Chapter 7

"Miss Patience, le' me len' yer de money."

So I spoke to Mr. Z., saying, though it was most inconvenient, if he wished to go with his wife, which was most necessary in her state of health, I would consent to break the contract and pay him the $60 I owed him for work. Most reluctantly he consented.

I sent Chloe to Gregory in the pony carriage, and she brought back the money. I wrote a note for it at 6 per cent, and made her pin it in her bank-book in case of my death.

February 16.

Paid Mr. Z. up in full for services and gave him a note for his little furniture, and bade them good-by, sending them to Gregory in the wagon with Nana. I felt quite sorry to part with Mrs. Z. She is a nice woman, and, poor thing, marriedto a madman, to whom she is devoted. Thank heaven he is going and that we part friends. My experiment of white help is at an end!

He took me over all the work—beautiful strawberry bed, with potatoes planted, 900 onions set out, celery bed started, all beautifully prepared. It is sad to think it will soon all be grown up in weeds. I must take up my burden again.

February 24.

In field all day; having oats ploughed in; bitterly cold north wind blowing.

February 25.

In oat field again all day. Gibby ploughing with oxen and Green with Nana.

February 27.

A charming meeting here of the woman's auxiliary. I went out to the oats field intending to get back before 12, the hour of meeting, but Gibby went to burn up some patches of cockspurs and let the fire get away into the pasture, which was terrible. I had to stay and fight it.

I made Green take his plough and make a deep furrow ahead of the fire round in a large curve and had the women beat it out on the sides.

While I was busy with hands and face blackened Dab came running to tell me the "company had come" so that I had to rush home and make a very hurried toilet to open the meeting. We are to sew for an Easter box to be sent to the mountains of North Carolina.

February 26.

At church to-day Miss E. came up and said: "Miss Patience, going to take any one home with you to-day?"

I said "no."

"Well, then, I am going to ask you to take me to spend the night. I haven't seen you for so long."

"With the very greatest pleasure," I answered truthfully.

Miss E. is one of the best women that ever lived and the very best housekeeper to boot. She knows exactly how much to provide for a family of four without waste and yet abundantly, and she can arrange for a table of seventy-five with the same precision; abundance of excellent food and no waste. With such qualities it seems strange that she should have now only the position of what Chloe calls "sextant" to our little village church, and her modest remuneration of two dollars a month is all that she has in the world.

She was a woman of wealth, but, like so many others, her means all disappeared with the end of the war, and she has supported herself by sewing and taking places as housekeeper for a number of years. Now she begins to show the ravages of time and does not feel she can do all that a housekeeper should, and for the last six years has lived in Peaceville, where she had nieces who are devotedly kind to her, but she will not live with them. She lives alone in a house which belonged to her mother and where her summers were spent in her youth. It has passed into other hands, but she is allowed to stay there in the winter as the house is only rented in summer.

It is very near the church, and she is very happy and a marvel of cheerfulness and faith—no repining, no complaining. She sometimes takes in a little sewing still, but for absurdly small prices.

Miss E. is a walking chronicle of the ancestry of every one in the county, I might almost say in the low country, as the coast is called in this State, and can tell you who is who emphatically. I enjoyed having my memory refreshed on many genealogical facts, as I am very weak in that quarter. I am really devoted to this dear old lady and feel it a privilege to have her with me.

February 27.

Drove Miss E. home and then began preparing for the paying guests, who arrived at 2.

March 2.

Finished planting oats at last. I have spent every day in the field for nearly two weeks—the last few days a joy—just drinking in the delicious soft air and watching the buds which promise so much.

There is a mystery of hope over everything, the rest of the ideal, and as I sat on a cedar trunk to-day and looked out into the drowsy blue of the atmosphere I felt a sense of gratitude to the Great Maker and Giver of all this beauty—thankful for my blessings; the great blessing of space and freedom and closeness to nature—yes, and thankful for my limitations, my sorrows, my privations. Thankful that He has thought me worthy to suffer and has taught me to be strong. He is beauty and power and love illimitable and infinite.

March 13.

Jim summoned to Gregory by the extreme illness of his wife, and I have to turn over the stable and cows to poor Elihu, who can't help taking the feed and the milk and is the poorest driver in the world; always touches up the horse that is pulling all the load; yet I am thankful to have him to fall back on. The storm last fall threw down all the pine trees on my 350 acres of woodland and there are several thousand cords of pine wood lying on the ground which I am trying to get cut and shipped. It has been the habit of many to sell the wood to negroes at the stump, as they call it, for 25 cents a cord. This I am not willing to do, and consequently find it very difficult to get the wood cut. I pay 40 cents a cord for cutting, 30 cents a cord for hauling, and about 30 cents for flatting, and the wood brings $1.50 a cord if it is pine, and $2 if it is lightwood.

The hands are needing work. I have ten men on Cherokee, and if they would work I would have money for all my needs and their families would live in abundant comfort. There is no felling of trees necessary. They are all lying prostrate; it is only to cut them up, and the hauling is only one-quarter to one-half mile to the landing; yet day after day the hands are loafing about the roads, with guns on their shoulders and hide when they see me coming. If I come up on one unexpectedly he is very polite and has some tale of fever all night or a sprained finger or a headache to explain his not working at the wood.

March 16.

Rode out into the woods on horseback with surveyor to get the lines of my land marked distinctly, as all the large timber is being stolen from it by negroes who own lands adjoining. It is terrible to see the trees all lying on the ground lapped and interlaced so that it is hard to get through on horseback.

March 18.

Went out to see the wood which has been measured and is ready to send off.

March 21.

Gog and Gabe have the79flat loaded and have sent Elihu with them in charge of flat; they must leave on this afternoon's ebb-tide. I first told Cubby to go with the flat, and he made objections and I got very angry and told him instead to takeSarahup the creek to the landing to be loaded to-morrow.

March 22.

This morning a huge lighter arrived, sent by Mr. L. for me to load with wood, but it could not get under the bridge until low water. Had Scipio paddle me up the creek to the landing to see the flat being loaded. Cubby and Sam were loading and they will get off on this evening's tide.The creek is very wild looking; great trees on each side cast a dense shadow everywhere. Hearing a curious noise of floundering I saw a large alligator crawling through the mud on the edge. He had gone quite a distance from the water in his effort to get the sun, and I had a fine view of him before he plunged in again. They make for the water as soon as they hear a boat approaching. I saw him again as I came back, only for one second, but I saw a number of terrapin sunning themselves on logs. They stretch their long necks and peer with their beady black eyes until the boat gets quite close to them and then drop into the water like a stone with a great splash.

About a month ago I got a note from Mr. L. asking me to allow four negro men to cut 100 cords of wood on my land and he would be responsible for the money, $25. I sent word that I would undertake to have the wood cut for him myself with pleasure, but would not sell it for 25 cents per cord at the stump. I heard afterward that a neighbor had sold them the right to cut on their land, and when I went to the landing to-day I saw about fifty cords of the wood they had cut piled there, and it was the most splendid fat lightwood I ever saw, from trees that had been growing on that land sixty or seventy years. And the owner gets 25 cents a cord, while the wood brings $2 anywhere.

March 23.

Late this afternoon I went up the creek to see the flat that Cubby is loading with wood. The creek seemed darker and more mysterious than ever, as the clouds were lowering and there were mutterings of thunder. The air was perfectly delightful, fresh from the sea.

I enjoyed the expedition immensely until the storm burst, and then Gabriel was unable to manage the boat at all, the wind was so high. I had to get him to retreat to a cove and put me out, and I walked home in a pouring rain, thunder,lightning fierce, and wind so high that it was impossible to hold an umbrella. I am very thankful the loaded flat is up the creek and not out on the river. To-day my new venture arrived—an incubator. I do not see why we could not operate poultry farms with success here, and will give it a trial at any rate.

April 3.

Letter from Mr. L. says the wood sent in three flats only measures up thirty-three cords, when I paid the hands for cutting and hauling forty cords. Fortunately I reserved some money from each one until the wood should be delivered; but another time I will not take any one's measurement but Mr. L.'s, for after it is measured each man carries home five or six logs every evening in his ox cart, and naturally the wood falls short when delivered. I had to do an immense deal of rule of three calculating to find out just how to divide the shortage among them, but succeeded to every one's satisfaction. Live and learn—I will not get caught so again. I spent the morning working in the negro burying ground. Storms have thrown down trees in every direction, and though all the descendants of the 600 who belonged to my father wish to be buried here, not one is willing to do a stroke of work beyond digging the grave he is interested in.

I have told the heads of families that if they will each give 25 cents, which will make enough to pay for a good wire, I will furnish posts and have the fence put up. They seem much pleased at the idea, but I fear it will end there.

I am glad the two marble monuments put up by my father in memory of faithful servants before I was born have thus far escaped injury and still tell their message of love and fidelity in master and servant. The wording is odd, but I think it is a beautiful voice from the past, that past which has been painted in such black colors. Here is the first inscription:—

In Memory ofJoe of Warhees,Who with fidelity servedMy GrandfatherWm Allston Sen'rMy FatherBenj Allston and MeGratefulWhose Confidence andRespect He had1840

This was certainly not the gratitude which La Rochefoucauld dubbed "a keen sense of favors to come." The other reads:—

In MemoryofMy Servant Thomas,Carpenter.Honest and TrueHe died as for 40 yearsHe had livedMy Faithful Friend1850

It is remarkable that my father did not put his name, R. F. W. Allston, to show who had so honored and remembered his faithful slaves; in another generation no one will know. He was Governor of South Carolina in 1857-1858.

Good little Estelle died yesterday and is to be buried this afternoon, and it was looking to her funeral that I walked through the beautiful spot to-day, and finding so many fallen trees I called Frank to come with his axe and clear it out a little. I can ill afford to pay for the day's work, but cannot bear to have it look so wild and unkept.

April 4.

A perfect day. Last night was so cold that the watermelons, which were up and growing nicely in the little boxes ready to be set out, were nipped.

Chloe returned last evening from Estelle's funeral in a state of exaltation. The preacher had described her death, and it was glorious. He repeated the words she had said: "Yes, I'm goin', don't fret. I'm all paid up fur ebryt'ing. I got um here, right by me, a bag o' pure gold on one side o' me—en Jesus Christ on de oder—en now I'm gwine to de weddin' supper."

Then she asked him to read a certain chapter and at the end of each verse she said: "Dat's it, tenk yu, sah," and when the reading was ended she went to sleep.

Estelle had been our maid for five years and only left us to be married—a good match according to their ideas. She had a new baby every year and worked very hard. She grew blacker and thinner, until early this spring she took to bed. Though scarcely thirty I think, she leaves five living children and three lie in the graveyard beside her.

I never could get her to do anything in the house after her marriage, though it would have been much easier for her to take the lighter housework and with the money hire some one to do the heavier field work. But that is not the proper thing among the darkies of to-day.

A woman may work herself to death in her husband's field, wash, cook, scour, mend, patch, keep house, and receive gratefully any small sums her husband may give her, always answering "Sir" when he speaks to her, above all increase the population yearly—all this is her duty, but it is improper for her to take any service like housework. And so all Estelle's little accomplishments and skill were wasted, except the sewing which I had taught her and that showed in the neat, trim looking clothes of her little army of children. I think she has heard the "Well done, good and faithful servant, ... faithful over a few things."

To-day two friends of mine were to drive fourteen miles to spend the morning with me. As Dab is strangely agitatedand upset by any addition to my solitary meals, I helped him prepare the lunch table before they arrived.

It looked very pretty and dainty, but I saw marks of fingers on my precious hundred and fifty-year-old urn-shaped silver sugar dish, so I told Dab to dip it in hot water and rub it dry with a cotton flannel cloth to remove the marks of his fingers. He was gone in the pantry longer than seemed to me necessary, so I followed him there. To my dismay the sugar dish which he held in his hand looked as though he had greased it thoroughly.

"Oh, Dab!" I cried. "What have you done?"

He looked at me, his face beaming with pride in his work, and answered:—

"I jus' shinin' um up wid de knife-brick!"

Words failed me as I took the precious thing in my hands, but when I had recovered a little I said: "Dab, twenty dollars could not undo the work of those five minutes—no, not fifty dollars!"

"Jus' shinin' um up wid de knife-brick."

I dipped it into the pan of scalding water and wiped it dry, but alas! no change. Actually the beautiful engraving of little garlands of roses looped around the top was almost effaced, so vigorously had Dab employed those few moments.

Alas! alas! zeal without knowledge is a terrible thing. Poor Dab cannot possibly do just what he is told; he has to plan some original course for himself.

I went to meet my friend unduly agitated and upset by the circumstance, but was careful not to speak of it. I can bear things so much better if I do not mention them to any one until the pang is all gone. That is why this littlediary is so much to me. I can explode into it, and then shut my teeth and bear things.

Unpacked the incubator to-day with Bonaparte's help and began to study its mysteries. We had a time getting things right, for he has never seen or dreamed of an incubator, and disapproves entirely of the effort to take away the occupation of the hen and defeat nature, so that his manner was disapproving, not to say forbidding. My good Chloe, too, feels that for some unknown reason the Great Father has given me over to the temptation of the Evil One, and walks past the "'cubator," as she calls it, with head high and firm tread; her manner is what the "nigs" call "stiff"—that means distinctly rebellious and unconvinced. I had only seen an incubator myself for five minutes under the rapid flow of words from the young man exhibiting it, words of fervid praise and faith which left me somewhat vague and confused as to details, for it was just in a shop and not working.

I calculated when I bought it that I would have time to try my 'prentice hand with fowl eggs, which take only three weeks to hatch, and then fill it with turkey eggs, which take four weeks, and get them out before I have to leave home on May 8; but unfortunately the steamboat was detained by a storm and so the incubator was delayed a whole week, which threw out all my plans, and I will have to give up the turkey eggs. The little book, which is wonderfully explicit and satisfactory, says one should study out the management of the heat thoroughly before putting in the eggs, and that will make some delay.

April 6.

I have sat on a low stool in front of the incubator day and night since it was unpacked and installed in the drawing-room. I lighted the lamp at once, and then watched the thermometer, which necessitates a bright light and a verylow seat. I thought it was going to be very simple, and on the second day I thought I had it steady at 102½ degrees, and went off into the field to see after some ploughing. When I came back I rushed in to see if it was holding its own and found the mercury at 110 degrees—one little step more and it would have broken the thermometer. After that I just stayed there. The thermostat is a wonderfully delicate piece of mechanism and I have no one to consult.

April 7.

At last I have got the thermometer to remain steadily at 102½ for ten hours, so to-night at 6 o'clock I put in the 120 eggs.

April 10.

Tested eggs to-day. Only six infertile. The thermostat is working beautifully and the mercury does not vary a half degree during the twenty-four hours. I am very careful to follow absolutely every direction and let no one touch it but myself, for I wish to give it a fair trial. All my friends in the county are confiding to each other their anxiety over my venture. "Such a pity dear Patience should have wasted her money on such a folly. A huge sum, $25, for those two machines. It is distressing." Many years ago, when incubators were first invented, a progressive neighbor invested in one, and the lamps exploded and a serious fire resulted, so that it is only natural that incubators are much looked down on in this community. No doubt there have been great improvements, and I must think mine the most perfect of all. Still, I feel great anxiety as to the results, for I will have not only the great disappointment and loss should it fail but also the "I told you so" of the whole country side.

April 11.

Began to mix the inoculating stuff for the alfalfa, boiling rain-water for the purpose. Elihu has ploughed with the heavy plough and Ball and Paul in the alfalfa field. Gibbiecomes behind in the same furrow with Jack and Sambo and a bull tongue plough. They have gone very deep and the land should be in good fix after it. Made Willing try the Cahoon seeder to see if it worked according to directions on card.

April 12.

Elihu and Gibbie harrowing alfalfa field. I had a large tub on the piazza and put in the second ingredient for the wonder bath. I bought a corn planter this spring, not because I plant enough corn to really need it, but because the crooked planting of the women worries me so. To-day we were to plant the first acre of corn for this season. I had Willing use the planter drawn by Mollie. It worked very well, but he could not go straight and the rows look like snake tracks, much worse than the women's planting, and I had much better have saved my $10. Bonaparte is triumphant and I am in the slough of despond.

April 13.

Planted corn again. Had Elihu to run corn planter and had Willing to take his place harrowing in alfalfa field. The rows are a little straighter, but still hopelessly meandering. That $10 is simply thrown away.

April 14.

What a time I have had to-day. I started out to plant four acres of alfalfa and I feel just as though I had drawn the plough and the harrow as well as the three darkies. The land has been double ploughed, then harrowed with a home-made tooth harrow, and then with the acme several times. The land was heavily covered with stable manure before the ploughing. I have mixed the wonder bath most accurately and now the culmination of all, the planting, was to take place. I bought a Cahoon broadcast seeder, and have tried to make Willing (the boy I have in Jim's place, but oh, what a misfit!) understand the directions. I called upon oldBonaparte this morning to measure the seed out into separate sacks, so that we would have no confusion in the field, but, oh, dear, what a dream that was! It seemed to Bonaparte such feminine folly that I should insist on stakes every ten feet at the head and end of the field so that Willing would have something to guide his wandering steps. We have had high words on the subject, he maintaining that it was a waste of labor and stakes to mark anything but the half acre. As Willing has not a straight eye and walks a good deal as though he were tipsy, even with the guiding stakes, I think it will be in the nature of a miracle if this field is covered with alfalfa. I have not been out here for two or three days, as I was planting corn, but I had two men and two teams at work all the time and a woman to clear away roots, etc., and positively I do not see what they have done. The field is as rough as possible, it seems to me, though the negroes think me most unreasonable and Elihu says: "My Lor', Miss, wha' yo' want mo'? Dis fiel' look too bu-ti-ful, 'e stan' same lik' a gya'ding!"

The first difficulty is to get the stakes set straight, a tall and then a short, so that Willing will know that when he leaves a short stake he must reach a short one at the end of the field; but I had a perfect battle to get Bonaparte to set the stakes in that way. The next trouble was to get rid of the alfalfa—I allowed ten quarts to the acre, and it will not go in. I have opened the small door of the conceited Cahoon creature just one-half inch as the card says, and made Willing walk every ten feet instead of every twenty, as it directs, and yet the peck of seed holds out and is left over.

I understand some of men's temptations in the way of speech now as I never did before.

Just here I am in trouble over the whereabouts of a huge caterpillar of varied and gorgeous colors which I saw a moment ago very near me. I did not like to shorten its littlespan of life, so I took it on a big leaf to quite a distance from where I was sitting and turned it on its back and made a little pen around it. Now it has disappeared and it may be anywhere. I must move to another tree, though I have an ideal seat on the root of this one, a splendid live oak with spreading branches.

Aphrodite spread a quilt and deposited the party upon it.

Finding the ground still so rough I sent Elihu to "the street" to get a woman with a hoe to go over the ground and remove impediments. I said: "Get any one you can at once," thinking he would bring Snippy his wife, or Susan his daughter; but in a short time I saw a procession arriving. Aphrodite, with a basket on her head, a baby in one arm and a child of eighteen months dragging by the other hand, while one of three years toddled behind. The procession moved to a clump of trees in the middle of the field; there Aphrodite made a halt, took from her basket a quilt, and spreading it on the ground deposited the party upon it. I do wish I had my kodak; but I am so stupid about the films; I cannot put them in myself, and I am so afraid of spending an unnecessary cent, that for months my kodak is no use to me, and it would be such a delight if I could only once learn its intricacies.

This group has saved my reason to-day, I think, for the little things are so funny, solemnly staring around, a bucket of rice and meat made into a strange mess in the midst. I sent for a basket of roast sweet potatoes, and gave one toeach, but I disturbed the peace of the pastoral, for I insisted that the potato should be peeled for the baby, whereupon Isaiah set up a terrible yell and Aphrodite said: "Him lub de skin." I insisted, however, that the skin should be removed, for only a month ago Isaiah was at death's door with convulsions. The baby has on a little red frock and a little red cap with frills, tied tightly on her little coal black head, and the sun is broiling hot. Her name is Florella Elizabeth Angelina.

But back to the precious alfalfa, which has cost me so much worry as well as money All that I can get put into the land is six quarts to the acre. Here I pause with pleasure as another procession approaches. Oh, for my kodak again. I heard a noise, and on looking up I see the Imp puffed up with pride rolling the wheelbarrow, which seems to have a large and varied load. Behind comes my little maid Gerty with a basket. With a great swing Imp rolls the wheelbarrow alongside of me; and they proceed to unload. First a little green painted table, which has a history that perhaps some day I will have time to tell; then Gerty takes from her basket table-cloth and table napkins of snowy damask and all the implements and accompaniments of a modern lunch. Imp takes out a demijohn of artesian water, the cut glass salt cellar, pepper cruet, and then these are put in position and in the midst a little dish of butter, churned since I left the house this morning; and what a nice dinner! A fresh trout with a roe, brought me an hour ago as a present from Casa Bianca by Nat, broiled to a turn—a delicious morsel, and after that an abundant dish of asparagus, and besides this a large dish of fried bacon and one of rice.

"Oh, Gerty," I said. "Chloe knew I did not want all this to eat."

"Yes, ma'am," she answered. "An' Chloe say to tell you say we got plenty home for dinner en she know yu'dlike to give some 'way." That made me happy, for Chloe to understand me so thoroughly, to send me a delicious dainty meal for myself, and then besides a substantial portion for me to give away. That is what an old time, before the war darky is, one whose devotion makes them enter into one's tastes and feelings so thoroughly.

When I left the house this morning I certainly expected to be back to dinner, but finding how absolutely necessary my presence in the field was I just stayed there, and at three Chloe sent this nice meal. When the procession arrived I exclaimed, "How delightful! Whose idea was the wheelbarrow?" The Imp answered promptly: "De me, ma'am," at which I made him my compliments. It is such a pleasure to be able to commend the poor little Imp, for he has an immense ingenuity in mischief and earns much reproof.

I am quite ashamed of the frame of mind in which I began this, but I will not tear it up. What is written is written. After this episode everything looks so different, and now at 4:30 the four acres are planted and 22-year-old Mollie is drawing a bush over to cover the seed with such rapidity that she keeps Elihu at a run, and even to my eye the field looks fairly respectable, and the darkies think it unspeakably fine. I am making Willing travel over between the tracks where he went before, and so have disposed of the necessary quantity of seed to within a peck. Now I can look up and beyond the gray earth and glory in the beauty of God's world. Half of the field was planted in oats in the winter and it is now splendid, an expanse of intense vivid color. The field, about twenty acres, is a slight elevation surrounded on three sides by a swamp, in which the variety of young green is wonderful. The cypress with its feathery fringe of pale grass green, the water oak with its tender yellow green, the hickory with its true pure green, and the maple with its gamut of pink up and down the scale—pale salmon, rosepink, then a brick-dusty pink, and here at last it rises into rich crimson. Here and there the poplar, with its flowerlike leaves, the black gum with its black tracery of downward turning branches, all edged with tender gray green.

It is too beautiful for words, and behind all, accenting and bringing out the light airy beauty, is the dark blue green of the solemn pine forest. I wish I had brought my crayons and block; I might have had a faint echo of one little corner to send to some poor shut-in who cannot get it first hand in its exquisite reality. And this, too, is but a prelude; in a few days the ideal tenderness will be replaced by a more material and lasting beauty, but not so heart reaching. It certainly seems a pity that one should have to think of and strive after filthy lucre in the midst of all this beauty; but I have reached a point where if I do not struggle and wrestle with the earth, therefrom to draw the said dross, I will have to give up all this life with Nature and find a small room in some city to eke out my days.

It is not a cheap thing to live in this country. One must have horses, one must have servants—but once given a moderate income to cover these things and there is no spot on earth where one can have so much for so little. Wild ducks abound all winter, also partridges, snipe, and woodcock; rabbits and squirrels run over everything. Our streams are filled with bream, Virginia perch and trout. If any one wants better living than these afford, he can have wild turkey and venison for the shooting, as the woods abound in these, and he can have shad daily during two months if he goes to the expense of a small shad net and a man to use it. It is a splendid country for poultry. Turkeys, ducks, and chickens are easily raised, and I believe it could be made to pay handsomely.

My first question to Gerty when she appeared to-day was, "How high is the incubator?" She answered promptly101, by which I know it is not above 103, and am thankful. I fear the eggs are all cooked, for when I got in from the corn-field Thursday the mercury stood 106½. I had left Gerty to watch and to open the door if it went above 102½. She reads and writes and knows the figures quite well, but does not seem to understand the thermometer.

April 20.

I had told Aphrodite that she must pull up all the grass roots, brambles, etc., in the alfalfa field; as it was new ground the harrow had not got them all out. She came to me to-day and said:—

"Miss, I kyan't wuk een dat fiel' no mo'; de ting cum up too purty, en ef I tromple um I'll kill um."

"Do you mean the alfalfa has come up?"

"Yes, ma'am, de whol' fiel' kiver wid um."

I just flew to the field on my bicycle, and truly there was the whole field covered with tiny dark gray green leaves! I was perfectly delighted, for I had not supposed it would come so quickly and had no idea the stand could be so thick after all my tribulations.

Just before lunch S. came, bringing some friends with her—they wished to see how I turned the eggs in the incubator, and so I took the tray out to show them, and as I was putting it down on the table I heard a very soft chirp, which startled me so that I nearly dropped the whole thing.

Somehow I had not realized that the time was so near for the climax, but to-night as I was going to bed I went for a last look, and there was one little chick, white and fluffy and very lively. I wonder if that is to be the only one.

April 28.

The whole incubator seems to have turned into chickens. I never saw anything like it but a swarm of bees. As soonas I got up this morning I rushed down to the incubator, and there they were!

I called Chloe at once, and she stood in front of the glass door and gazed with wondering eyes, then she dropped a profound courtesy, and, raising her eyes and hands to heaven, she said, "T'ank de Laud," and this was repeated three times with intense fervor and reverence. Then she seized my hand and shook it violently.

Only then did I understand how much self-control Chloe had used not to show me more plainly her utter doubt and scorn of the 'cubator. I knew she did not approve, but had no idea that she felt certain we would never see a chicken from it. Her delight is unbounded.

The book of instructions says you must not open the door at all after the eggs begin to pip, but I had to open it very quickly and take out the egg-shells which were so much in the way of the chicks. It is too bad that they sent the brooder without any lamp, and so I cannot take the chicks out as I should do when they are twelve hours old.

The incubator must be kept at from 105 degrees, and the newly hatched chicks only 101 degrees, or at most 102, and so I am afraid of roasting the chicks or chilling the eggs.

April 29.

I am in a great quandary about the chickens, and I have to go to Gregory to meet a cousin at the train, for I cannot trust Willing to drive across the ferry and go to the station alone; he is too poor a driver, and so I must go myself. A great many eggs are pipped and the chicks will be sacrificed if I leave them so crowded and so hot.

After thinking it over I made up my mind, took a basket, opened the door of the incubator, took out thirty eggs which had not hatched, and going to the river threw them in. I stood on the little wooden landing and watched, and to my horror the eggs swam!

They would not go with the tide but made a circle and returned to the shore, and I felt like a murderer, but I could not get them back, so I sadly returned to the house and reduced the heat in the incubator to 102 and fed the chicks some bread crumbs. Then I got into the wagon and started for Gregory.

It was dark when we got to the ferry and I did not reach the Winyah Inn until 10 o'clock.

April 30.

When Willing drove to the inn for me this morning I saw a large red object protruding from his pocket, and as we drove to the station I asked him what it was. He appeared very much confused and would not answer, so I told him to take the thing out, as it looked very badly.

Finally with much difficulty I made him take it out before we reached the station, and it was a quart bottle of dispensary whiskey! I was very angry and told him to hand it to me, which he at first refused to do, but in the end he did, and I put it in my valise.

I told him I was greatly mortified and disappointed that this first time I had trusted him to drive me to town he should do such a thing. He protested and declared that it was for his grandfather. I was truly thankful I had seen it and disposed of it before M. arrived, for she had never been to this part of the world before and would have felt terrified to see the coachman so provided.

When we got home Willing's mother came and repeated the tale about the whiskey having been got for her father, and I gave her the bottle. I know this little tale is pure fiction, for her father never drinks, is a model old man, and I happen to know a piece of inside history about Willing, which he confided to Gerty, and she passed it on to Chloe, who in turn confided it to me, when warning me that my faith in Willing and his meek ways might be misplaced.

He told Gerty, who is his brother's fiancée, that he was "coa'tin'," but that when he went to see the object of his affection he couldn't say a word, but sat dumb before her, unless he drank a pint of dispensary on the way to her house. Then he was all right and could talk a-plenty. I called for him this evening and gave him a serious talk.

"Then he could talk a-plenty."

I reminded him that when he was about five years old his father had gone to Gregory to pay his tax, having his pocket full of money from the sale of his crop. His poor mother walked the road all night with the baby in her arms hoping for his return. He was an excellent man, faithful to all his duties, a splendid worker, but he could not resist "fire water."

When I heard in the morning that he had not returned, and the other men who went with him had, I had Elihu get the pony carriage and drive down the road until he found him and bring him home, as the men said he had dropped asleep on the road and they could not rouse him, so they cameon and left him. It was a bitter night, one of the three or four freezes we have during the winter, and I knew it would go hard with him.

Elihu found him eight miles away, got help and put him in the pony carriage, for Emanuel was a tall, heavy man, and drove rapidly home; but life was extinct when he reached the poor wife. I had sent beef tea and stimulant to be given him, but though Elihu found him alive, he could not force anything down; he seemed unable to swallow.

Lisbeth nearly went crazy; she had seven children to support by her own labors. As time passed she quieted down and having her house and firewood and two acres of land free of all rent and owning a fine pair of oxen and a cow, she got on very comfortably and brought up her children respectably.

When her only daughter, Aphrodite, married and her two oldest sons went to "town" to work and were making a dollar a day, she felt as though her troubles were over. But the same Devil's chain gripped and held her eldest son Zebedee.

He was a splendid boatman and was as much at home in the water as a duck. He owned a canoe and made an easy living, at the same time satisfying his love of sport by taking strangers out ducking. Many Northern people come to Gregory every winter for that sport.

Last January and February we had several bitter spells of weather with a prolonged freeze and snow. During one of these, when ducks were especially plentiful, Zeb took a stranger out. Late that afternoon they met another sportsman, paddled by a darky, and the parties spoke and commented on the unusual cold; and Zeb produced his bottle of dispensary, offering it to the other paddler, while his sportsman also produced a flask and urged it upon the second sportsman, who being near his home and its bright fire declined it and suggested to Sportsman No. 1 that he should land and not go on shooting, it was so cold.

No. 1, however, said he was all right, and pointing to his overcoat on the seat said he had not even put that on yet. They parted and Zeb and Sportsman No. 1 were never seen again alive.

They did not return to Gregory that night, nor the next. Then search was made, and the sportsman was found drowned and Zeb was found frozen holding on to some puncheons on the edge of an old canal. Near by was the boat, not capsized, and the things in it except the overcoat.

It was surmised by those who knew the circumstances that the sportsman, not being familiar with a dugout canoe, and not knowing that it is dangerous to stand up in one, rose to put on his overcoat, lost his balance and fell overboard, and Zeb plunged in to rescue him, a thing he could easily have accomplished under ordinary circumstances. But the spirits he had taken from time to time paralyzed his great strength and skill in the water, and he not only could not save the man but perished himself. He succeeded in reaching the puncheons on the edge of the canal, but was unable to pull himself out, and froze stiff there.

Of course I did not go into all these details to Willing, but made him see that without that fatal bottle Zeb could have saved himself and the man, and I tried to make him see that with such a family history the only hope for him was to swear off absolutely. He seemed much impressed and thanked me for my "chastisement," as they call any solemn counsel and admonition, and promised to heed it.

The chicks are very lively and eat bread crumbs and oatmeal very heartily. I have enclosed a space in the garden of fifty feet in circumference, with a netted wire fence six feet high, which I will keep locked, and I hope to defy hawks, foxes, and bipeds as well. Chloe is perfectly devoted to the chicks and feeds them with enthusiasm every two hours.

Back to Index Next