Part 4

Upon the second day, the party leave the hills, now gorgeous in their autumnal brilliancy, the rocky roads, and the swiftly running streams of the up-country, and enter the lonely region where the great turpentine trees rear their lofty crests, and interminable sandy roads stretch away into dimness between columns of stately pines whose lofty tops make solemn music to the sighing wind.

The third day finds them in "The Slashes," a desolate region inhabited by squatters. As they jolt over corduroy roads between pools of stagnant waters, the travelers look out wearily upon a sparse growth of gallberry and scrub-pine. Now and then they pass the solitary hut of a charcoal-burner, surrounded by its little patch of meagre corn; a pack of cur dogs rush out and bark fiercely, within the safe limits of the wattle fence surrounding the premises; white-headed children gaze from the doorways at the passing carriages.

At the last settlement which they pass, a woman and a small, pale-faced boy are gathering in their corn crop. They are the wife and son of Bolin Brazle, an idle but good-natured vagabond, who spends his days scraping upon his fiddle up at the store, or occasionally, upon the promise of a drink, lending a hand in rafting tar-barrels. In consequence of the presentation of a worn-out mule, Bolin swears by the planter, wants to run him for the presidency, and obstinately refuses to receive pay for his charcoal. The matter is finally arranged by a barrel of corn being sent as a present whenever a load of charcoal is needed.

Soon after leaving the "Slashes," a huddle of houses standing irregularly in a grove of magnificent oaks comes into view. In passing the one which does double duty as store and post-office, the travellers look at it with the realization that it is the connecting link with the outside world, as from it the bi-weekly mail is dispensed. Inside, some one (Brazle, no doubt) is scraping a lively jig upon his fiddle; on the long piazza men, lounging in chairs tilted against the wall, take off their hats to the carriages as they roll by. The planter draws his rein for a little friendly greeting, and the men, squirting tobacco juice, stand around and lazily report the country-side news as to the opening of the cotton, the state of the river, etc. Even the screech of the fiddle has died away.

The long descents of the ferry hill commence, and the carriages roll pleasantly between deeply wooded banks. The approach to the river is marked by long rows of tar-barrels awaiting shipment, or rather rafting. From this point the road has become a sort of concrete from years of leakage from the tar-barrels. The children shriek with joy as the carriages come to a stop, and, craning their heads out, they behold the great tawny river in all its majesty. The repeated hallooings for the ferryman are at length responded to from far upstream. The old scamp is off fishing, and the party seek the shade, where a spring of clear water bubbles from a bank. While the children are drinking copious draughts, the parents stroll off and take a woodland path, which, after many a twist and turn amid thickets of sweet myrtle and purple-berried Bermuda Shrub, brings them to the summit of "The Bluff."

Standing there, they look down upon the river, two hundred feet below. Upon the further side lie fields, all brown and golden in the sunshine, level and limitless; they stretch into the purple dimness where cypress trees loom upon the horizon, their flat tops mingling dreamily with the soft autumnal hazes. Far away, amid the sun-bathed fields, stand the trees which shelter the plantation home, whose chimneys and white gables are scarce visible save where a stray sunbeam falls upon them.

"So to the Jews fair Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between,"

murmured the mother, as she glanced at her husband, to whom she knew the lands spread before them were, by inheritance and long association, far dearer than could be measured by the mere money value.

Descending again to the ferry, they find the carriage already in the flat, and the children scarce restrained by Mammy from crossing without their elders. They draw deep breaths of delight as they watch old Bartley, with active limp, loosen the chain, and, planting his iron-shod pole deep into the grating sands, send the flat upstream; then, at a given point, they watch with intense admiration his skill in taking the sweeps and shooting swiftly to the other side.

The horses know that they are near home, and prick up their ears, and go briskly onward. Scarcely a quarter of a mile is gone before the buildings of the "lower plantation" come into view,--a row of cabins built irregularly upon the highest points straggle along the river banks. Each cabin has its little garden with its row of coleworts and its beehives, or perhaps a pumpkin or two shows its yellow sides amid the withered vines. Outside the cabins, fish-nets are hung to dry, and from within comes the sleepy drone of a spinning-wheel; about the doorstep hens are scratching, while from around the corner a cluster of little woolly heads peep out shyly.

Standing in the mellow sunlight, amid fields of ripening corn, with the river gently flowing between levees of such strength as to set floods at defiance, these cabins seem the very embodiment of peaceful security; the high piles, though, upon which they stand, are rather suggestive, and give a hint of what the now peacefully flowing stream is capable of when roused.

A story is told of an old negro who obstinately refused to leave his house at a time when the unusually high water made it necessary to remove the people to a place of greater security. The rafts were ready, and the people, scared and anxious, had left their houses, and now only wailed for old Todge, who, with mulish persistence, refused to be moved. At length, unable to persuade him, and afraid to wait longer, they poled the rafts away. For the first few hours Todge got on very well. He had plenty of provisions, and, as for the isolation, he did not care for it. By and by the water began to make its appearance upon his hearth, and, before long, his little bank of coal, upon which his bread was baking, began to sizzle, and soon became a moist and blackened heap. Todge, however, was not imaginative, and when night fell, he lay down upon his bed and slept without fear; that is, he slept until his bed began to float, then he awoke and groped his way neck deep in water until he found his ladder and managed by it to climb up into his loft, where he sat shivering, till suddenly he felt the cabin give a lurch, and the water rushed in. It had been lifted clear off the piles, and when it should settle down poor Todge would be caught like a rat in a hole. It was settling fast, and the water was gurgling into poor Todge's ears, when, in desperation, he made a bolt at the roof, and, using his head as a battering ram, succeeded in knocking a hole in it, through which he contrived to creep out. Luckily, the point of the chimney was not quite submerged, and Todge was rescued in the course of the following day.

The road, following the winding of the river, is bordered by giant trees from whose branches the gray moss waves dreamily, while leaves of palest yellow drop and silently float through the still air until they fall into the stream. In the fields, the corn-gatherers pause to doff their hats and smile their welcome. Ere long the barns and workshops of the upper plantation become visible. The tall gables and chimneys of the great house glisten in the sunlight. They pass the little church, with its bell half hidden amid the brown leaves of the great oak from which it dangles; from cabin chimneys, half hidden in trees, thin columns of smoke ascend and mingle with the soft blue sky.

At the open gate, a broadly smiling dusky group stands with welcome depicted upon every face. Hearty handshakes of real affection are exchanged, while the children are being hugged, caressed, laughed over, and extolled for their growth and beauty. The master and mistress pass under the trees, whose long shadows rest upon the soft, green grass between streams of sunshine. The old piazza, gilded into brightness, smiles a welcome home.

MY OWN EARLY HOME

I was born at the old home in Raleigh, upon the land originally held by my great-grandfather, Colonel Lane, from the Crown. It had been the home of my grandfather, Harry Lane, and of his wife, Mary, and it was there that their children and grandchildren were born. When my oldest brother attained his majority, he took possession of this place, while my mother settled at Wills Forest, which was also part of the Lane land. This, Wills Forest, became our beloved summer home, which I inherited at the death of my dear mother. At the breaking out of the war between the states, your grandfather left to his subordinates his plantation interests in the eastern part of the state, and Wills Forest became our permanent home. Although you never saw this place in its palmy days, still, you are too well acquainted with its situation to need a description. In spite of neglect, Wills Forest is still beautiful; to it my heart is ever turning with regret and longing for that which can never return. It was for many years the brightest and happiest of homes, and as such it is still remembered by many besides its former inmates.

Hospitality has ever been a marked characteristic of the Lane blood. Colonel Lane's doors were ever open, not only to his friends, but to every wayfarer, and as the small settlement, originally called Bloomsbury, became Raleigh, and the state capital, he found it necessary to build an "ornery" for the accommodation of strangers; this building stood upon Hillsborough Street, and was torn down only a short time ago. These "orneries" were a very common adjunct to gentlemen's residences in country neighborhoods, where there were no inns for the accommodation of travelers. We once stopped at one belonging to the Littles, near Littleton. It was kept by two servants, a man and his wife, belonging to the family, and they made us very comfortable.

My grandfather, Harry Lane, inherited his father's liberal and open-hearted nature, and the old home, even since the death of my brother, still maintains its character for genial hospitality. Nor was Wills Forest inferior to it in that respect. My mother, accustomed from earliest youth to lavish housekeeping, kept it up after her removal to Wills Forest, and, so long as her health permitted, ever took delight in making her home all that a kindly, open-handed hospitality could. Nor do I think its character deteriorated after your grandfather became its master. Both he and I were fond of society, and few strangers ever came to town who were not entertained at Wills Forest. This could not be possible now, but previous to the war it was not at all impossible, and, during the war, at times, we received whole families of refugees. I do not mention these facts in a boastful spirit, but only as a sample of the old customs of the South.

During the winter of 1865, we had the pleasure of entertaining the family of Colonel Norris of Baltimore, and early in March we had an unexpected visit from a large party of South Carolinians, who had been wounded in an attack made by General Kilpatrick upon Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's command at Fayetteville. Your grandfather met them in the street seeking for shelter; and, compassionating their forlorn condition, he directed them to Wills Forest. When we first caught sight of the cortege surrounding two ambulances, we were alarmed, thinking that it must be the Yankees coming to deprive us of house and home. You may, perhaps, imagine the relief when I saw the dear Confederate gray. I met the cavalcade at the front steps, and bade them welcome; the wounded were brought in and laid upon beds in the nursery, after which I directed one of our men, Frank, the carriage-driver, I think it was, to conduct the horsemen to the stable, to give the horses a plentiful feed, and then to bring the men up to the house to get their dinners. In ordinary times, this unlooked-for addition of more than twenty guests would, no doubt, have been an unwelcome tax, but in those days preceding the sad termination of the war there were so many poor, half-starved stragglers from the different commands passing to and fro, that we were never unprepared to feed as many as called upon us. At this time, two cooks were kept continually at work in the kitchen preparing such plain food as we could command: such as boiled hams, biscuit, loaf bread, corn bread, and wheat coffee. The milk and butter, all that we had, were joyfully given to our soldiers. The gray jacket was, indeed, a passport to every Southern heart. I have fed many a poor, footsore "boy in gray," but never in a single instance heard a despondent word from one of them. Most grateful they were for their good, abundant meals, but often too modest to carry any away in their haversacks.

In times of peace, both before and after the war, the social life at the table, with family and always welcome friends, was a source of much pleasure. For a dinner of ten or twelve persons, including ourselves, there would be a ham at the head, a large roast turkey at the foot, a quarter of boiled mutton, a round of beef a la mode, and a boiled turkey stuffed with oysters. In the middle of the table would be celery in tall cut-glass stands, on the sides cranberries in moulds and various kinds of pickles. With these would be served either four or six dishes of vegetables and scalloped oysters, handed hot from the plate-warmer. The dessert would be a plum pudding, clear stewed apples with cream, with a waiter in the centre filled with calf's-foot jelly, syllabub in glasses, and cocoanut or cheesecake puddings at the corners. The first cloth was removed with the meats. For a larger entertainment a roast pig would be added, ice-cream would take the place of stewed apples. The dessert cloth would be removed with the dessert, and the decanters and fruit set upon the bare mahogany, with the decanters in coasters; cigars would follow, after the ladies had left, of course.

At the time of the surrender, General Logan borrowed, or asked to borrow, my tables and cut-glass tumblers and wine-glasses; as such a request meant an order, I, of course, allowed them to be taken; to my surprise all were returned. Generals Grant and Sherman were entertained by Logan at this time, the tables being set before his tent in the grove.

When my two little girls went to day school at St. Mary's, their dinners were sent to them by a negro boy or man. He carried the basket of hot dinner, while another carried the ice for their water, while another often walked behind bearing a large watermelon. As the other day-pupils dined in a similar way, the road at this time of day would be full of negroes carrying dinners.

Since these bygone days, knowledge has increased, and men go to and fro with ease between the far corners of the earth; but I do not think that either virtue or happiness has kept pace with this increase of knowledge, nor has there ever been or will there ever be again such a country as the Old South, nor a people so good, so brave, or so true-hearted as the dear, primitive people of that good old time.

TWO BOB WHITES

Two Bob Whites were standing beneath the old thorn-bush at the far end of the orchard; indeed, they had been standing there for some time, with their heads held close, just as though they were talking together. In fact, that is just what they were doing. They were talking about the nest that they were going to build. And it was high time, for already there was a nice little brood in that nest beyond the brook. But our Bob Whites were a prudent couple; they did not approve of those early broods which came off barely in time to miss the chilly May rains. But the May spell was over now, the sun shone hot upon the waving wheat, and over the fence, there in the old field, the dewberries were ripe. Already the little boys who live in the house over yonder had been after the berries, regardless of briers and bare feet. Yes, it was high time that nest was built; but, somehow, they could not fix upon an altogether suitable location. True, the old thorn-bush, with its wide-spreading branches, was most attractive; but there the cart tracks ran too close by. As they stood thus in the clover, all undecided, they were startled by a loud cry from Robin Redbreast, whose nest was high up in that apple tree. Turning to ascertain the cause of the outcry, they espied a great, evil-looking, yellow cat, creeping through the long grass. This decided them, and without waiting another moment, they abandoned the thorn-bush and flew away to seek a safer abode. This they finally found over toward the wheat field, far away from cats and all the nuisances which attend the abodes of men.

The nest was built back of the old gray, lichen-covered fence, just above the brook where the hazels and alders grow. All around was a blackberry thicket, and a great tussock of brown sedges sheltered the nest like a roof. Just beyond the fence was the wheat field. No one ever came there, excepting that now and then on a Saturday the little boys who lived over yonder would pass by with their fishing-poles, jump the fence, and disappear in the hazel thickets. The Bob Whites didn't mind the boys, unless Nip happened to be along, nosing about in search of some mischief to get into. But as yet no little white egg lay in the nest, and when Nip cocked his impudent little ears at them, they were off with a whirr that sent him, scampering, startled and scared, after the boys. From the trees to which they had flown, the Bob Whites watched the movements of the boys with some anxiety. "They might, you know," whispered Mrs. Bob, "be after that brood of our cousin's beyond the brook; but no, they've stopped--they are throwing something into the water, and there's that good-for-nothing Nip with them, so we may go back to the nest." But they did not go, for there was that pert Jennie Wren fluttering about, as bold as anything, actually peeping into the bait gourd, and, goodness gracious! she has stolen a worm and flown off with it; what impudence! And listen, there's Cardinal Grosbeak singing to them,--

"Boys, boys, boys, Do, do, do Fish a little deeper."

There he is, just a little above them, upon the hackberry; now he's flown to that willow; he looks like a coal of fire, there among the green leaves. Now he begins again with his--