His father’s tears rolled down his cheeks after he felt the loneliness of his ten year old son. One day when Colonel took him for deer hunting he saw Archie hiding Hugh’s photo in his pocket. Idella Bodie saysĪfter Hugh’s death the gap left in Archie’s life was later filled by his father. He felt that it was his fault and he was further taken aback when one of his sisters blurted out “Oh! If it could only have been Archie instead.” From then on, he resolved to make his family proud of him. He later ran two miles up the mountain road and reached home breathless, terrified and covered in blood to report the news to his mother and sisters. He had to pull his brother’s crushed body from beneath the driving steel which created numbness in his mind. He and Hugh who took rail road track near Flat Rock, Asheville, North Carolina did not notice the engine when they were busy playing. It was then, a train that had stopped for an auxiliary engine suddenly took backwards at a terrific speed changed Archie’s life.
But it was in summer of 1893 when Archie was almost ten he faced one of the biggest traumas in his life. During his childhood it was Prince and Hugh who accompanied him in adventures, that reminds us of three musketeers. Both his mother and father were Nature lovers. Till the age of 13, Archie spent his childhood there that gave him experiences enough for a lifetime. Hampton Plantation was named so for Hampton Court Palace in England. Since his company was Prince, a Negro boy Archie too believed in Negro superstitions like Plateye, a chimera of the night that carried off children, a Hiddle- diddle- dee, a great horned owl the Negroes believed was really a spirit masquerading as a bird, of phantoms who stood near plantation graveyards waiting for little boys who tormented cats and deserted cabins that held the spirits of smallpox victims. He had his adventures of rescuing cattle, from bogs and quick sands. He loved to spent time in the Bellefield rice land, with growths of wampee, sawgrass and duckoats. Archibald’s poetry has always preserved human experiences and his poetry reflected the natural landscape in which he grew in. Dauber even had switched ordinary sand to material with more clay that made its house appear red and stronger. He almost tore down Dauber’s home twenty one times for fun but next morning, he was amazed to see its persistence to build its home at the same location. Archie as a child also found joy in teasing an ox- called Abel who chased him later in the compound and destroying the mud home of Mud Dauber insect. It is said that Archie even made an attempt to climb up those antlers.
#ARCHIBALDS ADVENTURES FULL#
Archie also had experiences from Nature when a full antlered buck called Old Ben nuzzled him with his black nose when Archie was still in crib. His plantation animals like Ruby, the cow and Sallie, the sow influenced the way he viewed his life. For him this was a meaningful responsibility that taught him not only about mother’s care but also obedience of a child.
It was his duty to care for the expectant mothers among the plantation cows, goats and hogs. He gave so much importance to persistence and love between mother and child. It was at the “Summer Place” situated at McClellanville, about ten miles from Hampton Plantation Archibald Hamilton Rutledge, the fifth of six children was born on October 23, 1883.Īrchie learned his life lessons not from school textbooks but from Nature. As a result of war his father had to sell the plantations of Waterhon, Elmwood and Harrietta and only Hampton remained. When Archie’s father returned after commanding Twenty- fifth North Carolina Regiment in Virginia in War of States to the old estate in South Carolina, he married Margaret Seabrook in 1873. Of Irish and Huguenot ancestry, Archibald had grandfathers on both sides of his family who were governors of South Carolina: John Rutledge and Whitemarsh Seabrook. This couple had three daughters: Caroline, Harriet and Mary and three sons: Thomas, Henry III (Hugh) and Archibald (Archie). After Dolly’s death, Colonel had married Margaret Hamilton Seabrook Archibald’s mother. Archie’s oldest brother Frederick had been born of his father’s marriage to Anna Maria Blake (Dolly) in 1866. Archibald Hamilton Rutledge (Archie) South Carolina’s first poet laureate and the person who retained that title for a whopping thirty nine years was born into a distinguished family.
0 kommentar(er)
