I witnessed the monthly payments on several large plantations. On one the negroes had never been paid before; their masters having retained control of them till the end of the war. They had been hired about the middle of January, and had worked till the beginning of March, without asking for money. The lessee rode into the quarters and up to the overseer’s house, one day at noon, and it was soon whispered among the negroes that they were to be paid that night. Numbers of them, however, had complicated store accounts, and it took the lessee longer to interpret his overseer’s imperfect book-keeping than had been expected. The night passed without a word being said to the negroes about payment; they never mentioned it, and next morning were promptly in the fields before sunrise.

The following evening, however, they kept watching about the overseer’s house; one and another making some little errand that would excuse him for loitering a few moments by the steps or on the long gallery, and presently all understood that “we’s to be paid greenbacks, shore enuff.”

Finally a table was placed in the door of one of the rooms. The pay-roll, store-book, and some piles of greenbacks and fractional currency were spread out upon it, a couple of candles, fastened to the table by smearing it with melted tallow and dipping the ends in it before it congealed, furnished all the light. A hundred eager eyes watched the proceedings from the doors of the quarters. At last the bell was tapped by one of the drivers. In a moment or two the gallery was covered by the “whole stock of the plantation,” (as the overseer expressed it,) men, women and children.

They stood at respectful distance in a circle around the table, and with wide-eyed curiosity awaited developments. The lessee read from the pay-roll the contract, and asked them if they understood it; all said they did. Then he explained that, as they had only worked a couple of weeks in January, he hadn’t thought it worth while to go to the trouble of a payment for so short a time. Accordingly they were now to be paid for this part of January and for the whole of February. But they were only to be paid half what they had earned. The rest was to be reserved till the end of the year as a security for their faithful fulfillment of their contract. “That’s the security on one side. Perhaps, as most of you haven’t known me very long, you’d like to know what security you have, on your side that, at the end of the year I’ll keep my part of the contract and pay you this money?” They said nothing, but looked as if they would like to know. “Well you’re going to raise a big crop of cotton, aren’t you?” “Yes, sah” with emphasis. “Well, the bigger the crop the bigger your security. Every bale of that cotton is yours, till you are paid for your work out of it, and the Freedman’s Bureau will see that it pays you.”

Then he read over the long pay-roll, told each one how many days he or she had worked, and how much had been earned; how much of this was due now, and how many dollars or cents were to be paid at the end of the year. “Dat’s so,” occasionally interrupted one in a reflective manner. “I did miss five days, I’d done forgot all ’bout it till you tole me.”

Next he read over the charges in the plantation store against a number of them. Then began the payments. Looking out from the lighted doorway into the darkness, one could see the fringe of black faces lining the gallery, their eyes shining as the light from the candles struck upon them. Beyond was blackness and a confused murmur of many whispers; within, the circle advanced one and another to the table to receive the currency rapidly counted out. The lessee carefully explained to each how much there was, and that a similar sum was still due; counted the money, note by note, folded it up, and handed it over. The negro looked with a puzzled air, took the money as if it were fragile glass, and must be handled very carefully or it would be broken, and went off very much with the air one always imagines, the man must have worn who drew the elephant in a raffle.

“Missah ——,” exclaimed one, “I done wuck mighty hard fo’ you, chop briars and roll logs, and you haint paid me nuffin at all.”

“Haven’t I? Didn’t you get two new dresses, three rings, and a breastpin out of the store?”

“Well, but you don’ gib me no money.” And it took not a little laborious explanation on the part of the lessee, before the finery-loving young negress could be made to understand that she couldn’t take up her wages in the store and still draw them in money—couldn’t both eat her cake and have it.

“Missah ——, how much does you pay me a month?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Well, you done gib me, you say, only dollah and six bits.”

“Yes, but you’ve been working only a few days. Don’t you know, you’ve had the chills nearly all the time?”

“Well, but you say you pay me ten dollah a month, and you doesn’t do it. Aint you payin’ for de month? An’ if you is, why don’t I git my ten dollah?”

Cases of this sort, however, were rare. Here was a more common one:

“Missah —— doesn’t you pay me fifteen dollah a monf?”

“Yes.”

“But you aint done gib me a bit o’ money.”

“No; but how much did you get out of the store, Ben?”

“He didn’t git nuffin in de wo’ld ’cept stuff fo’ one shirt an’ a pair o’ boots,” interposed his old mother.

“No, auntie, you’re mistaken; he got several things for you. Don’t you remember having a box of sardines for dinner, a week or two ago?”

The old woman ’peared like she did ’member dat.

“And haven’t you had cheese, three or four times?”

Nebber in de wo’ld but onct, she was shore, or most-ways, more ’n twict.

“Now, auntie,” said the lessee, improving the occasion after the fashion of the divines, “you have a right to spend your earnings any way you please; you’re free. It’s none of my business what you do with your money. But if you would let me give you a little advice, I’d tell you all not to waste your money on fish, and candy, and rings, and breastpins, and fine hats. If you will have them, we’ll sell them to you, but you had better not buy so freely. Look how Ben. has wasted his money!” And he proceeded to read the following account:

As every item of this precious account was read, Ben. nodded his head. Presently the people began to laugh, and the reading ended in a roar. Ben., it seemed, had a good many sweethearts, and the whole plantation knew, better than his old mother did, where the wondrous succession of brass rings had gone. To the girls who wore them, the joke seemed particularly funny, and Ben. got no sympathy in his discomfiture.

About two hundred dollars served to complete the entire payment for sixty-five hands. Half of them had already been paid all, and more than all, that was due them, from the store. In such cases, the lessee, while giving the overseer strict instructions to credit them no more, unless in cases of absolute need, was very careful to conceal from them the entire amount of their indebtedness. “There’s danger of their running off,” he argued, “if they knew how deep they had got into us.”

One old woman asked for her full wages, saying she wanted to go to another plantation to be nearer her husband. “Don’t you know that you contracted with me for a year?” “Don’t know nuffin about it. I wants to go ’way.” “Haven’t you been well treated here?” “Yes.” “Well, I’m keeping my part of the contract, and you’ve got to keep yours. If you don’t, I’ll send you to jail, that’s all.”

On another plantation the mode of dealing with the negroes approached nearer the cash basis. Nearly all were well supplied with clothes and other necessaries, when hired, and there was, therefore, no necessity for giving them credit in the plantation store. Tickets were issued for each day’s work. If anything was wanted before the end of the month, the tickets were received for goods at their face value; but no goods were sold without payment either in money or tickets.

The payment began in the evening as soon as the day’s work was over. The proprietor took his place in the overseer’s room. The people gathered on the gallery and clustered about the door. As the names were called, each one entered the room, producing from some cavernous pocket-book or old stocking-foot a handful of tickets. The overseer rapidly counted them, the negro closely watching. Often it was insisted that there ought to be more. In every such case they were at once counted over again, slowly and distinctly. It rarely happened that this did not end the dispute. Sometimes, however, fresh search in some unexplored pocket, or a return to the quarters and examination of the all-concealing bed-clothes, would produce another ticket or two.

The number announced, the proprietor called off the amount earned, and counted out one-half of it, while the overseer wrote an informal due-bill for the other half, and the next name was called, while the slow-motioned negro was gathering up his change and due-bill.

Outside could be heard the grumbling of those who thought they ought to receive more, the chucklings of the better satisfied, the speculations of the unpaid as to how much they would get; and over all, the plans of the women as to what they would buy wid de money, fus’ time we’s go to Natchez. Sometimes one would be absent when the name was called. The rest shouted it in chorus, and presently the missing negro would come running up, tickets in hand, crying, “Heah me!” “Heah me!”

They seemed to have poor success in keeping the money. At the very payment I have been describing, an old blind carpenter, (who, strangely enough, really earned ten dollars a month, in spite of his blindness, making hoe-handles, plow-handles, and the like,) lost his pocket-book. Next morning it was carefully placed under his door, but the money was all gone, with the exception of an old Confederate five-dollar bill, which had been considerately left behind. The next day the elder of a family of three girls took out her pocket-book, containing the money of all three, from its hiding place in the bed, to buy some candy. She replaced it at once, and went out of the cabin. On her return, a few minutes later, the pocket-book was gone, and the poor girls were twelve dollars poorer.

In general, the girls spent their money almost as soon as they got it. Most of the men were more economical. Some of them had a hundred or more dollars saved up.

The pay roll disclosed some quaint freaks of nomenclature. “They’ve had the greatest time picking names,” said the overseer. “No man thought he was perfectly free unless he had changed his name and taken a family name.” “Precious few of ’em,” he slily added, “ever took that of their old masters.”

One boy was called “’Squire Johnson Brown.” It seemed that his mother, “since dis time come,” (as they always say when they mean since their emancipation,) had chosen to call herself Brown; and, like a dutiful son, he thought it would be no more than respectable that his last name should be the same as his mother’s. But there was a ’Squire Johnson over on Black River, for whom he had a great regard; and, as he had a name to take, he insisted on taking Squire Johnson’s. This, however, was quite a minor performance compared with that of another boy, whose name was duly written down, “States Attorney Smith!”

Neither here nor at any point through the regions of the great plantations did I discover any such knowledge of their Northern benefactors as would naturally be evinced in names. There were no Abraham Lincolns among them; no Charles Summers; no Wendell Phillips; or Owen Lovejoys. There were plenty of Chases, but I could not find that any of them knew they bore the same name with the Chief-Justice, or had selected it with the slightest reference to him.

An old man, white-headed, with shrunken eyes and broken voice, came in. “If’t please you, sah, I hears as you’s ou’ new mastah. I’s old nigger on plantation, sah, an’ I’s come to ask you if you’d be so good as to please be so kin’ to ole nigger as has allus worked faithful all his days, as to git me a little piece o’ groun’ to plant co’n and punkins, to help keep me an’ ole ’oman?”

“O, yes, uncle, we’ll give you a garden.”

“But, sah, I’s got garden already, what ole mastah gib me, long time ago, and I’s allus had. But, mastah, you mus’ considah I’s got to buy my close now, an’ my shoes, an’ my hat, an’ my ole ’oman’s close; an’ I wants to make a little meat; an’ if you’d be so good as to please let me hab patch of groun’ for co’n an’ punkins besides.”

“How old are you, uncle?”

“Sebenty-five yeah, sah.”

“Have you no children who could support you?”

“You’s got ’em hired for you, sah. Dere’s John, an’ Ruthy, an’ Milly, an’ Jake. But dey’s got deir own fam’lies; an’ when man gits ole dey don’t care so much. Sometimes dey gib me piece o’ meat, and sometimes dey say dey haint got none for me; den it comes pretty hard on me an’ ole ’oman. You gibs me half ’lowance, sah; ef’t wasn’t for dat, I spec we couldn’t lib ’t all.”

The South is full of such cases. In most instances, to their credit be it said, the old masters give the worn-out negroes a little land to cultivate and houses to live in; but very often they have no ability to go further. Sometimes the children support their aged parents; sometimes, as here, they plead that they have their own families to maintain, and seem to feel sure that, rather than see them starve, the whites will take care of them. Northern lessees feel all their notions of conducting business on business principles outraged at the idea of having to support all the old negroes, in addition to hiring the young ones; but, in the main, their feelings get the better of their business habits. The instances are very rare in which old and helpless negroes, deserted by their children and by their former masters, are driven off or left to starve by the new-comers. In this case, the old man was allotted about an acre and a half of land, was furnished a house, and supplied with half rations; all of which was pure charity, as there was no possible way in which he could make any return to the hard-pressed lessee, who had already paid an exorbitant rent (twenty-five dollars per acre) to the old master for the land.

The wife of one of the head-drivers on a Louisiana plantation, had been for some months confined to the house, and most of the time to her bed, by a very curious gangrenous disease, which had attacked one foot. It became necessary, in the opinion of the physicians, as well as of the old woman herself, and of her husband, to amputate the entire foot. “It really is necessary in this case,” explained the physician privately; “But nine times out of ten, when these niggers will come to you and beg you to cut off a leg or an arm, there is no real need for any operation at all. They have a great notion for having amputations performed; and really, sir, I’m afraid that sometimes our young physicians have been tempted by the fine chance for an instructive operation, to gratify them when they should not.”

In many parts of the South, the number of these young physicians is somewhat startling. Young men who felt the desirability of having a profession, although without either necessity or desire for practicing it, have resorted to medicine, as at the North, under similar circumstances, they would have adopted the law. Medicine has been the aristocratic profession.

At the time appointed for the amputation, in the case of the driver’s wife, a young gentleman came to see the operation performed. He was the son of a South Carolina rice-planter. For two years he had not heard from his father, and he was very anxious to know whether I had observed the condition of the old homestead on Edisto, when among the Sea Islands, the previous spring. Formerly, he had been a rice-planter himself; but now he had to take up the practice of his profession; and he had thus of late been led to give his attention to some plan for organizing proper medical care for the poor negroes, who now had no kind masters, bound by self-interest, if not by affection, to secure them the best possible attendance. In short—to strip away his delicate circumlocution—he wanted to get a contract on the plantations by which each able-bodied negro would pay him fifty cents a month, (making a net profit of say fifty dollars a month from each plantation,) in return for which he would prescribe for them when they needed anything. He thought that if ten or fifteen plantations would give him such a contract, he would be able to live by it. I thought so too.

Like most South Carolinians he had no difficulty in expressing his political views. As to secession, he supposed it was settled by the argument of force. On that, and on slavery, the only thing the Southern people ought to do was simply to accept the situation. But to whip them back into the Union, and then keep out their representatives till the Northern States had prescribed a rule of suffrage for the South, which they wouldn’t adopt themselves, was a subversion of republican principles. “I’d stay forever without representation, first, and let them govern us as territories. But I tell you what our people will do; I say it with shame; but even South Carolinians, of whom I am particularly ashamed, will do it. They will all submit to whatever is required. They’ll do whatever Congress says they must; and so our only hope is in the noble and unexpected stand Johnson is taking for us.

“After all,” he continued, after a moment’s thought, “it’s very curious that we should be depending on such a man. I’m glad of his stand, because he’s on our side; but what a miserable demagogue he is and always was!”

We waited and waited for the physician in charge of the case, but he broke his engagement completely. When two or three days afterward, he was seen and asked about it, he explained that this young South Carolinian had told him he had been called in as a consulting physician in the case. “I thought it very strange; and I’m very cautious about these consulting physicians with whom I have no acquaintance. I lost a life through one of them once. I always called that death, killing by courtesy; and my conscience won’t stand any more of it; so sir, I stayed away.”

“It seemed that he had once been summoned to amputate the leg of a negro, injured by some accident at the cotton-gin. He found another physician in charge, who was expected to assist him. I asked the fellow to control the circulation while I prepared for the operation, which was to be performed not far from the ankle. D——n the blockhead, sir; what do you suppose he did? Why, sir, he applied the tourniquet to the femoral artery almost at the top of the thigh! But what could I do? I did venture to ask him if he felt quite sure that would stop the bleeding below the knee, and he bristled up as if I had insulted him. To have said any more would have been to have had a duel on hands with the son of one of our first families, and to have been ruined in the community whether I fought him or not. So I had to go ahead and perform the operation. The very first motion of the knife deluged me with blood! The poor negro bled to death, of course; and I called it killing by courtesy. I’ve done with that sort of thing. I’ll perform that operation out there, for it is sadly needed; but you must keep that ‘consulting physician’ away. I have nothing to do with consulting physicians about whom I know nothing!”

I subsequently witnessed the operation. Three or four negro women were in the room. The stolidity with which they watched the carving and bleeding of their sister’s person seemed amazing. Only once did they manifest the slightest emotion—when the saw began to grate on the bone. Yet they were kind enough to the poor sufferer; though I could not resist the impression that her life or death was a matter of comparative indifference to them. “Niggers never care for one another much,” said the overseer. Could he be right? They often manifest abundance of emotion—is it so abundant as to be without depth?

The husband, however, professed great joy. “I’s tuck care o’ ’Manda dis long. She done cost me more ’n tree hundred dollars, but I’s spend tree hundred more, if dey’s needed. Nebber you cry ’Manda. I’ll watch you long’s you live, and after you’s dead. I’s watch you long’s a bone’s leff.” He gave an account of the origin of the disease:

“One night, she done been hollerin’ all de night long. In de morning she git me look at her foot. Juss as I look, she gib a big scream, and out of de little sore on him bottom dere popped de last rattle from de end ob a rattlesnake tail. Den I know what de matter. Didn’t I, Mr. Smith?” appealing to the overseer. “Didn’t I go straight to you an’ tell you some o’ dem bad niggers been a conjurin’ wid de debbil on my wife? Den I ax you for some whisky dat no man nebber mix no water wid. You gib me some. Den I tuck dat rattlesnake button out o’ my wife’s foot down to de ribber, an’ I conjure on him. Fust I say words ober him. Den I sprinkle whisky, dat dere’s nebber been no water in, ober him. Den I sprinkle some whisky in de ribber. Den I frow him in after de whisky. Den I sprinkle more whisky atop of him. An’ den I tuck good drink o’ whisky, dat dere’s nebber been no water in, myself.”

But the other negroes conjuring with “de debbil” were too much for poor Charles, whisky and all; and his wife’s foot had grown steadily worse. When I first saw her, she was propped up in a chair, screaming every minute or two as if she were in mortal agony, and employing the alternate moments in gnawing at a huge stick of peppermint candy which her husband had brought her. After the operation was performed, she seemed highly pleased, and there was every reason to hope that she would recover.

“She not my wife berry long,” explained the driver, with an appearance of actual pride in the announcement. “She done been my sweetheart, long afore she been my wife. I had two or tree chil’en by her while she my sweetheart. When my old wife die, de moder of dese gals you see here, I tought dere was no use foolin’ ’bout so much, so I sends to de corral where ’Manda was, an’ I done hab her ebber since.”

In all this he was but a type of the whole class of plantation negroes in Louisiana. I have seen hundreds of such cases. I do not think it too strong an expression (judging from the evidences on every hand, and from the concurrent testimony of all parties, Northerners, Southerners, whites and blacks) to say that, among the old plantation slaves of Louisiana and Mississippi, virtue was absolutely unknown. Neither men nor women had any comprehension of it; nor could I learn that the highest standing in their churches made the slightest difference. Yet who shall deny the Christianizing influences of slavery? Have not doctors of divinity attested it; and do we not know them, that their testimony is true?

In the last days of March I was riding with a Northern lessee of a fine plantation on the Mississippi, over his back land. Sixteen double plows and a gang of fifty hoes were rapidly diminishing the distance between the land “bedded up, ready for cotton-planting,” and the swamp at which their labors were to terminate. The field resounded with the ringing snatches of song from the merry women in the hoe-gang, and with the cries of the plowmen: “Git up, Mule!” “You, Bully, I say, whar you gwine to!” “Mule, didn’t I tell ye, las’ week, I’d thrash you if you sarve me dat trick agin!” “Now, Mule, don’ you fool wid me any more!” “Git up, Morgan, you heifer you!”

The fiery-red clouds which marked the sun’s place, had sunk till they were casting their shadows through the swaying moss on the cypress in the swamp, and the overseer was just riding over from the hoe-gang to tell the plowmen to turn out for the night. A stout, broad-faced woman, big enough and strong enough to knock down almost any man on the plantation, came stalking up to the proprietor, as he lounged in the saddle, with his right leg thrown over his horse’s neck, watching the last labors of the day:

“If you please, sah, I’s a good han’ as everybody know, an’ I’ll go farder, an’ do cleaner dan any woman on dis place; an’ I ax ob you juss one favor; an’ I want you, sah, fur to please fur to grant it; an’ I’ll be mightily obleged to you.”

“What is it, Aunt Susan? I know you’re a good hand—none better.”

“Dat’s so, sah. You set me to work by myself an’ you’ll be ’sprised. I’s do more wuck one day dan you spec from any tree women you got on de plantation. I allus good nigger, an’ I wucks faithful fur you allus. An’ de favor what I ax of you, an’ I wan’ you to please fur to grant it, is dat you let my daughter Maria, heah, come home to me from your upper place, an’ stay heah wid me, her mudder.”

“Why, auntie, she’s Jasper’s wife. You don’t want to take her away from Jasper. He’s one of our drivers, and one of the smartest men on the upper place.”

“Well, I dunno ’bout dat. I tought him smart too; but Jasper done beat my Maria hisself, an’ dat wat I don’ think he do right. But to-day de women up dere, fur I tell you de trufe, dey all hate my Maria. You don’ know dem niggers as I knows ’em. ’Fore God, dere aint nuffin in dis wo’ld, as God is my helper, so mean as a mean nigger. I know dem Scotland niggers. Dey’s a mighty mean set; and dey’s all togedder ’gainst my Maria. To-day at noon, you had Jasper away, and dem women know’d it. So dey tole lie an’ sed Maria done tore up Flora’s dresses; an’ dey gits around her, an’ double-teams on her an’ beats her mos’ to death; an’ I wants you, sah, if you please, sah, to let Maria come down from dat mean upper place, an’ stay heah wid me.”

“What! and leave Jasper?”

“Dunno nuffin ’bout Jasper. Reckon if he care much for her, he can come and see her’n; if he don’ nobody’ll care. He can come or stay ’way, jus’ as he please.”

The girl, Maria, stoutly confirmed her mother’s story. “Dey all done double-team on her, an’ beat her mos’ to deff. Ef Jasper’d been dere, dey wouldn’t ’ve done it, but dey know’d Jasper was gone.” She was altogether the prettiest girl on either of the plantations, with regular and really quite expressive features, small hands and feet, and a well-formed person. Withal, she was as black as jet.

“De trufe is, sah, she won’ tell you, but I will. Jasper done been runnin’ after oder women up dere too much, an’ dat’s de reason dey hates Maria. Jasper’s mammy, she’s agin Maria, an’ de pore chile haint a fren on de whole mean place, an’ I wish you would please let her come down an’ stay wid me. Dey try to poison her las’ yeah, an’ now dey try beat her to deff. But please let her come to her mammy, an’ I’s take care ob her!” And she shook her mighty fist in earnest of the way she meant to do it.

It was finally arranged that she should bring Maria back to the upper place, (from which she had run away after the quarrel at noon,) that Jasper should be called in, and the affair arranged in any way they could agree upon.

So, by seven o’clock in the evening, up they came, sure enough. Meantime it had been ascertained that the girl had really slipped into the house of Flora Aitch, of whom she was particularly jealous, and had torn all her fine dresses. Flora was in high dudgeon, swore she would strip dat Maria naked ’fore God an’ man but she’d have pay or revenge. Jasper, too, had been consulted. He said Maria was lazy, and he had been compelled to whip her several times; but he would have got along well enough if it had not been for that sneaking, meddling mother-in-law. Altogether, it was very much such a complication as will break out sometimes even in the social relations of the “master race.”

The proprietor was by this time pretty well broken in. He had become used to a great many droll performances, and divorcing a married couple seemed about as easy to do as anything else.

“Well, are you all satisfied to quit? Jasper, what do you say?”

“I says dey do jus’ as dey please. Dey didn’t ’suit me fust, an’ I hab no’ting to do wid it last. M’ria’s mammy done treat me like dog all de time. If she want to take M’ria ’way, she can do it. I’s nuffin to say.”

“Maria, you said, out in the field, you loved Jasper dearly. Do you want to leave him?”

“So I does lub Jasper. But I don’ wan’ dem women to double-team on me, an’ beat me when he ’way.”

“But do you want to leave him, and go to live with your mother again?”

“No use axin’ her,” interrupted Jasper angrily. “Ax dat ’oman dere, her mudder. She got all de say, an’ done hab it ebber sence I had her daughter.”

“Yes, you mean t’ing; an’ you beat my chile, an’ run off from her arter oder women.”

“Dat not true. I nebber done nuffin ob de sort, nebber; but you done keep tellin’ pack lies on me all de time.”

By this time both were talking at once, at the highest pitch of their voices, and gesticulating with corresponding violence. The poor girl stood between them, her hands meekly clasped together, awaiting the result of the quarrel. The overseer looked on with a contemptuous smile, “he’d seen such rows among niggers all his life;” and three or four women—with the curiosity said to be occasionally evinced by some of their sex—had slipped in the room to watch the contest.

The proprietor quietly waited for one or other of the parties to get out of breath. Each had a decided disposition to “get into the wool,” of the other, but the presence of white folks prevented. At last Aunt Susan’s tones could be made out amid the din:

“You went off wid Flora Aitch, you good-for-nothin’ nigger! I was dar, dough you didn’t know it! I seed you! Den w’en you cum back to your wife, w’y didn’t you make much ob her, an’ try to make up? But, no! you goes to wuck an’ beats her!”

“Ob co’se I beats her, kase she need it; I allus will! Who’d hab a wife ef he didn’t beat her w’en she didn’t behave herself? But I allus treats M’ria well, an’ you knows it, an’ so does my mammy.”

“I don’ care nuffin ’bout your beatin’ her w’en she deserve it, but w’en you go off after oder women, you no business to come back an’ beat her.”

And on that rock they split. Jasper maintained the indefeasible right of a husband to flog his wife, and the mother, while admitting the general principle, insisted that there ought to be exceptions.

“Well, I’ll settle this very soon,” said the proprietor at last. “Aunt Susan, take Maria down with you. I hold you responsible for making her work as much as Jasper did.”

“T’ank you berry much, sah!” And out they went, divorced by this summary process, and apparently all the better friends for it.

But in the quarters there was soon fresh uproar. They had gone to Jasper’s cabin to get Maria’s clothes, and had here encountered Jasper’s “mammy.” The two old women began storming at once, and the full vocabulary of negro billingsgate rang through the entire quarters. A crowd collected about the door, and in a moment Flora Aitch appeared, rampant in her demands for pay for her torn dresses, “afore dat sneakin’ gal carries her rags ’way from heah!” “Or I’ll strip you,” she yelled at the open door, “’fore God! I’s strip you naked’s soon’s you set your dirty foot outside. I’s pound you! I’s cut you up! I’s eat you blood-raw! I’s mad, I is, an’ I’s do anyt’ing, if you don’ pay me for dem tore dresses!”

The calmer negresses approved the justice of Flora’s complaint. “She ought to be made to pay for dem.” “It ought to be tuck out ob her wages.” “If ’twas my dresses she done tore, she wouldn’ git off so easy.” Nobody seemed to think anything of Flora’s alleged criminality with Jasper. Maria’s provocation to the offense was as nothing. It was a mere matter-of-course; “but dem tore dresses was a burnin’ shame.”

At last Maria’s effects were all bundled up, and she her mother appeared at the door. Flora was by this time quite composed, especially as she saw the overseer near, and ready to prevent blows. “Dere she come, a totin’ her rags. Leb her go. She done brought nuffin but rags when she come heah, an’ she got nuffin but rags to take away, ’cept what Jasper fool enough to gib her. But she pay me yet for dem tore dresses, or I eat her blood.” It was hinted by some of the peaceably disposed that the women might slip down the road, between the two plantations, and waylay Maria. Accordingly the overseer, followed rather sulkily by Jasper, accompanied them down to the “line ditch.”

“Well, dat’s breakin’ up mighty easy,” said one of the women. “Lo’d help me, I’d make more fuss ’fore my husband should leave me. I’d hold on to him tight, I would. I’d tear him coat all off ob him, any way, ’fore he git off.”

“Dat wouldn’t help you none. I’s smarter’n dat,” said another. “I’d my man afore white man up to Natchez; an’ I done got paper to hole him. Jus’ lef him leab me if he dar’; I take dat paper to de provo’, an’ he go to jail, or he come back an’ lib wid his wife, me.” She had procured a marriage certificate. The most laughed at her; said that wouldn’t keep a man, if he wanted to go, and that the best thing was to get somebody else.

“Tell Jasper come and see me,” said Maria to the overseer, as they parted. “If he don’t, I’ll go back an’ see him.”

“Dat won’t do her no good,” growled Jasper, when he heard it. “I’s glad to git rid ob her, an’ she never need come back to me. I won’t hab her no more.”

“Pshaw, they’ll be better friends than ever in a month. Jasper will get another wife now, and have Maria for his sweetheart.” Thus said the practical overseer.

And so ended the new proprietor’s first divorce case. It may serve to give an insight into some of “our domestic relations.”