know that "babes,' oftener than their elders, speak out with fidelity not only what is in their own minds, but also what is passing in the minds of their parents, and notwithstanding just a hint of diplomacy in the attitude and manner of my fair interlocutor, I had an idea that Miss Sue had let out the true state of her own, the judge's, and her parents' views on the "negro question," so I ventured to ask her:

"In that event, what will you all do with them, Miss Sue?" Evidently she was not prepared to answer so far-reaching an interrogatory, for she began to reply with some embarrass

ment :

"I-reckon-the-South can take car' of its own. But why should that concern you all? Paw says the Yankees wor' always meddling in ouah affairs, after they sold their nigros to we all. He! ha! ha!"

Miss Sue evidently believed that she had utterly demolished me, for, recovering her embarrassment as she proceeded, she broke out in a triumphant laugh at the close.

"But, Miss Sue, you will not be able to sell your negroes to any one, now that the whole world nearly has abolished slavery."

"Sell them!" "Why!”.

But I came to her relief. "Perhaps you won't wish to sell them when they shall have all fallen back on your hands again !"

"Judge Syam says we may not be permitted to sell them like we all could befo' the wah, 'count of some amendment or other to the laws which you all g'wain to force on we all. He 'lows he shall be just as well satisfied if you all only leave us alone and let us manage them owah own way. And paw says you all boun' to pay we all foah our nigros anyway, because they wor our property, and you all knew when yo' stole them from us that yo' had no right to do it. You all just wanted them for soldiers to fight we all with. 'Spect yo' wor tired a-fighting we all anyway. No one but Yankees ever would have done such a mean thing."

Miss Sue's indignation, gathering heat from the furnace of my questions, was rapidly passing into anger, and her cooing, attractive manner had changed into one of repulsion to me. I preferred her other mood, and so began:

"Oh, well, Miss Sue, we have all suffered by the war. There have been many things said and done on our side as well as yours, that should never have been. For my own part I am glad the war is over. I believe these other questions will settle themselves, don't you?"

Miss Sue brightened instantly. "Yes," said she, “and we'll settle them foah the good of our nigros as much as foah our own, too, foah we all raised them and know thar ways, and they are used to ouah'n.”

Evidently Miss Sue could not apprehend my meaning. It was so with the entire Black family. It was so with their neighbors-white neighbors. Black, or colored people, were in no sense neighbors. They were servants. It was so all around.

With the former master class their former slaves were still "our nigros." And in the eyes of that class the freed people were identical in character and destiny with "our slaves."

The change which I had given to the direction of our conversation had a most charming effect upon all present. They had all joined in what was going on between Miss Sue and myself, and had chilled toward me in sympathy with her. And, now that I had hung out the white flag, they continued to follow her. So that we soon become quite agreeable to each other again, resolved to have peace at any cost. That is, was so resolved. I couldn't afford strife, and could see no good likely to result from contending with them.

I

CHAPTER VII.

COLONEL BLACK'S LIBRARY-A NEW DEPARTURE-TOKEBA'S JAIL-MORE DIPLOMACY-A SOUTHERNER'S INSTINCTS.

HE incidents reported in the three last chapters convinced me that I had been the subject of conversation with the people, white, light, and black, to a greater extent than any one ignorant as I was of their ways could have foreseen, and I feared it might lead to disagreeable consequences.

I could not like the Colonel, try ever so hard. I could like the girls; they were so unlike the typical girl of the far South my fancy had created. Though not strong charactered like our real good Yankee girls, as I thought, they were nice. I liked Mrs. Black, too, though I could see that she was sorely tried by me.

The literature of the family library was quite ancient. Dryden, Scott, Shakespeare, Pope, Swift, Byron, and Johnson were to be found there. Also Voltaire and Paine, Adams, Madison and Jefferson were there; but Calhoun, Webster, Clay, and Benton appeared to be the favorites. Besides several old volumes of the Congressional Globe and Agricultural Reports, there were works on African slavery, in defense of that institution, and on the origin and destiny of the dark races. Of course, I looked in vain for a scrap from such advanced thinkers as Gerrit Smith, Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, Lowell, or Whittier, or even Seward or Emerson.

The Colonel was a fatalist, and often quoted from Pope. A familiar line was the following:

"All discord, harmony not understoood:

All partial evil, universal good;

* *

*

Whatever is, is right."