Plantation Sketches | Page 5

flails; others raked the grain into an
immense pile; from this pile it was measured by select hands and put
into bags, which were carried to the steamer lying at the landing. The
men who measured and kept the tally maintained a constant song or
chant, and designated the tally, or fifth bushel, by a sort of yell. The
overseer stood by with pencil and book and scored down each tally by a
peculiar mark. The constant stream of men running back and forth, with
bags empty or full, made a very busy scene.
After the corn had been shipped, the boat had steamed down the river,
and the place, lately so full of busy life, had returned to its accustomed

quiet seclusion, the redbirds came to peck up the corn left upon the
ground. I remember how once, upon a cold, gray afternoon, I put on my
wraps and ran down to the Sycamore Barn, on purpose to watch the shy,
beautiful things. Snowflakes were beginning to fall and whisper about
the great bamboo vines; twisted around the trees upon the river banks,
the long gray moss hung motionless and a thick grayness seemed to
shut out the whole world; all about me was gray,--earth, sky, trees, barn,
everything, except the redbirds and the red berries of a great holly tree
under whose shelter I stood, listening to the whispering snowflakes.
The Sycamore Barn derived its name from a great sycamore tree near
which it stood. This tree was by far the largest that I ever saw; a wagon
with a four-horse team might be on one side, and quite concealed from
any one standing upon the other. When I knew it, it was a ruin, the
great trunk a mere shell, though the two giant forks,--themselves
immense in girth--still had life in them. In one side of the trunk was an
opening, about as large as an ordinary door; through this we used to
enter, and I have danced a quadrille of eight within with perfect ease.
This tree gave its name to the field in which it grew, which formed part
of the tract known as the Silver Wedge. It was about the Silver Wedge
that an acrimonious lawsuit was carried on during the lives of your
great-great-grandparents, John and Frances Devereux. She was a
Pollock, and the dispute arose through a Mr. Williams, the son or
grandson of a certain Widow Pollock, who had, after the death of her
first husband, Major Pollock, married a Mr. Williams. She may
possibly have dowered in this Silver Wedge tract. At any rate, her
Williams descendants set up a claim to it, although it was in possession
of the real Pollock descendant, Frances Devereux. It was a large body
of very rich land, and intersected the plantation in the form of a wedge,
beginning near the Sycamore Barn, and running up far into the Second
Lands, widening and embracing the dwelling-house and plantation
buildings. I have heard your great-great-grandfather laugh and tell how
Williams once came to the house, and, with a sweeping bow and great
assumption of courtesy, made your great-great-grandmother welcome
to remain in his house. After the suit had been settled, Williams had
occasion to come again to the house, feeling, no doubt, rather

crestfallen. Mrs. Devereux met him at the door and, making him a
sweeping curtsy, quoted his exact words, making him welcome to her
house.
One of my pleasant memories is connected with our fishing porch. This
was a porch, or balcony, built upon piles driven into the river upon one
side, and the other resting upon the banks. It was raised some eight or
ten feet above the water and protected by a strong railing or balustrade
and shaded by the overhanging branches of a large and beautiful
hackberry tree. It made an ideal lounging-place, upon a soft spring
afternoon, when all the river banks were a mass of tender green, and the
soft cooing of doves filled the air. We usually took Minor with us to
bait our hooks and assist generally, and often went home by starlight
with a glorious string of fish.
The drawback to the plantations upon the lower Roanoke lay in their
liability to being flooded by the freshets to which the Roanoke was
exposed. These were especially to be dreaded in early spring, when the
snow in the mountains was melting. I have known freshets in March to
inundate the country for miles. At one time there was not a foot of dry
land upon one of the Runiroi plantations. It was upon a mild night in
that month that I sat upon the porch nearly all through the night, feeling
too anxious to sleep, for your grandfather, the overseer, and every man
on the plantation were at