By MRS. L. A.
LITTLE, (formerly MRS. DAN SESSONS)
Colonel Dan
Sessions and I and our little baby came up on the Belle Lee from
Linwood, Chicot County, Arkansas, our former home, to Australia Landing,
Bolivar County, Mississippi. We arrived just about sundown, hitched the horse
to the buggy-both of which we had brought with us-and drove up to the
plantation. The lower half of the place had grown up in saplings, cane, and
briers, with just a bridle path leading to the house. The briers were so close
they became entangled in the fringe of my much prized shawl when the horse was
trotting at rapid gait. My husband just cut the fringe and left it decorating
the briers.
How my heart fell when we reached
the house. It was a two room log house with an open hall between the rooms, the
holes chinked with mud, and it had never been whitewashed. This contrasted with
the handsome home from which we came, gave me a feeling of having dropped from
high aspirations to dire reality. Inside the room there was a mantel of one
board, too high for me to reach, on which was a tallow candle in a brass
candle-stick. The old gentleman who lived there had done his best to prepare
for my coming by putting his large bear-skin rug by my bed. I was invited in to
supper in the next room. The cook was a plantation hand, and such a supper it
was - bacon floating in grease, biscuit the size of an orange with hard blue
centers, a small bit of brown sugar in a broken tumbler, and a small cake of
butter in a large vegetable dish, with a very much worn piece of oilcloth
serving as a tablecloth. My appetite failed me, and but for consideration of my
husband, I should have indulged in a good cry. The next morning my husband told
me I must choose which of the rooms I wished for ours, as the old man who owned
the place would sell but half of it now. We took the room in which we had our
supper, as it was nearest to the kitchen, cistern, and lock-up. There was a
little lean-to that served as a pantry and storeroom. The old man from whom we
bought the place could not get labor and he proposed that we form a
partnership, he to furnish the land and Mr. Sessions to furnish the labor and
control the crops. My husband's old slaves had never left him. He had taken them
to Texas during the war, and when they were freed, they followed him back to
Arkansas and then to Bolivar County and remained with him until they died. Mr.
Sessions had raised many of them from childhood and was uniformly kind and just
to them; in fact, too lenient, as he found it hard to deny them anything they
asked for. There was a great deal of clearing, timber cutting and cutting of
canebrakes, repairing houses, building new ones, and rebuilding fences to be
done, but he managed very well. The wolves would come up in packs to our gin
and howl until the Negroes' dogs would sally forth and scare them away. The
bears were numerous. They came into the corn fields and stole the corn, until
Mr. Sessions had a frame made on which a watchman could stand, protected from
their sight, to shoot them. The Negroes said that the bears would pull down the
fences just as a man would, step over, and go up and down the corn rows, select
the heavy ears, hold them in their arms, and walk out with their loads as
though they had human intelligence. A few effective shots soon broke them from
coming in.
It
was not long before we got home affairs going nicely. With plenty of chickens,
ducks, turkeys, and hogs, we could furnish our table well. We brought our own
cook and we had palatable food, and home itself was very comfortable, but I
craved the companionship of cultivated ladies. There was no church nearer than
Concordia, eight miles distant, no physician, except for one in Concordia; the
roads were almost impassable, and the law prohibited driving on the levee,
except during low water. There had never been any public drainage;
consequently, the lagoons were good breeding places for mosquitoes, which gave
great discomfort. We had to make smudges and use newspapers for puttees if we
were not under good bars, for none of the houses was screened; neither had we
telephones nor electricity. Think of the crudeness of our lives. There was a
lake just above the house that had many alligators in it. They would come up into the quarter lot for pigs and would not have declined
a little pickaninny; but the mothers had such a horror of them that they did
not allow the children to play on the bank of the lake alone.
There
was great sport for the men hunting bear, with good hounds for the work. Bear
were trapped, also. One way was to hang up a bottle of honey on a low bough of
a tree and place the trap under it; the bear would step in the trap while
trying to get the honey. Good hunters killed alligators and sold their hides
for good prices. I never heard of alligator meat being eaten, but bear meat was
salted and dried, as was venison. It was told of one of the bear hunters that
while under the influence of whiskey, forgetting where he had placed one of his
traps, he walked into it himself and found it impossible to release himself and
had to stand prisoner until some men, hearing his cries for help, came to his
assistance. Of course, he had to stand much fun at his expense.
The
fishing in Lake Charles was fine, and the woods abounded in game of all kinds,
including wild turkeys. In the winter the lakes were good hunting grounds for
ducks and wild geese. The trees afforded logs for building houses, the pecans
and walnut trees, nuts; and the muscadines, our wine, of which I made a barrel
every year. I sold a cow with a young calf, bought fruit trees with the money,
and set out an orchard with one Negro to help me do the work. There were no
insects to bother us in those days, and we had an abundance of fruit. My
husband bought me a cider mill, and I made cider, also using the mill in making
wines. We killed eighteen hogs every winter, and I saved the cracklins and made
all the soap used on the place. The men would assemble at the landing every
Sunday and play cards and drink whiskey, while their wives stayed home nursing
the babies. I was determined that my husband should give me his attention that
special day, and we would either make a visit to one of our neighbors or have
some of them visit us; and he was quite willing to gratify me. On one of these
visits seven miles east of our home, we visited the home of a lovely family.
After dinner, they asked us to go with them to see their young orchard and
flower garden. Inside the gate, the wife slipped her arm around my waist and
drew me to a little bed of flowers. I could tell that she was greatly
distressed, and looking among the flowers, I saw a little mound and realized
the cause of her grief. At last she said, "I laid my baby here without a
prayer, without a song," and then her heart overflowed with grief. I led
her out of the garden and under a tree on the grounds. I soothed her the best I
could. I told her the women of the community were to blame for not having a
church and a minister in their midst. She replied she would second me in any move
that I would make. We agreed to call a meeting of all the ladies within seven
miles of the landing and see what could be done. We made a list of all the
women either of us knew, and on my way back home I got my husband to stop at
the store of Mr. Lyman, a one-armed Confederate engaged in the mercantile
business there. I asked this gentleman to let me have the use of one of his
rooms the following Sunday. He willingly consented. I then wrote to all the
ladies, stating that I had been requested to inform them that there was to be a
meeting of all the ladies in the neighborhood the next Sunday at the store of
Mr. Lyman, and that I hoped they would be there. I knew the men would be sure
to go to the landing, and I hoped they would bring their wives with them.
When my husband took me there at the
appointed time, there were only three ladies present, a personal friend of
mine, Mrs. Butler, a Mrs. Brown, and a Mrs. Smith - rather discouraging. But
Christ has promised that "Where two or three are gathered together in my
name there will I be also," and it proved true then, as always. We had a
note from one of the ladies saying that she did not think Sunday was the proper
day to discuss business. We wrote her just to name any day that suited her, and
we would gladly join her. I felt sure that if we could only have one service,
it would become interesting. I therefore asked a lady at the landing if she
would permit services to be held in one of the rooms of her house the following
Sunday, and she willingly agreed. I then wrote to Mr. Hughes at Concordia
asking him to preach for us the next Sunday afternoon; upon his replying that
he would, I placed notices in every public place.
When I reached the house designated, on Sunday
afternoon, I found the house full, the yard full, and great enthusiasm. I got
my husband to take up a collection for the minister, who agreed to give us
every Sunday afternoon and two sermons on every fifth Sunday. I felt sure we
would have a church now; and finding an abandoned store, I bought it, employed
a carpenter, and had it ready for services by the next Sunday evening. The Kate
Adams, our weekly packet, not only contributed but sent us a handsome Bible
and hymn book. Two sisters in the neighborhood had their melodeon brought up
and led the music, and those fifth Sundays
were a joy to the' neighborhood. Each lady would bring a basket; we would
spread our tablecloths on top of the levee, and spread the contents of our
baskets all together. People from quite a distance would attend and always find
a welcome. A terrible snow storm caused the roof of the church to break at a
time when I was sick. An old lady came to me and said she thought the men
should build a church, and the ladies let it alone; I replied that I was
perfectly willing for the men to build it, if they would, but I was determined
that it should be built, and if the measures had not been effected by the time
I was well, I would take the matter in hand. Circumstances proved that I had it
to do, and we worked with such energy that we soon had a new church.
We
now began to realize trouble. First, small pox on the plantation carried off so many of the negroes that we were short of
labor. Fortunately, we had three white men from Illinois who proposed making a
corn crop. They were about to leave the place on account of small pox, but I
took them into my own house, cooked, and washed for them, and they made the
crop, which netted us $1000 from surplus corn. We could not get a physician for
the small pox patients, and as my husband had to be away most of the time, it
devolved on me to do all I could for them. I found one old man who was immune,
so I hired him to wait upon the sick and report to me the condition of each
one. I read doctors' books and would tell him what to do every morning. I made
two gallons of tea, sweetened it to my taste, also made a peck of thin biscuit,
and had him give a pint of tea and two biscuits to each convalescent. At
dinner, I would give them beef soup and crackers, and in this -way I soon had
the epidemic checked and the dismal tolling of the bell stopped.
I saved the lives of many, and they
were soon coming out again, showing by their pocked faces the ordeal they had
undergone. I had to be both doctor and surgeon in many instances. I had to put
the left breast back on a Negro. I used adhesive straps, as I could not make a
needle go through the skin. We could not get a doctor, so I waited on this
Negro one month and cured him. I also had to doctor two severe ginsaw cuts, one
bullet wound, a stabbing wound, and numerous malarial cases. But I never
refused to answer a call, day or night. I had, also, cases of congestion.
The only amusing experience during my
life as a plantation doctor was when I was asked to see a monkey. The owner was
in great distress. He said that his monkey and his organ were all he had with
which to make a living for himself and his family. I told him I would certainly
do all I could for the suffering little monkey. I felt its pulse, looked at its
tongue, measured out the medicine, and gave the man instructions about nursing
it and giving it the medicine, but told him that he must let me feed it until
it was well, which it soon was, to the unbounded delight of its owner, who
called down every blessing he could upon me.
The overflow of 1882 proved very
disastrous to us, making the crops late and causing much sickness to both man
and beast. The buffalo gnat gave charbon to the stock and cows. I had such a
hard time during the overflow with sick children that I took my two little ones
to Jacksonville, Illinois, to which place my husband soon followed. We returned
in September much refreshed and able to work again.
Editor's note: The above was taken from two
articles written by Senator W. B. Roberts. Senator Roberts came to Bolivar
County in 1882; seventeen years after negro rule had been established in the
county and eight years before it was abolished.