English books never fail to make honorable mention of a “roast of beef,” “a leg of mutton,” “a dish of potatoes,” “a dish of tea,” &c., while with us the abundance of such things gave them, we thought, not enough importance to be particularized. Still my reminiscences extend to these.

Every Virginia housewife knew how to compound all the various dishes in Mrs. Randolph’s Cookery book, and our tables were filled with every species of meat and vegetable to be found on a plantation; with every kind of cakes, jellies and blanc-mange to be concocted out of eggs, butter and cream, besides an endless catalogue of preserves, sweet meats, pickles and condiments. So that in the matter of good living, both in abundance and the manner of serving, a Virginia plantation could not be excelled.

The first speciality being good loaf bread, there was always a hot loaf for breakfast, hot corn bread for dinner and a hot loaf for supper. Every house was famed for its loaf bread, and, said a gentleman once to me: “Although at each place it is superb, yet each loaf differs from another loaf, preserving distinct characteristics which would enable me to distinguish, instantly, should there be a convention of loaves, the Oaklands loaf from the Greenfield loaf, and the Avenel loaf from the Rustic Lodge loaf.”

And apropos of this gentleman, whom, it is needless to add, was a celebrated connoisseur in this matter of loaf bread, it was a noticeable fact with our cook, that whenever he came to our house the bread in trying to do its best always did its worst!

Speaking of bread, another gentleman expressed his belief that at the last great day, it will be found that more housewives will be punished on account of light bread than anything else; for he knew some who were never out of temper except when the light bread failed!

Time would fail me to dwell, as I should, upon the incomparable rice waffles, and beat biscuit, and muffins, and laplands, and Marguerites, and flannel cakes, and French rolls, and velvet rolls, and ladies-fingers constantly brought by relays of small servants, during breakfast, hot and hotter from the kitchen. Then the tea waiters handed at night, with the beef tongue, the sliced ham, the grated cheese, the cold turkey, the dried venison, the loaf bread buttered hot, the batter-cakes, crackers, the quince marmalade, the wafers all pass in review before me.

The first time I ever heard of a manner of living different from this, was when it became important for my mother to make a visit to a great aunt in Baltimore, and she went for the first time out of her native State—neither herself nor her mother had ever been out of Virginia. My mother was accompanied by her maid, Kitty, on this expedition, and when they returned both had many astounding things to relate. My grandmother threw up her hands in amazement on hearing that some of the first ladies in the city, who visited old aunt, confined the conversation of a morning call to the subject of the faults of their hired servants. “Is it possible?” exclaimed the old lady. “I never considered it well bred to mention servants or their faults in company.”

Indeed, in our part of the world, a mistress became offended if the faults of her servants were alluded to, just as persons become displeased when the faults of their children are discussed.

Maid Kitty’s account of this visit, I will give as well as I can remember in her own words, as she described it to her fellow-servants: “You never see sich a way for people to live! Folks goes to bed in Baltimore ’thout a single mouthful in thar house to eat. And they can’t get nothin’ neither ’thout they gits up soon in the mornin’ and goes to the market after it themselves. Rain, hail or shine, they got to go. ’Twouldn’t suit our white folks to live that way! And I wouldn’t live thar not for nothin’ in this world. In that fine three story house thar ain’t but bare two servants, an’ they has to do all the work. ’Twouldn’t suit me, an’ I wouldn’t live thar not for nothin’ in this whole creation. I would git that lonesome I couldn’t stan’ it. Bare two servants! and they calls themselves rich, too! And they cooks in the cellar. I know mistess couldn’t stand that—smellin’ everything out the kitchen all over the house. Umph! them folks don’t know nothin’ tall ’bout good livin’, with thar cold bread and thar rusks!”

Maid Kitty spoke truly when she said she had never seen two women do all the housework. For, at home, often three women would clean up one chamber. One made the bed, while another swept the floor and a third dusted and put the chairs straight. Labor was divided and subdivided; and I remember one woman whose sole employment seemed to be throwing open the blinds in the morning and rubbing the posts of my grandmother’s high bedstead. This rubbing business was carried quite to excess. Every inch of mahogany was waxed and rubbed to the highest state of polish, as were also the floors, the brass fenders, irons and candlesticks.

When I reflect upon the degree of comfort arrived at in our homes, I think we should have felt grateful to our ancestors; for as Quincy has written: “In whatever mode of existence man finds himself, be it savage or civilized, he perceives that he is indebted for the greater part of his possessions to events over which he had no control; to individuals whose names, perhaps, never reached his ear; to sacrifices which he never shared. How few of all these blessings do we owe to our own power or prudence! How few on which we can not discern the impress of a long past generation!” So we were indebted for our agreeable surroundings to the heroism and sacrifices of past generations, and not to venerate and eulogize them betrays the want of a truly noble soul. For what courage; what patience; what perseverence; what long suffering; what Christian forbearance, must it have cost our great grandmothers to civilize, Christianize and elevate the naked, savage Africans to the condition of good cooks and respectable maids! They—our great grandmothers—did not enjoy the blessed privilege even of turning their servants off when ineffient or disagreeable, but had to keep them through life. The only thing was to bear and forbear, and

If in Heaven there be one seat higher than another, it must be reserved for those true Southern matrons, who performed conscientiously their part assigned them by God—civilizing and instructing this race.

To the children of Israel God said: “I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance.” So He had given us “the heathen for an inheritance,” and however bitterly some of us deplored it—as we did—we should have remembered that nothing happens by chance; but that God disposes all events for some purpose of his own. We were instruments in His hand, and if we or our forefathers were chosen by Him to elevate a race in the scale of comfort and intelligence we should not deplore it, but pray that what we have done for them may be a lasting benefit and that God’s blessing may follow them in another condition of life.

However we may differ in the opinion, there is no greater compliment to Southern slave owners than the idea prevailing in many places that the negro is already sufficiently elevated to hold the highest positions in the gift of our Government.

I once met in traveling an English gentleman, who asked me: “How can you bear those miserable black negroes about your houses and about your persons? To me they are horribly repulsive, and I would not endure one about me.”

“Neither would they have been my choice,” I replied. “But God sent them to us. I was born to this inheritance and could not avert it. What would you English have done,” I asked, “if God had sent them to you?”

“Thrown them into the bottom of the sea!” he replied.

Fortunately for the poor negro this sentiment had not prevailed among us. I believe God endowed our people with qualities peculiarly adapted to taking charge of this race and that no other nation could have kept them. Our people did not demand as much work as in other countries is required of servants; and I think had more affection for them than is elsewhere felt for menials.

In this connection, I remember an incident during the war which deserves to be recorded as showing the affection entertained for negro dependents:

When our soldiers were nearly starved, and only allowed daily a small handfull of parched corn, the Colonel of a Virginia regiment, by accident got some coffee, a small portion of which was daily distributed to each man. In the regiment was a cousin of mine—a young man endowed with the noblest attributes God can give—who, although famishing and needing it, denied himself his portion every day that he might bring it to his black mammy. He made a small bag in which he deposited and carefully saved it.

When he arrived at home on furlough, his mother wept to see his tattered clothes, his shoeless feet and starved appearance.

Soon producing the little bag of coffee, with a cheerful smile he said: “See what I’ve saved to bring black mammy!”

“Oh! my son,” said his mother, “you have needed it yourself. Why did you not use it?”

“Well,” he replied, “it has been so long since you all had any coffee, and I made out very well on water, when I thought how black mammy missed her coffee, and how glad she would be to get it.”