Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time

by James R. Gilmore

  CHAPTER XII.

  THE YANKEE-SCHOOL-MISTRESS.

  The house was a large, old-fashioned frame building, square as apacking-box, and surrounded, as all country dwellings at the South are,by a broad, open piazza. Our summons was answered by its owner, awell-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinaryhomespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much abovethe common "corn-crackers" I had seen at the country meeting-house. TheColonel was an acquaintance, and greeting us with great cordiality, ourhost led the way directly to the sitting-room. There we found a bright,blazing fire, and a pair of bright sparkling eyes, the latter belongingto a blithesome young woman of about twenty, with a cheery face, and ahalf-rustic, half-cultivated air, whom our new friend introduced to usas his wife.

  "I regret not having had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. S---- before, butam very happy to meet her now," said the Colonel, with all thewell-bred, gentlemanly ease that distinguished him.

  "The pleasure is mutual, Colonel J----," replied the lady, "but thirtymiles in this wild country, should not have made a neighbor so distantas you have been."

  "Business, madam, is at fault, as your husband knows. I have much to do;and besides, all my connections are in the other direction--withCharleston."

  "It's a fact, Sally, the Colonel is the d---- busy man in these parts.Not content with a big plantation and three hundred niggers, he looksafter all South Carolina, and the rest of creation to boot," said ourhost.

  "Tom will have his joke, Madam, but he's not far from the truth."

  Seeing we were dripping wet, the lady offered us a change of clothing,and retiring to a chamber, we each appropriated a suit belonging to ourhost, giving our own to a servant, to be dried.

  Arrayed in our fresh apparel, we soon rejoined our friends in thesitting-room. The new garments fitted the Colonel tolerably well, but,though none too long, they were a world too wide for me, and as my wethair hung in smooth flat folds down my cheeks, and my limp shirt-collarfell over my linsey coat, I looked for all the world like a crossbetween a theatrical Aminodab Sleek and Sir John Falstaff, with thestuffing omitted. When our hostess caught sight of me in this new garb,she rubbed her hands together in great glee, and, springing to her feet,gave vent to a perfect storm of laughter--jerking out between theexplosions:

  "Why--you--you--look jest like--a scare-crow."

  There was no mistaking that hearty, hoydenish manner; and seizing bothof her hands in mine, I shouted: "I've found you out--you're a"country-woman" of mine--a clear-blooded Yankee!"

  "What! _you_ a Yankee!" she exclaimed, still laughing, "and here withthis horrid 'secesherner,' as they call him."

  "True as preachin', Ma'am," I replied, adopting the drawl--"all the wayfrom Down East, and Union, tu, stiff as buckram."

  "Du tell!" she exclaimed, swinging my hands together as she held them inhers. "If I warn't hitched to this 'ere feller, I'd give ye a smackright on the spot. I'm _so_ glad to see ye."

  "Do it, Sally--never mind _me_," cried her husband, joining heartily inthe merriment.

  Seizing the collar of my coat with both hands, she drew my face downtill my lips almost touched hers (I was preparing to blush, and theColonel shouted, "Come, come, I shall tell his wife"): but then turningquickly on her heel, she threw herself into a chair, exclaiming, "_I_wouldn't mind, but the _old man would be jealous_." Addressing theColonel, she added, "_You_ needn't be troubled, sir, no Yankee girl willkiss _you_ till you change your politics."

  "Give me that inducement, and I'll change them on the spot," said theColonel.

  "No, no, Dave, 'twouldn't do," replied the planter; "the conversionwouldn't be genuwine--besides such things arn't proper, except 'mongblood-relations--and all the Yankees, you know are first-cousins."

  The conversation then subsided into a more placid mood, but lost none ofits genial, good humor. Refreshments were soon set before us, and whilepartaking of them I gathered from our hostess that she was a Vermontcountry-girl, who, some three years before, had been induced by liberalpay to come South as a teacher. A sister accompanied her, and about ayear after their arrival, she married a neighboring planter. Wishing tobe near her sister, our hostess had also married and settled down forlife in that wild region. "I like the country very well," she added;"it's a great sight easier living here than in Vermont; but I do hatethese lazy, shiftless, good-for-nothing niggers; they are _so_ slow, and_so_ careless, and _so_ dirty, that I sometimes think they will worrythe very life out of me. I do believe I'm the hardest mistress in allthe district."

  I learned from her that a majority of the teachers at the South are fromthe North, and principally, too, from New England. Teaching is a verylaborious employment there, far more so than with us, for theSoutherners have no methods like ours, and the same teacher usually hasto hear lessons in branches all the way from Greek and Latin to thesimple A B C. The South has no system of public instruction; no commonschools; no means of placing within the reach of the sons and daughtersof the poor even the elements of knowledge. While the children of thewealthy are most carefully educated, it is the policy of the rulingclass to keep the great mass of the people in ignorance; and so long asthis policy continues, so long will that section be as far behind theNorth as it now is, in all that constitutes true prosperity andgreatness.

  The afternoon wore rapidly and pleasantly away in the genial society ofour wayside-friends. Politics were discussed (our host was a Union man),the prospects of the turpentine crop talked over, the recent newscanvassed, the usual neighborly topics touched upon, and--I hesitate toconfess it--a considerable quantity of corn whiskey disposed of, beforethe Colonel discovered, all at once, that it was six o'clock, and wewere still seventeen miles from the railway station. Arraying ourselvesagain in our dried garments, we bade a hasty but regretful "good-bye" toour hospitable entertainers, and once more took to the road.

  The storm had cleared away, but the ground was heavy with the recentrain, and our horses were sadly jaded with the ride of the morning. Wegave them the reins, and, jogging on at their leisure, it was teno'clock at night before they landed us at the little hamlet of W----Station, in the state of North Carolina.