Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-06-24
"HARCOUR7'S pLLNE MANGO"


Aunt Efie, whose picture is this 2"
My niece, as she spoke, held up sketch
she had just taken from my portfolio, the face
Of negro child seven or sight years old, the
eyes twinkling with fun and every white, even
tooth shining in a grin of delight at being
took in picter."
That" l answered, ''is Harcourt's Wine
Mango"
"Vline Mango" echoed my bewildered
niece. Was that her name? What was it in
English Z"
"a conundrum l never solved" replied
"Harcourt, said my niece presently. "Oh,
Aunt Efie, was not that the blind colonel ?"
"Yes."
Il saw Fannie Shaw last summer, and she
told me-" and then my niece told me the
sequel to story which was bit of my own
Southern experience, but of which l had
heard nothing for twelve long years.
When was alone again, carefully
touched up Wine Mango's portrait, put it in
a frame, and sat musing over that long past
story.
Fannie Shaw aud l, Efie Joyce, were two
Of the pioneer teachers of the Freedmen's
Bureau, and were detailed for a town in
Mississippi which l will call Seville. fancy
ing some of my readers may recognize it un-
der this name. | will not dwell upon the
many tribulatiOns and serious dangers which
met us upon our arrival in a town impover-
ished by the war and regarding Yankees with
the most venomous hatred. Every obstacle
spite could invent or malignity suggest was
thrown in the way of our opening a school,
until we almost despaired of obtaining any
room large enough for our purpose.
But we succeeded at last, through Lieu
tenant Bronson, the officer in charge of the
Freedmen's Bureau at Seville in obtaining a
room.
Never can forget the appearance of this
room as Fannie and / entered ii to organize
our school. 1t bad been a shed used for cat
tie, consisting of a roof supported upon posts
The negroes had nailed to these posts rough
boards provided for that purpose by Lieuten-
ant Bronson, the spaces being filed with
mud. The windows were irregular holes of
various sizes and shapes, cut after Fannie
and discovered that our Jealous friends had
walled up the room in perfect darkness. The
seats were varied and original. .Three-legged
stools, pals turned bottom upward, logs of
wood, stumps of trees, chairs in every stage
of dilapidation, bags of cotton, and piles of
stones, were scattered about without the least
regard to order, save that space was left at
one end of the room, and in this stood two
chairs. One had certainly seen "better days" ="
being of richly-carved wood, covered with
faded velvet but the loss of one leg was gro
tesquely supplied by pile of irregular stones.
The other was a regular dentists chair we
never knew from whom obtained, in good
preservation and comfortable, which was as
signed at once to me, as Fannie declared it
gave her toothache to look at it.
Upon the miscellaneous seats were perched,
squatted, seated, standing kneeling, in ev-
cry imaginable attitude, negroes of all ages,
sizes, shades and conditions, waiting for our
arrival. Here an old woman, smoking a
black pipe, was clad in faded calico too
tight in every seam there a boy scarcely
more than an infant wore costume consist
ing of an army cap and a pair of mems boots
Girls and boys, men and women, crones,
aged and feeble, were all crowded together,
wide-eyed and grinning, eagerly expectant Of
mysteries TO come. Scraps of fnery were
strangely mingled with rags and dirt; feath-
ers stuck in woolly heads surmounted figures
clad in revolving rags; scant skirts on tall
women were beside the baggy dress of a
corpulent matron on child. The prevailing
material vas a coarse blue-and-white striped
ticking, such as is used to cover mattresses,
and but few wore more than one garment
the men loose pantaloons, the women a mar
row-skirted dress.
The entrance of the teachers was greeted
by eli vi !" from the children and a low
growl of "Shet up dar Have yerse'ves, you
niggas !" from the women, while a general
squirming followed our glance around the
room. 1t was task of no small magnitude
to organize our school, but finally we decided
TO take adults in the evening, half-grown
boys and girls in the afternoon, and children
under twelve in the morning The ages were
mere guess-work, but we selected our first
class, dismissed the others, and took our
Dlacea