Among the Pines | Page 8

CHAPTER II.
WAYSIDE HOSPITALITY.
Years ago--how many it would not interest the reader to know, and
might embarrass me to mention--accompanied by a young woman--a
blue-eyed, golden-haired daughter of New-England--I set out on a long
journey; a journey so long that it will not end till one or the other of us
has laid off forever the habiliments of travel.
One of the first stations on our route was--Paris. While there, strolling
out one morning alone, accident directed my steps to the Arc d'Etoile,
that magnificent memorial of the greatness of a great man. Ascending
its gloomy staircase to the roof, I seated myself, to enjoy the fine view
it affords of the city and its environs.
I was shortly joined by a lady and gentleman, whose appearance
indicated that they were Americans. Some casual remark led us into a
conversation, and soon, to our mutual surprise and gratification, we
learned that the lady was a dear and long-time friend of my
travelling-companion. The acquaintance thus begun, has since grown

into a close and abiding friendship.
The reader, with this preamble, can readily imagine my pleasure on
learning, as we were seated after our evening meal, around that pleasant
fireside in far-off Carolina, that my Paris acquaintance was a favorite
niece, or, as he warmly expressed it, "almost a daughter" of my host.
This discovery dispelled any lingering feeling of "strangeness" that had
not vanished with the first cordial greeting of my new-found friends,
and made me perfectly "at home."
The evening wore rapidly away in a free interchange of "news,"
opinions, and "small-talk," and I soon gathered somewhat of the history
of my host. He was born at the North, and his career affords a striking
illustration of the marvellous enterprise of our Northern character. A
native of the State of Maine, he emigrated thence when a young man,
and settled down, amid the pine-forest in that sequestered part of
Cottondom. Erecting a small saw-mill, and a log shanty to shelter
himself and a few "hired" negroes, he attacked, with his own hands, the
mighty pines, whose brothers still tower in gloomy magnificence
around his dwelling.
From such beginnings he had risen to be one of the wealthiest land and
slave owners of his district, with vessels trading to nearly every quarter
of the globe, to the Northern and Eastern ports, Cadiz, the West Indies,
South America, and if I remember aright, California. It seemed to me a
marvel that this man, alone, and unaided by the usual appliances of
commerce, had created a business, rivalling in extent the transactions of
many a princely merchant of New York and Boston.
His "family" of slaves numbered about three hundred, and a more
healthy, and to all appearance, happy set of laboring people, I had never
seen. Well fed, comfortably and almost neatly clad, with tidy and
well-ordered homes, exempt from labor in childhood and advanced age,
and cared for in sickness by a kind and considerate mistress, who is the
physician and good Samaritan of the village, they seemed to share as
much physical enjoyment as ordinarily falls to the lot of the "hewer of
wood and drawer of water." Looking at them, I began to question if
Slavery is, in reality, the damnable thing that some untravelled

philanthropists have pictured it. If--and in that "if" my good Abolition
friend, is the only unanswerable argument against the institution--if
they were taught, if they knew their nature and their destiny, the slaves
of such an owner might unprofitably exchange situations with many a
white man, who, with nothing in the present or the future, is
desperately struggling for a miserable hand-to-mouth existence in our
Northern cities. I say "of such an owner," for in the Southern Arcadia
such masters are "few and far between"--rather fewer and farther
between than "spots upon the sun."
But they are not taught. Public sentiment, as well as State law, prevents
the enlightened master, who would fit the slave by knowledge for
greater usefulness, from letting a ray of light in upon his darkened mind.
The black knows his task, his name, and his dinner-hour. He knows
there is a something within him--he does not understand precisely
what--that the white man calls his soul, which he is told will not rest in
the ground when his body is laid away in the grave, but will--if he is a
"good nigger," obeys his master, and does the task allotted him--travel
off to some unknown region, and sing hallelujahs to the LORD, forever.
He rather sensibly imagines that such everlasting singing may in time
produce hoarseness, so he prepares his vocal organs for the long
concert by a vigorous discipline while here, and at the same time
cultivates instrumental music, having a dim idea that the LORD has an
ear