The Memories of Fifty Years | Page 9

These they met cheerfully, and working with a will,
triumphed. After months of labor, a few acres were cleared and the
trees cut into convenient lengths for handling, and then the neighbors
were invited to assist in what was called a log-rolling. This aid was
cheerfully given, and an offer to pay for it would have been an insult. It
was returned in kind, however, when a neighbor's necessities required.
These log-rollings were generally accompanied with a quilting, which
brought together the youth of the neighborhood; and the winding up of
the day's work was a frolic, as the dance and other amusements of the
time were termed. Upon occasions like this, feats of strength and
activity universally constituted a part of the programme. The youth
who could pull down his man at the end of the hand-stick, throw him in
a wrestle, or outstrip him in a footrace, was honored as the best man in

the settlement, and was always greeted with a cheer from the older men,
a slap on the shoulder by the old ladies, and the shy but approving
smiles of the girls,--had his choice of partners in the dance, and in
triumph rode home on horseback with his belle, the horse's
consciousness of bearing away the championship manifesting itself in
an erect head and stately step.
The apparel of male and female was of home-spun, woven by the
mothers and sisters, and was fashioned, I was about to say, by the same
fair hands; but these were almost universally embrowned with exposure
and hardened by toil. Education was exceedingly limited: the
settlements were sparse, and school-houses were at long intervals, and
in these the mere rudiments of an English education were
taught--spelling, reading, and writing, with the four elementary rules of
arithmetic; and it was a great advance to grapple with the grammar of
the language. As population and prosperity increased, their almost
illiterate teachers gave place to a better class; and many of my Georgia
readers will remember as among these the old Irish preachers,
Cummings, and that remarkable brute, Daniel Duffee. He was an
Irishman of the Pat Freney stripe, and I fancy there are many, with gray
heads and wrinkled fronts, who can look upon the cicatrices resulting
from his merciless blows, and remember that Milesian malignity of
face, with its toad-like nose, with the same vividness with which it
presents itself to me to-day. Yes, I remember it, and have cause. When
scarcely ten years of age, in his little log school-house, the aforesaid
resemblance forced itself upon me with such vim that involuntarily I
laughed. For this outbreak against the tyrant's rules I was called to his
frowning presence.
"What are you laughing at, you whelp?" was the rude inquiry.
Tremblingly I replied: "You will whip me if I tell you."
"And you little devil, I will whip you if you don't," was his rejoinder, as
he reached for his well-trimmed hickory, one of many conspicuously
displayed upon his table. With truthful sincerity I answered:
"Father Duffy, I was laughing to think how much your nose is like a
frog."
It was just after play-time, and I was compelled to stand by him and at
intervals of ten minutes receive a dozen lashes, laid on with brawny
Irish strength, until discharged with the school at night. To-day I bear

the marks of that whipping upon my shoulders and in my heart. But
Duffy was not alone in the strictness and severity of his rules and his
punishments. Children were taught to believe that there could be no
discipline in a school of boys and girls without the savage brutality of
the lash, and the teacher who met his pupils with a caressing smile was
considered unworthy his vocation. Learning must be thrashed into the
tender mind; nothing was such a stimulus to the young memory as the
lash and the vulgar, abusive reproof of the gentle and meritorious
teacher.
There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and
language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own
peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of persons
in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the chiefest of
sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language offensive almost to
decency. Sometimes, in the presence of persons inimical to each other,
he would ask the Lord to convert the sinners and make the fools friends,
first telling the Lord who they were by name, to the no small
amusement of his most Christian audience; many of whom would in
deep devotion respond with a sonorous "Amen."
From such a population sprang the present inhabitants of Georgia; and
by such men were they taught, in their budding boyhood, the rudiments
of an English education;--such,