Since I wrote this chapter, I have learned some things with regard
to the freed men at Port Royal, where so many fugitive slaves have
taken refuge during the war, and are now employed by Government,
and being educated by Christian teachers, which will make what I have
just said more apparent. Dr. French, who has labored among this people,
in a public address, drew a pleasing picture of the improvements
introduced into the home-life of the negroes,--how, as they began
to feel free, and earn an independent subsistence, their cabins
were whitewashed, swept clean, kept in order, and pictures and maps,
cut from illustrated newspapers, were pasted up on the walls
by the women as a decoration. He spoke of the rivalry in neatness
thus produced, and of the general elevating and refining effect.
On his representation, the commanding officers and the society
by whom he is employed permitted him to introduce into some
twenty-five of the cabins, on twenty-five different plantations,
what had never been known before,--a window with panes of glass.
To this luxury were added tables, good, strong, tin wash-basins,
and soap, stout bed-ticks, and a small looking-glass. The
effect of the father of the family, sitting at the head of his
new table, while his sable wife and children gathered around it,
and asking a blessing on the simple fare, was very touching.
Hitherto they had boiled their hominy in a common skillet,
and eaten it out of oyster-shells, when and wherever they could,
some in-doors and some outside, in every variety of attitude.
He said, also, that the ludicrous pranks of both old and young,
on eying themselves for the first time in the mirror, were quite amusing.