Читать книгу What Happened to Me - La Salle Corbell Pickett - Страница 3

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There are some events with which we have become so familiar by report that we can scarcely believe they did not happen within our own recollection. Thus it is with my advent into earthly existence.

Not long before the time at which I was expected to arrive in this vale of thorns and flowers my father's only brother was seriously ill. It became necessary for my father to accompany him to Philadelphia to consult an eminent surgeon.

For months it had been definitely settled that I was to be a boy, for all was grist that came to my father's mill. No shadow of a doubt of my manhood clouded the family mind. My health had been drunk at the clubs and in the homes, and especially at the neighborhood functions, the fox hunts, and the name of Thomas La Salle had already been given me. "L'homme propose et Dieu surprend," and so did I, for, most unexpectedly, I made my arrival in the middle of the night, the middle of the week, the middle of the month, almost the middle of the year, near the middle of the century, and in the middle of a hail-storm. Confident that I was a boy, the family had all hoped that I would be considerate enough to postpone my coming at least until my father's return, but with perverse discourtesy and want of filial regard, I would not wait. Of course, there was no one ready to receive me.

I have borne the blame for this untimely début, but it was really the fault of the barn which, in the early part of the evening, had caught fire and been burned to the ground. The excitement had passed and the sleep of exhaustion that follows disrupting events had settled over all when again there was confusion; this time owing to my inconsiderate haste to present myself. The keys to the stable door could not be found. There was no time to hunt for them, so the hinges were pried off and Fannie Kemble, the fleetest and safest horse in the stable, was hurriedly called from her dreams. My young uncle, afterwards a gallant Confederate officer, Colonel J. J. Phillips, was routed out and, barefoot and mounted upon the horse without saddle or bridle, rode post haste for our family physician, treasuring the grievance to reproach me with in after years when I would give evidence of a too impetuous disposition. In my eagerness to fly to the ills I knew not of, I would not await the arrival of the medical man and, spurning his assistance, defying them all, made my "ingress into life, naked and bare."

"Why didn't you wait for me, you impertinent little rascal?" inquired the Doctor. "What's your hurry? You are too enterprising for so young a lad."

"Lordy, Lordy, Marse Doctor," interposed my mammy tragically, "he ain't no boy-chile. It's a po' li'l gal-chile."

"A girl? Why! Damn him!" exclaimed the Doctor in astonishment and dismay. Thus my first greeting upon arriving on the earth was one of profanely expressed disapproval.

A wail of woe indescribable went up from all around. My poor, disappointed, heart-broken mother turned her face to the wall.

"Come 'long to yo' mammy, honey. She ain't gwine to 'sert you ef you is a gal-chile, po' l'il lamb! You can't he'p yo' calamity no mo' dan we-all kin. Mammy knows hit's terrible. En yo' pa, he gwine cuss eb'y last nigger on de plantation 'bout hit. I wonder what dey gwine name you, for Tommy ain't no gal's name. Dey can't call you atter none er yo' gran'pas now, nuther. I suttinly is sorry, but dar ain't nuttin' so bad dat hit couldn't be wusser, en you mouter been twins—gal twins! Po' li'l thing! Den I know you'd hyer ole Bringer bark." (Ole Bringer was the "ha'nt dog.") "Lordy! Lordy! I wonder who gwine tell yo' pa. I reckon de Doctor better bre'k hit to him, kase de preacher is gone souf to cure his th'oat. Dar, dar, honey, mammy's most th'oo. She gwine drap some warm catnip tea down yo' th'oat now. Dar, dar, go sleepityby!"

Thus early in my career my mammy comforted me, as the old mammies always comforted us "white chilluns."

Several days later my father returned and hurried to my mother. After blessing and kissing her he said proudly:

"Now, little mother, papa wants to see his little man. Where is he?"

In those days the nearest telegraph station was a long distance from our plantation home and there had been no opportunity of informing my father of the misfortune that had befallen the family.

A burst of tears answered him.

"My God! My wife! My boy is not—not dead!"

"Oh, my darling, it's worse than that!"

"Worse! He is not deformed!"

"I can't tell you! I—I couldn't help it."

"Where is he?"

"In there," pointing to the room that had been arranged for a nursery.

Mammy Charity, who had been eaves-dropping, was almost knocked over as my father suddenly opened the door upon her and excitedly cried:

"Let me see my boy, mammy!"

"Marse Dae, please, suh, fergib us all, but—de boy is a gal."

I opened my eyes which, alas! were crossed, to give and receive a blessing.

"A cross-eyed girl!" he exclaimed. "How did it happen?"

"I dunno, Marse Dae, how de po' boy happened to be a gal. I 'clare it wuz none of we-all's doin's, but I reckon de reason she's cross-eyed is her bein' born lak she was in de middle of de week a lookin' bofe ways for Sunday."

Thus was I blessed by physician, mother and father. In a few weeks the eyes uncrossed of themselves, but they are still looking both ways for Sunday—which never comes.

Three weeks later, when my grandmother made her second visit to me, her first grandchild, finding that I had developed into a very colic-y, and consequently, fretful child, a disturber of sleep and peace, she offered to take me back home with her, a proposition which was eagerly accepted. The "settin'-aig-basket" was sent for and I was comfortably and cosily placed in it and put into the foot of her rockaway. Pery, the driver, was cautioned to be "keerful of de ruts en de jolts; not to go to sleep nor to step 'pon dat chile, en don't you drap her out; ef you do she'll ha'nt you as long as you lib."

It was a beautiful day in June. The air was laden with perfume and song. Not that I knew it at the time—cuddled up in my "settin'-aig-basket"—but I have credible information on the subject, furnished later, with all the rest of the details of that most important, though unconscious, period of my earthly career. Every little while my grandmother would peep into the basket to see that all was well. Everybody we met stopped to ask after the "new-born baby" and, being informed of its presence in the "settin'-aig-basket," requested to make its acquaintance sans ceremonie, Pery taking advantage of the introduction to hop out of the rockaway and gather great green honeysuckles and honeysuckle blossoms, which he put into the basket until it looked as if filled with honeysuckles and their blooms, that being the best tribute he could offer to the little new "missis."

At Sandy Bottom, the dismal grave of many a trusting heart, where the frog croaks his never-ceasing croon, Uncle Frenigike came out from "Free-nigger-town" to borrow "a chew of terbacker" and beg a "ninepence to buy de ole man a plug." Recognizing the "settin'-aig-basket" he said:

"Lordy, Mistis, can't you give de ole man a settin' of dem aigs. We-all's ole domernicker is jest gwine to settin'."

Being informed of the contents of the basket, he asked to be allowed to see "de li'l gal baby."

"Lord, Lord! Jes' look at dem li'l fis'es," he exclaimed. "Dey's bofe shet up jest as tight ez wax. Dat chile sho' gwine to be one stingy white woman when she grows up ef you-all don't scrouge dem dar li'l fis'es open en put sumpn 'twixt 'em."

Suiting the action to the word, he worked his own black forefinger within my little soft baby clasp, then suddenly but gently withdrawing it asked:

"Ain't she got nare rabbit foot, Mistis? She ain't! De-Lord-sakes-alive! Po' li'l misfortunate thing—agwine on fo' weeks ole en ain't never had a rabbit's foot! Well, she shan't be widout one no longer. No, dat she shan't. She shall have a rabbit's foot dis ve'y minute. Yas'm, I got a fresh one in my snake-skin bag I kilt wid my two-time (double-barrel) gun last Chuesday jest 'fo' sundown en jest ez hit wuz gwine lipperty-clip, lipperty-clip, 'cross de briahs over Liza-Malindy's grave. Liza-Malindy, you know, was my fifth wife. I wish hit had been runnin' 'cross one er de men-folkses' graves en dat I had kilt hit of a Friday night 'stead of a Chuesday. Den co'se, dar'd a been a heap mo' luck in hit. But hit's de best I kin do now for de po' li'l thing en hit's a heap better dan havin' no rabbit's foots at all."

Running his hand down into his breeches pocket he pulled out his rattlesnake-skin bag, filled with charms against "hoodoos en cunjers," and selected from the gruesomeness a blood-stained rabbit's foot and, lifting my little clenched fingers one by one, he closed them around it. Thus, perhaps, he saved me from that most loathsome fault, "stinginess," and insured for me, even though the talisman was of a "Chuesday's" killing, sprinting over a woman's instead of a man's briar-grown home, at least a minimum amount of good luck.

But for the superstitious and fascinating tales, silken-woven by the tongue of fancy, and the awesome shadows cast by authenticated tragedies, Sandy Bottom, where I met my sable godfather, Frenigike, and received my first security against ill luck, would have been nothing but an insignificant little valley in the wildwood, crossed by a quiet looking stream. In its dread death-bed, by the side of priests and Indians, fair-haired maidens and dark-eyed savages, sleep the wife and children and servants of an English nobleman. The infant child, because of its appealing helplessness, alone was saved, while the great strong horses and the coach with its freight of human lives, gold and silver and jewels, were swallowed by the treacherous quicksand.

This tragedy occurred in the year 1799, when Sir Henry Clinton formed the plan of humbling the pride and destroying the resources of Virginia. He sent a powerful fleet to Hampton Roads and landed a force under General Mathews to advance and perfect this project. General Mathews took possession of Norfolk and Portsmouth and the surrounding country, burning Suffolk and committing depredations everywhere. The family of an English nobleman, frightened by the devastation, fled for safety to a point on the Nansemond where a part of the English fleet was lying in waiting. Passing Sandy Bottom the driver stopped to water his horses. He was urging them farther up stream where the water was deeper and clearer, when a runaway negro named Isaac sprang from the bank, shrieking out a warning of the terrible quicksand. His warning being disregarded, he snatched the sleeping baby from the nurse's arms, saying:

"Dis po' li'l chile can't he'p itse'f en I gwine to sabe it anyhow fum bein' gulched down dat quicksandy debil's th'oat, ef de yuthers won't be sabed."

Before the last echo had followed the negro's words—before the frightened child could catch breath for another shriek—carriage, horses, driver, footmen, maids, children and mistress were all sucked in by the dark water. A few bubbles here and there were the only sign of its treachery. The horrified riders had followed so close that the dash of their horses' feet splashed the water simultaneously on the screaming child and over the swirling waves which marked the fatal spot of its mother's doom.

As a reward for his warning and for saving the life of the child, Isaac, the negro, was given his liberty and a home—the first of his race ever set free in Virginia—and was thereafter impressively distinguished by the (to those of his own color) opprobrious epithet of "Free-Negro-Isaac." This name was soon jargoned into Frenigike, and afterward, through culture and prosperity, into Freeling, the present family name of the descendants of Frenigike. The old place near Sandy Bottom is still called Free-Nigger-Town.

Past this spot of gruesome history I was borne in the unconsciousness of infancy through the little village of Chuckatuck and beyond until the carriage drew up at my grandmother's door and Uncle Charles, her foreman, came out with the little negroes running after him to welcome us.