toward improving and refining Clotelle's manners, for her own sake.
Like her mother fond of flowers, the "Virginia Maid," as she was
sometimes called, spent many of her leisure hours in the garden.
Beside the flowers which sprang up from the fertility of soil unplanted
and unattended, there was the heliotrope, sweet-pea, and cup-rose,
transplanted from the island of Cuba. In her new home Clotelle found
herself saluted on all sides by the fragrance of the magnolia.
When she went with her young mistress to the Poplar Farm, as she
sometimes did, nature's wild luxuriance greeted her, wherever she
cast her eyes.

The rustling citron, lime, and orange, shady mango with its fruits
of gold, and the palmetto's umbrageous beauty, all welcomed the child
of sorrow. When at the farm, Huckelby, the overseer, kept his eye
on Clotelle if within sight of her, for he knew she was a slave,
and no doubt hoped that she might some day fall into his hands.
But she shrank from his looks as she would have done from the charm
of the rattlesnake. The negro-driver always tried to insinuate himself
into the good opinion of Georgiana and the company that she brought.
Knowing that Miss Wilson at heart hated slavery, he was ever trying
to show that the slaves under his charge were happy and contented.
One day, when Georgiana and some of her Connecticut friends were there,
the overseer called all the slaves up to the "great house," and set
some of the young ones to dancing. After awhile whiskey was brought
in and a dram given to each slave, in return for which they were
expected to give a toast, or sing a short piece of his own composition;
when it came to Jack's turn he said,--

"The big bee flies high, the little bee makes the honey:
the black folks make the cotton, and the white folks