Drum (61 page)

and calicos, quite fitting for a schoolgirl, together with two elaborate gowns which would have done justice to a New Orleans quadroon ball.

Drumson knew in advance when Sophie was leaving, for he had to supervise the hauling of the trunks and boxes to her room. When the day came for her to depart, there was a carriage full—^Augusta, of course, was to accompany Sophie. But Sophie must have a slave to wait on her at school so Juno was chosen for that position. Then, Augusta herself must have a slave with her; it would not be fitting for her to return alone and she would require the services of a maid en^ route. She insisted on Regine and Hammond gave hisf^ grumbling assent Ajax was to drive them in the new carriage, followed by Merc in the spring wagon to carry the luggage. Arrangements had been made by letter to various" plantations along the way for overnight stops, so the women would not have to stay in ordinaries or taverns along the route.

When, at last, they were all piled into the new carriage, with the attendant confusion of loading the baggage and a hundred other last-minute errands and emergencies. Drum-son was exhausted. Hanunond, fortified by several extra toddies, seemed glad to be rid of them. Watching the carriage roll down the dusty drive, he informed Drumson that he wovild be staying at the old house until Augusta returned and ordered him to carry over his clothes, razors and such personal belongings as he might need for the fortnight.

As Augusta had instructed, Drumson lowered the shades in the main part of the house, closed the shutters, shrouded the furniture in sheets and stripped the beds. He wondered, as he took the sheets from Regine's bed, how often she had: slept in them if at all. He also made an important discovery.

For several days after his fight with Clees and his subsequent pimishment, he was unaware that the silver chain and its medallion were missing from around his neck. It had become so much a part of him that he did not notice its loss imtil one night Elvira called its absence to his attention He worried about it for it was his only possession, and according to his old mistress it gave him some sort of protection. Together he and Elvira had searched the spot where the fight had taken place but to no avail. He had also gone over the bam floor where he had been hoisted up and whipped but it yielded not a trace. Now, to his surprise, as he stripped the sheets off Regine's bed, he found it undei

her pillow. His joy in recovering it was doubled by the knowledge that she had found and treasured it.

With everyone away, there was httle work or responsibility for what was left of the household staflf. Hammond came over once a day and took Drumson away with him, mounting him on a horse to make the rounds of the plantation.

Under Hammond's careful supervision, the entire farm was practically self-supporting—a self-contained community imder the reign of an exacting but benevolent dictator. Unlike other plantations, which depended on cotton, rice or cane for a cash crop and used slaves to produce it. Falcon-hurst had its cash crop in slaves and used them only to produce their own sustenance. Hammond believed in feeding his slaves well. Theirs was not a monotonous diet of coarse com pone with an occasional hunk of fat meat. They were well fed and they showed it in their sleek skins, their strong, well-muscled bodies and their strong bones. Slaves were his cash crop—everything else was merely subsidiary.

The male slaves who worked in the fields were in training to be sold as field hands; the others, whom Hammond considered of superior intelligence, were learning trades and would conmiand higher prices as artisans. Male slaves outnumbered females two to one. The females were used principally for breeding for they never fetched such high prices as males. They were lodged two, three, four, and even six in the new cabins, along with the temporary males whom Hammond had chosen for them. Once they became pregnant they were transferred to the long women's shed and their male companions dismissed to go back to the male shed. If a woman did not achieve pregnancy within a certain period of time with one man who had a known fertility record, she was slated to be sold at the next sale. Males who were unable to prove their virility were also quickly sold.

Newborn children were allowed to stay with their mothers for about two weeks after birth. After that they were merely unidentified children in the communal nursery where women nursed their own babies only by chance. As soon as a woman gave birth to a child, she was sent to the women's shed until such time as she was once again assigned a male companion and sent back to the cabins. Wenches were exposed to their first pregnancy when they were about thirteen. From thirteen to twenty-two or -three they were in production, after which they were ready to be sold in the New

Orleans market, along with a recently bom child

The children, entirely ignorant of their parents' identity, ran naked and barefoot for some nine months of the year, wearing shapeless osnaburg pinafores during the cold months. While they were still very young they were all housed together, regardless of sex, in an old building known as "The Chapel," named for its use during Hammond's mother's lifetime. At the age of eight or ten, the sexes were separated and the boys sent to the hayloft of the bam, the girls tcxa community house to be closely guarded until they were sufficiently nubile to procreate. Babies were named at birth by Hammond and their records were kept in his ledgers; somehow the names managed to stick to them.

By a careful selection of mates—no wench being allowed the same mate a second time except in unusual cases—Hammond avoided any sentimental attachment between male and female. There was never any form of marriage, not even the simple "jumpin' the stick" ceremony. The women had no choice in their mates, neither were the men allowed any preference. On rare occasions, with three or four couples occupying one cabin, some male would become desirous of another wench, whereupon quarrels would ensue. These were quickly settled when they came to Hammond's attention, either by pimishment of the man or wench involved or by the two being separated and sent back to the sheds. On thfe whole, however, there was little difficulty.

In one respect, Falconhurst differed from most of the other plantations. Hammond insisted on cleanliness in all the slave quarters and among the slaves themselves. He held periodic inspections. Although he knew nothing about sanitary conditions, he was aware that clean surroundings bred healthier slaves. They bathed daily in the river during the warm weather and at least once a week in their cabins during the chilly months. Bedding was aired, floors scrubbed, interiors whitewashed, clothing laundered and latrines disinfected with ashes. In cases of sickness Doc Redfield, the veterinarian, was called in and the ailing slaves were isolated. Sickness, however, was practically unknown. Hammond's slaves were free from ringworm, rickets, deformities, scars and other disfigurements.

They were undoubtedly the happiest slaves in the South. They were prize cattle, fed, pampered and treated as such. None was ever overworked—as a matter of fact, it was

difficult to find enough work to keep them all employed. Punishment was at a minimum. Minor infractions were punished by short rations, a temporary confinement to the slave pen, or a withholding of women. Whipping was the exception rather than the rule. Slaves bom on Falconhurst never became runners although occasionally when Hammond purchased young adults they took off for their former home. When they were captured, as they usually were, real punishment was inflicted on them; but this happened only rarely. Even when the time came for them to be sold, Falconhurst slaves were not unhappy. Most of them regretted leaving the familiar surroundings where they had been bom and spent all their lives, but any change was welcome and the prospects of the trip to the city and being sold were painted in such glowing pictures that it became something to anticipate rather than dread.

The Falconhurst slaves had achieved distinction. This was a period when slaves were a man's proudest possession and the criterion of his wealth. They had become a luxury which the impoverished Southern plantations could ill afford, yet more and more slaves were purchased every year. Falconhurst slaves, Uke the decorative peacocks on the lawn of the big house, were something to point out with pride —a status symbol of prosperity, even though the plantation itself might be mortgaged for its whole worth.

Drumson saw all the workings of the plantation as he rode about with Hammond. He saw the rows of kneeling figures in the fields, weeding and harvesting. He saw the shavings cxu-1 under the carpenters' planes; the sparks fly from the red-hot iron on the blacksmith's anvil; heard the rhythmic tapping of the cobblers' hammers as they made shoes for the plantation; listened to the soft hmnming of songs as the women spun and wove cotton, linen and wool and stitched it into clothes. He saw the communal nursery where women, big with child, sat awaiting their own delivery, tending to the children of others and knowing that soon they would be abandoning the child in their womb to the impersonal care of other women.

Of Meg and Alph, still imprisoned in the slave pen, Drumson heard and saw little. Once a day they were led out by Hannibal, securely spancelled, allowed to remain in the sunshine for an hour or so and then returned. Hammond had given strict orders that none of the other slaves were to converse with them and he himself still ignored them

whenever he chanced to see them. Of late, they had given up their pleading for release and their protestations of innocence. They knew why they were being punished. They remembered back to that time some ten years ago when they had discovered that Mede, the Mandingo, was being forced by Hammond's wife to share her bed. Emboldened by her acceptance of a slave paramour, they had blackmailed her into acceptance of themselves. Meg and Alph knew there was more punishment in store for them than being kept in the slave pen, but of what it might be they were ignorant. The very uncertainty made the threat more terrifying.

On one of Hammond's daily trips around the plantation, followed by Drumson, he stopped at a small slave cabin, quite some distance from the others. Older than the other cabins, unpainted like the old house itself, it seemed to belong to another era. The new cabins, standing straight and four square, well built, resting firmly on good foimda-tions, were floored, securely roofed, whitewashed and weatherproof. This one, seemingly a relic of the past, was made of logs, with only a door and no windows. It canted crazily to one side as if ready to topple over at a touch. A sway-backed roof of shakes appeared to give scant pro^ tection. A wattle-and-daub fireplace and soot-blackened chimney climbed erratically up one side. Altogether it seemed an incongruous note in the otherwise snug and well-constructed street of new cabins.

On the worn doorstep, half hidden by the tall sunflowers that grew on each side, a boy was sitting. His superb body had promise of great strength. It was impossible to judge his age for although the body was that of a youth in height and musculature, the face, blankly handsome and c

"Mas'r, 'mun," he murmured.

"How'r you, Ol' Mista Wilson?" Hammond ran an appraising hand down the smooth ebony of his arm. "Still growin', huh?"

A woman, equally gigantic, appeared in the doorway.

"He still a-growin', Masta Maxwell, suh. Jes' don' know whar he a-goin' to end up. He mos' big he's father now and he only thirteen summer."

An older woman, tall and regal-looking, appeared behind the other.

"He good boy, Masta Maxwell. 01' Mista Wilson never done give us no trouble. Strong too and a-goin' to be handsome like Mede. You a-comin' in, Masta Maxwell, suh? You a-comin' in ter set fer a spell?"

Hammond laughed. "Knows what you wan' to talk to me 'bout, Lucy—'bout Big Pearl here."

"Cain hoi' 'er down much longer, Masta Maxwell. Gittin' mighty rambunctious, she is. Some night she a-goin' a-traipsin' down to de men's shed, rip off dat padlock from de do' and go rampagin' in. Den Gawd he'p dose boys in dere when Big Pearl gets started on 'em."

The younger woman giggled at the mention of her name.

"Jes' goin' to do dat some night, Mista Maxwell, suh. Jes' like Lucy says. Goin' to rip off dat lock and pleasure me wid ev'y boy in de shed. Goin' to tire 'em all out come momin'."

"You do and I'll strip you down," Hammond threatened, but it was plain to see that he didn't mean it, nor was Big Pearl afraid of him.

Drumson thought she was the most impressive woman he had ever seen. Although she was enormous in size, she was so perfectly proportioned that she was beautiful. She loomed over him like a colossus carved out of polished ebony and it was plain to see that 01' Mista Wilson had inherited his mother's size and good looks. His father, Mede, had been Big Pearl's own brother, both of them children of Lucy. Through the intermingling of relationship. Big Pearl was her son's aunt as well as his mother and Lucy a double grandmother.

"Tha's what I come down to see you for today, Lucy. How you like this boy, Big Pearl?" He called to Drumson to dismount. "Come over here, boy! Thinkin' of havin' you cover Big Pearl. She pure Mandingo, she is. Thinkin' she the only pure Mandingo o' breedin' age in the whole South. That her boy, that Ol' Mista WUson. Goin' to make me a fighter out o' that boy," Hammond said, "but gotta get me someone to train him."

"Kin I say somepin', Masta Hammond, suh?" Drumson was down off his horse. "My pappy Drum, he was cham-

pion fighter of New Orleans and he learned my Uncle Blaise how to fight. Uncle Blaise learned me."

"Why'n you tell me this before?"

"You never asked me, Masta Hammond, suh."

"You sure goin' to be busy, boy, studdin' Big Pearl and teachin' Ol' Mista Wilson be a fighter. How you like this boy, Big Pearl? Name's Drumson. He part Royal Hausa— jes' as good if not better'n Mandingo. You and him gets together and makes me a good sucker, huh?"