第6章 CHAPTER I.(5)

I can see that a responsibility to God was the fundamental principle in my father's life. After the negroes were freed, and we lived on the farm, there was so much to do, especially for him, but there was always a conveyance prepared to take his family to church and Sunday School--I took the "New York Ledger. Mrs. Southworth wrote for it then. 'Capitola', The Wrecker's Son, with other thrilling stories, were so fascinating to me--The paper came late Saturday and I would rather read it Sunday morning than go anywhere. One morning I took my paper and went to the back of the orchard, thinking to get out of the sound of my father's voice when he would call me to get ready for church. I could just hear him but did not move. After reading my paper, I returned to the house, Pa was just coming back with the rest of the family from church. He looked at me with grief and anger in his glance and said, "Never mind, you ungrateful girl, you cannot say at the judgment Day, that your father did not provide a way for you to go to church." I never did this again and never was free from remorse for this ingratitude. I know how Dr. Johnson felt when he was seen standing on a corner of the street with the sun beaming down upon his bare head, when asked why he did that he said, "My father had a book stand on this corner, when I was a boy once he asked me to stand here in his place as he was sick. I would not, now I would expiate that by blistering my bare head in the sun if I could. To this day I weep to think of grieving so noble a parent.

My mother was a very handsome woman. My father was what you might call good looking. I was very anxious to look like him; used to try to wear off my teeth on the right side, because his were worn off.

About two years before he died, he came to Texas to visit me. I was then in the hotel business. During the first meal he ate at the hotel, he looked up and seeing me waiting on the table, he got up and began waiting on the table himself. I had to work very hard then and it was a grief to him to have no means to give me. One morning he came into my room while I was dressing and said: "Daughter, I have not slept all night for thinking of you. The last thing last night was you in the kitchen and the first thing this morning. I have always hoped to have something to leave you, and it is such a grief to me that I can not help you. Carry, it seems the Lord has been so hard on you." I said:

"No, Pa; I thank God for all my sorrows. They have been the best for me, and don't you worry about not leaving me money, for you have left me something far better." He looked up surprised and said: "What is it?" I answered: "The memory of a father who never did a dishonorable act." My father's eyes filled with tears, and after that he seemed to be happier than I had ever seen him; everything seemed to go right.

My father was a very indulgent master to his colored servants, who loved him like a father. They always called him "Mars George." The negro women would threaten to get "Mars George" to whip their bad children, and when he whipped them, I have heard them say: "Served you right. Did not give you a lick amiss." This was proving their great confidence, they being willing for some one else to whip their children. They were very sensitive in this matter and were not willing for my mother to do this. My father would lay in a supply, while in Cincinnati, of boxes of boots and shoes, arid get combs, head handkerchiefs, and Sunday dresses, which would greatly delight his colored people.

Happy, indeed, would the negroes have been if all their masters had been as my father was.

When we moved to Mercer County from Garrard, we had a sale.

It was customary then at such a time to have a barbecue and a great dinner. The tables were set in the yard. I remember Mr. Jones Adams, a neighbor and great friend of my father, brought over a two bushel sack of turnip greens and a ham. I remember seeing him shake them out of the bag. At this sale for the first, and only time, I saw a negro put on a block and sold to the highest bidder. I can't understand how my father could have allowed this. His name was "Big Bill," to distinguish him from another "Bill". He was a widower or a batchelor and had no family. There was one colored man my father valued highly, and wanted to take with him, but this man, Tom, had a wife, who belonged to a near neighbor. After we got in the carriage to go to our new home, Tom followed us crying: "Oh, Mars George, don't take me from my wife." My father said: "Go and get some one to buy you." This Tom did, the buyer being a Mr. Dunn. Oh! What a sad sight! It makes the tears fill my eyes to write it.

But a worse slavery is now on us. I would rather have my son sold to a slave-driver than to be a victim of a saloon. I could, in the first case, hope to see him in heaven; but no drunkard can inherit eternal life. The people of the south said no power could take from them their slaves, but 'tis a thing of the past. People now say, you can't shut up saloons. But our children will know them as a thing of the past. My father was glad when the slaves were free. He felt the responsibility of owning them.

Have heard him say, after having some-trouble with them: "Those negroes will send me to hell yet." He would gather them in the dining- room Sunday evenings and read the Bible to them and have prayer. He would first call aunt Liza and ask her to have them come in. The negroes would sing, and it is a sweet memory to me.

{illust. caption =

THIS IS A PICTURE OF MYSELF AND SISTER EDNA, SITTING ON EACH SIDE OF OUR MOTHER.I AM ON THE LEFT AND WAS ABOUT SIX YEARS OLD.}