Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise Page 4

  Shortly both slaves were called into Mr. Speake’s office. By then, Mr. Stanley was standing in the corner, gravely observing the proceedings. On Mr. Speake’s desk lay the bucket of Malmsey wine and another of sweet syrup, found stashed in the backyard under a cloth, behind a tree where Samuel often sat. Along the way Mr. Kennicy had produced a number of other goods—candles, cans of sardines, and hard candies that he claimed he found hidden in another corner. Shortly an interrogation of the slaves began.

  “How is it,” Mr. Speake demanded to know of Dan, “that these items were found hidden in your loft?”

  “Seems likely they could have fallen out a box,” said Samuel. And Dan added: “I swear I’ve never seen those things before. Lord knows how they got there.”

  “Come, now, then—how can you explain this theft?”

  They had no answer, though Samuel did his cause good by getting down on his knees and begging for Mr. Speake’s forgiveness. Not so with Dan, who showed a bedeviled side of himself that I had never seen before. “I ain’t ’pologizing to nobody. I did what I did, that’s all.”

  “Then you shall be instantly dismissed,” said Mr. Speake. And with that he took a rod and struck Dan across the face, then hit him in the back as he turned and tried to run away. I wanted to put a stop to the punishment, but Mr. Stanley laid his hand firmly on my shoulder. Looking down at me, he said, “You’ve done a fine thing today, Mr. Rowlands. But do not concern yourself with what you cannot change.” By then, Mr. Kennicy had taken his switch and started beating both slaves. They were curled up on the floor, his blows striking all over their bodies, tearing their clothes and leaving slicks of blood on each. Their cause was not helped by Dan’s stubbornness and the curses he put on Mr. Speake: “You been a good boss, but I hope you die, and soon!”

  Constable McPhearson soon arrived, and, putting them in chains, he led them away, Dan cursing the white men and Samuel lamenting, “Oh, my po’ children, my po’, po’ children; what will they do?”

  Back then I was softer-hearted: For all I had already seen of the abuses that men put upon other men, I could not help but think about Dan’s expression whenever he’d sit out front during his lunchtime, eating with delight a piece of biscuit with some jam on it, his innocence and thorough pleasure bringing to mind the joys of a child. Mr. Stanley, seeing my disturbed state, said, “I know what you’re thinking, young man—that the punishment awaiting them is far greater than the crime. Feel no grief for them—they brought it on themselves.”

  The same afternoon they were stripped practically naked, tied to a post, and publicly flogged, after which they were confined to a windowless shed in the constable’s yard for a month. Eventually forgiven, Samuel was reinstated in the warehouse, while Dan, sound of body, was put up for auction and sold to an Arkansas planter for four hundred and fifty dollars, his days to be spent upriver working from the early morning to night, picking cotton. For his actions Mr. Kennicy was given a raise of two dollars a week, a fair sum in those days. As for myself, Mr. Stanley, on his way out of the warehouse, gave me his card and invited me to his house on St. Charles Avenue the next Sunday for a breakfast banquet with his wife and some of their friends.

  WHEN THAT AUSPICIOUS DAY CAME I put on my newly bought finery and made my way into the prosperous neighborhood where Mr. Stanley and his wife, Frances, resided. Like so many of the other grand domiciles on St. Charles Avenue, it was of a neoclassical construction and finely painted white. It had a wide portico entranceway and a front veranda that looked out over a blossoming garden. Up some grand steps I went, pulling on the rope of a bell: A well-dressed slave let me inside and led me into a small sitting room, much like a library, as it contained many books, where Mr. Stanley and his quaint wife, Frances, were waiting.

  “This is the clerk I told you about—John Rowlands, the one who reads the Bible,” Mr. Stanley said. And with that, his wife, a frail-seeming but delicately featured little woman who wore an angelic white dress, rich with embroidered silk, extended her little hand toward me and told me to sit beside her.

  “My husband tells me you possess a fine character. But I am wondering what you can tell me about yourself, so that I will have something to say to our gathering about you.”

  “Well, I am eighteen years old, from Wales, and, I think, fairly well educated for my class. And good with numbers and facts. I can read Latin and Greek, and I can speak French fairly well, though I’ve never been to France, and the Welsh dialect.” Then: “I have begun to read Plutarch’s Lives.”

  “And of your mother and father, what can you say?”

  “I have none, ma’am.” I looked away. “But I know the difference between right and wrong, as I was taught so from an early age.”

  “Then you should know,” she told me, “that you are most welcome here; you see, we have no son of our own.”

  And getting up, with the assistance of Mr. Stanley, she led the way into the dining room, where their guests, about a dozen or so of New Orleans’s finest citizens, bejeweled and perfumed, were gathered around a long table and already in the midst of various discourses. Once Mr. Stanley had taken his place at the head of the table and led the group in a prayer, an Irish maid came in to serve the dishes.

  It was the consensus of the group that the prosperity of the South was built upon the necessity of slavery, that it was no one’s right to interfere with such a proven tradition, and that in countries where the slave trade had been reduced, such as the British West Indies, conditions for the slaves and planters only worsened. Besides, to free the slaves would be to court disaster: “Think,” someone said, “about the revolt in Haiti fifty years ago, when the slaves rose up and cruelly butchered their white masters, whether man, woman, or child.”

  And who among them ever mistreated any slaves or punished a slave who did not deserve it?

  “I have decided to free my slaves upon my death,” said a gallant gentleman. “And to provide each with twenty dollars cash: Now, where is the crime in that?”

  “And what of the immorality of abolition?” asked another. “Is it not thought a crime for a man to have money picked from his pocket? Why, then, should the abolitionists think it moral to take from a man his three-and four-hundred-dollar investment in a property?”

  “I’ve seen some abused slaves brought in from Natchez,” said another. “Fellows close to being dead, and I purchased them anyway and presided over the restoration of their health.”

  The room resounded with “Hear, hear.”

  Then, startling me, he added: “But let us hear a new voice. Master Rowlands, have you, new to this country, yet formed any opinion on this issue?”

  I gulped down some juice, and then, stuttering somewhat, spoke of my observations.

  “Well, sirs, I don’t know much at all of the subject of slaves, except for what I have seen with my own ignorant eyes. In Wales, there wasn’t even one about. But here such Africans are everywhere, and sometimes I have spoken to such folks. Are they trustworthy? I cannot say. Are they deserving of their captivity? Sometimes this is a very great mystery to me, for I do not know how I would feel if I were owned by another man.”

  A silence met my remarks. Perceiving the deadness of expressions around me and the blanching of Mr. Stanley’s face, I decided that I had perhaps not spoken in an entirely approving way of a system in which this gathering was strongly invested.

  I bowed to my listeners and took my place beside Mrs. Stanley, who had started to fan herself, as if the room had become too warm, and I became convinced that it might have been better had I said nothing at all.

  Smiling, Mr. Stanley later said to me: “You are still young and have much to learn about the world. It is one thing to speak of matters based solely on impressions; another to speak from a deeper knowledge. But it is my hope that, in time, you will become more than what you are.” Then, thinking that perhaps I really knew nothing about the matter of slavery in that city, I decided to learn something more of it.

  AS IT WAS
MY CUSTOM to take an occasional walk during my lunch hour, one late morning—it was a Saturday—I decided to visit the slave market on Canal Street. The building was a large, square, two-story edifice surrounded by twelve-foot-high walls, their tops embedded with shards of glass. An odor of an untended outhouse hung in the air, as did the smells of captive humanity. A few dogs roamed about, looking for scraps of food. Entering into an inner courtyard from the street, I could see the many cells in which the slaves were kept, with their heavy oak doors lining the inner courtyard walls. A murmur of voices was audible through their metal gratings. Wandering about, I happened upon the entranceway of a room, the guard’s house, on whose walls hung all kinds of apparatuses: manacles, iron collars, chains, and handcuffs as well as devices like thumbscrews and pincers of an unusual size. Among the other visitors to that place was a crowd of New Orleans citizens, all finely dressed, who had happened by during their strolls to take things in, as the courtyard was visible from the street. Then the clanging of a bell, the signal for the sale to begin.

  Quietly I watched as a line of male slaves was marched out and arranged from tallest to shortest, each having been outfitted with shoes, trousers, a shirt, and jacket; some were in the prime of youth, strong-limbed and clear-eyed; the others, very old and weary of life, were to be had at bargain prices if anyone wanted them. The women, some with their children, were lined up on the other side of the courtyard. Wearing bright calico dresses and silken bandannas around their heads, they were arranged in order of their beauty and youth, the first in that line a woman, who could not have been more than seventeen or so, weeping profusely as she stood waiting, with her head bowed, for that proceeding to begin. The eldest was a toothless and anguished-looking woman of perhaps forty, her back bent and right hand shaking from the years she had already spent in the cotton fields, resigned to the fate that she would be likely “thrown in” for nothing as part of someone’s purchase.

  Naturally, the strongest males and loveliest of the women were sold quickly—the highest price being one thousand dollars for a young “buck” in such superb condition that his new master must have reckoned he would be good for at least twenty years of fruitful labor.

  “You have a name?”

  “Yes, sir. Thomas.”

  “You know how to pick cotton?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re a good worker?”

  “I’ve been told so, sir, yes.”

  “Then why is your master selling you?”

  “He had to sell everything, on account of his owing.”

  “How many years was you his slave?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Did he ever strike you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or whip you, for coming up short in your pickings?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And never once did he beat you for disobedience?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two, come winter.”

  “And your teeth are good?”

  “Yes, sir. I ain’t never been sick. ’Cept once.”

  “Then you will do.”

  The buyer then turned to the slave trader and said, “I’ll take this boy and the pretty girl, too.”

  Later I walked back to the store, wondering for the life of me how such dealings went on each morning, six days a week.

  Though my mind had not been put at ease by what I had seen on that morning, there is some truth to the notion that even the worst things, once absorbed through constant exposure, become matters of acceptance; and while my heart, with its surplus of harsh memories, was injured by such sights, a shell of denial developed around me.

  IT TURNED OUT THAT, whatever my shortcomings, Mr. Stanley had seen in me the raw materials of a gentleman: Not a week after I had dined with him, I received another invitation to his house for a Sunday breakfast. On that occasion, we went to church and afterward took a carriage ride out to a local resort by Lake Pontchartrain, north of the city center, for lunch, a routine that was repeated on subsequent Sundays whenever he remained in town. In the process, Mr. Stanley, as a former minister, set straightaway to improving my spiritual outlook, for he had noticed that I sometimes dozed off during the Sunday services. His suspicions about my faith aroused, he would make inquiries as to whether I bothered to pray at all. When I confessed that I was lapsed in that regard, he made me promise to get down on my knees each morning and evening to say an Our Father.

  THAT NIGHT, I RECITED the one prayer I knew well—the Our Father in Welsh. It goes as follows:

  Ein Tad, yr hwn wyt yn y nefoedd. Sancteiddier dy enw. Deled dy deyrnas. Gweneler dy ewyllys, megis yn y nef, felly ar y ddaear hefyd. Dyro i ni heddyiw ein bara beunyddiol. A maddeu i ni ein dyledion, fel y maddeuwn ninnau i’n dyledwyr. Ac nac arwain ni i brofedigaeth; eithr gwared ni rhag y drwg. Canys eiddot ti yw y deyrnas, a’r nerth, a’r gogoniant, yn oe oesoedd. Amen.

  I repeated it again and again, waiting to be moved to a stronger faith.

  IN THE MEANTIME, MY POSITION at the firm only strengthened: It became Mr. Speake’s custom to call me into the office from time to time to make inquiries about the personnel and whether I had, of late, noticed any new “irregularities” of behavior. During his inquiries, Mr. Kennicy came often to mind. In his successful “discovery” of the slaves’ theft, Mr. Kennicy had been rewarded, but he seemed to be more of a drunk than before and increasingly irritable around the clerks. As for the slaves, after spending a month in one of the prison sheds, Samuel, as I mentioned, had been brought back to work, thank God, and a young man named Jim came in to take Dan’s place: It was their misfortune to have Mr. Kennicy to contend with.

  Despite my dislike for Mr. Kennicy, I had no need to mention his continuing alcoholism to Mr. Speake. Aside from refusing to be a snitch, I agreed with the consensus among the other clerks that he would sooner or later cook in his own juice. One day, during my third month there, Mr. Kennicy came back from his lunch hour so drunk and in a rile over some failed matter of romance that he tumbled headlong into Mr. Speake’s office; so apparent was his state that Mr. Speake summarily dismissed him. I was given yet another raise, to thirty dollars a month, and some of Mr. Kennicy’s bookkeeping duties as well.

  The Summer of 1859

  IN THAT SUMMER OF 1859, while Mr. Stanley had gone upriver again, I still made my Sunday visits to his wife. It was this continued contact with her that had perhaps kept me closer to piety than not. For in those days, without such godly influences, I might have well succumbed to the lurid delights of the city.

  But I remained careful: The gains I had made, since my days on the Windermere, had precipitated in me a great cautiousness about life, one that has served me well. I had few indulgences—food, I am afraid to say, being one of them. And in those days I was greatly tempted to see a play, my interest having been piqued by a production of Hamlet put on by Ben DeBar’s theatrical troupe, its theme of patricide vaguely interesting me (I did not go, as I was afraid of squandering my money, and besides, Mr. Stanley had given me a copy of the play to read). On the Fourth of July, there had been a spectacular display of pinwheeling fireworks that lasted for hours. Dense, boozy crowds gathered along the squares and sidewalks in awe, as the skies above went ablaze with a bursting conflagration that could be seen from many miles away, but even then I chose to spend the night up in my attic room at Mrs. Williams’s, reading my books.

  I suppose I believed that I did not want to tempt fate by any departure from routine, for I counted myself very fortunate in those days. But the future, seemingly so secure in one moment, I learned, could be swiftly disrupted.

  IN THIS INSTANCE, I MUST RECALL the newspaper article I had read aloud to Mr. Stanley when we first met. In it, the health officials of the city had warned of the possibility of a yellow fever epidemic, and by midsummer, it had come true, though I was surely among the last to have noticed. Even when I had heard Mr. Richardson declare one morning, with some concern,
that an unhealthy time had descended upon New Orleans.

  I had observed for some days that my employer, Mr. Speake, was looking a little more drawn than usual, that his brow was often covered with perspiration, and that he seemed too short of breath for a man so thin of body—just walking across the sales floor seemed to exhaust him. All kinds of worrisome lines had begun to cross his face, which, I surmised, had come from some disappointment, perhaps in business. Though it was not my place to do so, as one of his more valued employees, I had been tempted to suggest to Mr. Speake that he see a doctor. As this had already been suggested by Mr. Richardson—Mr. Speake, refusing to do so, had called his low physical state a “passing thing”—there was not much any of the clerks could do but attend to our usual duties. But then there came a day when Mr. Speake did not arrive at the warehouse, a message having been sent by his wife, Cornelia, that he was resting at home. That was followed by three more days of his absence. Then one morning, as the clerks were just settling down to work, there came a second message: Mr. Speake, like his former partner, Mr. McCreary, was dead.

  A crisis within the warehouse ensued. The slaves were sent home, the doors closed, and the clerks and I headed that very morning to Mr. Speake’s residence, which was on the corner of Girod and Carondelet Streets, to comfort his grieving widow. We spent most of the day in her company, speculating among ourselves, with some anxiety, about what might happen to the warehouse. When a respectable amount of time had passed and we had prepared to leave, she, by way of according me some special honor, asked that I spend the evening in her company. This I did not refuse. When my fellow clerks had gone off, I remained behind with the widow, who had touched me deeply by weeping in my arms—that I hardly knew her didn’t seem to matter.