"That Old-Time Child, Roberta": Her Home-Life on the Farm — A Closer Reading

Roberta was a very amiable child, but old Squire said she "wuz techus erbout sum things." And the old clock must have been one of the things.

The chairs were brought from Virginia on the backs of mules, and the covers on them embroidered by the little girl's grandmother. The same busy hands that superintended the manufacture of those piles of linen sheets stored away in the presses above stairs, and the counterpanes woven with the American eagle in the center, bunches of hollyhocks and sweet pea in the corners, and trumpet vines running along the edges.

The paper on the walls of the parlor was a curiosity. It was imported from England many, many years before Roberta's mother was born, because her grandfather saw a room somewhere, I think in Baltimore, that had similar paper, and he took such a fancy to it he ordered some from the same place. The paper was wrought in great panels, with life-size figures of orientals in the center. They were terrible looking men, the children thought. They had swarthy skins and beards down to their waists, and fierce eyes that flashed out beneath their turbans with a fe-fo-fi-fum look.

Those fierce eyes were the cause of no little alarm, I can assure you, when darkness swooped down upon Roberta and Polly and Dilsy, playing Lady-come-to-see in the old parlor in childlike unconsciousness of the passage of time. Polly, the imp, would always insist upon singing "Lady Jane Grey," as they tiptoed backward out of the room. They did not dare to look away, for fear those terrible men would fly at them when they were not looking and throttle them with their long, bony fingers, so they joined hands and sung as they tiptoed backward:

Lady Jane Grey, she went to church for to pray; She went to the stile and there rested awhile; She went to the door and there rested a little more; She went up the aisle and there rested awhile; She looked up; she looked down; She saw a corpse lie on the ground; She said to the sexton, must I look so When I die? Boo, boo!

Now when they came to the last part it was always Polly who stretched open her eyes till they looked like an owl's great round eyes, and jumped at Roberta and Dilsy and hollered "Boo, boo!" Although they knew it was coming they were awfully scared, and would break loose and run, screaming like mad things, into the sitting-room, really believing the orientals were after them. They had made believe it so many times, and Polly had said so many times, "I'll cross my heart, Lil Missus, 'twuz dem drefful men dat sed 'boo-oo'; I seed thar lips muven; you don' ketch me in thar no mo'," they had come to really believe it. They had heard the story of the children who played wolf, and a wolf did sure enough come and devour them. As many times as they had played Lady Jane Grey they were always worse scared the last time than ever before. The sitting-room was a cozy place when they got there, panting for breath after their fright in the parlor.

In one of the deep window recesses Roberta had set up her entire doll family to housekeeping. She was very fond of her dolls. The mother instinct in her was developed very early. She had wax dolls and china dolls and rag dolls. Mrs. Marsden painted features on the rag dolls, and they looked very natural. There was Miss Prim and Miss Slim, Mrs. Jolly and Mrs. Folly, Miss Snappy and Miss Happy, named from their different expressions. Roberta had the quaintest way of talking to her dolls. She had caught some of Aunt Betsy's old-time ideas:

"Straighter, my dears, straighter. One's spine should never touch the back of a chair," and, "Don't rest your elbows on the table while you are eating; my great-grandmother used to keep cushions stuffed with pins to slip under the children's elbows," etc.

Her favorite dolls were the figures cut out of the fashion plates of Godey's Lady's Book. She was an artist with her fingers, if there was a pair of scissors in them. So she took sheets of different colored tissue-paper, cut dresses, and fitted them nicely on her dolls. Each doll had a variety.

I believe she thought her dolls looked cosier at the dinner-table than anywhere else, and she kept them sitting there a great deal. Sometimes Polly, who seemed born to make trouble, would roll her eyes at the dolls and say, "You iz de greedes' things. Whar iz you gwiner to put it?"

Then, of course, Roberta would feel obliged to take some notice of their sitting at the table so long: "Come, get down now, dears. Little ladies should _not_ appear greedy."

Roberta was very much like some mothers of real children, who will wink at what their little ones do at one time, and, if a neighbor drops in at another, who is not of the same way of thinking, scold the poor children for doing those very things they had winked at before. But Roberta did not have it in her heart to scold anybody much, not even that impish Polly, who would go around after she had provoked her little mistress beyond endurance, sniffling and singing in a dolorous tone,

Whar she goes en how she fars, Nobody knows en nobody kyars.

and invariably wind up by getting the very playthings she wanted from Roberta as a peace offering.

I must not forget to tell you about Roberta's Sunday School for little negro children. If the child didn't always keep perfect order and make the headway she would have liked, it wasn't because she didn't try. Her whole heart was in the work. She really was very intelligent, and Aunt Betsy said, "If there was such a thing as anybody being born in this world a Christian, she believed Roberta was." I think she must have had the germ of object teaching--that is the fad now--in her nature, she could paint such vivid mental pictures to convey an idea. Once she was telling Polly about God's punishment of sinners, and Polly said, "Lawdy, Lil Missus, I feel dem blazes creepen' all over me dis minit." She had a great deal to contend with, almost as much as Mrs. Marsden had, in getting the older negroes to come in to prayers. Nine times out of ten, when she rang the bell for them Sunday morning, Squire would put his head in the door and say:

"Mis July, dat deviles hoss dun played me dat same trick ergin. He dun lade down in de mud en roll ober en ober. 'T will take me clar up ter de time to start ter chech ter git dat mud orf him, en hard wurk at dat. Dat hoss knows ez well when Sad-day night comes ez you duz. Jes' de way he dun las' week when I hetch him in de plow: lay down en groan lak he sick enuff ter die, ter keep fum worken'; en half hour arfter I turn him luse frolerken lak er colt--jes' kicken' up his heels, I kin tell you."

"Why not drive some of the others, Uncle Squire, so you can come in to prayers?"

"I dun turn em all out, en dey's gorn, de Lord unly knows whar. If I'd unly know'd it en time now. But I'll show 'im--I'll show 'im. I gwiner be mity solid wid 'im, en mebbe heel larn arfter while dat he aint his own master."

At other times it was a mule.

"Mis July, dat mule dun tore down dat rock fence ergin. I bounter fix it or de stock will git out en go orf, you knows dat ez well az I duz. Dat mule's yours, en you kin do what you please wid him, but ef he 'longter me I'd sell him de fus chance I git. Dat mule nuff ter mek er man strike hees gran-daddy."

Now, it was a well-known fact that Mrs. Marsden had tried several times to sell the mule, and old Squire had always declared "the mule was the most valuable animal on the place, and it was just giving him away to sell him at the price offered."

Polly was Squire's granddaughter, and inherited his want of reverence for sacred things. She was very, very trying, especially on one occasion I will tell you about.

Roberta gathered the children together, took her Catechism and primer, and went down to the summer-house. She noticed that Polly's expression was sulky, and that she was rolling her eyes at Dilsy. But Polly was always tormenting Dilsy. Dilsy was a little hunchback negro, that everybody but Polly felt sorry for and tried to turn the soft side of life to.

Roberta was not much discouraged by Polly's actions, still she knew it was a great deal pleasanter to teach her when she was in a good humor, and concluded to resort to a strategy to mollify her.

The child was a close observer of nature, and knew how indispensable to germinate seed was a mellow, rightly prepared soil, and what service sunshine and timely rainfalls were to growing crops. So she intuitively drew an analogy in her childish way between the soil the plow-man turns over and the human heart.

Now, if there was one thing that Polly delighted in more than another it was the game of "Chick-a-mie, chick-a-mie, craney-crow."

So the children joined hands and moved around and around in a circle, singing:

"Chick-a-mie, chick-a-mie, craney-crow, Went to the well to wash my toe, When I got back my chickens was gone. What o'clock is it, old Buzzard?"

Then they would fly around looking for the chickens. At least all of them but Polly would. Polly always took the part of old Buzzard, so she could flop down in Dilsy's seat, although she knew she would have to get right up.

Somehow, that evening Roberta's strategy did not seem to have accomplished its object, judging from Polly's expression. Still she hoped for the best. Polly was the biggest, so she always begun with her.

"Who made you, Polly?"

No answer immediately; then,

"Dunno fur sarten, spec' 't wuz Gord."

A lump gathered in the child's throat. Her bump of reverence was so largely developed it distressed her to see a want of it in others; she said "it hurt her feelings."

She passed it by, however, and ventured on another.

"What else did God make?"

"Dunno fur sarten, never seed 'im wuken'."

"For shame, Polly! God made all things. Say 'God made all things.'"

"No, never. Never made Dilsy thar. Dilsy nuffin' but er scrap he throw'd erway when he got fru cutten' out de grow'd-up ones."

"For shame, Polly! Don't you know everybody has to be little and grow up."

"No, never! Adam and Eve wuz born'd grow'd up."

"Well, that was because they were the first people on earth, and there was nobody to be papa and mamma for 'em, and take care of 'em, when they were little."

"Dat's like Dilsy thar. Dilsy never had no daddy."

"Well, Polly, you haven't answered my question yet. Say 'God made all things.'"

"No, never! God never made mammy's twins--no mo' dan he made Dilsy thar. Dey iz prezak like dem monkeys I seed de time I went en town ter de circus."

Now Polly was not an impartial judge of the twins, for she had been installed as their nurse, and she hated to nurse.

"For shame, Polly! Those nice little babies. And then, besides, as God made all things, he made monkeys too, of course."

"No, never! You can't make me berleeve dat. Gord nerver wase hees valerbel time maken' monkeys."

That was the "last straw that broke the camel's back." After trying so hard to be patient, and especially as she knew it was nothing but pure contrariness in Polly, for only the Sunday before she had answered every question correctly, and added some pious interpolations exceedingly gratifying to her young teacher.

So she got up, went to her refractory pupil, and lifted her forefinger by way of giving emphasis to her words.

But Polly, recognizing that her little mistress's temperature was rising, felt a proportionate rise in her own, rolled her eyes till nothing but the whites were visible, and stuck her lower lip out.

It would be impossible to conceive of a creature uglier or more aggravating looking than Polly, when she did that way.

In a flash, down came Roberta's little soft pink palm on her cheek.

Mrs. Marsden happened to be passing on her way to the quarters to visit a sick servant, and witnessed the performance. She was amused, but worried too, that Roberta had allowed herself to be so provoked, for it almost made a farce of the whole thing; and she knew how much in earnest her little daughter really was. The child's flushed cheeks and flashing eyes brought back, O so vividly! another face and another pair of flashing orbs so like hers. There were tears in Mrs. Marsden's eyes when she went in the summer-house and took her seat on the bench that circled around it.

"Did you strike Polly, daughter?"

"What did you strike her for, daughter?"

"She wouldn't say her lesson, Mamma, and she knew it all the time. And she rolled her eyes at me so, and stuck out her lip and looked so ugly, I just couldn't help it, that's all."

"I am sorry, daughter, that you gave way to your temper so. For remember, you are only the sower that plants the seed, and God takes care of all the rest. If you really try to teach Polly, and she won't be taught, you mustn't make a personal thing of it, but just leave it with God. Then, again, daughter, unless you practice self-control, teaching others is a farce. I know Polly has been very trying, indeed. But I want you to show a real forgiving spirit, as one should always show when one is working for the Master. I want you to tell Polly you are sorry you struck her. For you are sorry, I know--I see it in your face."

A kind of staccato snuffle was heard in the direction of Polly.

Roberta gave another look at the surly, unprepossessing countenance, then said, in a low voice:

"I will, Mamma, if you will let me hide my face in your lap while I am saying it."

"But why hide your face in my lap, daughter?"

"Because--because--Mamma--I am afraid--if she looks at me as she did before, that I will slap her again. I don't believe I could keep from it this evening; I am all out of sorts."

Afterwards that observation of Polly's, "Dilsy never had no daddy," caused Roberta no little thought. Really, she was no better off than Dilsy, she reasoned, for of course the child did not take in the full significance of the imp's meaning. Nobody ever told her that her papa was dead. Indeed she had been taught to pray for him every night. She felt sure he was living. But, where? Why did he not come home and pet her, like other little girls' papas she knew--pet her, and make her beautiful, sad mother smile sometimes. For it seemed to the child that she grew sadder and sadder all the time. There was nobody she could talk to about him, for her mamma's eyes filled with tears at any chance allusion to him. Aunt Betsy nearly snapped her head off when she asked her a question, and Uncle Squire, chatty as he was upon every other subject, would squint his eyes in a knowing way, puff out his cheeks, and answer, "Lay o'ers ter ketch meddlers." Yes, there was one person she was sure she could coax into telling her why her papa never came home to see them all, and that was dear, good Mam' Sarah, the weaver. When Aunt Betsy scolded Mam' Sarah, she would get down on the floor by Aunt Betsy and hug her tight around the knees and say, "God love you, Mistiss," to show her she wasn't mad at her for scolding her. That was "religion," mamma said. Aunt Betsy would cry, and say:

"Get up, Sarah, you make me ashamed of myself."

Yes, she would go to Mam' Sarah at the loom-house. It was considered a great treat by Roberta to go down to the loom-house. That was where the wool, cotton, and flax was carded, spun, and wove, then manufactured into winter and summer clothes for the negroes on the place. Yard upon yard of beautiful red and black flannel, blue and brown linseys, and blue and white striped cottonades, for the women, jeans for the men, and that coarse fabric called tow-linen made from the refuse of flax. The wonderful counterpanes, I have mentioned before, were manufactured there and the linen for sheets and towels. Let me tell you something curious while I am on the subject of the loom-house: Roberta's grandmother raised silk-worms in the room adjoining. She fed them on mulberry leaves. Mam' Sarah told Roberta they made a noise like wind while they were feeding. Those worms spun fluffy balls of silk, called cocoons, that the old lady reeled her silk thread from. She had all the silk thread and embroidery floss she needed.

There were no silk-worms raised in Roberta's time, and the room was given up to other uses.

There was kept the huge iron mortar where the grains of corn were crushed to make the delicious hominy Kentuckians are so fond of. When rightly prepared each grain stands out like the beautiful white-plumed corn captains and colonels that dance up so gaily over beds of live coals. There were made also the tallow dips, almost the only light used in the old days on the farms in Kentucky. Pieces of cotton wick were cut the required length and fastened at regular intervals to sticks of wood. One of the rows of wicks was dipped in the melted tallow, taken out and suspended over a vessel to drip. Then another was dipped, and another, till the same process was gone through with all. That was repeated many times before the wicks held enough tallow to be used for candles. An improved method was to run the wicks through tin molds, the required size and shape, and fasten them at one end with a knot; then pour in the melted tallow, and set the molds aside for the tallow to harden. The candles were put in brass, silver, and bronze candlesticks, accompanied by quaint little waiters that held snuffers, used to nip off the charred wick, as the tallow melted away from it. Very primitive that, compared with the brilliant luminaries we have now.

Well, there were hanks of different colored yarns and strings of red peppers hanging from the ceiling of the loom-house. Great beams ran through, called "warping bars," where the various warp threads were measured and cut for the loom. There were scutchens for dressing flax, carding combs, spinning wheels, and the great wooden loom with shafts reaching almost to the ceiling.

It was prime fun for Roberta to go down to the loom-house in the long winter evenings, and, sitting down before the open fire-place, help Polly and the others card the wool in long, smooth "curls," and pile them in even layers, ready for the spinner.

It required deft fingers, too, to gather together all the bits of wool caught on the many sharp teeth of the carding comb, and that, by working the two parts of the comb up and down, like a see-saw, then turning them over and smoothing the rolls with the back.

Those were busy days on the farms in old Kentucky, and happy days, besides. The very best days for many, both white and black. That afternoon I will tell you about especially, Mam' Sarah had a bright-colored rag carpet in the loom. There she sat, her eyes fixed intently on the pattern before her, shuttles carrying the black, red, and orange filling flying in and out under her deft, busy fingers. Many a strip of that gay filling had the little girl cut, sewed, and wrapped. Mam' Sarah raised her eyes and smiled at the child, but didn't stop working.

"Don't it tire you Mam' Sarah?" Roberta once compassionately asked.

"No, indeed, honey! Pear-lak I got sumfin' in my elbers en sumfin' in my knees that keeps on goen, sumfin' like springs. I never gits tired. I likes it."

That was the secret, Mam' Sarah liked it. One can keep on forever when one "likes it." "A merry heart goes all the day, a sad one tires in a mile."