Eliza Ripley

“ Here on the broad verandas, as we rock and dream the lazy days away, visions visit me of the old hotel at Pass Christian in the forties. The oaks and three China trees in front of the veranda, and the view of the nearby waters, the whistle of mocking-birds among the china berries (thank heaven! sparrows have not found this Elysium) lend additional force to the semblance. One old lady, who hunts not, neither does she fish, rocks on the sunny veranda and dreams, as is the wont of those who have lived beyond their day and generation. ”

“ We soon settled down to a life that was almost as new to us as if we had dropped from the moon. The mixture of bad Spanish and African jargon of the negroes I never did understand—nor did Lamo—but in time they understood me. Henry and Zell, and by-and-by Martha, could interpret for black and white, while Ellie and I could talk to and understand the whites. We worked with an energy, born of a more vigorous clime, that amazed our apathetic neighbors. ”

“ I was driven at a rapid pace up the road and through the restless, crowded street throngs to the home of these motherless girls, whose New England governess had returned North. I had long been their mother’s dearest friend, and a refuge for her daughters in all their troubles and perplexities. We were completely cut off from any reliable information of the doings of the world, almost at our doors. Everybody knew New Orleans had fallen and Butler was treading the prostrate people with hoofs of iron, and also it was only a matter of time when his rule would reach our town only 130 miles off. ”

“ I snatched the key from its hook and hurried to unlock the store-room, where Ciriaco and Martha stood ready, each side the door, to distribute machetes (cane-knives) —always kept in reserve for such an emergency—to the men who were at work about the sugar-house. Those first ready mounted the tethered horses, sometimes two or three on one animal, and were off like the wind. It was an unwritten law that a fire-alarm must command an immediate response from laborers, white and black, on every plantation in sound of the bell. ”

“ Every man, it seemed, in the place, that could spare the time, wanted to see the great race. “Lee Count,” as a good many Kentuckians call Le Comte, was the most prominent rival of their boasted and beloved Lexington, and he showed mettle that astonished even those blind partisans, and added zest to the wagers. Ladies had never been in evidence at a horse race in Louisiana. The bare idea was a shock to the Creole mind, that dominated and controlled all the fashionable, indeed, all the respectable, minds in New Orleans at that day. But the Kentucky belles had minds of their own. ”

“ A visit to their hospitable home revealed an untidy parlor with a dog curled asleep on each chair—vicious game-cocks secured by long strings, roosting on the window-shutters, or strutting in their red and naked splendor about the veranda, a half-dozen frouzy, half-clad negroes standing at open doors whispering their admiration of the visitors. Nobody seemed to be working, every living thing had a lazy, idle air, and poor Don Pedro who belonged to a race that could not economize time, labor, or anything else, was harassed because he could not get his cane cut, for lack of help. ”

“ We who still linger would love to see a granite monument to the memory of the dear mammy who fostered our childhood. Our grandchildren, indeed our children, will never know the kind of mammies their ancestors were blessed with.
I know of two only of the old stock of nurses and housekeepers left. They were grown women when Sherman marched through Georgia, destroying their old homes, laying waste the land, and Butler sat down in New Orleans, wreaking vengeance on their hapless masters, and scattering their little bands of servants to the four winds. ”

“ The mountain-range that runs like a backbone through the length of Cuba was only a quarter of a mile east of our dwelling, and a ride or walk up the steep sides well repaid a lover of nature. From the summit there spread before us an extended view of Oriental loveliness and exquisite beauty. At our feet limitless cane-fields hung their light-green leaves, topped here and there with erect torches of blossoming seed that shimmered and glistened in the sun like [Pg 279] molten silver. ”

“ What a host of dashing, high-bred, blue-blooded Kentucky women swarmed the parlors, halls, rotunda [247] of that, the finest hotel in all the land! How they talked, in the soft, Southern accent, so peculiarly their own! How they laughed! How they moved about, seemingly knowing everybody they met. How they bet! Gloves, fans, money, too, on their horse, when they found any one in all the crowd that was not a “Lexington horse” man. Those bright women dominated everything in their enthusiasm. ”

“ The pineapple, easily stripped of its rough coat, is rich and succulent, with an indescribably luscious flavor. In Cuba a single ripe one fills a whole house with its incomparable fragrance.
[Pg 250]
We mounted by winding paths through a never-ending bower of dense foliage, with blossoming shrubs and vines on every side, and, when the apex of the monte was reached, stood on such an elevation that a magnificent panorama opened upon our vision.
A broad plain of waving cane, broken by towering palms and dotted by plantation-houses, lay at our feet. ”

“ Housekeeping is vastly simplified since the days when my mother washed her teacups and spoons every morning. I love the old way; however, I do not practise it. If my grandchildren were to see the little wooden piggin brought me on a tray after breakfast, and see me wash the silver and glass they would think grandma has surely lost her mind. That purely domestic housewifely habit lasted long after my mother had passed away. It still is the vogue in many a New England household, but no doubt is among the lost virtues South. ”

“ In the cities there are amusements and distractions, though of a very insipid and languid nature, but in the country the dullness is oppressive. We wearied of the eternal soft, mild air; the never-varying green of the landscape; the perpetual equable temperature that made the thinnest linen comfortable—the seasons only varied by dry and wet—the dry very dry and dusty, and the wet—very wet and muddy. The country roads are so narrow that the constant travel with loaded ox-teams all winter cuts them into deep ruts, and the summer rain soon makes them well-nigh impassable. ”

“ The guests, many of them, lived miles and miles away, in common country roads, often through dense woods—a long drive under best circumstances, a perilous one at night, everybody waiting, everybody in a hurry, everybody getting tired and fretful. It was long after the appointed time, and the New Orleans preacher had missed the train! Old Dilsey in the kitchen was mad because her pig was getting too brown; Elfey in the porch worrying that her ice cream was waiting too long; ladies in the parlor trying to kill time; men wandering around the front yard in restless groups. ”

“ Rejoicing to see their dear old faces, we planned a tier of shelves in the parlor for their reception. With the exception of a fine French and Spanish library in the office of our merchant in Havana, ours was the only receptacle for books that I ever saw in Cuba. There were scattered volumes about the houses, but barely enough to make it necessary to provide a place for them. The universal exclamation of visitors, on entering the parlor at Desengaño, was, “Ay! que libros!” (“What a number of books!”) No Cuban woman could understand why we read so much. ”

“ Lafiton had straggling locks of white hair, falling over the collar of his great coat, reminding me of the picture of Little Nell’s grandfather, and the home of the Lafitons carried out the simile, for it was as melancholy and cheerless as any “Old Curiosity Shop” could be. There were two bright, capable girls in it, though, who never knew or saw anything better than the rickety old house, way up on stilts, that they lived in. ”

“ They never came about the house during the day, but were seen scudding and scampering over the fences and darting into the cane. They broke up hens’ nests, destroyed the eggs, devoured the young chickens, and often made night hideous with battles and concerts while roaming through the house, to which the open windows afforded free access, knocking china off the sideboard and lamps off the table, and doing so much damage in the kitchen that Ciriaco’s life was made a burden. ”

“ The little body was carried past the “quarters” and beyond, to the negroes’ “burying ground,” where it lay in peaceful shadows of the trees the romping children loved so well. Martha lingered long on the mysterious border, fitfully fighting an apparently hopeless battle, the more tenderly and faithfully nursed by Mammy Charlotte, as the warm-hearted, childless woman realized the frail tenure of life held by the little negro whom she had ruled in varying moods of sternness and tenderness, untempered with judgment. ”

“ On those lovely winter days, when the roads were dry and smooth, and the skies cloudless, and the sun warm, the air redolent with the nameless odors of tropical fruits and flowers blended with the all-pervading aroma of boiling cane-juice, there was much visiting and entertaining, much galloping about in gay cavalcades from house to house, calling and extending invitations to breakfasts and dinners, and offering one’s home with all that therein is to each other. ”

“ The country hotel is pine; ceilings, floors, walls are pine, the home-made and built-in furniture is pine; a big fire, roaring in the open fireplace if the day is chilly, is also made of pine—the rich, red Florida pine, ever so much richer in color and in turpentine than the boasted Georgia article. With the fish swimming in front of this hotel and the birds flying behind, and rabbits running in both directions, it goes without saying the table is above the average. ”

“ The Chinese were in full rebellion: stripped to the middle, their swarthy bodies glistening in the hot sun, they rushed with savage impetuosity up the road, leaped the low stone fence that surrounded the cluster of plantation-buildings, of which the massive dwelling-house formed the center, brandishing their hoes in a most threatening manner, and yelling like demons, as with hastily grasped rocks from the fences they pelted the retreating overseer. Ramon rushed from his bench at the carpenter-shop, and did his best to stem the tide ”

“ Tired as the horses are after the long, hard pull; tired as the coachman must be, he cracks his whip, and we gallop up the shady lane to the dear old door as briskly as though we were fresh from the stable. Long before we are fully there, and the steps of the nine-passenger coach can be lowered; long before the boys can jump off the top, a host of dear faces, both white and black, is assembled to greet us. ”