Mass' George

The boat, however, was nearly new, and came into my father's hands complete, with mast, sail, ropes, and oars; and it was not long before I gained the mastery over all that it was necessary to learn in the management.

Morgan's fis.h.i.+ng-tackle came into use, and after a little instruction and help from the Welshman, I began to wage war upon the fish in our stream and in the river, catching, beside, ugly little reptiles of the tortoise or turtle family--strange objects to be hauled up from muddy depths at one end of a line, but some of them very good eating all the same.

The little settlement throve as the time went on, and though the Indians were supposed to be threatening, and to look with very little favour upon the settlement so near their hunting-grounds, all remained peaceful, and we had nothing but haughty overbearing words from our Spanish neighbours.

To a man the officers and gentlemen who had come out turned their attention to agriculture, and many were the experiments tried, and successfully too. At one estate cotton was growing; at another, where there was a lot of rich low land easily flooded, great crops of rice were raised. Here, as I walked round with my father, we pa.s.sed broad fields of sugar-cane, and farther on the great crinkled-leaved Indian corn flourished wonderfully, with its flower ta.s.sels, and beautiful green and then orange-buff ears of hard, sweet, flinty corn.

Then came long talks about the want of more help, and one of the settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But before many months had pa.s.sed there was hardly a settler without slave labour, the princ.i.p.al exception being my father.

It is hard to paint a picture in words, but I should like those who read this to understand what my home was like when I was about twelve years old, a great strong healthy boy, with cheeks burned brown by the sun.

Our place began with one low erection, divided by a rough part.i.tion into two--our room and the Morgans'; most of our meals being eaten in the big rustic porch contrived by Morgan in what he called his spare time, and over which ran wildly the most beautiful pa.s.sion-flower I had ever seen.

But then as wood was abundant, and a saw-pit had been erected, a more pretentious one-floored cottage residence was planned to join on to the first building, which before long was entirely devoted to the servants; and we soon had a very charming little home with s.h.i.+ngle roof, over which beautiful creepers literally rioted, and hung down in festoons from our windows.

Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild garden dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled with every kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able to get together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south, grape-vines flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance, and such fruits familiar to English people at home as would bear the climate filled the garden.

My father's estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of a.s.sistance confining his efforts to a comparatively small garden; but he used to say to me, in his quiet, grave way--

"We might grow more useful things, George, but we could not make the place more beautiful."

And I often used to think so, as I gazed out of my window at the wild forest, and the openings leading down to the stream and away to the swamp, where I could hear the alligators barking and bellowing at night, with a feeling half dread, half curiosity, and think that some day I should live to

Now and then Morgan used to call me to come and see where a 'gator, as he called it, had been in the night, pointing out its track right up to the rough fence of the garden.

"You and I'll have a treat one of these days, my lad."

"Yes," I used to say; "but when?"

"Oh, one of these days when I'm not busy."

"Ah, Morgan," I used to say, impatiently, "when you're not busy: when will that be?"

"Be? One o' these days when we've cut down all the wood, and turned all that low flat swamp into plantation. You see I'm so busy just now."

"Oh, very well," I said, "I shall go by myself."

"That you won't, look you," he cried. "I heard you promise your father you wouldn't go alone. You're not much of a boy, but you're too good to feed alligators with, or let the rattlesnakes and 'ca.s.sins try their pyson on."

"But they wouldn't, I should take care."

"Take care? Do you know, there's 'gators big as trees in these swamp-holes. I shouldn't wonder if there's some of the old open-countenanced beauties big round as houses. Why, Master George, I believe there's fellows out there as old as the river, and as could take you as easy as I do a pill."

"Don't believe it."

"_Ve_-ry well then; only mind, if one does take you across the middle, give you a pitch up in the air, and then catch you head-first and swallow you, don't you blame me."

"Why, how could I, if he swallowed me?" I said.

"Oh, I don't know. You might holler or knock, if you had a stick in your hand."

"What stuff!"

"Oh, is it! There's plenty of room in 'em, and they're as hard as horn.

But you take my advice, and don't try."

"Well, then, come with me; I know several holes where I think they live."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I've seen the footmarks leading down to them all plain in the mud."

"Then you've been going too far, and don't you run no risks again."

I walked away discontentedly, as I'd often walked away before, wis.h.i.+ng that I had a companion of my own age.

Some of the gentlemen settled out there had sons; but they were away, and at times the place seemed very lonely; but I fancy now that was only just before a storm, or when everything felt strange and depressing. At other times I was happy enough. Every morning I had three hours' good study with my father, who very rarely let me neglect that. Then in the afternoon there was always something to do or something to see and help over. For, as far as my father's means would allow, he planned and contrived endless things to make our home more attractive and convenient.

One week it would be the contriving of rough tree-trunk steps down from the bank to the water's edge, so that the boat was easily reached, and ringbolts were driven into cut-down trees, which became natural posts for mooring the boat.

Another time during one of our walks, he stopped by a lovely pool out toward the swamp--a spot of about an acre and a half in extent, where the trees kept off the wind, and where the morning sun seemed to light up the bottom, showing every pebble and every fish as if seen through crystal gla.s.s.

"There," he said, "that will be ten times better than bathing in the river. I always feel a little nervous about you there. This shall be your own private bathing-pool, where you can learn to swim to your heart's content. That old fallen hickory will do for your dressing-room, and there are places to hang up your clothes. I don't think you can come to harm here."

Of course I was delighted, and at the same time a little disappointed; for the fact that the pool was perfectly safe took away somewhat from its attractiveness, and I began to think that there was no stream to carry one along; no very deep places to swim over and feel a thrill at the danger; no holes in the banks where an alligator might be smiling pleasantly as he thought how good a boy would be to eat.

CHAPTER FOUR.

I am obliged to run quickly through my early unadventurous days, skipping, as it were, from memory to memory of things which happened before life became serious and terrible for us all at the plantation, and storms and peril followed rapidly after the first pleasant calm.

For it seems to me now, as I sit and think, that nothing could have been happier than the life on the river during the first days of the settlement. Of course, everybody had to work hard, but it was in a land of constant suns.h.i.+ne, of endless spring and summer days--cold weather was hardly known--and when a storm came, though the thunder and lightning were terrible and the rain tremendous, everything afterwards seemed to bound into renewed life, and the scent of the virgin forest was delightful. All worked hard, but there was the certain repayment, and in what must have been a very short time, the settlers had raised a delightful home in the wilderness, where all was so dreamy and peaceful that their weapons and military stores seemed an enc.u.mbrance, and many felt that they would have done more wisely if they had brought agricultural implements instead.

Before we left England, as I have told you, the adventurers who met at my father's rooms talked of the ruthless savage--the lurking Indian of the forest and prairie, and also of our neighbours the Spaniards; but as soon as we reached the place, it seemed to all that the Indians did not exist; and as to the Spaniards, they were far south, separated by long stretches of open land, forests, river, and swamp, and might, for aught we knew, be at the other side of the world.

I was sitting indoors one bright sunny day, and I had just reached finis.h.i.+ng distance with a Latin translation my father had left me to do, when I heard a quick "Hist!" Looking up, I saw Morgan at the window.

"'Most done?" he said.

"Yes."

"Then come along, I'll show you something."

I bounded out, to find him armed with a stick about six feet long, provided with a little fork at the end made by driving in a couple of nails and bending them out.

"What is it?" I cried, excitedly.

"Enemy. Get yourself a good stout stick."