Chapter 2

The plantation used to be richly furnished and the tables were set with solid silver tableware, gold-banded china, and imported linens. However, the Yankees and the Confederates had completely ransacked our valuables. It was better that then they take our virtues though and Madame had appealing to their sense of horror and through her force of will.

That evening when I prepared dinner, Abigail regarded her Grandmother with a kiss on the cheek. Madame doted on Abigail and tried to spoil her any time she could. She was a beautiful girl but she could be arrogant and disdainful towards those of lower station – which included my son and I.

She had rarely taken a supercilious tone with me but with Charles when I was not around she was quite dreadful and domineering. “Ah, how was planting today, Grandmother?” she asked her.

“Never mind such business,” Madame told her granddaughter to mind her station and we sat stoically at the table almost as if waiting for the gaggle of servants to enter as they had prior to this war.

“I prepared a soup and some meat,” I said finally breaking the silence and reaching for the ladle.

“I should wonder if I really want to know the type of meat you prepared or could even taste the difference given the amount of salt you put in the food to compensate for your lack of culinary ability,” Madame said harshly. She had always been blunt but there was outright contempt in her voice. Her granddaughter giggled but my son said nothing.

“It is dried beef that I boiled to moisten,” I admitted it hardly seemed appetizing but our larder was nearly bare and we had reason to be thankful for even these scraps.

“We’ll soon be munching on the bitter leather of the plow straps, I fear” Madame sounded concerned.

“Won’t you need them for Cornelia, Grandmother?” She giggled – the younger girl knew of what I had done. She had too. My eyes grew wide.

“We only need one set of straps and your grandfather the Captain, god rest his sould would suffer no talk of plantation business at the table! I shant begin the practice now,” she explained as she tapped some rather hard bread in an attempt to find an edible part.

My son looked at me with so many questions in his eyes but I had nothing but shame about what I had done that day. I was glad for the reprieve from explanation but I would have to tell him something at some point.

We ate in mostly silence and after prayers we went to our respective bedrooms. My son came to visit me.

“Charles, you are out of bed?” I asked with surprise. Even though he was capable of walking and sat for dinner he usually got tired afterwards and went to sleep right away.

“Yes! I have so many questions. What did Madame Parrish mean about all of that?” he asked me wide-eyed and curious.

“I help with the farming. We have a lot of land to till and plow for planting and I must get my rest, Charles” I insisted. He objected and said he had read so many books about farming and wanted to help but I didn’t want to provide him with any of the details.

There was no more rooster to crow at sunrise but you could always feel the warmth of the Georgia Sun as it shone through the windows of the stately plantation and knew it was time to wake up. I was surprised to feel instead a cold bucket of water across my face in my bed.

I squawked and saw Madame standing over me with bucket. “Cease your prattle, you’ll wake the spirits of the dead.”

“This was absolutely unnecessary!” I insisted that pouring water on me was beyond the pale.

“I had tried to gently wake you for thirty minutes and we’ve only now a few minutes before daybreak! Yet, you claim this minor annoyance was unnecessary? Do you know what the overseers would have done to you if you had insisted on sleeping in like this?” she said.

“I should hardly think I would!” I insisted that as I was not a slave nor privy to the training of them that I would have no idea of the nature of their discipline.

“They would have either drug you behind their horses and then dunked you head first into the creek or made you to carry buckets such as these attached to your teats with water for the day!” she said. It sounded so brutal and cruel that I could hardly understand how people were capable of treating anyone – even a slave with such callousness.

“Don’t look so shaken, you haven’t the breasts to carry two buckets of water even if I had the desire to teach you such a lesson, now off with your wet clothes and let us be about the business of planting” Madame insisted.

I could hardly believe she expected me to walk through the house in nothing but underskirts. She insisted that the others were asleep and unless I wanted them to see me this way I would hurry.

I got out of my soaking bed and removed the linens and set them to dry while Madame lamented it would be easier to keep me in a barn. It seemed as though she considered me not much above one of her slaves or pack animals. I hurried and produced a fresh underskirt with which to wear today. She asked me why I would bother.

“My modesty, of course!” I insisted as I clutched the skirts to my waist.

“You swam as nature made you outside without modesty last night, did you not?” she asked and when I nodded she pointed out that the skirts would only get dirty and torn. “You’ll move a lot quicker if the strap connects directly with your buttocks in any case,” she insisted.

I protested but Madame told me that if I did not want to receive the strap then and there in the center of the main house for all to see that I should be about the business of planting this morning without complaint.

Reluctantly, I followed her to the plot of land we were to till. It had rained lightly despite the dryness of the air last night and the straps were wet and the soil was thick and muddy. Madame made a disgusted face and then with a determined look insisted that I accept the straps again as I had before – this time wrapping them not only around my waist and chest, but my neck and thighs. She bound my hands behind me and we began to pull.

This time it was much, much harder than before. My muscles ached from the previous days hardships and Madame showed no sympathy. She doubled her whippings directly on my bare buttocks like I was an insolent child and made me pull forward.

About noonday when I was complaining of thirst she swore that she would add a leather bit for me to bite down on to cease my ‘constant chatter’. She allowed me to drink from the water but did not unbind my hands behind me. I felt she feared I might throttle the cruel woman for working me so hard but she too was feeling the Georgia heat as we worked and the sweat dripped from her brow. Her face displayed the worry that we were going about this the wrong way and that we couldn’t possibly survive.