The Kidnapped And The Ransomed Part 41

"Hush your mouth! you huzzy!" cried her master, "you shall take what I give you."

"Well, sir, if yon dont git me what I want, I'll git it 'fore de year's out. If I can't git full pay for my c.r.a.p one way, I will another."

He raised his hand to strike her.

"I don't keer if you does whip, me. I'm gwine to have my rights if I cun git 'em."

This peculiar shopping ended, the whole company returned home in ill humor. "I told you so," said Vina, "I knowed he wasn't gwine to pay you all for yer c.r.a.ps. He didn't have no money promised him in town, no how. That's the reason I wouldn't go. I wasn't gwine to foller him off to town for money, when I knowed he wasn't gwine to give it."

Vina had not been many months on the island before her mistress began to wish for her presence on the home place. She was an excellent nurse in sickness, and for many years she had been called in to wait upon any of the white family that chanced to be ill; and so faithful and competent was she, that when Vina was in the sick-room the mother felt no uneasiness. Among the slaves her field was wider, for there, unless in extraordinary cases, she was both doctor and nurse.

At last Mrs. McKiernan told her husband that they must get Vina back, or they never should raise any more children. "The trouble with them commenced," said she, "when Vina and her family first ran off, and since that time there has been nothing but bad luck with both the women and children. There's Delphia might have been alive now if it hadn't been for those fools of doctors."

"Well, Vina," said the master, when she had been more than two years on the island, "how would you like to go back to the low place?"

"I don't keer 'bout gwine back, sir."

"But your mistress says she would like to have you back. Several of the women will be sick soon, and she wants you there."

"I don't want nuthin' to do with 'em, sir; you done sent me off yer out o' spite, and now the sick ones may take care, o' their selves. I ain't gwine to be runnin' after 'em."

"Well, if you don't go now, you may not get a chance when you do want to go."

"I don't keer nuthin' 'bout it, sir; I don't want to go thar, never."

After a few weeks, however, she packed up the few cooking utensils which she had there with two or three other articles of furniture, and went home to the cabin which Peter had built for her so many years before. Still she was dark and gloomy--her heart had lost its light; and though she did not quite despair, yet her chance of meeting her beloved husband seemed to lessen day by day. But now there was much sickness on the place; and in sympathy with the suffering of her sisters, she found transient forgetfulness of her own griefs.

Delphia, to whom reference was made by Mrs. McKiernan, died a few days after Vina ran off; and her story, though it reveals a course of cruelty too base even for savages, shows but another phase of slavery.

Smith, the overseer, at that time, was severe, as has before been stated, only towards children, or those women who were afraid of him. "He knowed," says Vina, "the people mostly would fight him if he tried to beat 'em, and so he managed to do without much beatin'. But them whar's feared of him fared mons's hard--'pears like he never knows when to stop, if he gits mad at one o' them kind."

Smith had a great deal of company on Sundays; and as the overseers are furnished by their employers with corn and bacon, for their families, as well as flour, coffee, and sugar, so many guests were quite expensive to Mr. McKiernan.

One Sunday afternoon, he walked down to the quarter, and saw two horses. .h.i.tched at the overseer's gate.

"Whose horses are these?" asked he of a group of women that stood near.

Delphia chanced to reply.

"Smith has a heap of company, don't he?" said the master.

"Yes, Sir," said Delphia, "last Sunday thar was six horses. .h.i.tched to his fence, and every one of 'em was carried off, and fed."

Some evil-minded tale-bearer took the first opportunity to report this conversation to the overseer; and he was enraged.

A few days after, the master plainly expressed his opinion to Mr.

Smith respecting the number of his guests, adding that he knew it was so, for he saw them there himself.

"You did not see them," said Smith, "you were not in sight when they were here. Some n.i.g.g.e.r has told you; and it is no other than that lying, tattling wench, Delphia."

From that hour he vowed vengeance on the poor woman; swearing at the same time there were other ways to kill a cow besides shooting her or knocking her in the head.

Thereafter, he never gave Delphia a moment's rest. She was one of the plow women; and though she was not in a condition to bear extreme fatigue, he compelled her day after day to plow with her mule in a trot. She dared not stop, for his eye was ever on her; and when the other women told her she was killing herself, she only replied, "You know how Smith hates me, and he will beat me to death if I don't mind him."

Thus week after week, she ran all day in the plow, till at last she was forced to stop, and she went, with her mule, to the quarter.

Smith was at his house, and he saw her coming.

"What are you there for;" cried he.

"I'm sick, Sir, I can't work."

"No, you're not sick. You need n't put out your mule-- tie him there; and in just two hours you shall go out again. I'll give you that long to rest."

She went into her cabin, and in less than two hours the doctor was sent for. Before night, poor Delphia lay still and cold in death, with her dead baby by her side.

As two of her fellow-slaves were digging her grave the overseer came up. He jumped down into the narrow house they were hollowing for his victim-- "There," said he with an oath, "this is the place where all liars and tattlers ought to go."

But that not the overseers alone were spiteful and even murderous in their barbarity, may be inferred from the following incident, which occurred soon after Vina went home from the island.

A woman, named Leah, was taken sick in the field, and her master being near, she went to him for permission to go to the house.

"What the devil do you want to go to the house for?"

"I'm sick, sir."

"Sick, d--n you! go to work; and if I hear any more of your complaining, I'll give you something to complain about." So saying, he gave her a few cuts with his cowhide, in token of what she might expect if she repeated her request, and she went back.

But she grew worse; and not daring to leave the field without permission, she went again to her master.

"It's a devilish lie. You are not sick; if you are, I can cure you."

With these words he flew at her, and beat her cruelly; after which, with kicks and curses, he sent her back to her work.

It was impossible for her to remain much longer. She started to leave the field, and Vina, who had been a witness of the scene, followed her to her cabin. We give what followed in her own words.

"In about a half hour, her child was born, and such a sight as that child was would make any person cry that has any heart at all. * *

The overseer's wife was thar, and she was shocked mightily. She called her husband, and he come and looked at it; and two gentlemen, whar was thar a visitin' him, they see it too; and they all 'lowed they never see nuthin' like it in all their lives.

"Well, I staid, and done all I could for Leah, and dressed the baby--for it was livin' after all, and when I got all done, I went up to the house to tell Missus. Ma.s.s'r was a sittin' by, but I never stopped for him--I told her the whole story, and all about the beatin' too. She hated it mightily, partic'lar when I told her 'bout the overseer and them other two white men seein' it. 'That's just like, you,' says she to Ma.s.s'r, 'you're always bringing some disgrace on this plantation. The report of this will go all over the country.'

" 'Why I did'nt know she was sick,' says he.

" 'Yes, you did know it, she told you she was sick, and if she had not, you might have known better than to beat her so, and she in such a state. You did it on purpose to disgrace yourself, and the plantation, it is just like you. I'll order my carriage, and go away till the talk about this is over. It is just the way you always do--just like you.'

"That's all the comfort Leah got from Missus. She was mighty sorry to have folks know such works was a gwine on, but she didn't never do much for them whar was a sufferin'. If she could keep cl'ar o' the disgrace, that thar was all she cared for.

"Leah's baby lived a week, and I reckon it was a good thing it died, for 'peared like it suffered a heap all the time. Oh! it aint no wonder so many o' their chillun dies, its more wonder that any of 'em lives when the women has to b'ar so much."