August 27.

Dear old Daddy Ancrum came dressed in his Sunday best to tell me all he could remember of his past life. I had asked him some time ago to come some day when he felt quite well—but I was quite touched at his dressing in his very best for the occasion. It was most interesting to me and I wrote it all down. According to the dates he gave me he is 91 years old—with all his faculties and in good health.

Next Sunday there is to be a "funeral sarmint," preached for Chloe's aunt, a person of distinction in the colored world, and Chloe and Patty both want to go. I will keep Goliah, so as to have some one in the yard.

As we drove to-day I asked him if he could cook rice; that if he could cook I might have him do so Sunday. He said he could, but as he would answer that to any question asked as to his powers I asked him to tell me how he did it. He began:—

"Fust t'ing yo' roll up yo' sleeve es high as yo' kin, en yo' tak soap en yo' wash yo' han' clean. Den you wash yo' pot clean, fill um wid col' wata en put on de fia. Now w'ile yo' wata de bile, yo' put yo' rice een a piggin en yo' wash um well, den when yo' dun put salt een yo' pot, en 'e bile high, yo' put yo' rice een, en le' um bile till 'e swell, den yo' pour off de wata, en put yo' pot back o' de stove, for steam."

I was so impressed with the opening sentences that I determined at once to let him cook my Sunday dinner instead of eating it cold, but when I told Chloe she was filled with indignation.

"Miss Pashuns, if I neber eat rice again I won't eat rice Goliah cook! But den I'se bery scornful!"

August 29.

Chloe and Patty went to the funeral "sarmint," and it was grand. The eulogies of the departed were satisfactory to all. They left in the buckboard at 10 o'clock and returned at dusk, the church being six miles away. When I asked what the preacher said about Elsa, Chloe answered:—

"'E set um high, but eberybody groan an' say amen to ebery wud. Fust t'ing 'e say she wus a fair'oman; what 'e had to say 'e say to yo' face. She wusn't tale bearer, she wusn't 'struction maker. She wus a stewardness of de chutch en always fait'ful. She house wus a place fo' de preecher en de elda' to fin' a home w'en eber dey kum. En de feebla' en de olda' she husband git, de mo' she was 'evoted to him; nobody neber hear um say she tyad, nite en day she nuss um; she was a wirtue to im, en a sample to de yung womens."

I could not help thinking Solomon could not say more for the woman whose value he set above rubies.

I have had a very peaceful day. I did not feel strong enough to go to church. Goliah boiled the rice beautifully, and I made my dinner of rice and milk and rested. The heat has been fierce lately and I feel wilted, but the first autumn month will soon be here.

September 1.

The papers tell of floods everywhere, but they have not yet reached us. The Pee Dee is reported higher at Cheraw than it has ever been. It takes its rise in a spring under Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina, and so a rainy season in the mountains or melting snows always give us a disastrous freshet, now that the banks have been stripped of trees, the whole of its long and winding course.

September 3.

Bonaparte sent me word last night that the water had made a great rise during the day and I had better come down early. I could not get breakfast in time, so I took a glass of cold coffee and a piece of bread, and went.

The barn with my rice, a very large two story building, was surrounded by water about fifty feet. With the aid of a boat Bonaparte made a very swaying bridge and I went in with all the empty sacks which could be gathered, and measured and bagged the rice, removed a plank from the flooring of the barn above, and had the seventy-five bushels taken up.

There was no time to call hands, as the water was rising rapidly to the floor where the rice was piled, so Gibbie and Dab with Bonaparte did it all. We had an active and very dusty morning, but unless the foundations of the barn give way the rice is safe.

I was perfectly charmed to find I had so much, for I have been eating it and paying for my work with it and trading it for two years; it has been a perfect widow's cruse.

Coming home the clay gully was so high that the water came into the buckboard. Ruth didn't like it and pulled until she broke the harness, but we got out safely.

September 4.

All the roads we usually travel are impassable, the bridges under water or floating. The men go through a cart path which avoids the bridges, but it is a roundabout way and does not help me a bit, so I just plunge through the clay gully every day.

All the men are in despair. The entire rice crop is about four feet under water and there is very little hope of saving any. I have been so unhappy because I had not planted any rice and accused myself of supineness because I was afraid of going into debt to plant any, and now I am so filled with thanksgiving that I didn't, and feel that I was specially guided not to do it.

September 5.

Poor Gibbie is so determined not to work that he has broken the plough. I was very anxious to have land for turnips and rape prepared and Gibbie could only get out of it by breaking all three of the ploughs. Then I got him to mowing the hay, and he promptly broke the mowing machine.

The cause of these mishaps is Gibbie's sporting tastes. All the men on the place, who will not pay their rent, are over the river with guns making large bags of game of different sorts. The poor rabbits and other things having taken refuge on any knoll or stump and are easily shot as the water recedes.

I might as well give up any effort to have work done until the waters have entirely subsided. The damage from the freshet is wide-spread, but thank God! no loss of life or cattle.

September 6.

In the corn-field all day. We never gather and house corn as early as this, but the stealing is so much worse than usual that it is either now or never. I could only get the women out, so I made Goliah do the hauling. I rode Romola, and she was very disagreeable and restless.

September 7.

In the corn-field yesterday and to-day. A perfect day, and the air crisp and not too hot. Oh, the beauty of the sky and air and trees and the black-eyed Susans and goldenrod everywhere! Oh, the mercy and goodness of God in making all this beauty and showering it on us unsatisfactory, discontented, grumbling mortals!

As I sit under a tree and drink in all this beauty and wonder, I resolve never to think myself hardly used, never to long after the yellow gold which greases the wheels of the world and makes life so easy, while I have all this golden glory of beauty and sunshine, and the power to see it and enjoy it to the full.

The week's stay in the field has rewarded me. I have in the barn 550 bushels of corn and about two tons of sweet, dry hay—only the first cutting and not a drop of rain on it.

Last Wednesday Gibbie asked me to lend him my canoe. I hesitated, for it is a very nice white boat. He said:—

"Miss, ef you'll len' me I'll be keerful wid um en I'll gi'e you some bud fo' pay fo' um ebry day."

I at once consented to let him have it if he would give me a dozen birds as rent.

The next morning I went down to the plantation with the pleasant expectation of having a nice dinner; the rice birds are tiny, but delicious. When I was leaving I asked Gibbie where my birds were, he brought out three and said they had had a poor night's sport.

The next day he said there were none, as there was no dew and they could not get them when there was no dew. Friday night there was too much wind, he said.

On Monday, when I asked him, he said he didn't go out Saturday night, as it was too close to Sunday and he had to prepare for church. I thought that quite proper and only said incidentally, as it were:—

"And you did not go last night?"

"Oh, no, ma'am; not Sunday night. I wouldn't do sich a t'ing."

I thought how careful Gibbie was to observe the Fourth Commandment, as they begin their operations about 2 A.M., but I said nothing and left the garden where he was working. As I left he turned to Goliah and took out of his pocket a five-dollar bill and said:—

"Look w'at I make Saturday en Sunday night!"

Goliah told Chloe how Gibbie had showed him the money and told him that no night since he had the boat had he made less than $2. This evening I told him I could not let him have the boat any more, as he had been so unsuccessful.

He raised his voice and declared solemnly he hadn't been out but the one night and had given me three birds, which he intimated was handsome, and talked on in an injured voice. I only laughed and said I was sorry he was so unlucky; that I could not lend my boat any more.

They take lightwood torches and thresh the bushes with a long rod or switch and kill the birds, often getting two or three bushels in a night, which they sell to men waiting on the banks for 35 cents a dozen.

I have made another effort to get the men to pay their house rent now that they are making so much money so easily, but in vain. As some one said to me the other day: "I never realized the power of a lie until recently! Any one who can make a plausible lie and stick to it, seems impregnable."

It is an awful thought, for we know who is the father of lies, the Prince of Darkness. There is no shaking my faith, however, in the ultimate triumph in that never ending, to-the-death struggle between the powers of darkness and light,—that the light will conquer every stronghold of darkness until the perfect day reigns the world over.