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Aunt Ann
The following article, written by Miss Sara F. Babb at the time of the death of an old family servant "Aunt Ann," is included in the chapter as an evidence of the strong bond that exists between the southerner and the old time negro house servant:
"'Aunt Ann' is dead! Those black wrinkled old hands that used to rock us in the cradle all the day long are quietly folded for an eternal rest, and the coffin lid has shut forever from the wondrous beauty of earth and sky, the set drawn face that told such a pitful story of pain and suffering.
"All was over. And as I stood by her grave how vividly the past all came back again; the beginning of my own life in which Aunt Ann's was so closely interwoven; those blessed and radiant hours in which I used to dream; when my soul was a lily, living in the infinite blue of Heaven, untouched by the world's passions and emotions, its hatreds, its lies, and its miseries. Days of innocence, ingenousness, drawn-when I wandered over the fields that glittered in the morning sunshine like a cloth of green and gold, thick with golden-hearted daisies, and star-eyed dandelions or at evening sitting in Aunt Ann's door-way watching the sun sink behind the hills in crimson clouds of glory, listening to the faint, distant tinkling of the cow bells and to the whippoorwill's melancholy song and the katydid's ceaseless chatter, calm and content as the summer twilight. Or in the long winter evenings, how my little friend Georgia and I used to slip off into the kitchen or down to her cabin and listen to her tales of 'Brer Fox' and 'Brer Rabbit,' 'Dem Devilish conjure niggers,' and 'ghosts and screech owls - how witches rode on broomsticks through the midnight air and fairies hid in the roses and honey suckles; how de ole scratch himself used tor kum in de shape of a great big black dog and take off de mean mistisses from beatin' her slaves - all about Heaven, with its golden streets and sparkling waters and its glorious noontide - where everybody was happy and had wings and a crown and a golden harp,' and yet, still more glorious than all, 'where white folks and niggers were all white alike!' Then how I used to vex her for being such a dirty little tot - playing in the dust and pouring sand on the top of my head - all the time 'a trottin' to the kitchen for a pie' and at some crowning piece of impudence, how her eyes used to flash as she'd grab up a stick to 'beat de debilshest white chap de Lo'd ever made' - and the fun of the race!
"Then the story of her own life as she told it to me - whose beginning was vague and indistinct, with even no record of her birth. Her father was brought over from Africa among the last cargo of slaves brought to America and she herself 'first saw the light' of day on a plantation in South Carolina and belonged to the father of Major N. W. Berry. When quite small, she was brought to Mississippi and afterward sold to 'Ole Miss Knox up in Tipper.' Always the slave of kind masters, she never realized what her freedom meant and used to tell us in a tone of genuine regret of the good old days 'befo' de wah.'
"'I tell you, honey, we don't hab no sich happy times as dem now. Ole Mars an' Miss done dead an' gone; niggers all moved away an' de cabins in de quarters done rotted down. Seems ter me de moon don't shine as purty an' bright as it did then, and de gourd vines an' de tech-me-nots, and marigoles an' jack-beans don't grow up as high an' bloom like de uster. De winters gets longer an' de summers shorter ebery year. 'Pears like all de win' comes from de Norf an' Eas' and ebery blow sets de pore niggers a shakin.'
"After having spent more than fourteen years as almost one of us, drawn by the mother love that was strong in the heart of this poor old woman, she went to her son, with whom she lived till her horrible burning which occured at the home of Mr. G. W. McCoy of Poplar Springs, and in a few days resulted in her death.
"A lowly humble life whose story, of perhaps more than sixty years, is quickly told. Deeply imbued with the dense superstitions of her race, who had only dim conceptions of the great mysteries of life and death, she could only look up to God with a blind, simple, childlike faith, through heavy clouds of ignorance through which she groped.
"A plodding life, whose sameness was never varied by divine flashes of joy or darkened by deep sorrows that try the soul - hers was not a soul great enough for that. Her sorrows were petty trials and griefs quickly dispelled; her greatest happiness consisted in a dress of a gay pattern, a knot of red ribbon and a green feather in her hat, 'year bobs,' a brass ring, and strands of beads.
"There is some particular price all of us value - to achieve a great reputation for learning, to be a leader in society, and the admiration of the town, to paint a great picture or to write a great book and go to immortality that way. In the eyes of the Infinite how little all of us must appear! I am no better than you, and you are no better than I. All vanity of vanities! True to the ways of the world, the flowers that were withheld from 'Aunt Ann' in life were scattered on her grave, and she was left alone, soon to be forgotten, dreaming the long unconscious sleep of the ages.
SARA F. BABB"(1)
The Pontotoc Sentinel, Oct. 24, 1895.
