THE SOUTH.
103
And he not only managed the black man,
he also hoodwinked the white man, the
tourist and investigator who visited his lordly
estates. The slaves were doing well, in fact
couldn't be happier,—plenty to eat, plenty to
drink, comfortably housed and clothed—they
wouldn't be free if they could ; in short, in his
broad brimmed plantation hat and easy aristo¬
cratic smoking gown, he made you think him
a veritable patriarch in the midst of a lazy,
well fed, good natured, over-indulged tenantry.
Then, too, the South represented blood—
not red blood, but blue blood. The difference
is in the length of the stream and your dis¬
tance from its source. If your own father
was a pirate, a robber, a murderer, his hands
are dyed in red blood, and you don't say very
much about it. But if your great great great
grandfather's grandfather stole and pillaged
and slew, and you can prove it, your blood
has become blue and you are at great pains to
establish the relationship. So the South had
neither silver nor gold, but she had blood;
and she paraded it with so much gusto that
the substantial little Puritan maidens of the
North, who had been making bread and can¬
ning currants and not thinking of blood the
least bit, began to hunt up the records of the
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