Home > Authors Index > George Manville Fenn > Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah > This page
Mass' George: A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
||
Chapter 3 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER THREE. With a new place, every touch makes a difference; and when some of those touches are given by the hand of a gardener, nature begins to help. It was so at our Georgia home. Every bit of time my father or Morgan could find to spare, they were digging, or trimming, or planting, till Sarah would set to and grumble to me because they would not come in to their meals. "I wouldn't care, sir," she would say, "only the supper's getting spoiled." "But the home made more beautiful," replied my father; and then I have heard him say as he glanced through the window at flower and tree flourishing wonderfully in that beautiful climate, "If my poor wife had lived to see all this!" Early and late worked Morgan, battling with the wild vines and beautiful growths that seemed to be always trying to make the garden we were redeeming from the wilderness come back to its former state. But he found time to gratify me, and he would screw up his dry Welsh face and beckon to me sometimes to bring a stick and hunt out squirrel, coon, or some ugly little alligator, which he knew to be hiding under the roots of a tree in some pool. Then, as much to please me as for use, a punt was bought from the owners of a brig which had sailed across from Bristol to make her last voyage, being condemned to breaking up at our infant port. The boat, however, was nearly new, and came into my father's hands complete, with mast, sail, ropes, and oars; and it was not long before I gained the mastery over all that it was necessary to learn in the management. Morgan's fishing-tackle came into use, and after a little instruction and help from the Welshman, I began to wage war upon the fish in our stream and in the river, catching, beside, ugly little reptiles of the tortoise or turtle family--strange objects to be hauled up from muddy depths at one end of a line, but some of them very good eating all the same. The little settlement throve as the time went on, and though the Indians were supposed to be threatening, and to look with very little favour upon the settlement so near their hunting-grounds, all remained peaceful, and we had nothing but haughty overbearing words from our Spanish neighbours. To a man the officers and gentlemen who had come out turned their attention to agriculture, and many were the experiments tried, and successfully too. At one estate cotton was growing; at another, where there was a lot of rich low land easily flooded, great crops of rice were raised. Here, as I walked round with my father, we passed broad fields of sugar-cane, and farther on the great crinkled-leaved Indian corn flourished wonderfully, with its flower tassels, and beautiful green and then orange-buff ears of hard, sweet, flinty corn. Then came long talks about the want of more help, and one of the settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But before many months had passed there was hardly a settler without slave labour, the principal exception being my father. It is hard to paint a picture in words, but I should like those who read this to understand what my home was like when I was about twelve years old, a great strong healthy boy, with cheeks burned brown by the sun. Our place began with one low erection, divided by a rough partition into two--our room and the Morgans'; most of our meals being eaten in the big rustic porch contrived by Morgan in what he called his spare time, and over which ran wildly the most beautiful passion-flower I had ever seen. But then as wood was abundant, and a saw-pit had been erected, a more pretentious one-floored cottage residence was planned to join on to the first building, which before long was entirely devoted to the servants; and we soon had a very charming little home with shingle roof, over which beautiful creepers literally rioted, and hung down in festoons from our windows. Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild garden dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled with every kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able to get together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south, grape-vines flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance, and such fruits familiar to English people at home as would bear the climate filled the garden. My father's estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of assistance confining his efforts to a comparatively small garden; but he used to say to me, in his quiet, grave way-- "We might grow more useful things, George, but we could not make the place more beautiful." And I often used to think so, as I gazed out of my window at the wild forest, and the openings leading down to the stream and away to the swamp, where I could hear the alligators barking and bellowing at night, with a feeling half dread, half curiosity, and think that some day I should live to see one that I had caught or killed myself, close at hand. Now and then Morgan used to call me to come and see where a 'gator, as he called it, had been in the night, pointing out its track right up to the rough fence of the garden. "You and I'll have a treat one of these days, my lad." "Yes," I used to say; "but when?" "Oh, one of these days when I'm not busy." "Ah, Morgan," I used to say, impatiently, "when you're not busy: when will that be?" "Be? One o' these days when we've cut down all the wood, and turned all that low flat swamp into plantation. You see I'm so busy just now." "Oh, very well," I said, "I shall go by myself." "That you won't, look you," he cried. "I heard you promise your father you wouldn't go alone. You're not much of a boy, but you're too good to feed alligators with, or let the rattlesnakes and 'cassins try their pyson on." "But they wouldn't, I should take care." "Take care? Do you know, there's 'gators big as trees in these swamp-holes. I shouldn't wonder if there's some of the old open-countenanced beauties big round as houses. Why, Master George, I believe there's fellows out there as old as the river, and as could take you as easy as I do a pill." "Don't believe it." "_Ve_-ry well then; only mind, if one does take you across the middle, give you a pitch up in the air, and then catch you head-first and swallow you, don't you blame me." "Why, how could I, if he swallowed me?" I said. "Oh, I don't know. You might holler or knock, if you had a stick in your hand." "What stuff!" "Oh, is it! There's plenty of room in 'em, and they're as hard as horn. But you take my advice, and don't try." "Well, then, come with me; I know several holes where I think they live." "How do you know that?" "Because I've seen the footmarks leading down to them all plain in the mud." "Then you've been going too far, and don't you run no risks again." I walked away discontentedly, as I'd often walked away before, wishing that I had a companion of my own age. Some of the gentlemen settled out there had sons; but they were away, and at times the place seemed very lonely; but I fancy now that was only just before a storm, or when everything felt strange and depressing. At other times I was happy enough. Every morning I had three hours' good study with my father, who very rarely let me neglect that. Then in the afternoon there was always something to do or something to see and help over. For, as far as my father's means would allow, he planned and contrived endless things to make our home more attractive and convenient. One week it would be the contriving of rough tree-trunk steps down from the bank to the water's edge, so that the boat was easily reached, and ringbolts were driven into cut-down trees, which became natural posts for mooring the boat. Another time during one of our walks, he stopped by a lovely pool out toward the swamp--a spot of about an acre and a half in extent, where the trees kept off the wind, and where the morning sun seemed to light up the bottom, showing every pebble and every fish as if seen through crystal glass. "There," he said, "that will be ten times better than bathing in the river. I always feel a little nervous about you there. This shall be your own private bathing-pool, where you can learn to swim to your heart's content. That old fallen hickory will do for your dressing-room, and there are places to hang up your clothes. I don't think you can come to harm here." Of course I was delighted, and at the same time a little disappointed; for the fact that the pool was perfectly safe took away somewhat from its attractiveness, and I began to think that there was no stream to carry one along; no very deep places to swim over and feel a thrill at the danger; no holes in the banks where an alligator might be smiling pleasantly as he thought how good a boy would be to eat. _ |
||