University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
UNCLE JOHN.

About four miles east of Canema lay the plantation of
Nina's uncle, whither Harry had been sent on the morning
which we have mentioned. The young man went upon his
errand in no very enviable mood of mind. Uncle Jack, as
Nina always called him, was the nominal guardian of the
estate, and a more friendly and indulgent one Harry could
not have desired. He was one of those joyous, easy souls,
whose leading desire seemed to be that everybody in the
world should make himself as happy as possible, without
fatiguing him with consultations as to particulars.
His confidence in Harry was unbounded; and he esteemed
it a good fortune that it was so, as he was wont to say,
laughingly, that his own place was more than he could
manage. Like all gentlemen who make the study of their
own ease a primary consideration, Uncle Jack found the whole
course of nature dead-set against him. For, as all creation
is evidently organized with a view to making people work,
it follows that no one has so much care as the man who
resolves not to take any. Uncle Jack was systematically,
and as a matter of course, cheated and fleeced, by his overseers,
by his negroes, and the poor whites of his vicinity;
and, worst of all, continually hectored and lectured by his
wife therefor. Nature, or destiny, or whoever the lady
may be that deals the matrimonial cards, with her
usual thoughtfulness in balancing opposites, had arranged
that jovial, easy, care-hating Uncle John should have been
united to a most undaunted and ever-active spirit of

enterprise and resolution, who never left anything quiet in
his vicinity. She it was who continually disturbed his
repose, by constantly ferreting out, and bringing before his
view, all the plots, treasons, and conspiracies, with which
plantation-life is ever abounding; bringing down on his
devoted head the necessity of discriminations, decisions,
and settlements, most abhorrent to an easy man.

The fact was, that responsibility, aggravated by her husband's
negligence, had transformed the worthy woman into
a sort of domestic dragon of the Hesperides; and her good
helpmeet declared that he believed she never slept, nor
meant anybody else should. It was all very well, he would
observe. He would n't quarrel with her for walking the
whole night long, or sleeping with her head out of the
window, watching the smoke-house; for stealing out after one
o'clock to convict Pompey, or circumvent Cuff, if she only
would n't bother him with it. Suppose the half of the hams
were carried off, between two and three, and sold to Abijah
Skinflint for rum? — He must have his sleep; and, if he had to
pay for it in ham, why, he 'd pay for it in ham; but sleep he
must, and would. And, supposing he really believed, in
his own soul, that Cuffy, who came in the morning, with a
long face, to announce the theft, and to propose measures
of discovery, was in fact the main conspirator — what then?
He could n't prove it on him. Cuff had gone astray from the
womb, speaking lies ever since he was born; and what would
be the use of his fretting and sweating himself to death to get
truth out of Cuff? No, no! Mrs. G., as he commonly called
his helpmeet, might do that sort of thing, but she must n't
bother him about it. Not that Uncle Jack was invariable in his
temper; human nature has its limits, and a personage who
finds “mischief still for idle hands to do” often seems to
take a malicious pleasure in upsetting the temper of idle
gentlemen. So, Uncle Jack, though confessedly the best
fellow in the world, was occasionally subject to a tropical
whirlwind of passion, in which he would stamp, tear, and
swear, with most astounding energy; and in those ignited

moments all the pent-up sorrows of his soul would fly about
him, like red-hot shot, in every direction. And then he would
curse the negroes, curse the overseers, curse the plantation,
curse Cuff and Pomp and Dinah, curse the poor white folks
round, curse Mr. Abijah Skinflint, and declare that he
would send them and the niggers all severally to a department
which politeness forbids us to mention. He would
pour out awful threats of cutting up, skinning alive, and
selling to Georgia. To all which commotion and bluster
the negroes would listen, rolling the whites of their eyes,
and sticking their tongues in their cheeks, with an air of
great satisfaction and amusement; because experience had
sufficiently proved to them that nobody had ever been cut
up, skinned alive, or sent to Georgia, as the result of any of
these outpourings. So, when Uncle Jack had one of these
fits, they treated it as hens do an approaching thunderstorm,
— ran under cover, and waited for it to blow over.

As to Madam Gordon, her wrath was another affair. And
her threats they had learned to know generally meant something;
though it very often happened that, in the dispensation
of most needed justice, Uncle Jack, if in an extra good
humor, would rush between the culprit and his mistress,
and bear him off in triumph, at the risk of most serious consequences
to himself afterwards. Our readers are not to
infer from this that Madam Gordon was really and naturally
an ill-natured woman. She was only one of that denomination
of vehement housekeepers who are to be found the
world over — women to whom is appointed the hard mission
of combating, single-handed, for the principles of order
and exactness, against a whole world in arms. Had she had
the good fortune to have been born in Vermont or Massachusetts,
she would have been known through the whole
village as a woman who could n't be cheated half a cent on
a pound in meat, and had an instinctive knowledge whether
a cord of wood was too short, or a pound of butter too
light. Put such a woman at the head of the disorderly rabble
of a plantation, with a cheating overseer, surrounded by

thieving poor whites, to whom the very organization of society
leaves no resource but thieving, with a never-mind husband,
with land that has seen its best days,and is fast running
to barrenness, and you must not too severely question her
temper, if it should not be at all times in perfect subjection.
In fact, Madam Gordon's cap habitually bristled with horror,
and she was rarely known to sit down. Occasionally,
it is true, she alighted upon a chair; but was in a moment
up again, to pursue some of her household train, or shout,
at the top of her lungs, some caution toward the kitchen.

When Harry reined up his horse before the plantation,
the gate was thrown open for him by old Pomp, a superannuated
negro, who reserved this function as his peculiar
sinecure.

“Lord bress you, Harry, dat you? Bress you, you ought
fur to see mas'r! Such a gale up to de house!”

“What 's the matter, Pomp?”

“Why, mas'r, he done got one of he fits! Tarin' round
dar, fit to split! — stompin' up and down de 'randy,
swarin' like mad! Lord, if he an't! He done got Jake
tied up, dar! — swars he 's goin' to cut him to pieces! He!
he! he! Has so! Got Jake tied up dar! Ho! ho! ho!
Real curus! And he 's blowin' hisself out dere mighty
hard, I tell you! So, if you want to get word wid him, you
can't do it till he done got through with dis yer!” And
the old man ducked his pepper-and-salt-colored head, and
chuckled with a lively satisfaction.

As Harry rode slowly up the avenue to the house, he
caught sight of the portly figure of its master, stamping
up and down the veranda, vociferating and gesticulating in
the most violent manner. He was a corpulent man, of middle
age, with a round, high forehead, set off with grizzled
hair. His blue eyes, fair, rosy, fat face, his mouth adorned
with brilliant teeth, gave him, when in good-humor, the air
of a handsome and agreeable man. At present his countenance
was flushed almost to purple, as he stood storming,
from his rostrum, at a saucy, ragged negro, who, tied to the

horse-post, stood the picture of unconcern; while a crowd
of negro men, women, and children, were looking on.

“I 'll teach you!” he vociferated, shaking his fist. “I
won't — won't bear it of you, you dog, you! You won't
take my orders, won't you? I 'll kill you — that I will!
I 'll cut you up into inch-pieces!”

“No, you won't, and you know you won't!” interposed
Mrs. Gordon, who sat at the window behind him. “You
won't, and you know you won't! and they know you won't,
too! It will all end in smoke, as it always does. I only
wish you would n't talk and threaten, because it makes you
ridiculous!”

“Hold your tongue, too! I 'll be master in my own
house, I say! Infernal dog! — I say, Cuff, cut him up!
— Why don't you go at him? — Give it to him! — What
you waiting for?”

“If mas'r pleases!” said Cuff, rolling up his eyes, and
making a deprecating gesture.

“If I please! Well, blast you, I do please! Go at him!
— thrash away! Stay, I 'll come myself.” And, seizing a
cowhide, which lay near him, he turned up his cuffs, and ran
down the steps; but, missing his footing in his zeal, came
head-first against the very post where the criminal was tied.

“There! I hope, now, you are satisfied! You have
killed me! — you have broke my head, you have! I shall
be laid up a month, all for you, you ungrateful dog!”

Cuffy and Sambo came to the rescue, raised him up
carefully, and began brushing the dust off his clothes,
smothering the laughter with which they seemed ready to
explode, while the culprit at the post seemed to consider
this an excellent opportunity to put in his submission.

“Please, mas'r, do forgive me! I tole 'em to go out,
and dey said dey would n't. I did n't mean no harm when
I said `Mas'r had better go hisself;' 'cause I thinks so
now. Mas'r had better go! Dem folks is curus, and dey
won't go for none of us. Dey just acts ridiculous, dey
does! And I did n't mean fur to be sarcy, nor nothin'.

I say 'gin, if mas'r 'll take his horse and go over dar,
mas'r drive dose folks out; and nobody else can't do it!
We done can't do it — dey jest sarce us. Now, for my
Heavenly Master, all dis yere is de truth I 've been telling.
De Lord, de Master, knows it is; and, if mas'r 'll take
his horse, and ride down dere, he 'd see so; so dere, just as
I 've been telling mas'r. I did n't mean no harm at all, I
did n't!”

The quarrel, it must be told, related to the ejecting of a
poor white family, which had squatted, as the phrase is, in a
deserted cabin, on a distant part of the Gordon plantation.
Mrs. Gordon's untiring assiduity having discovered this
fact, she had left her husband no peace till something was
undertaken in the way of ejectment. He accordingly commissioned
Jake, a stout negro, on the morning of the present
day, to go over and turn them off. Now, Jake, who
inherited to the full the lofty contempt with which the
plantation negro regards the poor white folks, started upon
his errand, nothing loth, and whistled his way in high
feather, with two large dogs at his heels. But, when he
found a miserable, poor, sick woman, surrounded by four
starving children, Jake's mother's milk came back to him;
and, instead of turning them out, he actually pitched a dish
of cold potatoes in among them, which he picked up in a
neighboring cabin, with about the same air of contemptuous
pity with which one throws scraps to a dog. And then,
meandering his way back to the house, informed his master
that “He could n't turn de white trash out; and, if he
wanted them turned out, he would have to go hisself.”

Now, we all know that a fit of temper has very often
nothing to do with the thing which appears to give rise to
it. When a cloud is full charged with electricity, it makes
no difference which bit of wire is put in. The flash and the
thunder come one way as well as another. Mr. Gordon had
received troublesome letters on business, a troublesome lecture
from his wife, his corn-cake had been over-done at breakfast,
and his coffee burned bitter; besides which, he had a cold

in his head coming on, and there was a settlement brewing
with the overseer. In consequence of all which things,
though Jake's mode of delivering himself was n't a whit
more saucy than ordinary, the storm broke upon him then
and there, and raged as we have described. The heaviest
part of it, however, being now spent, Mr. Gordon consented
to pardon the culprit on condition that he would bring him
up his horse immediately, when he would ride over and see
if he could n't turn out the offending party. He pressed
Harry, who was rather a favorite of his, into the service;
and, in the course of a quarter of an hour, they were riding
off in the direction of the squatter's cabin.

“It 's perfectly insufferable, what we proprietors have to
bear from this tribe of creatures!” he said. “There ought
to be hunting-parties got up to chase them down, and exterminate
'em, just as we do rats. It would be a kindness
to them; the only thing you can do for them is to kill them.
As for charity, or that kind of thing, you might as well
throw victuals into the hollow logs as to try to feed 'em.
The government ought to pass laws, — we will have laws,
somehow or other, — and get them out of the state.”

And, so discoursing, the good man at length arrived
before the door of a miserable, decaying log-cabin, out of
whose glassless windows dark emptiness looked, as out of
the eye-holes of a skull. Two scared, cowering children
disappeared round the corner as he approached. He
kicked open the door, and entered. Crouched on a pile of
dirty straw, sat a miserable, haggard woman, with large,
wild eyes, sunken cheeks, dishevelled, matted hair, and
long, lean hands, like bird's-claws. At her skinny breast
an emaciated infant was hanging, pushing, with its little
skeleton hands, as if to force the nourishment which nature
no longer gave; and two scared-looking children, with features
wasted and pinched blue with famine, were clinging to
her gown. The whole group huddled together, drawing as
far as possible away from the new comer, looked up with
large, frightened eyes, like hunted wild animals.

“What you here for?” was the first question of Mr.
Gordon, put in no very decided tone; for, if the truth must
be told, his combativeness was oozing out.

The woman did not answer, and, after a pause, the youngest
child piped up, in a shrill voice,

“An't got nowhere else to be!”

“Yes,” said the woman, “we camped on Mr. Durant's
place, and Bobfield — him is the overseer — pulled down the
cabin right over our head. 'Pears like we could n't get
nowhere.”

“Where is your husband?”

“Gone looking for work. 'Pears like he could n't get
none nowhere. 'Pears like nobody wants us. But we have
got to be somewhere, though!” said the woman, in a melancholy,
apologetic tone. “We can't die, as I see! — wish
we could!”

Mr. Gordon's eye fell upon two or three cold potatoes in
a piece of broken crock, over which the woman appeared
keeping jealous guard.

“What you doing with those potatoes?”

“Saving them for the children's dinner.”

“And is that all you 've got to eat, I want to know?”
said Mr. Gordon, in a high, sharp tone, as if he were getting
angry very fast.

“Yes,” said the woman.

“What did you have to eat yesterday?”

“Nothing!” said the woman.

“And what did you eat the day before?”

“Found some old bones round the nigger houses; and
some on 'em give us some corn-cake.”

“Why the devil did n't you send up to my house, and get
some bacon? Picking up bones, slop, and swill, round the
nigger huts? Why did n't you send up for some ham, and
some meal? Lord bless you, you don't think Madam Gordon
is a dog, to bite you, do you? Wait here till I send
you down something fit to eat. Just end in my having to
take care of you, I see! And, if you are going to stay

here, there will be something to be done to keep the rain
out!”

“There, now,” he said to Harry, as he was mounting his
horse, “just see what 't is to be made with hooks in one's
back, like me! Everybody hangs on to me, of course!
Now, there 's Durant turns off these folks; there 's Peters
turns them off! Well, what 's the consequence? They
come and litter down on me, just because I am an easy, soft-hearted
old fool! It 's too devilish bad! They breed like
rabbits! What God Almighty makes such people for, I
don't know! I suppose He does. But there 's these poor,
miserable trash have children like sixty; and there 's folks
living in splendid houses, dying for children, and can't have
any. If they manage one or two, the scarlet-fever or whooping-cough
makes off with 'em. Lord bless me, things go
on in a terrible mixed-up way in this world! And, then,
what upon earth I 'm to say to Mrs. G.! I know what
she 'll say to me. She 'll tell me she told me so —
that 's what she always says. I wish she 'd go and see
them herself — I do so! Mrs. G. is the nicest kind of a
woman — no mistake about that; but she has an awful
deal of energy, that woman! It 's dreadful fatiguing to a
quiet man, like me — dreadful! But I 'm sure I don't know
what I should do without her. She 'll be down upon me
about this woman; but the woman must have some ham,
that 's flat! Cold potatoes and old bones! Pretty story!
Such people have no business to live at all; but, if they will
live, they ought to eat Christian things! There goes Jake.
Why could n't he turn 'em off before I saw 'em? It would
have saved me all this plague! Dog knew what he was
about, when he got me down here! Jake! O, Jake, Jake!
come here!”

Jake came shambling along up to his master, with an external
appearance of the deepest humility, under which was
too plainly seen to lurk a facetious air of waggish satisfaction

“Here, you, Jake; you get a basket —”

“Yes, mas'r!” said Jake, with an air of provoking intelligence.

“Be still saying `Yes, mas'r,' and hear what I 've got to
say! Mind yourself!”

Jake gave a side glance of inexpressible drollery at Harry,
and then stood like an ebony statue of submission.

“You go to your missis, and ask her for the key of the
smoke-house, and bring it to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you tell your missis to send me a peck of meal.
Stay — a loaf of bread, or some biscuit, or corn-cake, or
anything else which may happen to be baked up. Tell her
I want them sent out right away.”

Jake bowed and disappeared.

“Now we may as well ride down this path, while he is
gone for the things. Mrs. G. will blow off on him first, so
that rather less of it will come upon me. I wish I could
get her to see them herself. Lord bless her, she is a kindhearted
woman enough! but she thinks there 's no use doing,
— and there an't. She is right enough about it. But,
then, as the woman says, there must be some place for them
to be in the world. The world is wide enough, I 'm sure!
Plague take it! why can't we pass a law to take them all in
with our niggers, and then they 'd have some one to take
care of them! Then we 'd do something for them, and
there 'd be some hope of keeping 'em comfortable.”

Harry felt in no wise inclined to reply to any of this conversation,
because he knew that, though nominally addressed
to him, the good gentleman was talking merely for the sake
of easing his mind, and that he would have opened his heart
just as freely to the next hickory-bush, if he had not happened
to be present. So he let him expend himself, waiting
for an opportunity to introduce subjects which lay nearer
his heart.

In a convenient pause, he found opportunity to say,

“Miss Nina sent me over here, this morning.”

“Ah, Nin! my pretty little Nin! Bless the child! She

did? Why could n't she come over herself, and comfort an
old fellow's heart? Nin is the prettiest girl in the county!
I tell you that, Harry!”

“Miss Nina is in a good deal of trouble. Master Tom
came home last night drunk, and to-day he is so cross and
contrary she can't do anything with him.”

“Drunk? O, what a sad dog! Tom gets drunk too often!
Carries that too far, altogether! Told him that, the last
time I talked to him. Says I, `Tom, it does very well for a
young man to have a spree once in one or two months. I
did it myself, when I was young. But,' says I, `Tom, to
spree all the time, won't do, Tom!' says I. `Nobody minds
a fellow being drunk occasionally; but he ought to be moderate
about it, and know where to stop,' says I; `because,
when it comes to that, that he is drunk every day, or every
other day, why, it 's my opinion that he may consider the
devil 's got him!' I talked to Tom just so, right out
square; because, you see, I 'm in a father's place to him.
But, Lord, it don't seem to have done him a bit of good!
Good Lord! they tell me he is drunk one half his time, and
acts like a crazy creature! Goes too far, Tom does, altogether.
Mrs. G. an't got any patience with him. She
blasts at him every time he comes here, and he blasts
at her; so it an't very comfortable having him here. Good
woman at heart, Mrs. Gordon, but a little strong in her
ways, you know; and Tom is strong, too. So it 's fire fight
fire, when they get together. It 's no ways comfortable to
a man wanting to have everybody happy around him. Lord
bless me! I wish Nin were my daughter! Why can't she
come over here, and live with me? She has n't got any
more spirit in her than just what I like. Just enough fizz
in her to keep one from flatting out. What about those
beaux of hers? Is she going to be married? Hey?”

“There 's two gentlemen there, attending upon Miss
Nina. One is Mr. Carson, of New York —”

“Hang it all! she is n't going to marry a d—d Yankee!
Why, brother would turn over in his grave!”

“I don't think it will be necessary to put himself to that
trouble,” said Harry, “for I rather think it 's Mr. Clayton
who is to be the favored one.”

“Clayton! good blood! — like that! Seems to be a
gentlemanly, good fellow, does n't he?”

“Yes, sir. He owns a plantation, I 'm told, in South
Carolina.”

“Ah! ah! that 's well! But I hate to spare Nin! I
never half liked sending her off to New York. Don't believe
in boarding-schools. I 've seen as fine girls grown on
plantations as any man need want. What do we want to
send our girls there, to get fipenny-bit ideas? I thank the
Lord, I never was in New York, and I never mean to be!
Carolina born and raised, I am; and my wife is Virginia —
pure breed! No boarding-school about her! And, when I
stood up to be married to her, there was n't a girl in Virginia
could stand up with her. Her cheeks were like damask
roses! A tall, straight, lively girl, she was! Knew
her own mind, and had a good notion of speaking it, too.
And there is n't a woman, now, that can get through the
business she can, and have her eyes always on everything.
If it does make me uncomfortable, every now and then, I
ought to take it, and thank the Lord for it. For, if it wan't
for her, what with the overseer, and the niggers, and the
poor white trash, we should all go to the devil in a heap!”

“Miss Nina sent me over here to be out of Master Tom's
way,” said Harry, after a pause. “He is bent upon hectoring
me, as usual. You know, sir, that he always had a
spite against me, and it seems to grow more and more bitter.
He quarrels with her about the management of everything
on the place; and you know, sir, that I try to do my very
best, and you and Mrs. Gordon have always been pleased
to say that I did well.”

“So we did, Harry, my boy! So we did! Stay here as
long as you like. Just suit yourself about that. Maybe
you 'd like to go out shooting with me.”

“I 'm worried,” said Harry, “to be obliged to be away

just at the time of putting in the seed. Everything depends
upon my overseeing.”

“Why don't you go back, then? Tom's ugliness is
nothing but because he is drunk. There 's where it is! I
see through it! You see, when a fellow has had a drunken
spree, why, the day after it he is all at loose ends and cross
— nerves all ravelled out, like an old stocking. Then fellows
are sulky and surly like. I 've heard of their having temperance
societies up in those northern states, and I think
something of that sort would be good for our young men.
They get drunk too often. Full a third of them, I should
reckon, get the delirium tremens before they are fifty. If
we could have a society like them, and that sort of thing,
and agree to be moderate! Nobody expects young men to
be old before their time; but, if they 'd agree not to blow
out more than once a month, or something in that way!”

“I 'm afraid,” said Harry, “Master Tom 's too far gone
for that.”

“O, ay! yes! Pity, pity! Suppose it is so. Why,
when a fellow gets so far, he 's like a nigger's old patched
coat — you can't tell where the real cloth is. Now, Tom; I
suppose he never is himself — always up on a wave, or
down in the trough! Heigho! I 'm sorry!”

“It 's very hard on Miss Nina,” said Harry. “He interferes,
and I have no power to stand for her. And, yesterday,
he began talking to my wife in a way I can't bear, nor
won't! He must let her alone!”

“Sho! sho!” said Mr. Gordon. “See what a boy that
is, now! That an't in the least worth while — that an't!
I shall tell Tom so. And, Harry, mind your temper! Remember,
young men will be young; and, if a fellow will
treat himself to a pretty wife, he must expect trials. But
Tom ought not to do so. I shall tell him. High! there
comes Jake, with the basket and the smoke-house key.
Now for something to send down to those poor hobgoblins.
If people are going to starve, they must n't come on to my
place to do it. I don't mind what I don't see — I would n't

mind if the whole litter of 'em was drowned to-morrow; but,
hang it, I can't stand it if I know it! So, here, Jake, take
this ham and bread, and look 'em up an old skillet, and see
if you can't tinker up the house a bit. I 'd set the fellow
to work, when he comes back; only we have two hands to
every turn, now, and the niggers always plague 'em. Harry,
you go home, and tell Nin Mrs. G. and I will be over to
dinner.”