CHAPTER XXV GLEAMS OF LIGHT

THEN one day, to our amazement, Sam Galant came with two horses which he had brought back safe all the way from Virginia! They were thin and so was he, but it was a wonderful feat, without money and without food, at a time when the soldiers returning home on foot were desperate for a horse to till and cultivate the little farms to which they were returning empty-handed. How was it possible for Sam to escape capture by some of them, almost hopeless at the great distance from their homes, which they must travel mostly afoot! Sam had wonderful tales to tell of his experiences. He kept with Hampton’s Cavalry all the time, leading horses to be at hand to replace those killed in battle. He gave a thrilling account of the death of Bill, the mail horse. Edward Wells, of the Charleston Light Dragoons, was riding him, and as they were galloping out of Cheraw, just over the bridge, a shell went through Bill from tail to head, without exploding, leaving Mr. Wells standing on his feet unhurt. “Sam, a horse,” he called,{251} and, according to Sam’s tale, he stepped up instantly with a fresh horse, Mr. Wells mounted and was gone. Sam concluded:

“Yes, ma’am, Mr. Wells is the bravest man in the world, I believe. He neber mind de shell busting all ’round him, en I was dere right alongside him, ready to his han’.”

Oh, if I had only got Sam to come and tell it all to me quietly long afterward, so that I could write it down as I did Daddy Ancrum’s story! But Sam was comparatively young, some years younger than myself, and I always thought there was time. I never thought of his dying.

One day a messenger arrived from the plantation to mamma, with a badly scribbled line on brown paper: “Miss, cum quick, dem de ’stribute ebry ting.” Mamma questioned the boy. He said the people had gone wild, that “a Capting from de Yankee A’my kum en a kerridge en tell de people dem is free en ebry ting belongst to dem. No wite peeple ’ill neber jum back, en den him ’stribute ebery ting.”

Mamma told Daddy Aleck to have the carriage ready early the next morning, and she and I started off, leaving Della and Jane still at Crowley, with all the servants. Charley rode with us on{252} horseback and, to our surprise, Julius Pringle turned up the evening before and said he would ride along with us too. The presence of these two, just home from all the dangers and suffering of the war, now here safe and sound, made the journey a great pleasure. Mr. Pringle rode Jerry, Charley’s young half-Arab stallion, which mamma had sent on to Virginia for him, and which he rode as one of Hampton’s scouts all the last year of the war. We had not gone far when a runner on foot from Chicora Wood met us.

He said: “Miss, I got a pa’tikler messidge fu yu, en I wan’ to speak to yu private.” So mamma got out of the carriage and went a little way into the woods with him. He said: “A’nt Milly say don’t kum, ’tis dang’us, but ef yu does kum, don’t keep de publik road. Dem de watch fu yu! Kum troo de ’oods.” Mamma thanked and told him to go on to Crowley and rest and Miss Adèle would give him plenty to eat, and when he was rested, he could start back. She got into the carriage and we drove on.

I never have understood that message from Maum Milly, whether it was a genuine anxiety on her part, or whether it was to keep mamma from coming and asserting her rights, by intimidating{253} her. Maum Milly had always been greatly considered and trusted. She held herself and her family as vastly superior to the ordinary run of negroes, the aristocracy of the race. Whatever her intention was, the message had no effect on mamma’s plans, and we never left the public road.

That night we stopped at a house where dark caught us, and asked for shelter, simply that; we had provisions. The family were from Georgetown and had refugeed here, the Sampsons, and they received us with enthusiastic hospitality and kindness, making us most comfortable for the night, and giving us a delicious and abundant supper and breakfast of fried chicken, so that we were able to keep our supplies for the next day. I do not think I ever saw as beautiful a young Jewess as the daughter of the family, Deborah Sampson.

When we got to Plantersville we drove to Mrs. Weston to ask about them all, for we knew nothing of how they had fared in these dark days. Cousin Lizzie was rejoiced to see us after all we had both gone through, and Mr. Weston and herself and Pauline most hospitably invited us to stay with them, until we could make arrangements to get the log house in order for us to{254} occupy, as it had been shut up a long time. There was so much to hear and so much to tell that it was hard to go to bed. They had been through a great trial in the Bunker raid, when this Yankee had come through the little village in an open carriage, followed by a throng of negroes, whooping and yelling with joy, in response to his announcement that they were free, and that everything belonged to them. He went to every house and seized every article of value, took the earrings from women’s ears and the rings from their fingers; for the inhabitants of the little hamlet had been so far removed from the centre of war that they had not thought of concealing their valuables and jewelry, as no one had any fear of the negroes. This seems to me a wonderful tribute to them, and they deserve to have the changes rung on it. When this man, announcing himself as “A N’united State Officer,” as they called it, authorized them to take possession of everything as their own, it is a marvel that license and shooting did not ensue on their part; for the end had not come yet, and none of the men had come home from the army. There were only women and children and two old men in the village, and there might have been frightful scenes there.{255} They took all Bunker gave them, but touched nothing themselves where the white owners were present. It was only on the plantations, where the owners were absent, that, on his persuasion, they pitched in and “stributed” the contents of the houses. That darky word for it is good, for each one took what he selected as fast as he could till there was nothing left.

The next day Mr. Pringle rode up with a note from his mother, asking us to go down and stay with her at the White House, their plantation, twelve miles south of Plantersville, on the Pee Dee River,—that is, the Pee Dee ran in front of the house, and the Black River half a mile away at the back. Mamma accepted the invitation with much pleasure. Mrs. Pringle and her husband and Mary had been in Europe when the war broke out. The sons, Julius, Poinsett, and Lynch, were at Heidelberg University. The young men at once left, ran the blockade, and entered the Confederate service. Mr. and Mrs. Pringle and Mary remained in Italy. Mr. Pringle died and was buried in the beautiful cemetery in Rome in 1863, and the next spring Mrs. Pringle and Mary came to America, and stayed with Fanny Butler (daughter of Fanny Kemble), at Butler Place, outside of{256} Philadelphia, until they were able to slip through the lines and get into Virginia, only to find the darling of them all, Poinsett, had been recently killed in battle. It was too awful for them. They stayed where they could occasionally see the other two boys, until this winter, when they made their way down to the plantation, to remain there.

I had never been to the White House before, though I had always heard of it as very beautiful; a picturesque, rambling house with three gables, set facing the river about 200 yards away, in a most beautiful garden, which had been planted by Mr. Poinsett, who was a specialist on gardens, a botanist. The White House was even more beautiful than I had imagined. As soon as you left the road you entered on a lane bordered on each side with most luxuriant climbing roses, now in riotous bloom, long garlands of white roses swaying in the breeze, high up, and quarrelling for supremacy with long garlands of pink roses. This lane took you direct to the Pee Dee River, where you made a sharp turn and drove along the avenue of live oaks just on the edge of the river, which had here a sand beach like the seashore. The effect was delightful; on the left the river, only a few feet away, on{257} the right a green lawn, until you came to the vegetable-garden. A picture garden! All the vegetables sedately in straight rows, and having nothing to do with each other. The French artichokes standing in stately stiff rows, not so much as glancing at the waving asparagus bed, nor the rows of pale-green mammoth roses, which turn out to be heads of lettuce. I had never seen a vegetable-garden which was ornamental before. While I was taking it in we entered the flower-garden, with a wilderness of roses, azaleas, camellias, and other beautiful shrubs and plants.

Mamma and Mrs. Pringle were rejoiced to see each other, but it was sad, for both had suffered much sorrow since their last meeting. Papa had been taken from us and Mrs. Pringle had lost both her husband and beautiful son, so it was a long time before they could become composed. That evening, however, they made up, for there was so much to be told. First of all, Mrs. Pringle told mamma that the government had ordered that all property belonging to Mrs. Allston, the sister of James L. Petigru, should be protected from all damage. This seemed to impress Mrs. Pringle very much, but mamma did not seem to attach much importance to it. She said she did not{258} think it was at all to be depended on, that she must go to Georgetown and get the commanding officer there to send a detachment of men to take from the negroes the keys of the barns at each plantation, where the large crops made were locked up. These keys they had given to the negroes, and mamma could get no corn for the horses nor provisions for herself, and they must restore the keys to her. Mrs. Pringle said it would be quite useless for her to ask anything until she took the oath of allegiance to the United States, that she had wanted something done and their reply was until she took the oath of allegiance no request could be considered; that she had declined to do so at the time, but now felt it must be done. So it was arranged that mamma would take Mrs. Pringle down in her carriage to Georgetown the next day to take the oath, while I should remain with Mary and her brothers at the White House.

Oh, what a white day that stands out in my memory! I was embroidering a waist in black silk, to make a Russian blouse out of the everlasting purple calico we were all wearing. As I sewed in a big chair in the beautiful library, filled with most delightful books, exquisite engravings{259} on the walls and marble busts around the room, Mr. Pringle read aloud to me. He picked up the first book his hand came upon,—I think it was “Eugene Aram.” But the book was nothing; it was his voice, so beautifully modulated, and his presence, safe back from the awful danger, and in his own beautiful home. It cast a spell over me; and long afterward he told me he had no idea of what he was reading; nothing of it entered his mind; it was the simple fact of having me sitting there in his own home, sewing as if I belonged there, that intoxicated him, so that he was afraid to speak, and so took refuge in reading! So there we were, a pair of idiots, in a fool’s paradise, some might think, but such moments are immortal. Soul speaks to soul, though no voice be heard.