Free House Divided by Ben Ames Williams

the abolitionists have their way you won’t have this. You couldn’t do anything without slaves.”
    â€œMaybe I could.” They passed a small house, and Trav raised his hat to the man splitting lightwood by the corn crib. “That’s Ed Blandy. Take him, for instance. He gets twice as much per acre out of his little patch here, with just Mrs. Blandy and his boy to help him, as I get per acre with all my people. I’d rather have white men if I could get them; but around here the white men all have their own farms, and work them.” He added, quiet pride in his tones: “I know to work is sort of disreputable all over the South, because it’s mostly negroes that work; but that’s not true here. It’s loafing that’s disreputable here.”
    â€œIf you raised more cotton, or if you raised rice, I expect you’d want slaves.”
    This was doubtless true, and he did not argue the point. “This is where our land begins,” he said.
    â€œI think I’d have known. The fields are so neat and clean.”
    He nodded, silent now, his eyes alert, looking for tasks that needed doing; and she did not speak for long minutes, till they came to the turning where his driveway left the road. As it topped the first rise of its winding ascent, the big house, hidden till now by a roll of the land, came into view, still well above them; and she cried: “Oh, Trav, it’s beautiful! But it wasn’t white before? It’s brick, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, built of big bricks they used to make around here, nine inches long, laid up in Flemish bond. But Enid thought it would look better painted white, and we’ve put on a fresh coat, specially for you.” He added, his eyes on the big house as they approached: “We’ve taken off the old tile roof, too. Mr. Brettany, the man who built the place, brought the tiles from Salem. They were shaped like shingles, a foot
long, and furrowed to let the water run down. The men who made them used to mark those furrows in the soft clay with their fingers before they baked the tiles. The old roof was a mighty pretty red, but the wind got under the tiles sometimes, loosened them, drove water in, and that bothered Enid.”
    â€œIt didn’t bother you?”
    â€œWell, I liked the old tiles, and the plain brick walls, but Enid thinks the paint looks nice.”
    His eyes were on the house, and hers too. The ascent from the road was moderate, but the horses took a foot pace, switching their tails, ears pricked, glad to come home. A clump of oaks for a moment shut off their view, but when they rounded the trees Trav saw Enid waiting on the wide westward-facing veranda. He pulled up the horses at the foot of the steps, and Enid, lovely as a child, came running to kiss her mother, and to kiss Trav too in this happy hour. She swept Mrs. Albion away upstairs, and Trav left Joseph to tend Mrs. Albion’s bags while he himself went down to the cool shadowed room on the ground floor to hear James Fiddler’s report of the day’s activities.
    When later he had changed his clothes, Joseph brought his julep out to the veranda and he sat at ease, watching the sun drop toward the distant mountains while lengthening shadows reached toward him across the cultivated bottom lands. Knowing his delight in them, Vigil fetched the children; and Lucy stood in the crook of her father’s arm and Peter wriggled on his knee.
    Then Enid and her mother appeared, and Enid said in a sharp tone: “Vigil!” The black girl guiltily snatched her snuff stick out of her mouth, and tried to hide it in her skirts. “I declare,” Enid protested, “that worthless nigger drives me distracted. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t sold Sapphira!”
    Mrs. Albion, already making friends with the children, asked lightly, “Who was Sapphira?”
    â€œOh, she was a bright, and much too uppity.” Enid added maliciously: