Old Times in Dixie Land Part 1

Old Times in Dixie Land.

by Caroline E. Merrick.

CHAPTER I.

COTTAGE HALL.

I have not written these memoirs entirely for the amus.e.m.e.nt or instruction of my contemporaries; but I shall feel rewarded if I elicit thereby the interest and sympathy which follows an honest effort to tell the truth in the recollections of one's life--for, after all, truth is the chief virtue of history. My ancestry may be of as little importance in itself as this book is likely to be after the lapse of a few years; yet it is satisfactory to know that your family is respectable,--even if you cannot prove it to be so ancient that it has no beginning, and so worthy that it ought to have no end. I am willing, however, that my genealogy should be investigated; there are books giving the whole history; and it is surely an innocent and praiseworthy pride--that of good pedigree.

I was born November 24th, 1825, at our plantation home, called Cottage Hall, in the parish of East Feliciana, in the State of Louisiana. My father was a man of firmness and of courage amounting to stoicism. He appeared calm and self-possessed under all circ.u.mstances. He ruled his own house, but so judicious was his management that even his slaves loved him.

Though I was very young when my mother died, I can remember her and the great affection manifested for her by the entire family. While not realizing the importance of my loss, I knew enough to resent the coming of another to fill her place. My father said he wanted a good woman who could see that his family of six children were properly brought up and educated.

His nephew, Dr. James Thomas, introduced him to Miss Susan Brewer, who he thought would fill all these requirements. The marriage was soon arranged, and I was brought home, to Cottage Hall, by my eldest sister, with whom I had been living. The other children had laid aside their mourning and I was informed that I also had new dresses; but I declined to wear them or to call the new mistress of the household by the name of "Mother," which had been freely given her by the rest of the family. When my father lifted me from the carriage he said: "My child, I will now take you to your new mother." As he kissed me affectionately I turned away and said: "I am not your child, and I have no mother now." I have never forgotten the sad look he gave me nor the tenderness he manifested toward my waywardness as he took me in his arms and carried me into the house. I was a troublesome little girl with an impetuous temper; perhaps it was on this account that he often said: "This golden-haired darling is the dearest little one in the house--and the most exacting." My father had a vein of quaint humor and abounded in proverbial wisdom. I have heard him say, "Yes, I have a very bad memory--I remember what should be forgotten."

We often had friends and schoolmates to spend the day or night at Cottage Hall; but when these visits were returned we were always accompanied by our married sister or some equally responsible _chaperone_. We complained much of this rigid rule, yet I now think it was a wise exaction that every night should find us sheltered under the home roof. My father had no patience with the innocent flirtations of young people; he thought such conduct implied a lack of straight-forward honesty which was inexcusable.

Few men can understand the temptations of a young girl's environment, which sometimes cause her to make promises in good faith that cannot be carried out, and my father had no pity on one who so doted on general admiration that she was unwilling to contract her life into a simple home with one true, brave heart. Such an one, he thought, deserved to become a lonely old maid and hold a pet dog in her arms, with never a child of her own, because she had turned away from her highest vocation--and all for pure vanity and folly.

My stepmother was a gifted woman. She was born in Wilbraham, Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1790, and died July 25th, 1876. She had come South by the advice of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, and was instrumental in bringing into Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana over sixty accomplished teachers, she herself having been at the head of successful schools in New York, Baltimore, Tuscaloosa and Was.h.i.+ngton. The calling of teaching she gave up when she married my father, but the cause of education in the South was greatly promoted by her influence, for which reason she has been compared to Mary Lyon of New England.

On one occasion, when my stepmother had a large party of Northern people at tea, they began praising the products of their own State and depreciating those of Louisiana. My childish anger was stirred, and I asked our guests why they had come down here if they had everything so much nicer and better in Ma.s.sachusetts? I said no more, for a maid was called and I was sent to bed, retiring with indignation while the company laughed spiritedly at my impertinence. One of my sisters wrote me later, "Ma has no occasion to teach you how to manage, for you were born with a talent for ruling--whether wisely or not time will show."

Cottage Hall was five miles from Jackson, Louisiana. My father was for many years trustee of the college there which afterward became Centenary College of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. His death occurred in 1849, and I have preserved a eulogy delivered by President Augustus Baldwin Longstreet during the Commencement exercises of the year. From this I transcribe a few sentences:

"A sad announcement will be antic.i.p.ated by those who have been long in the habit of attending these occasions when they cast their eyes over the Board of Trustees and see that the seat of Captain David Thomas is vacant. Never since the foundation of the College was it so before.

He was present at the birth of this inst.i.tution; he saw it in all its promising and dispiriting visitations; and while it had no peculiar claims upon him, he watched over it with parental solicitude. At length he rejoiced in its commitment to the care of his own church; and under the management of my predecessor, he saw it a.s.sume an honorable rank among the kindred inst.i.tutions of our Southern clime.

His head, his heart and purse were all at its service. He was antic.i.p.ating the events of this week with hopeful gratification when, within forty-eight hours of the time he expected to mingle his counsels with his colleagues, it pleased G.o.d to cut him down. Were our griefs always proportioned to our losses, his wife, his children, the orphan, the poor, the church, the trustees, the faculty, and the students would all have raised one wild shriek at the tw.a.n.g of the archer's bow which laid him low. Were the joys of friends.h.i.+p proportioned to the good fortune of a friend, we should all rejoice and mingle our voices in loud hallelujahs that death had s.n.a.t.c.hed him away; for that he has gone direct from earth to heaven none can doubt who knew him. I find it hard to restrain the starting tears; but this is my weakness. We all should rejoice, but this our nature will not permit; yet we must testify our respect for his memory."

Then Judge Longstreet read the resolutions of the Board of Trustees of Centenary College, which had been placed in his hands. This extraordinary man was a dear friend of our family, and every child in the house enjoyed his visits. He played on a gla.s.s flute for us, and it was a choice privilege when we were allowed to hear him read from his "Georgia Scenes"

about the comical doings of Ned Brace and Cousin Patsy. His peculiarities bordered on eccentricity and his wit was inimitable and irresistible.

Mrs. Longstreet was a lovely woman of whose presence one never wearied.

She wore the daintiest of white caps, and seemed in the eyes of all like the angel she was. Of Byron, Walter Scott, and historical literature she could give pages from memory with great expression and in the sweetest voice imaginable. She was ideally sweet even in her most advanced years--a vision which once seen can never be forgotten.

CHAPTER II.

OLD TIMES.

On a clear spring morning more than fifty years ago, Cousin Antoinette and I sat on the front porch of Cottage Hall ready for a ride and waiting for the stable boy to bring up our ponies. We were in the act of mounting when my father appeared and inquired where we were going.

"We shall not take a long ride, papa. We are not going anywhere, and shall return in good time for breakfast."

"You will do nothing of the kind. You have no brother here to ride with you, and it is improper for two young ladies to be seen on the public road alone so early in the morning." He then ordered the horses back to the lot. We were obliged to submit to his authority without protest, though I was ready to say, "There is a word sweeter than 'mother, home, or heaven,'

and that word is 'liberty.'" Contrast this with the freedom of the modern girl on her bicycle!

Once when I left the schoolroom on account of a disagreement with the governess, my stepmother thought my father should require me to return and apologize. "No," he replied, "she elects her own life and must abide by her choice; she shall not be coerced." I was never afterward a student in any schoolroom, though at this time only in my thirteenth year. I had been in cla.s.s with girls three or four years older than myself, and was considered quite mature in person and mental development. I early ascertained that girls had a sphere wherein they were expected to remain and that the despotic hand of some man was continually lifted to keep them revolving in a certain prescribed and very restricted orbit. When mild reproofs failed there were always other curbs for the idiot with eccentric inclinations.

Yet it was with my father's full consent, even by his advice, that at fifteen years of age I married Edwin Thomas Merrick, for he thought I could not enter too soon upon woman's exclusive path, and be marching along towards woman's kingdom with a companion in the prime of a n.o.ble manhood. I was indebted for my "bringing up" to the young man I married.

He was more than twice my age, and possessed many times over my amount of wisdom. In one of Mr. Merrick's love-letters, written in 1839, alluding to a remark of mine on the absurdity of a "young thing like me" being companionable for a man of thirty years, he says: "Is it not 'ridiculously absurd' for a young lady who talks seriously of moving an island in the lake of Windermere to suppose she is not old enough to marry anybody? I have been reared in the cold North where mind and person come to maturity slowly; you in the sunny South where the flower bursts at once into full luxuriance and beauty." Lover-like, he compliments me by continuing: "I have never discovered in you anything to remind me of the disparity of our ages; but, on the contrary, I have found a maturity of judgment, correctness of taste and extent of accomplishments which cause me to feel that you have every acquisition of a lady of twenty; and I have been happier in your society than in that of any other human being."

My husband, the nephew of my stepmother, was born July 9th, 1809, in Wilbraham, Ma.s.sachusetts. He was an advocate and jurist, served as district judge of the Florida parishes, and was twice elected chief justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

The entire household at Cottage Hall was devoted to "Cousin Edwin," as he was called after our Southern fas.h.i.+on of claiming kins.h.i.+p with those we like. I remember that when Mrs. Lafayette Saunders heard that Mrs. Thomas had made this match, she replied: "It is a pity she did not do the same for all the family, for she surely has made a good one for Caroline!" For a year and a half Mr. Merrick and I had seen much of each other and had exchanged frequent letters, many of which have been sacredly preserved to the present time. Bishop John C. Keener, who was his lifelong friend, said of him at the time of his death: "Judge Merrick was always a bright, delightful person in his family and with his acquaintances and friends. He was a scholar, and was familiar with several modern languages, especially French and German. He had an investigating mind, loved to explore the recent wonders of science, and the doctrine of evolution he accepted. Few men had rounded their career into a grander expression of all the high qualities which concur in the useful citizen and the influential public magistrate. He was an incorruptible and capable judge, which is the most important and admirable character in the official const.i.tuency of government."

The Law a.s.sociation of New Orleans, in their tribute to his memory, said to him--using his own words at a like meeting in honor of Chief Justice Eustis: "His judicial opinions show a comprehensive intellect, cultivated by long study, and familiarized with the sentiments of the great writers and expounders of the law. They were, as became them, more solid than brilliant, more ma.s.sive than showy. They are like granite masonry, and will serve as guides and landmarks in years to come. He was domestic, temperate and simple in his habits; modest, patient, punctual, and exceedingly studious. In his family relations he was a good husband, a wise and loving father. He loved his fellow-men and enjoyed the success of others. He encouraged young men, and with his brethren of the bar he was always considerate, courteous and generous."

Thus he received a beautiful and eloquent tribute which dealt with both his public and private life.

In his home Mr. Merrick was always gentle and lovable without the least apparent pride. He would entertain with the greatest simplicity the youngest child in the house; and this fact reminds me of a little boy who deposited with tears a bouquet at his lifeless feet. To the inquiry "Who sent them?" he replied: "I brought them. For three years he has given me money to buy all my school books, and I am so sorry he is dead!" In a letter my daughter-in-law had written me while we were in Virginia during one of his last summers on earth, she asked: "Does father still roam over the hills gathering flowers for you to wear as he used to do?" Even in his old age his cheerfulness, his equipoise and sweetness never deserted him.

In regard to early marriages, I cannot, in view of my own experience and long life of contentment and domestic happiness, say aught unfavorable, though there is another side to the question and modern custom tends increasingly towards marriage at a later period. As it is true that the progeny of immature plants and animals do not equal in vigor and capacity for endurance the offspring of fully developed specimens, so human beings who desire to establish a home and intend to bring up a family, should not be children, but full-grown, matured men and women; yet, all things else being equal, it is surely better they should unite to make up a perfect life before the season of youth has pa.s.sed away, and the man became _blase_, the woman warped. Men are much concerned about our s.e.x and the duties and peculiar functions belonging thereto. It is my opinion that they too need some instruction in regard to the exercise and regulation of their own relations and responsibilities toward the future welfare of the race. They have decided that brain work is detrimental to the full development of the organization of the female; but they do not worry over the effects of tobacco, whisky and certain vile habits upon the congenital vigor of both boys and girls. Fathers and medical men ought to look well to the hygienic duties of their own s.e.x; then both s.e.xes would be born with better capacity for life and growth, and the poor mother would not be obliged to spend so much care and trouble in rearing the offspring of debilitated manhood. Nature does not work in a hurry. She is patient, persistent and deliberate, never losing sight of her own great ends, and inexorable as to her rights.

If study could check and thwart a child's growth Margaret D'Ossoli would have been a case of arrested development instead of a large-souled woman.

It was her father who kept her little head all day over Greek and Latin exercises at the age of seven years, when she should have been playing with her dolls and romping in the fresh outdoor air. It was her father, M.

Necker, who trained Madame de Stael into a woman whom the great Napoleon hated and even feared so much that he insulted her childless wifehood by telling her that what France needed was mothers, and sent her into banishment.

It is useless to get up a lamentation that the race will die out and children be neglected because woman is going to college and becoming informed and intellectual. Nature will take care that she keeps to her princ.i.p.al business, which is to become a willing (or unwilling) medium to continue the species.

CHAPTER III.

HOME LIFE.

My home during my early married life was in the town of Clinton, La. While I never coveted the owners.h.i.+p of many slaves, my comfort was greatly promoted by the possession of some who had been carefully trained to be good domestics, and who were given to me by my father on my marriage. I always liked to go into the kitchen, but sometimes my cook, who had been for twelve years in training, scorned my inexperienced youth, would say emphatically, "_Go_ inter de _house_, Miss Carrie! Yer ain't no manner er use heah only ter git yer face red wid de heat. I'll have dinner like yer wants it. Jes' read yer book an' res' easy till I sen's it ter de dining-room." I like just as much to go into the kitchen to-day, and am accounted a "born cook," by my family, being accredited with a genius for giving those delicious and elusive flavors that are inspirations and cannot be taught. The artist cook burns neither food nor fingers, is never hurried or flurried, and does not reveal in appearance or manner that the table is indebted to her handicraft.

The common idea of tyranny and ill-usage of slaves was often reversed in my case, and I was subject at times to exactions and dictations of the black people who belonged to me, which now seem almost too extraordinary and incredible to relate. I made periodical visits to our plantation in Point Coupe parish, over fifty miles distant from Clinton. _En route_ I would often desire my coachman to drive faster, and he would do so for the moment, then would fall back into the old pace. If I remonstrated he would say: "I's 'sponsible fer dese yeah horses, an' dey got ter fotch us back home, an' I ain't er gwine ter kill 'em gettin' ter whar we gwine ter; an'

I'd tell Ma.r.s.e Edwin de same thing if he was heah."

Gardening has always greatly claimed my heart and time. I have taken prizes at horticultural exhibits, and have been no little vainglorious in this last year of the century to be able to show the public the only blooming century-plant in New Orleans, or indeed in the State, so far as I know, and for whose blossoming I have been waiting thirty years. There is a "mild and gentle" but indissoluble sympathy between the human soul and the brown earth from which we have sprung, and to which we shall return.

There is no outward influence that can be compared to that of living, growing, blooming things. The resurrections of the springtime cause an epidemic of gardening fever that prevails until intenser suns.h.i.+ne discourages exertions. When buds are bursting and color begins to glow on every bush and trellis I do not see how any one can be wholly miserable.

The great season of hope and promise stirs into fruitfulness of some sort the blood that has been marking time for many years. This ever renewed, undiscouraged pa.s.sion of making the earth produce seems a proof that man's natural occupation is husbandry. He keeps at it through love as well as necessity, and every springtime he, as little subdued as nature, renews the contest. It is his destiny.

Therefore it is hardly a matter for surprise that my first-born child appealed so strongly to my love of growing things that the office of my nurse was a mere sinecure, for my boy was always in my arms--perhaps the more that I had been cut off prematurely from my dolls. With every moment devoted to his interests he became such a precocious wonder that all the servants prophesied: "Dat chile's not long for _dis_ worl', Miss Cal_line_!" I was not disturbed, however, by these mournful predictions, knowing how much time and patience had been invested in his baby education. When I look back on this period I excuse myself on account of my youth, yet at the same time I pity myself for my ignorance. The experience I bought was high-priced.

The heavy and exacting responsibilities of a slaveholder did not rest upon me with a lightness commensurate with my years. During my annual visits to the plantation I was not sure of uninterrupted rest even at night, for I never could refuse an interview to any of the negroes who called upon me.

I observe that my diaries of those days are full of notes of my attendance upon sick servants. When President Lincoln issued his proclamation of freedom to our slaves I exclaimed: "Thank heaven! I too shall be free at last!"--forgetful of the legal disabilities to which white women of these United States are yet in bondage.

In the year 1851 I made my first trip to the North.

While visiting in Ohio, my husband said: "I think a little longer stay here will cure you of your anti-slavery principles;" but I rejected with scorn the idea that I would allow my personal comfort to bias my judgment; though I had to admit that one of my own trained "darkies" was superior "help" to any that I had, so far, encountered. My diary of the day records: "I find the children here are set to work as soon as they are able 'to do a turn' or go on an errand, and are kept steadily at it until they grow up, run away, or die. Dear little 'Sis Daisy' in this house is running constantly all day long and her little fat hands are broader than mine, from grasping things too large and heavy for so small a child to handle. She drops to sleep sometimes in the big chair or on the lounge in my room. I cover her with my dress and don't know anything about her when she is called--happy to be sure she is getting some rest. Night must be a blissful time for the overworked hired girls of the North, as they know nothing of the many restful stops our self-protected blacks allow themselves 'between times.'"