The aptness of the
pupils, as a whole, is really surprising. Some have learned the alphabet,
I am told, in three days, and others in a week.
It is said that all
northern people who visit the school, very soon fall a victim to that fearful
disease, known by the southern chivalry and northern copperheads, as
"niggar on the brain." And I will confess my belief that were I to
teach in this school very long, I might become so interested in some of my
pupils I should sometimes forget that they were not of the same color as
myself, and really believe that God did make of one blood all nations of the earth.
They present every
shade of color from the blackest hue to a fairer skin than my own. It is often
necessary to find out who the mother is before you know whether the person is
white or black. The age varies from four to thirty.
The progress of some
is really astonishing. One little black girl of seven years, and with wooly
head, can read fluently in the Fourth Reader, and studies primary, geography,
and arithmetic, who has been to school but one year. I inquired if any one
taught her at home, or if she had not learned how to read before that time.
"Oh, no, I learned my letters when I first came to school, and I live with
my aunt Mary, and she can't read. She's no kin to me, and I havn't any kin, but
I call her aunt."
Perhaps she never
had any, or is related to Topsey, and if questioned farther, might say she
"spects she grew." A boy of about twelve, who has been to school but
nine months, and who learned his letters in that time, reads in the Third
Reader and studies geography. Some are truly polite. The first day of my taking
charge of one of the divisions, a delicate featured, brown-skinned little girl
of about nine years came to me and said with the sweetest voice and manner : "Lady
will you please tell me your name?" I did so, when she thanked me and said:
"Miss P—— can
you please hear our Third Reader this morning." It was not an idle
question either, for the school is so large that now, while two of the teachers
are absent, from illness, some of the classes are each day necessarily
neglected. And so eager are the generality of the pupils to learn, that most of
them are in two or three reading and spelling classes at the same time.
One might now not
only exclaim with Gallileo, "the world does move,"
but add, and we move with it. For though but a little time
since the negro dared not say "I think," lest the master might
exclaim, — "You think, you black niggar—never you mind about
that, I'll do your thinking for you," but would instead, say
deferentially, with bent head and hand in his wooly hair, "Wall, massa,
I'se been a studyin' about dat dar," is now learning to stand erect and
confess that he does think, as well as learn to read and
write.
One of the more
advanced pupils told me that her father taught her to read and write before it
was safe to let any one know that he did, or that he could himself read.
EVENING.
Eureka! That
wonderful secret, like "murder," has "out." I have been
very cautiously, and little by little, and with many charges not to tell any
body, informed of the terrible crime for which I was tried, convicted,
sentenced and banished, while all the time in blissful ignorance of the crime
itself. This is the way of managing affairs here, I am told, and it is called
military style. I like it. It saves one all the trouble and worry of defending
one's self. And that might make one nervous and excited. It saves also
confusion in the mind of the adjudging party, the same as of a certain judge in
Missouri, who having heard evidence on the side of the plaintiff, refused to
listen to that of the defendant, with the profound remark, that "whenever
he heard both sides he always got things so mixed up, that he never could tell
upon which side to give judgement!"
But the grave
charge, as ferreted out by some two or three friends, of which I am accused,
and to most of which I should have plead "not guilty" had opportunity
been given, runs thus, that upon a certain occasion, I presented myself before
the surgeon of the division and told him with an authoritative air, that I
wished he "would see that a certain patient had a mustard poultice on his
chest, for he wanted it."
This is my defence.
One morning, I found a man suffering greatly with a pain in the chest from
pneumonia, according to the physician's diagnosis. He was convalescing from
varioloid and had taken cold. He breathed very short, seemed in extreme pain
and begged for a mustard poultice. I said I dare not apply it without
permission from the surgeon, but would ask him immediately. He was in another
tent—the third above, and while going there I recollected hearing that some
physicians were offended even by a request, and hesitated. Then thinking of the
moans and apparent danger of the sufferer, I proceeded. These contradictory
emotions, I can now realize, gave an unusual brusqueness to my manner, as I
said :
"Doctor there
is a patient in the third tent below, on bed, No. 9, who is in great pain and
wants a mustard poultice. Will you see if he needs it? If so, I can make
it."
There was a flash in
his eyes, as he replied "I will attend to the man. As for the
mustard poultices, it is not necessary that you should attend to them, as the
men nurses do that."
The patient did not
have the poultice, but presume the physician gave him something which removed
the pain, as it had left him at noon. This trouble was caused simply by a
misunderstanding. He used the word want for need,
so that when I said the man "wanted" it—meaning he had asked for
it, he interpreted it so as to convey the idea of my assuming the
responsibility of saying, "he needed" it. He also understood me to
order him to "see" that the man had it, when I simply asked if he
would "see if he needed it."
I respect this
physician and his wife, but wish he had been certain of my meaning before
reporting the speech to the surgeon-in-charge.
There is also
another little matter which I am certain had something to do with my departure,
but which it would scarcely be policy for them to mention. It was this. The
next day after speaking to Chaplain S. about visiting those sick men who had
sent for him, and whom, though he was obliged to pass the tents where they lay
in going to his room, he did not visit, I sent a slip of paper, saying in
pencil, that as he had probably forgotten it, and as they were anxious to see
him, I would remind him of this request. I received no response to the same,
although I am certain he received the note, and the day passed without his
visiting the sick men, although, at noon, I saw him out for half an hour,
engaged in pitching quoits. I certainly did feel somewhat indignant, when the
next morning came, and I found from the lips of the sick soldiers that he had
not been in the tent; and I wondered, when I knew he had not been in to see a
single sick or dying soldier in my division since my stay, nor preached a
funeral sermon for the many who had died in my division alone, what could
occupy his time. I asked for information of two of the ladies, and was told in
excuse for him, that his time was fully occupied in discharging the duties of
clerk for the surgeon-in-charge. So here was a chaplain neglecting the sacred
duties of his own profession, though amply paid for the same, and earning
more of the filthy lucre, to the neglect of dying men!
Thus endeth the
defence. Mrs. Gala Days, you were entirely correct in your assertion that one
must go abroad and see the world, to have "personal experiences."
SOURCE: Elvira J.
Powers, Hospital Pencillings: Being a Diary While in Jefferson General
Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., and Others at Nashville, Tennessee, as Matron
and Visitor, pp. 61-6
