Sea-gift

The afternoon was far advanced when we drove up the long avenue of trees that led to the house.

The place had been built by my great grandfather, and the house and all the premises were on the old style.

The great-house, as it was termed by the negroes, was a large two-story one, with narrow green blinds, a large wing extending back, and piazzas running almost all the way round. The chimneys were very broad, and were built half up with rock, then finished off with brick. The front porch had an arched roof over it, and was furnished with two stiff benches on each side. There was a magnificent grove in front, in one corner of which was a large pond or lake, on which a flock of geese were swimming. To the left of the house stood a large capacious kitchen, painted red, and behind and around the house were ranged the dairy, smoke house, &c., all of the same ruddy hue. Back of the yard were the long rows of negro cabins, with their martin poles, and little gardens in front of them, and a few hundred yards off, in a small growth of trees, stood the house for the overseer, Mr. Bemby. As we drove up to the yard gate a large bull-dog, chained in his kennel, commenced barking furiously, and this brought yelping around the house half a dozen curs and hounds belonging to the negroes. These were followed in turn by a troop of little negroes, who ran to the gate, shouting in great glee:

“Yon’s marster and mistis.”

Then ensued a scuffle for the honor of opening the gate, and a shrill chorus of “How dye’s” as we entered the yard. Mrs. Bemby came down the steps to meet us, and took us into the cool, large front room, where she aided mother and the girls to take off their bonnets and hats, then conducted them to their chambers. She soon returned to father and myself, with waiter and goblets of ice water.

“Col. Smith,” she said, as she placed the water on the table, “Mrs. Smith said you’ve got her keys; and, Mister John, your room is ready whenever you wish to go up.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bemby,” I replied, as father arose and went to mother’s chamber, “I will wait here awhile, as it is the coolest place I have seen to-day.” “I must go see about supper,” she said, taking up the key basket and holding it against herself while she searched for a key; “don’t, the niggers will get every thing wrong. I ‘spected to move over to-day to our house, but Mr. Bemby, he was so busy a plowing, I couldn’t get all the things away; so, if you find any of Ben’s things in your room, let ’em stay till in the morning. It ingenerly takes me a fortnit to get straight when I come from home to the great’us, or from the great’us to home.”

I surveyed her and the room while she was speaking, and found her impress on every article. The room was always used as a sitting room, and had so many doors and windows that it was a perfect breeze generator. The chairs were ranged two and two under every window, as if to let the wind cool them. Father’s lounge was drawn in the middle of the room, with its bright chintz covering tucked in so tightly that it seemed to say to me, “Come and lie down, I will not let you sink in and be hot, but will bear you up, that you may get the breeze.” The floor was so clean and shining that I longed to get down and sleep with my face on the cool boards. Even the old fashioned piano, with its yellow keys and little straight legs, had such a tight, scant cover, that it seemed to have taken off its trousers for the summer. The broad fireplace was clayed as white as snow, and stuffed full of feathery fennel, and on the high, quaintly carved mantel, were plaster images, sheep with very red eyes, a studious boy with a slate, and his nose knocked off, and very erect Napoleon Bonaparte, with very large legs, one of which had grown to a stump, in a way that would have held him faster than St. Helena. Between these mementoes of itinerant Italians were ranged double rows of red and green apples, with Hardee precision. There were several old portraits in the room, and these had the gauze looped up around them, as if to give them air. A tall old clock, with a dignified face, and a lazy second-hand, that waited every time for the clock to tick before it would jump, stood in its corner – the long pendulum passing to and fro by the little glass door near the bottom, as if it didn’t care if I did see it, and would as lief stop as not. And then its drowsy tick! Argus would have closed all his eyes if he could have heard it for five minutes! A large yellow and white cat, with both ears cropped, lay asleep in Mrs. Bemby’s work basket, which sat near the door, and a frisky gray kitten on the hearth was catching at the flies in the fennel. And I thought, as I looked around, if Mrs. Bemby could impart such a cool, clean look to every thing by her short residence in the house, what must her little home be up on the hill, under those great shady poplars.

Mrs. B. having found her key, came to her work basket, shook the cat out of it (the cat coming down slowly on her fore feet, and bringing her hind feet down a second or two afterwards, as if half inclined to let them stay up in the air), and gathering up her work, left the room. I rose and went up stairs, where I found everything equally antique, and as clean and cool. I ordered up my trunk, and having made my toilet I went down, feeling very much refreshed. The girls soon appeared, and we spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the old house. In the old parlor, in the library – with long high shelves of books – up in the old dusty garrets, down in the basement, everywhere that there was anything to show, I carried Carlotta and Lulie, listening to Lulie’s bright laugh and admiring Carlotta’s brightening beauty. From the house we walked out into the grove, down to the orchard, and, with our hats full of apples and peaches, at last took our seats on the green mossy rocks at the spring. As Lulie and Carlotta took their seats together, and seemed so absorbed in each other, I found that the first little cloud in this country trip was beginning to gather; that cloud was – and I blushed for shame at the thought – Carlotta’s presence. I knew that she and Lulie would be inseparable, when I wanted Lulie all to myself. I felt that I must give up all hopes of private chats; that I would have no opportunity to tell my love; that all my courtship must be carried on by looks, and that, I knew, would be unsatisfactory, as Lulie never returned my tender glances; yet I could not help admiring Carlotta, and loving to be with her. She was so exquisitely beautiful that I could sit and watch her for hours and never weary; but she was too sad and serious yet to be congenial, and I felt that she was a bar to my intercourse with Lulie, and could scarcely refrain from wishing we had never found her. All the better part of my nature would rise up indignantly at the unkindness of such thoughts, but still I would have them. Youth, in love, is excusable for many follies.

While the girls were talking in a low tone together I was leaning on my elbow, flipping the parings of the peaches into the water, and indulging a somewhat bitter train of reflection over my disappointment, when the tea bell rang. We hastened to the house, and met father at the door, who said:

“Come in to tea. Mrs. Bemby has not had time to prepare supper at her house, so I have invited her and Mr. Bemby, and Ben, their son, to eat with us to-night. Ben is rather a queer case, but you mustn’t laugh when you meet him, as it would hurt Mrs. Bemby’s feelings very much.”

We went down stairs to the dining room, where we were introduced to Mr. B. and son. Mr. Bemby was a large dark man, with a kind, pleasant face, but rough and sun-burnt in his appearance. He seemed very much at his ease, as he knew father and mother so well, and greeted us cordially, remarking to me, as he shook my hand:

“You’ve growed a’most outen my knowledge, Mr. Smith, but I hain’t seen you sence you was a mighty little chap.”

As soon as I looked at Ben I knew I had found a rare case, and I felt that he would contribute no small amount to my enjoyment. He was very tall and stout, being nearly six feet high, though he was apparently not done growing. He had a clear gray eye, full of intelligence, but that always looked as if it was laughing to itself; his nose was prominent between his eyes, but flattened at the end by an unskilful operation for hair-lip, when he was a child; his upper lip, from the same cause, had a deep scar in it, and was tucked in his under lip, as if he was sucking something from a spoon. When he laughed he showed only his under teeth, which were well set, but stained yellow from the use of tobacco; his laugh itself was a very singular one for a young person, though I have sometimes heard very old and sedate people laugh so. When he was amused his face assumed a broad grin two or three seconds before a sound was heard, and then from deep within came a series of short or long grunts, according to the intensity of his feelings; if he was very much amused the grunts were lengthened almost to groans – one beginning as the other left off; if he was only laughing slightly they were short enough to be a kind of chuckle. The best illustration of his laugh I can find is a thunder cloud – first the lightning on his face, after awhile the thunder rumbling up from within. Very often his face, in ordinary converse, would, like sheet lightning, flash out a laugh, while no sound at all would be heard.

Mother was suffering with headache from the day’s fatigue and sent in her excuse, and the request that Mrs. Bemby would take the head of the table, and make the tea and coffee. Mrs. B – accordingly took her seat, and while she is arranging the cups, let me introduce her more thoroughly by a brief description. A very stout old lady, with thin gray hairs, tucked into a small knot by a large horn comb, small blue eyes, with the under lid much nearer the pupil than the upper, giving her always a very pleasant but surprised look; a fat face, with scarcely a wrinkle, a loose under lip, and a tongue that threatened with every word to come out, so that all her words seemed to have been fattening before she spoke them. Her form was very large, so that she looked like a tierce of good nature. Her whole appearance was of that kind, that if you had seen her at the door of a house, as you were travelling, you would have stopped for refreshment, knowing that everything would be clean, and in that agreeable profusion that one always enjoys after a journey.

Mrs. Bemby was free and unembarrassed in her manner; Mr. Bemby unconcerned; but Ben evidently felt awkward, and was depending upon observation of the conduct of others for his table deportment.

“Colonel Smith,” said Mrs. B – to father, after grace had been said, “will you take some tea or coffee?”

“I’ll take a cup of each,” said he. “I am a little peculiar about that, and generally ice my tea while I drink my coffee.”

“If I had a’ known that I could a’ had some friz for you, sir.”

“No matter, Mrs. Bemby. I can soon cool it here.”

“Miss Lulie, which will you have?”

“I will thank you for a glass of milk.”

“Well, Miss Carlotta?”

“A cup of tea, if you please.”

“Mr. John, tea or coffee?”

“Coffee, I believe, madam.”

“Old man, you’ll have coffee, I know,” she said, putting the sugar in Mr. B – ‘s cup.

Poor Ben had been watching carefully, but could not possibly decide what was au fait under the circumstances, so that when his turn came he resolved, as the safest course, to follow father’s example, and, in response to his mother’s inquiry, replied that he would take some of both, and “sorter cool the tea while he was getting down the coffee.”

Mrs. Bemby’s eyes certainly looked natural in their surprise at his answer. Lulie, whose face had been red with restrained laughter since she had seen him, now broke into an irresistible titter, to which Ben replied by a grin, without a sound.

“Ben,” said his mother, still looking at him through her specs, “you must be a fool; give him some buttermilk, Harriet.”

There was silence for some time, and then father said:

“Ben, do you ever catch any fish, now?”

“Yes, sir; I ketched a cat ‘tother day, big as a bucket.”

“Caught a cat, eh,” said father, setting aside his coffee, and drawing the tea to him. “You must have baited with a mouse.”

“Nor, sir, I baited with a worrum. Cats bites at worrums fine.”

Lulie could restrain her curiosity no longer, but asked, with all earnestness, if it was a real cat, with tail, claws and all.

Ben gave a great many long grunts as he said, “Sho’, its got a tail, but tain’t got no claws, ‘cause its a fish.”

“Oh!” said Lulie, with her hand to her mouth, and a glance at me.

I ventured to ask if there were many squirrels on the plantation.

Ben bit a large semicircle out of a biscuit, and said through the crumbs:

“The trees is just a breakin’ with ’em. I went to a mulberry this mornin’, and th’was sixty odd on one limb!”

“Why, Ben,” said father, looking up, “that couldn’t have been so.”

“Well, they mightn’t a’ been; but three hundred and over ran outen the tree when I shot.”

Ben is not the only one I have met whose stories grew bigger as they repeated them.

Mrs. Bemby now interrupted him.

“Ben, you talked mighty nigh enough. Let somebody else have a mouth.”

Ben, thus rebuked, was silent, and father and Mr. B – talked about the farm, while Carlotta and Lulie occasionally whispered, and I ate in silence.

After the meal the Bembys left for their house, Ben having promised to take me hunting and fishing in all the best places; and we went out to the front porch to talk over our plans for pleasure. Father went to the library to read, mother was resting in her room, nobody in the porch but Carlotta, Lulie and I; and again I felt that Carlotta was in the way.

CHAPTER XI

The sky was just reddening when I came down next morning and commenced to get my gun and accoutrements, to try my hand at hunting. Father called me as I was about to leave the house, and told me to come to the back door. There I found a negro boy, thirteen or fourteen years of age, in his shirt sleeves, a clean white shirt, and copperas checked pants, held up by suspenders of the same cloth, fastened on them by little sticks; one hand resting up against the house, and one bare foot scratching the top of the other.

“John,” said father, as I came out in the porch, gun in hand, “this is Reuben, one of Hannah’s children. You may take him for your valet. He knows all the best hunting and fishing places around here. When you go to Goldsboro’ you can get him some more suitable livery.”

“Thank you, sir; he will suit me exactly. How do you like it, Reuben?”

Reuben could only snicker and rub his hand on the weather boarding, as an acknowledgment of his favor.

“I am about to start hunting now; can you carry me to a place where I can kill some squirrels?”

“Yes, sir; ef I c’n git Unker Jack’s Trip, and go over ‘gin the big spring field, you kin find a sight on ’em.”

“Well, run and get Trip, and come on.”

He ran down to the quarters, and soon came back with a little blue-spotted, curl-tailed dog, which he declared could “find ’em eben ef dey wan’t dere!”

After getting over fences, jumping ditches, tramping through dewy grass, and breaking through wet corn till my feet were drenched and my clothes saturated, we at last struck the woods. What splendid woods they were for hunting. Dignified, patriarchal oaks, matronly cedars, young dandy hickories, love-sick maiden-pines, that sighed in the breeze, and families of saplings! Reuben here thought we would find the game, and told Trip to “look about.” The little canine obeyed, and was soon out of sight.

We moved cautiously about, listening; nor did we have to wait very long before Reuben recognized his short, quick bark, and, with the ejaculation, “dat’s him,” ran rapidly towards the place. I followed as fast as the nature of the undergrowth would permit, and we soon found Trip sitting on his tail, under a large oak, whose thick leaves concealed all but the lowest branches. I looked long and vainly towards the top; nothing could I see but the deep green leaves. Reuben, however, got off some distance from the tree, and, walking backwards, and looking with hand-shaded eyes, soon cried out, “Yon he is; cum year, marse John; you c’n see ‘im.” I ran eagerly to him, and gazed intently to where he pointed, and by his continued indications of the exact limb and fork, I was at last persuaded that I did see a small gray knot near the body of the tree. I levelled my gun and fired; all was still for awhile, and then the shot came pattering back on the trees a little way off. Another shot, and the gray knot ran out to the end of the limb.

“Dat’s him; I know’d it was,” shouted Reuben, while I was so much excited I could hardly load. Before I could get the shot down the squirrel sprang from the tree to another, the slender twigs bending under him, and the wet leaves showering down the dew. But Reuben and Trip were watching, and soon found him in a fairer place. I now aim more carefully, and fire; he falls several feet, then catches and recovers himself; another barrel, and he turns under limb, holding on by his feet. Before I can load again he slowly releases, foot by foot, his hold upon the limb, and comes tumbling headlong down, striking the ground with a heavy sound. Reuben and Trip are in great glee over it, while I look on with assumed indifference, for it is my first squirrel, though I had played great destruction among the rice birds near town.

I was just putting the caps on my gun when I was startled by the report of another gun close at hand. I soon heard the thumping of the ramrod, and a little while after the bushes parted, and the long figure of Ben Bemby emerged, his gray eyes gleaming under a broad wool hat without any band, and his scarred lip drawn into a smile. A large bunch of squirrels hung in his hand, and a long single-barrel gun rested on his shoulder.

“Mornin’. What luck?” he said, resting his gun on the ground, and throwing back his hat to wipe the perspiration from his forehead with his forefinger.

“One fine fellow,” I said, holding my trophy up.

Ben chuckled a little, and said:

“Four shots to one; that’s sorter bad. I got seven outer nine. That ere little pop-stick of yourn won’t reach these trees.”

I did not fancy any slur on the shooting qualities of my gun, which was a very handsome Wesley Richards, a present from father the winter before, and I offered to prove that it would shoot as far as his.

“Jumerlacky! Why, I can fetch a squrl when he is outer sight with this old gun.”

“How do you aim at him?” I inquired, smiling at his earnestness.

“I just git me a hicker nut hull, with the print where a squrl’s been a cuttin’, and rub it in the shot, and when I fire, don’t keer which way I takes sight, the shot goes right arter the squrl what cut the nut, and all I got to do is to look roun’ and see what tree he’s a gwine to fall from.”

I expressed a great desire to see his gun perform, and asked if he had killed any that morning without seeing them.

“Not ‘zactly,” he replied, changing his squirrels from one hand to the other; “but one run up such a high tree he got t’other side of a cloud.”

“How did you get at him?”

“Jus’ shot wher he went thew; when he drapped he was right smarten wet, an’ it rained purtty peart thew the shot holes in the cloud.”

“Which one of those was it?” I asked, pointing to the bunch in his hand.

“This here biggest un,” he said, holding him up by the tail.

“Why, he doesn’t seem to be wet now?”

“Nor; he dried, like, comin’ thew the air.”

I was uncertain whether he was a little flighty or was trying to quiz me, thinking I was city-green, and a look into his laughing grey eye rather confirming this last supposition, I was about to change the conversation, when Trip’s bark a little way off in the woods called our attention to him. We found the squirrel in the very top of a tree that did almost seem in the clouds.

“Lemme see you knock him out wi’ your little double-bar’l toot-a-poo.”

With the steadiest aim I could command, I gave him both barrels, one after the other, with no result whatever, my piece being a short bird gun, and the tree top an immense distance from the ground.

Ben said, “Now, let the old gal speak,” and sighting the old brown barrel a second, he fired. The squirrel made a frantic leap into the air, and fell right into Trip’s mouth. Reuben was in a dance of excitement, but felt that he must take my gun’s part.

“Marse John’s gun’s new; ‘taint got used to shootin’ yet.”

“What d’you know ‘bout guns, you little devil’s ink ball?” said Ben, turning to Reuben; “why d’nt you open your mouth when Satan was a paintin’ you, and git some black on your teeth. Well, Mr. Smith, less knock along todes home; its mos’ your breakfus time.”

“Won’t you go and take breakfast with me?”

“Nor, siree. Th’ old man said I was fool ‘nough last night to last a seas’n; but I’ll come in short to see them ladies agin, for sho’ they’re fine ‘uns.”

“You must be sure to come. You think they are pretty, do you?”

“Well, I do exactly that thing. I’ve got a gal nigh here I thought was some on purtty, but she ain’t a pint cup to these here.”

“Which do you think is the best looking?”

“That’s ‘bout as hard to tell as buyin’ knives. That ere curly head un is five mules and a bunch er bells, and ef ‘twant for t’other would beat the world; but that black-eyed un, wh’sh! She c’n jus’ look at you, and make you set still forever. Why, you c’n run er fishin’ pole in her eyes up to the hand’l and never tech bott’m.”

“Polyphemus would be a mole to her, if her eyes were as deep as that,” I replied, laughing at his extravagance.

“I never heerd of Polly Whatchoucallem, but ef she looked like this ere wun, I’d trade Viney Dodge for her, and giv ’em boot.”

“I expect Miss Viney will soon have cause for jealousy?”

“Nor, siree. Miss Kerlotter, I think the old lady sed her name was, is a darned sight too fine for me. You can’t sew silk truck on to homespun; and Viney suits my cloth the bes’, for she’s three treddle sarge, and a thread to spare.”

There was a fork here in the path, and we separated. I reached home just as the family were sitting down to breakfast. I exhibited my game, and was complimented for my skill.

After breakfast I went to the library, while the girls busied themselves aiding mother in her domestic arrangements. Before leaving the table they made me promise to take them fishing in the evening, or rather Lulie did, for Carlotta expressed her preference for remaining at home with mother, and I saw in her face that her intuitive tact had taught her that I preferred to be alone with Lulie. She was tenderly devoted to mother, and would often leave gay, frolicsome Lulie to sit by her, and talk on “grown up” subjects, as Lulie would call them. With father she was reserved, though respectful and grateful, and studied to please him in every way. Toward me she was gentle and kind, but shy, as if she was afraid of being teased about me.

I cannot describe my feelings for her. There was a thrill every time I met those great black eyes that I had never felt before, but I could not call it love, for Lulie engrossed all there was of that in my nature.

There was a magnetism about her that affected me strongly, and made me feel that, were we at all intimate, she would possess an unbounded influence over me, and that its exercise would constitute my supreme happiness.

The tender pity and brotherly love I had expected to feel were all gone, for she did not need them; the vast resources of her own deep soul, and the sympathy and love of mother, seemed to be enough for her. In all my thoughts I could only long for her friendship, and I felt that if I could awaken in her an interest in me as a friend, so that I could go to her ear and tell my troubles or joys, I would be the happier. In the common converse of our family circle I always looked to her first after my remarks, and her smile was a far greater reward to me than Lulie’s, perhaps because it meant more. And if I had done wrong I would rather ten times Lulie should know it than Carlotta; yet, with all these feelings, resembling so much indices of love, there was no spark of it in my heart. Her very beauty seemed to fix a great gulf between us, and down in my soul I felt that she would never love me, except as a member of the same family. With these thoughts came the image of Lulie – bright, laughing Lulie – whose heart I could get so near to, if I could not call it mine; who was something human, like myself, and whom I loved so tenderly without the slightest shade of awe. And I longed for the time when I could tell her of it.