But they are of working, which is DELIBERATION, interrupted Drummond. They are ashamed to mend their fences themselves, now that they have no slaves to do it for them.
I doubt very much if some of them know how to drive a nail, for the matter of that, said Courtland, still good-humoredly, but thats the fault of a system older than themselves, which the founders of the Republic retained. We cannot give them experience in their new condition in one day, and in fact, Drummond, I am very much afraid that for our purposesand I honestly believe for THEIR goodwe must help to keep them for the present as they are.
Perhaps, said Drummond sarcastically, you would like to reinstate slavery?
No. But I should like to reinstate the MASTER. And not for HIS sake alone, but for freedoms sake and OURS. To be plain: since I have taken up this matter for the company, I have satisfied myself from personal observation that the negroeven more than his mastercannot handle his new condition. He is accustomed to his old traditional task-master, and I doubt if he will work fairly for any otherparticularly for those who dont understand him. Dont mistake me: I dont propose to go back to the whip; to that brutal institution, the irresponsible overseer; to the buying and selling, and separation of the family, nor any of the old wrongs; but I propose to make the old master OUR OVERSEER, and responsible to US. He is not a fool, and has already learned that it is more profitable to pay wages to his old slaves and have the power of dismissal, like any other employer, than be obliged, under the old system of enforced labor and life servitude, to undergo the cost of maintaining incompetence and idleness. The old sentiment of slave-owning has disappeared before natural common-sense and selfishness. I am satisfied that by some such process as this utilizing of the old master and the new freedom we will be better able to cultivate our lands than by buying up their estates, and setting the old owners adrift, with a little money in their pockets, as an idle, discontented class to revive old political dogmas, and foment new issues, or perhaps set up a dangerous opposition to us.
You dont mean to say that those infernal niggers would give the preference to their old oppressors?
Dollar for dollar in wagesyes! And why shouldnt they? Their old masters understand them betterand treat them generally better. They know our interest in them is only an abstract sentiment, not a real liking. We show it at every turn. But we are nearing Redlands, and Major Reed will, I have no doubt, corroborate my impressions. He insists upon our staying at his house, although the poor old fellow, I imagine, can ill afford to entertain company. But he will be offended if we refuse.
He is a friend of yours, then? asked Drummond.
I fought against his division at Stony Creek, said Courtland grimly. He never tires of talking of it to meso I suppose I am.
A few moments later the train glided beside the Redlands platform. As the two travelers descended a hand was laid on Courtlands shoulder, and a stout figure in the blackest and shiniest of alpaca jackets, and the whitest and broadest of Panama hats, welcomed him. Glad to see yo, cunnel. I reckoned Id waltz over and bring along the boy, pointing to a grizzled negro servant of sixty who was bowing before them, to tote yor things over instead of using a hack. I havent run much on horseflesh since the wahha! ha! What I didnt use up for remounts I reckon yor commissary gobbled up with the other live stock, eh? He laughed heartily, as if the recollections were purely humorous, and again clapped Courtland on the back.
Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Drummond, Major Reed, said Courtland, smiling.
Yo were in the wah, sir?
NoIreturned Drummond, hesitating, he knew not why, and angry at his own embarrassment.
Mr. Drummond, the vice-president of the company, interposed Courtland cheerfully, was engaged in furnishing to us the sinews of war.
Major Reed bowed a little more formally. Most of us heah, sir, were in the wah some time or other, and if you gentlemen will honah me by joining in a social glass at the hotel across the way, Ill introduce you to Captain Prendergast, who left a leg at Fair Oaks. Drummond would have declined, but a significant pressure on his arm from Courtland changed his determination. He followed them to the hotel and into the presence of the one-legged warrior (who turned out to be the landlord and barkeeper), to whom Courtland was hilariously introduced by Major Reed as the man, sir, who had pounded my division for three hours at Stony Creek!
Major Reeds house was but a few minutes walk down the dusty lane, and was presently heralded by the baying of three or four foxhounds and foreshadowed by a dilapidated condition of picket-fence and stuccoed gate front. Beyond it stretched the wooden Doric columns of the usual Southern mansion, dimly seen through the broad leaves of the horse-chestnut-trees that shaded it. There were the usual listless black shadows haunting the veranda and outer officesformer slaves and still attached house-servants, arrested like lizards in breathless attitudes at the approach of strange footsteps, and still holding the brush, broom, duster, or home implement they had been lazily using, in their fixed hands. From the doorway of the detached kitchen, connected by a gallery to the wing of the mansion, Aunt Martha, the cook, gazed also, with a saucepan clasped to her bosom, and her revolving hand with the scrubbing cloth in it apparently stopped on a dead centre.
Drummond, whose gorge had risen at these evidences of hopeless incapacity and utter shiftlessness, was not relieved by the presence of Mrs. Reeda soured, disappointed woman of forty, who still carried in her small dark eyes and thin handsome lips something of the bitterness and antagonism of the typical Southern rights woman; nor of her two daughters, Octavia and Augusta, whose languid atrabiliousness seemed a part of the mourning they still wore. The optimistic gallantry and good fellowship of the major appeared the more remarkable by contrast with his cypress-shadowed family and their venomous possibilities. Perhaps there might have been a light vein of Southern insincerity in his good humor. Paw, said Miss Octavia, with gloomy confidence to Courtland, but with a pretty curl of the hereditary lip, is about the only reconstructed one of the entire family. We dont make em much about yer. But Id advise yo friend, Mr. Drummond, if hes coming here carpet-bagging, not to trust too much to paws reconstruction. It wont wash. But when Courtland hastened to assure her that Drummond was not a carpet-bagger, was not only free from any of the political intrigue implied under that baleful title, but was a wealthy Northern capitalist simply seeking investment, the young lady was scarcely more hopeful. I suppose he reckons to pay paw for those niggers yo stole? she suggested with gloomy sarcasm.
No, said Courtland, smiling; but what if he reckoned to pay those niggers for working for your father and him?
If paw is going into trading business with him; if Major Reeda Sothn gentlemanis going to keep shop, he aint such a fool as to believe niggers will work when they aint obliged to. THATS been tried over at Mirandy Dowss, not five miles from here, and the niggers are half the time hangin round here takin holiday. She put up new quarters for em, and tried to make em eat together at a long table like those low-down folks up North, and did away with their cabins and their melon patches, and allowed it would get em out of lying round too much, and wanted em to work over-time and get mo pay. And the result was that she and her niece, and a lot of poor whites, Irish and Scotch, that she had to pick up long the river, do all the work. And her niece Sally was mo than half Union woman during the wah, and up to all Nothn tricks and dodges, and swearin by them; and yet, for all thatthe thing wont work.