ANDERSONVILLE VIOLETS. 
Copyrighted by the Rural New-Yorker. 
All rights reserved. 
cha pte it xv.—( Continued .) 
There were but few houses to be seen along 
the road. A few negro cabins, rough and 
broken and disorderly, each with its little 
patch of cotton or “truck” stood at wide in¬ 
tervals. At longer distances, the house of 
some large planter would start gloomily out 
from its little grove of trees. Most of them were 
massive structures with wide piazzas and 
great pillars in front. They all seemed neg¬ 
lected and gloomy. The paint had been worn 
away and never replaced. The grounds, 
planned in the days of magnificence, before 
the war, had never been kept up. Now the 
weeds and grass ran over walks and flower 
beds, and choked out the beauty of the orig¬ 
inal design. The fences were ragged and un¬ 
painted. All things wore the mark of some 
terrible blight that was still eating its way to 
the heart. 
John was directed to his own place by an 
old negro who sat sunning himself in front of 
a cabin. This old fellow pointed with his 
stick a short distance down the r< ad to a place 
where a broken gate admitted a side track in¬ 
to a small grove. John rode on in the direc¬ 
tion thus indicated, and halted at the gate for 
a first view of his new home. The gate had 
fallen directly across the road and several 
teams had evidently been driven over it. 
Some of the slats had been cut off for fire 
wood. The fence was falling in many places. 
The road wound gracefully up through the 
little grove to the front of a large white 
house, inclosed by a low picket fence. The 
house looked dingy and dirty. The paint had 
peeled away in spots, and the blinds hung 
broken and unjointed, or stood up agaiust 
the house. Many of the windows were brok¬ 
en and the door that opened into the wide 
hall was off its hinges. It stood helplessly up 
against the side of the hall, leaving the open 
door to grin over its victory. There were 
great dingy spots ot decay about the door 
and windows, like the dark lines that gather 
about the mouth’ and eyes of a sick person. 
The little yard in front of the house was foul 
with weeds and vines. It looked like a face 
on which is growing a two-weeks’ beard. It 
is too short to be picturesque, and too long to 
be tidy. 
As John rode in from the gate, he found a 
negro working by the side of the driveway. 
It was John’s first view of Southern haymak¬ 
ing, and he watched the process with a curious 
mixture of feelings. The negro had gathered 
his bay info a number of small piles. He was 
engaged in carry ing it to some point behind 
the house. He had a broken wheelbarrow 
which he placed at some central point. Then 
with a long-handled shovel he made atrip 
to each little pile, returning with a shovelful 
to the wheelbarrow. When about one-fourth 
of an ordinary “forkful” had been collected 
in this vehicle, he started leisurely with his 
load, stopping to “rest” at short intervals. 
John watched one of these trips without a 
word. When the negro came back he ducked 
his head with—“Howdy boss?” 
“Why don’t ye use yer fork an’ take a good- 
sized load?”—asked Johu. 
“I aint gut nary a one boss!’'—was the an¬ 
swer as the negro stopped work to lean on his 
shovel and scratch his head. 
“What’d ye cut that hay with?” asked John 
as he dismounted and fastened bis horse to a 
tree. The ground from which the hay had 
been cut looked more like a shingled roof 
than the smooth mowing ground at home. 
“I reckon I done cut it with a hoe boss.” 
The negro spoke as though he considered the 
only surprising thing connected with this fact 
to be the thought that a white man should not 
know what tools were in use. 
As John was speaking two men came riding 
along the road. At the gate they separated. 
One came up the driveway to the house, while 
the other rode on down the road towards the 
town. Johu knew the first to be Colonel Fair 
while the other was the strange man he had 
noticed at the court house the day before. 
Colonel Fair rode up and fastened his horse 
co a tree. He shook hands with Johu. 
“Glad to see ye, Judge. 1 thought I’d ride 
over an’ show ye round a little. Them nig¬ 
gers have jest about run things into the ground 
I reckon. Here you Jim” he said sharply to 
the black haymaker, “go git me some water 
—bring it into the house.” 
Jim dropped his shovel and at once started 
for the well, while Colonel Fair led the way 
into the house. He groaned aloud at the 
weedy garden and the dingy house. 
The hsuse was in wild disorder. In what 
was once the grand parlor the negroes had 
heaped a great pile of cotton. Most of the 
furniture had been removed. The walls were 
discolored aDd the floors blackened. John 
wondered what Nellie would say when she saw 
the dirty rooms. 
An old negro woman sat sunning herself on 
the back porch. She was smoking a short 
clay pipe which she removed from her mouth 
as the two men came through the hall. After 
some discussion she was induced to stir from 
her comfortable position and kindle a fire 
under a large kettle that hung between two 
posts in the yard. John was determined to 
begin operations at once with a liberal appli¬ 
cation of hot water to the inside of the house. 
The black haymaker was detailed to assist 
the old woman, and leaving the two at their 
new work, the white men started out to look 
over the plantation. 
It was a sad-looking sight to a thrifty far¬ 
mer like John. Not one-tenth of the land 
was under cultivation in any form. A few 
fields of sickly cotton and consumptive corn, 
and some few truck patches around the negro 
cabins, comprised the entire agricultural 
system of the place. Great barren fields, cov¬ 
ered with weeds and cut and slashed with 
great red wounds, stretched away on every 
hand. There was only one small shed to 
serve for a barn. The only stock to be seen 
ran swiftly away at their approach—a small 
drove of long-nosed hogs, and two bony 
cows; old tools, sticks and litter of all kinds 
were scattered about. A gin-house stood 
at some little distance from the shed and 
a pan for evaporating sugar w r as built 
near the well. The plantation had evidently 
been once owned by a large slave-holder. 
The negro cabins were numerous — they 
formed a little village just below the house. 
A few negroes were at work in the cotton 
fields, while a small army of little blacks ran 
about the place or played under the trees. 
John and Colonel Fair walked down to the lit¬ 
tle hill back of the gin house where they could 
look over the entire plantation. Never had 
John seen the literature of icleness, misman. 
agement and lack of thrift wr itten so deeply 
upon a farm. Here in this beautiful country, 
with every natural advantage, this grand old 
plantation with all its wonderful possibilities 
was running to a desert. He did not feel in 
the least discouraged. He had perfect confi¬ 
dence in his own ability. He knew what land 
could be made to do. His life had shown him 
what honest work could accomplish. 
“What be they tbinkin’of to run a farm this 
way ?” he asked as they started back to the 
house. “1 see that feller in flout of the house 
loadin’ bay wnh a round-pimed shovel. That 
beats all the hayin’ I ever see.” 
“You’ll see plenty more jest like it afore 
you git done heie”said Col. Fair. “They 
don’t kuow no better an’ a heap of ’em don’t 
care nothin’ about learnin’. A heap of the 
white folks jest leave their farms to such nig¬ 
gers as you’ve gut here, an’ then growl be¬ 
cause they can’t make nothin’ at farmin’. 
The great trouble with this country”—he 
stopped in the shade of the gin house to put a 
rivet on his argument—“is jest what I told 
you in town. There’s a heap of old fellers 
here that jest live ter keep this country back. 
I’ve lived here a good many years an’ I’ve 
studied these fellers like a book. I’ve done 
well here—mighty well. I started with noth¬ 
in’ an’ now 1 kin show the best place in the 
county. I’m well fixed but I ain’t satisfied. 
There ain’t nobody here for me to talk to as I 
wanter talk. It’s worth a heap ter live up 
Noith among them people, I reckon. I’m 
mighty glad you’ve come in. We ain’t had 
much for neighbors afore now. Old Doc. 
Lawrence is a nice old man, but he ain’t gut 
no sense at all. Sorter cracked, I reckon. 
Foster over yuuder ain’t no company. Sorter 
slack, he is, an’ yet, come to git him to work 
he might do somethin’. We must work to¬ 
gether an’ try to fill this country up with 
Northern men. If we kin get a hundred fam¬ 
ilies in round us here we won’t want no better 
thing at all. We can run the county an’ fix 
things to suit us. I sorter like you. I reckon 
you’ve come here to stay. We can work # to- 
gether on a good many things.” 
As they walked in from the gin house, John 
told all of his story that he thought advisable. 
He told enough to show Colonel Fair what he 
meaut to try and do. His new neighbor 
showed much interest in the plans. 
“You’re gut jest the right idee,” was his 
comment. “You kin turn every one of them 
rough-looking fields into a pasture. Don’t try 
to raise nothin’ but cotton. That’s a good 
crop to raise jest like they raise wheat at tL.e 
North. Make it the surplus crop an’ you’ve 
gut ’em.” 
They reached the house to find the cleaning 
operations suspended for the time being. The 
fire under the kettle had gone out while listen¬ 
ing to an animated discussion on religion that 
had been started by the haymaker and warmly 
taken up by the old woman. The two de¬ 
baters stood by the side of the kettle talking 
and gesticulating with such earnestness that 
they did not notice the approach of the white 
men. When they looked up to find that a 
new and critical audience had assembled, they 
dropped the debate and fell upon their work 
with a vigor which would, if kept up, soon 
have finished the job. The haymaker dropped 
upon his knees and put his breath to a more 
practical use by blowing fresh life into the 
fire. The old woman hurriedly stirred the 
water as if that process would hasten its heat¬ 
ing. Colonel Fair smiled at John’s expression 
of disgust. “That’s all right,” he said. 
“You’ve got to stay right over’em an 'make 
em work. That’s jest nigger-like an’ you can’t 
change it at all.” 
John did “stay over” them with a royal 
good will for the rest of the forenoon. He 
even took off his coat and worked with them. 
With an old broom and a bucket of hot water 
they scrubbed out the hall and two rooms. 
John tried to find a scythe with which to mow 
the weeds that had formed a dense mat in the 
little yard. Such an implement was unknown 
on the plantation. The little hay that had 
been secured, had been cut with hoes. John 
bunted out a negro who brought a great 
clumsy hoe with which he slashed the weeds. 
There was no such thing as a pitch-fork on the 
place. 
Colonel Fair rode away on some errand of 
his own shortly after John began work. At 
noon he came back and insisted that John 
should go home to take dinner with him. John 
was glad of this invitation. There was some¬ 
thing about this blunt neighbor that he liked. 
Leaving the negroes at work, the two men 
rode out at the broken gate and down along 
the road over which John had come. 
Colonel Fair’s bouse stood about half a mile 
from John’s gate. They were neighbors, as 
the two plantations joined. The house stood 
back from the road in a beautiful group of 
trees. Everything about it was neat and or¬ 
derly. The paint was fresh, the fences were 
well kept and the lawn was clean and well ar¬ 
ranged. It was a beautiful picture of thrift 
and comfort. There were no dead and wasted- 
looking fields in sight. Everything was cov¬ 
ert d w ith a beautiful cloak of green—Nature’s 
bridal color. 
“Looks sorter nice, don’t it?” said Colonel 
Fair as he reined in his horse at the gate. “It 
was wuss lookin’ than yours is when I fust 
took hold of it. It takes work, an’ an al¬ 
mighty stout heart to git along here, but it’s 
sure to count in the end. 
Colonel Fair’s family consisted of his wife 
and two young boys. They all greeted John 
very pleasantly. The boys seemed a little 
strange to John. Born at the North and in¬ 
heriting Northern sentiments and tastes, they 
had been brought up at the South, with all 
the peculiar influences that affect the South¬ 
ern youth. They were different from North¬ 
ern boys, and yet uni ke the boys born at the 
South. Colonel Fair touched upon this very 
point when, after dinner, they drew their 
chairs out on the piazza. 
“I’m mighly sorry,” he said, “that I can’t 
bring up my children at the North. It’s 
mighty bad to have children—boys ’specially, 
come up here amongst these niggers. It spoils 
a smart boy to bring him up here where he 
kin git a nigger to breathe for him if he wants. 
The nigger was born to work an’ he knows 
it. These boys understand jest how ’tis an’ 
they are goin’ ter shirk all they kin. You no¬ 
tice now in these Southern families, an’ see if 
it ain’t jest as I tell ye. The girls are the 
smartest every time. Nine times out of ten 
the brains an’ the “git up” of the family will 
be found right in the girls. The woman of the 
next Southern generation will run things. 
Now you see if that ain’t so.” 
“But what makes ’em let things run so ter 
ruins?” asked John. He could not bring him¬ 
self to understand how men with ordinary 
common sense could live as most of the people 
were evidently living. 
(To becontinued.) 
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