"Den cum de best way
you can," he answered in a surly manner. "What
duz you want 'bout here, any way? What duz
you want on Choc'late Plantation, anyhow?"
I explained to this ugly black that I was a
northern man, travelling to see the country, and
wished to camp near his house for protection,
and promised, if he would aid me to land, that I
would convince him of my honest purpose by
showing him the contents of my canoe, and
would prove to him that I was no enemy to the
colored man. I told him of the maps, the
letters, and the blankets which were in the little
canoe now so fast in the mud, and what a loss it
would be if some marauder, passing on the next
high tide, should steal my boat.
The fellow slowly lowered his gun, which had
been held in a threatening position, and said:
"Nobody knows his friends in dese times. I'se
had a boat stealed by some white man, and spose
you was cumin to steal sumting else. Dese folks
on de riber can't be trussed. Dey steals
ebryting. Heaps o' bad white men 'bout nowadnys
sens de war. Steals a nigger's chickens, boats,
and ebryting dey lays hands on. Up at de big
house on High Pint (norfen gemmin built him,
and den got gusted wid cotton-planting and went
home) de white folks goes and steals all de
cheers and beds, and ebryting out ob de house.
Sens de war all rascals."
It was a wearisome and dangerous job for me
to navigate the canoe over the soft, slippery mud
to the firm shore, as there were unfathomed
places in the flats which might ingulf or entomb
me at any step; but the task was completed, and
I stood face to face with the now half tranquillized
negro. Before removing the mud that hung upon
me to the waist in heavy clods, I showed the
darky my chart-case, and explained the object
of my mission. He was very intelligent, and,
after asking a few questions, said to his son:
"Take dis gun to de house;" and then turning
to me, continued: "Dis is de sort ob man I'se am.
I'se knows how to treat a friend like a white man,
and I'se can fight wid my knife or my fist or my
gun anybody who 'poses on me. Now I'se knows
you is a gemmin I'se won't treat you like a
nigger. Gib you best I'se got. Cum to de house."
When inside of the house of this resolute
black, every attention was paid to my comfort.
The cargo of the paper canoe was piled up in
one corner of the room. The wife and children
sat before the bright fire and listened to the story
of my cruise. I doctored the sick pickaninny of
my host, and made the family a pot of strong
coffee. This negro could read, but he asked me to
address a label he wished to attach to a bag of
Sea-Island cotton of one hundred and sixty
pounds' weight, which he had raised, and was
to ship by the steamboat Lizzie Baker to a
mercantile house in Savannah.
As I rested upon my blankets, which were
spread upon the floor of the only comfortable
room in the house, at intervals during the night
the large form of the black stole softly in and bent
over me to see if I were well covered up, and he
as noiselessly piled live-oak sticks upon the dying
embers to dry up the dampness which rose from
the river.
He brought me a basin of cold water in the
morning, and not possessing a towel clean enough
for a white man, he insisted that I should use his
wife's newly starched calico apron to wipe my
face and hands upon. When I offered him
money for the night's accommodation and the
excellent oyster breakfast that his wife prepared
for me, he said: "You may gib my wife
whateber pleases you for her cooking, but nuffin for
de food or de lodgings. I'se no nigger, ef I is
a cullud man."
It was now Saturday, and as I rowed through
the marsh thoroughfare called New Tea Kettle
Creek, which connects Mud River with Doboy
Sound near the southern end of Sapelo Island, I
calculated the chances of finding a resting-place
for Sunday. If I went up to the mainland
through North and Darien rivers to the town of
Darien, my past experience taught me that
instead of enjoying rest I would become a forced
exhibiter of the paper canoe to crowds of people.
To avoid this, I determined to pass the day in
the first hammock that would afford shelter and
fire-wood; but as the canoe entered Doboy
Sound, which, with its inlet, separates Sapelo
from the almost treeless Wolf Island, the wind
rose with such violence that I was driven to take
refuge upon Doboy Island, a small marshy
territory, the few firm acres of which were occupied
by the settlement and steam saw-mill of Messrs.
Hiltons, Foster & Gibson, a northern lumber firm.
Foreign and American vessels were anchored
under the lee of protecting marshes, awaiting
their cargoes of sawed deals and hewn timber;
while rafts of logs, which had been borne upon
the currents of the Altamaha and other streams
from the far interior regions of pine forests, were
collected here and manufactured into lumber.
One of the proprietors, a northern gentleman,
occupied with his family a very comfortable
cottage near the store and steam saw-mill. As the
Doboy people had learned of the approach of the
paper canoe from southern newspapers, the little
craft was identified as soon as it touched the low
shores of the island.
