Part 10 (1/2)

By William Ludwell Sheppard

I never knew a time in which I did not know Mammy. She was simply a part of my consciousness; it seems to me now a more vivid one in my earliest years than that of the existence of my parents. We five, though instructed by an elder sister in the rudiments of learning, spent many more of our waking hours with Mammy; and whilst we drew knowledge from one source, we derived the greater part of our pleasure from the other--that is, outside of our playmates.

The moments just preceding bedtime, in which we were undergoing the process of disrobing at the hands of Mammy, were periods of dreadful pleasure to us. As I look back upon them, I wonder that we got any sleep at all after some of her recitals. They were not always sanguinary or ghostly, and of course when I scan them in the light of later years, it is apparent that Mammy, like the majority of people, ”without regard to color or previous condition of servitude,” suffered her walk and conversation to be influenced by her state of health, mental and bodily. Her walk--I am afraid I must admit, as all biographers seem privileged to deal with the frailties of their victims as freely as with their virtues--her walk, viewed through the medium already alluded to, did not owe its occasional uncertainty to ”very coa.r.s.e veins,” though that malady, with a slight phonetic difference, Mammy undoubtedly suffered from, in common with the facts. She was a great believer in ”dram” as a remedial agent, and h.o.m.oeopathic practice was unknown with us at that period.

Mammy's code of laws for our moral government was one of threats of being ”repoated to ole mahster,” tempered by tea of her own making dulcified by brown sugar of fascinating sweetness, anecdote, and autobiography.

The anecdotal part consisted almost exclusively of the fascinating repertoire of Uncle Remus. Indeed, to know the charm of that chronicle is reserved to the man or woman whose childhood dates from the _ante bellum_ period, and who had a Mammy.

In the autobiographical part Mammy spread us a chilling feast of horrors, varied by the supernatural. Long years after this period I read a protest in some Southern paper against this practice in the nursery, with its manifest consequences on the minds of children. It set me to wondering how it was that the consequences in my day seemed inappreciable. I do not understand it now. Some of Mammy's stories would have been bonanzas to a police reporter of today; others would have bred emulation in Edgar Poe.

And yet I do not recall any subsequent terrors.

An account of the execution of some pirates, which she had witnessed when a ”gal,” was popular. She had a rhyme which condensed the details. The condemned were Spaniards:

Pepe hung, Qulo fell, Felix died and went to ----

Mammy always gave the rhyme with awful emphasis.

She had had an experience before coming into our family, by purchase, which gave her easy precedence over all the mammies of all our friends. To be sure, it was an experience which the other mammies, as ”good membahs of de chutch,” regarded as unholy; one which they congratulated themselves would never lie on their consciences, and of which poor Mammy was to die unshriven in their minds; for she never became a ”sister,” so far as I ever learned.

But to us this experience was fruitful of many happy hours. Mammy had been tire-woman to Mrs. Gilfert, the reigning star of that date, at the old Marshall Theatre--the successor to one burnt in 1811.

The habit of the stock companies in those days was to remain the whole season, sometimes two or more, so Mammy had the opportunity to ”a.s.sist” at the entire repertoire. It is one of the regrets of my life that I am not able to recall verbatim Mammy's arguments of the play, her descriptions of some of the actors, and her comments.

For some reason, when later on I wished to refresh my memory of these, Mammy had either forgotten them or suspected the intention of my asking.

She ranked her experiences at the theatre along with her account of the adventures of the immortal ”Mollie Cottontail” (for we did not know him as ”Brer Rabbit”), and the rest of her lore, I suppose, and so could not realize that my maturer mind would care for any of them.

When I had subsequently made some acquaintance with plays, or read them, I recognized most of those described by Mammy. Some remain unidentified.

Hamlet she preserved in name. Whilst she had no quotations of the words, she had a vivid recollection of the ghost scenes, and ”pisenin' de king's ear.” She also gave us scenes in which ”one uv them kings was hollerin' for his horse”--plainly Richard. Julius Caesar she easily kept in mind, as some acquaintance of her color bearing that name was long extant. I can still conjure up her tones and manner when she declaimed ”'Dat you, Brutus?' An'

he done stick him like de rest uv um; and him raised in de Caesar fam'ly like he wuz a son!”

The ingrat.i.tude of the thing struck through our night-gowns even then.

The period when Mammy's sway weakened was indeterminate. We boys after a while swapped places with Mammy, and made her the recipient of our small pedantries. I do not recollect, however, that we were ever cruel enough to throw her ignorance up to her.

At last the grown-up sisters absorbed all of Mammy's spare time. Sympathy was kept up between them after her bond with us was loosened, and they even took hints from her in matters of the toilet that were souvenirs of her stage days.

In the course of time reverses and bereavements came to the family. The girls had grown to womanhood and matrimony, and had begun their new lives in other places. Then came the inevitable to the elders, and it became necessary to convert all property into cash.

We were happy in being able to retain a good many of our household G.o.ds, and they are the Lares and Penates of our several homes to this day. We had long since ceased to think of Mammy Becky--she was never Rebecca--as property. In fact, we younger ones never thought of her as such. By law we were each ent.i.tled to a fifth in Mammy.

This came upon us in the nature of a shock at a family consultation on ways and means, and there was a disposition on the part of every party to the owners.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+ft that responsibility to another.

I must do ourselves the justice to say that such a thing as converting Mammy into cash, and thus making her divisible, never for a moment entered our minds. It seemed, however, that the difficulty had occurred to her.

We all felt so guilty, when Mammy served tea that last evening, that we were sure she read our thoughts in our countenances. It would be nearer the truth to say that it was rather our fears that she should ever come to the knowledge that the word ”sale” had been coupled with her name.

The next day we were to scatter, and it was imperative that some disposition should be made of Mammy. The old lady--for old we deemed her, though she could scarcely have been fifty--went calmly about the house looking to the packing of the thousand and one things, and not only looking, but using her tongue in language expressing utter contempt for all ”lazy n.i.g.g.e.rs” of these degenerate days--referring to the temporary ”help.”