Mass George | Page 5

new place, every touch makes a difference; and when some of
those touches are given by the hand of a gardener, nature begins to
help.
It was so at our Georgia home. Every bit of time my father or Morgan
could find to spare, they were digging, or trimming, or planting, till
Sarah would set to and grumble to me because they would not come in
to their meals.
"I wouldn't care, sir," she would say, "only the supper's getting

spoiled."
"But the home made more beautiful," replied my father; and then I have
heard him say as he glanced through the window at flower and tree
flourishing wonderfully in that beautiful climate, "If my poor wife had
lived to see all this!"
Early and late worked Morgan, battling with the wild vines and
beautiful growths that seemed to be always trying to make the garden
we were redeeming from the wilderness come back to its former state.
But he found time to gratify me, and he would screw up his dry Welsh
face and beckon to me sometimes to bring a stick and hunt out squirrel,
coon, or some ugly little alligator, which he knew to be hiding under
the roots of a tree in some pool. Then, as much to please me as for use,
a punt was bought from the owners of a brig which had sailed across
from Bristol to make her last voyage, being condemned to breaking up
at our infant port.
The boat, however, was nearly new, and came into my father's hands
complete, with mast, sail, ropes, and oars; and it was not long before I
gained the mastery over all that it was necessary to learn in the
management.
Morgan's fishing-tackle came into use, and after a little instruction and
help from the Welshman, I began to wage war upon the fish in our
stream and in the river, catching, beside, ugly little reptiles of the
tortoise or turtle family--strange objects to be hauled up from muddy
depths at one end of a line, but some of them very good eating all the
same.
The little settlement throve as the time went on, and though the Indians
were supposed to be threatening, and to look with very little favour
upon the settlement so near their hunting-grounds, all remained
peaceful, and we had nothing but haughty overbearing words from our
Spanish neighbours.
To a man the officers and gentlemen who had come out turned their
attention to agriculture, and many were the experiments tried, and

successfully too. At one estate cotton was growing; at another, where
there was a lot of rich low land easily flooded, great crops of rice were
raised. Here, as I walked round with my father, we passed broad fields
of sugar-cane, and farther on the great crinkled-leaved Indian corn
flourished wonderfully, with its flower tassels, and beautiful green and
then orange-buff ears of hard, sweet, flinty corn.
Then came long talks about the want of more help, and one of the
settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how
shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But
before many months had passed there was hardly a settler without slave
labour, the principal exception being my father.
It is hard to paint a picture in words, but I should like those who read
this to understand what my home was like when I was about twelve
years old, a great strong healthy boy, with cheeks burned brown by the
sun.
Our place began with one low erection, divided by a rough partition
into two--our room and the Morgans'; most of our meals being eaten in
the big rustic porch contrived by Morgan in what he called his spare
time, and over which ran wildly the most beautiful passion-flower I had
ever seen.
But then as wood was abundant, and a saw-pit had been erected, a more
pretentious one-floored cottage residence was planned to join on to the
first building, which before long was entirely devoted to the servants;
and we soon had a very charming little home with shingle roof, over
which beautiful creepers literally rioted, and hung down in festoons
from our windows.
Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild
garden dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled
with every kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able
to get together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south,
grape-vines flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance,
and such fruits familiar to English people at home as would bear the
climate filled the garden.

My father's estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater
part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of assistance
confining his efforts to a comparatively small