After the breakfast was over, I received a summons to the big house. Following Amanda along the narrow walkway that connected the kitchen to the big house, I was led into the presence of the assembled household. A very strange group I thought them.
Two girls were seated at the breakfast table, “trying their fortune” (as the phrase goes) with a cup of coffee grounds and a spoon. The elder of the two was Miss Darla – a slim girl with blue eyes and blonde hair done up in frizettes*. She was not a striking beauty but possessed a somewhat arresting countenance. The other was Miss Harmony – a curvier girl with blue eyes and her blonde hair also done up in frizettes. Her beauty was more cherubic in nature.
As Miss Harmony received the magic cup from Miss Darla, she exclaimed, “La, Darla. It will only be two years until you are married,” and made a significant grimace at her father (The Master). The Master sat near the window, indulging in the luxury of a cob-pipe*. Miss Darla turned toward me and asked, “Father, is that the new girl you bought at old Nielsen’s sale?”
“Yes, that’s the gal. Does she suit you?” The Master answered.
“Yes, but dear me! How very light she is…almost white! I know she will be impudent,” Miss Darla declared.
“She has come to the wrong place for practice of that article,” suggested Miss Harmony.
“Yes, gal. You has got to mind them ‘ar wimmen,” said The Master to me, as he pointed toward his daughters.
“ Father, I do wish you would quit that vulgarism. Say girl not gal, and ladies not women,” Darla admonished him.
“Oh, I was never edjicated like you,” The Master groused.
“Educated is the word,” Miss Harmony corrected him.
“Oh, confound your dictionaries! Ever since that school-marm come out from Yankee-land, these neighbourhood gals talk so big, nobody can understand ‘em.”
+ + + +
The girls had been very well educated by a Miss Calendar, from Massachusetts, a spinster of “no particular age”. From her, the Misses Nest learned to set a great value upon correct and elegant language. She was the model and instructress of the country round, for, under her jurisdiction, nearly all the farmers’ daughters had been initiated into the mysteries of learning.
I used to frequently find odd leaves of school books, old readers, story books, novels etc, scattered about over the house. These I eagerly devoured, but I had to be very secret about it, studying by dying embers, reading by moonlight, sunrise etc. Had I been discovered, a severe punishment would have followed. Miss Darla used to say, “A literary negro is disgusting, not to be tolerated.”
Though she quarrelled with the vulgar talk and bad pronunciation of her father, he was made of too rough material to receive a polish; and though Miss Calendar had improved the minds of the girls, her efforts to soften their hearts met with no success. They were the same harsh, cold and selfish girls that she had found them. It was Darla’s boast that she had whipped more negroes than any other girl of her age. Harmony, though less severe, still had a touch of the tigress.
The saving grace of this family was Miss Dawn. She was a doe-eyed angel of mercy with silky chestnut hair, according to the slaves. Miss Dawn was away on a visit to Louisville with a maiden aunt of the deceased Mrs. Nest during the first months of my life at Mercy Hall. Though I had not met her, the slaves sang her praises so much that I felt I had known her.
+ + + +
Every evening Miss Calendar came to spend an hour or so with them. The route from the school to her boarding house wound by Mercy Hall, and the temptation to talk to the young ladies, who were emphatically the belles of the neighbourhood, was too great for resistance. This lady was of that class of females which meet in every quarter of the globe, of perfectly kind intentions, yet without the independence necessary for their open and free expression.
Bred in the North, and having from her infancy imbibed the spirit of its free institutions, in her secret soul she loathed the abomination of slavery. Every pulse of her heart cried out against it, yet with a strange compliance she lived in its midst, never once offering an objection or an argument against it. It suited her policy to laugh with the pro-slavery man at the fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionist.
With a Judas-like hypocrisy, she sold her conscience for silver; and for a mess of pottage*, bartered the noble right of free expression. ‘Twas she, base renegade for a glorious cause, who laughed loudest and repeated wholesale libels and foul aspersions upon the able defenders of abolition – noble and generous people, lofty philanthropists, who were willing, for the sake of principle, to wear the mark of social and political ostracism!
One evening when she called (as was her custom after the adjournment of school), she found, upon inquiry, that the young ladies had gone out, and would not probably be back for several hours. She looked doubtful whether she should go home or remain. I had often observed her attentively watching me, yet I could not interpret the look.
Sometimes I thought it was of deep, earnest pity. Then it appeared only an anxious curiosity; and as commiseration was a thing which I seldom met with, I tried to guard my heart against anything like hope or trust. However, on this afternoon I was struck by her strange and irresolute manner.
She turned several times as if to leave, then suddenly stopped, and, looking very earnestly at me, asked, “Did you say the girls would not return for several hours?” Upon receiving an answer in the affirmative, she hesitated a moment, and then inquired for The Master. He was also away from home, and would probably be absent for a day or two.
“Is there no white person about the place?” she asked, with some trepidation.
“No one is here but the slaves,” I replied, perhaps in a sorrowful tone, for the word “slave” always grated upon my ear.
“Well then, Anne, come and sit down near me. I want to talk with you awhile,” she told me.
This surprised me a great deal. I scarcely knew what to do. The very idea of sitting down to a conversation with a white lady seemed to me the wildest improbability. A vacant stare was the only answer I could make. Certainly, I did not dream of her being in earnest.
“Come on, Anne,” she said coaxingly.
Seeing that my amazement increased, she added, in a more persuasive tone, “Don’t be afraid. I am a friend to the coloured race.”
This seemed to me the strangest fiction – a white lady, and yet a friend to the coloured race! Inconceivable! Such condescension was unheard of! What?! She a refined woman, with snowy complexion, to stoop from her proud elevation to befriend a lowly slave? Why she could not, she dare not! Almost stupefied with amazement, I stood with my eyes intently fixed upon her.
“Come, child,” she said in a kind tone.
She placed her hand upon my shoulder and endeavoured me to sit beside her, “Look up. Be not ashamed, for I am truly your friend. Your downcast look and melancholy manner have often struck me with sorrow.”
To this I could make no reply. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth; a thick, filmy veil gathered before my sight; and there I stood like one turned to stone. Yet, upon being frequently reassured by her gentle manner and kind words, I at length controlled my emotions, and, seating myself at her feet, awaited her communication.
“Ann, you are not happy here?” she inquired.
I said nothing, but she understood my look.
“Were you happy at home?” she went on.
“I was,” I replied in a scarcely audible voice.
“Did they treat you kindly there?” she continued.
“Indeed they did; and there I had a mother, and was not lonely,” I answered quietly.
“They did not beat you?”
“No, no, they did not,” and large tears gushed from my burning eyes—for I remembered with anguish, how many a smarting blow had been given to me by Mr. Walsh, how many a cuff by The Master, and ten thousand knocks, pinches and tortures by Misses Darla and Harmony.
“Don’t weep, child,” said Miss Calendar in a soothing tone, and she laid her arm caressingly around my neck.
This kindness was too much for my fortitude, and bursting through all restraints, I gave vent to my feelings in a violent shower of tears. She wisely allowed me some time to enjoy this luxury. I at length composed myself, and begged her pardon for this seeming disrespect.
“But, ah, my dear lady, you have spoken so kindly to me that I forget myself,” I apologized.
“No apology, my child. I tell you again that I am your friend, and with me you can be perfectly free. Look upon me as a sister. Now that your excited feelings have become allayed, let me ask you - why did your master sell you?” she replied.
I explained to her that it was necessary for the equal division of the estate that some of the slaves be sold, and that I was among the number.
“A bad institution is this one of slavery. What fearful entailments of anguish! Manage it as the most humane will, or can, still it has horrible results… witness your separation from your mother. Did these thoughts never occur to you?” she lamented.
I looked surprised, but dared not tell her that often had vague doubts of the justice of slavery crossed my mind. Ah, too much I feared the lash and I answered only by a mournful look of assent.
“Anne, did you ever hear of the Abolition Society?” she asked.
I shook my head. She paused, as if doubtful of the propriety of making a disclosure; but the better principle triumphed and she said, “There is in the Northern States, an organization which devotes its energies and very life to the cause of the slave. They wish to abolish the shameful system, and make you and all your persecuted race as free and happy as the whites.”
“Does there really exist such a society? Or is it a wild fable that you tell me, for the purpose of allaying my present agony?” I asked in disbelief.
“No, child, I do not deceive you. This noble and beneficent society really lives; but it does not, I regret to say, flourish as it should,” she assured me.
“And why?” I asked, whilst a new wonder was fastening on my mind.
“Because,” she answered, “the larger portion of the whites is mean and avaricious enough to desire, for the sake of pecuniary aggrandizement, the enslavement of a race whom the forces of education and hereditary prejudice have taught them to regard as their own property.”
I did but dimly conceive her meaning. A slow light was breaking through my cloudy brain, kindling and inflaming hopes that now shine like beacons over the far waste of memory. Should I, could I, ever be free? Oh, bright and glorious dream! How it did sparkle in my soul, and cheer me through the lonely hours of bondage! This hope, this shadow of a hope, shone like a mirage far away upon the horizon of a clouded future.
Miss Calendar looked thoughtfully at me, as if watching the effect of her words; but she could not see that the seed which she had planted, perhaps carelessly, was destined to fructify and flourish through the oncoming seasons. I longed to pour out my heart to her, for she had unlocked its deepest chambers with this flicker of hope. I dared not unfold even to her the wild dreams and strange hopes which I was indulging.
At the approach of a slave nearby, I signified to Miss Calendar that it would be unsafe to prolong the conversation. She quickly departed, not, however, without reassuring me of the interest which she felt in my fate. After that, I went about my duties with a little bright hope of liberty that shone like a star through clouds.