But it must be remembered that they were having the first use of a very fine alluvial soil, and were subject to floods and fevers. The yellow fever or cholera another year might kill half their negroes, or a flood of the Red River (such as occurred August, 1849, and October, 1851) destroy their whole crop, and so use up several years' profits.
A slate hung in the piazza, with the names of all the cotton-pickers, and the quantity picked the last picking day by each, thus: Gorge, 152; David, 130; Polly, 98; Hanna, 96; Little Gorge, 52, etc. The whole number of hands noted was fourteen. Probably there were over twenty slaves, big and little, on the plantation.
When our horses were ready, we paid the negro for taking care of them, and I went in and asked the woman what I might pay her.
"What!" she asked, looking in my face as if angry.
I feared she was offended by my offering money for her hospitality, and put the question again as delicately as I could. She continued her sullen gaze at me for a moment, and then answered as if the words had been bullied out of her by a Tombs lawyer—
"Dollar, I reckon."
"What!" thought I, but handed her the silver.
Riding out at the bars let down for us by the old negro, we wondered if the child would be living twenty-four hours later, and if it survived, what its moral chances were. Poor, we thought. Five miles from a neighbour; ten, probably, from a Louisiana[1] school; hound-pups and negroes for playmates.
- ↑ The State Superintendent lately recommended that two out of three of the Directors of Common Schools in Louisiana should be required to know how to read and write; and mentioned that in one parish, instead of the signature the mark of twelve different directors was affixed to a teacher's certificate.
