CHAPTER IV
EARLY DAYS AND OLD FIELD SCHOOL

MY mother, AdÈle Petigru, was the granddaughter of Jean Louis Gibert, one of the Pasteurs du Desert, who brought the last colony of Huguenots to South Carolina in April, 1764, after enduring persecution in France, holding his little flock together through great peril and having the forbidden services of his church in forests, in barns, at the midnight hour, in order to escape imprisonment and death. There was a price set upon his head for some years before he made up his mind to leave his beloved land and escape with his little band of faithful to America. These perils and the martyrdom of some of his followers is told in “Les FrÈres Gibert.” It is a thrilling story, but too long to tell here. The two brothers, Etienne and Jean Louis, escaped to England, the little flock following one by one. King George III made a grant of land in South Carolina to Jean Louis for the settlement of the colony. He retained Etienne in England as his chaplain.

The difficulties and setbacks encountered by the little band were most harrowing and discouraging, but at last they reached the shores of what was to them the promised land, and disembarked at Charleston, South Carolina, April 14, 1764, from which city they made their way some 300 miles into the interior of the State where their grant was. Their difficulties were by no means over; indeed, to them it seemed sometimes as if they were only begun. The wild rugged wilderness where they were to establish themselves, they called by the names they had left in their beautiful France, New Bordeaux and Abbeville, and they set to work to clear land and plant the cuttings of grape-vines to make wine, and the cuttings of mulberry to carry on the manufacture of silk, which were their industries at home. It is hard for us now to realize what they had to encounter and endure—wild beasts, Indians, difficulties of transportation, of transforming the big trees of the forest into lumber suitable to building houses; but all these they conquered. They built homes, they planted vineyards and orchards and mulberry-groves, and succeeded in the manufacture of silk with their spinning-wheels and hand-looms. There is at the old home place in Abbeville now one of the little spinning-wheels with which the silk was spun, that the colony sent with pride as a gift to be made into a dress for the royal wardrobe of the Queen of England.

My great-grandfather was a man of executive ability and strength, with that personal charm which made him intensely beloved and revered by his little flock; and they prospered as long as he lived, but, alas, his life was cut short by an unfortunate accident. He had brought with him from France a devoted and capable attendant, Pierre Le Roy, who in this wilderness filled many and diverse offices; he delighted to vary the often very limited diet of the pasteur by preparing for him dainty dishes of mushrooms with which he was familiar in the old country. There are many varieties here unknown there, and any one who knows this delicious but dangerous vegetable, knows how easily confounded are the good and the poisonous; the deadly Aminita resembles very closely one of the best edible mushrooms; we know not exactly how, but one night the dainty dish proved fatal to the great and good pasteur, and his flock was left desolate in August, 1773, just nine years after their arrival in the New World.

Jean Louis Gibert had married Isabeau Boutiton, a fellow emigrant and sister of his assistant minister, Pierre Boutiton. She was left a widow very young, with two little daughters, Louise and Jeanne, and one son, Joseph, to struggle with the difficult new life. I cannot pursue the fortunes of the colony, but without the leader and counsellor on whom they leaned the colony soon began to disintegrate and disperse, and their descendants are now scattered all over the country. But of this I am sure, wherever they have gone they have carried their strong, upright influence, always raising the standards and ideals of the communities they entered.

Little Louise Gibert very early married William Pettigrew, a blue-eyed, fair-haired young neighbor, who was charmed by her dark beauty. His grandparents had come from Ireland and settled in Pennsylvania, from which State their sons had scattered, Charles settling in North Carolina, where he was to become the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, and William settling in South Carolina as a farmer.

They had a large family, four sons and five daughters:

John, clever and witty, but the ne’er-do-well of the family.

Tom, who died a captain in the U. S. navy.

Charles, who graduated at West Point.

The daughters were:

Jane Gibert, who married John North.

Mary, who never married.

Louise, married Philip Johnston Porcher.

AdÈle, married Robert Francis Withers Allston.

Harriet, married Henry Deas Lesesne.

The sisters were all women of rare beauty, but Mary. Outsiders never could decide which was the most beautiful, but, of course, each family thought their own mother entitled to the golden apple. My mother was painted by the artist Sully when she was twenty-two, just a year after the birth of her first child, Benjamin, when she was so ill that her hair was cut, so she appears in the portrait with short brown curls, and is very lovely. There is a portrait of her painted by Flagg, in middle life. When she died in her eighty-seventh year she was still beautiful, with brown, wavy hair only sprinkled with gray.

The tradition in my mother’s father’s family was that the Pettigrews had come from France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and had gone to Scotland, when they had changed the spelling of the name from Petigru, and had eventually moved to Ireland. This idea was, of course, pleasant to the little Frenchwoman, and when her eldest son, James Louis, grew up and proposed to change the spelling of his name and revert to the French spelling she was delighted, and the father consented that the children should spell the name as they preferred, but he declined to change his. So on his and his wife’s tombstone in the most interesting little God’s acre at the old home in Abbeville, his name is William Pettigrew, while all his children are recorded as Petigru. My mother said to me not long before her death that she felt it had been a mistake, as there was no survivor of the Petigru name, all the sons having died. But I do not agree with her, for my uncle, James L. Petigru, was a great man—heart, soul, and mind—and left a mark in his State, having codified her laws with knowledge and wisdom. He was almost the only man in Charleston who was opposed to secession,—I may almost say the only man in the State.[2] But he was so revered and beloved that, at a time when party feeling was intense, he walked out of his pew in St. Michael’s Church (which he never failed to occupy on Sunday) the first time the Prayer for the President of the United States was left out of the service, and no one ever said one word of criticism or disapproval. In a period when party politics ran high and bitter feeling was intense, it was a wonderful tribute to a man’s character and integrity that, even though running counter to the intense united feeling of the community, love and respect for him should have protected him from attack.

My mother always talked with great pleasure of her early life. She spoke with admiration and love which amounted to adoration of her “little mother.” Her father took second place always in her narrative, though he was a most delightful companion—very clever and full of wit, a great reader, and it was his habit to read aloud in the evenings, while the family sat around the fire, each one with some appointed task. The elder girls sewed, while all the children had their baskets of cotton to pick, for in those days the gin had not been invented and the seed had to be carefully picked from the cotton by hand! It would seem a weary task to us, but they regarded it as a game, and ran races as to who should pick the most during the long winter evenings while my grandfather read Milton, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, and other masters of literature. When one contrasts those evenings, those influences on the minds of children, with the amusements and diversions deemed necessary to the young of the present day, one does not wonder at the pleasure-loving race we are becoming. Add to this that there were no little story-books to dissipate the minds of children. My mother’s ideal of a story-book was her beloved Plutarch’s “Lives,” and I remember still with intense regret her disappointment when, I having accomplished the task of learning to read fluently, she one morning placed in my lap a large volume with very good print, and turned to the Life of Themistocles, which she had so loved. Perhaps if it had not been for the long s’s which adorned this beautiful edition of Plutarch it might have been more of a success, but at the end of the half-hour I announced that I saw no pleasure in such a dull book.... I would gladly read to her from one of my story-books, and then she would see what a really nice book was. My dear mother was so pained. She had had the same experience with the older children, but she thought me very bright and felt sure that she would find a congenial mind in her “little Bessie.” Seeing how hurt she was and that she had set her heart on that special book, I did not insist on my book but came every day and read the Plutarch aloud; but I never enjoyed it, which she could never understand.

This thing of bringing all reading matter presented to a child down to its level is a great mistake; it lowers ideals and taste. Stories while you are a child, and then romances, novels, detective tales, corrupt the taste until it is so reduced that there are not many young people now who can read Scott’s novels with any more pleasure than I read Plutarch at ten. My mother’s school was the old field school of the long ago. The country was thinly settled and the schools widely separated, so that children had to make an all-day business of it. The nearest school to the family home was on Long Cane, three miles away, and mamma, at first accompanied by an older sister and brother, later alone, walked three miles to school every day. She took her little basket of lunch, a substantial one, for she did not get home again until late afternoon. It is quite surprising to find what excellent instruction was given in these “old field schools.” Education was not so widely diversified, but it was more thorough and of a higher kind, as far as it went.

Mamma learned to prove sums by “casting out the nines” in a wonderful way, which no one else that I ever saw knew anything about. Her mind was stored with treasures of good poetry which she had been required to memorize in school. On her solitary walk home she was never lonely. The birds and the little inhabitants of the woods were her delight. At a big chestnut-tree about a mile from home she had special friends—two squirrels who ran down from their castle in the top of the tree when they heard her coming, and she always reserved some of her lunch for them. She sat at the root of the tree and played with them until she saw the sun about to sink below the horizon, when she picked up her little school-bag and started at a run for the last stretch of her way home.

CHAPTER V
DADDY TOM AND DADDY PRINCE—DEATH OF LITTLE MOTHER SO BELOVED

THE farms of the up-country as a rule required few hands, and so each farmer owned only a few negroes, and, of course, the relations between master and slave were different from those in the low-country, where each plantation had a hundred or more negroes, which necessitated separate villages, where the negroes lived more or less to themselves. In the up-country it was more like one large family. In my mother’s home there were three quite remarkable, tall, fine-looking, and very intelligent Africans who had been bought by her grandfather from the ship which brought them to this country. Tom, Prince, and Maria—they occupied an important place in my mother’s recollections of her early childhood. They had been of a royal family in their own land, and had been taken in battle by an enemy tribe with which they were at war, and sold to a slave-ship. No one ever doubted their claim to royal blood, for they were so superior to the ordinary Africans brought out. They were skilled in the arts of their own country, and had artistic tastes and clever hands. Daddy Tom and Daddy Prince told tales of their wild forests, which the children were never tired of hearing nor they of telling. Maum Maria made wonderful baskets and wove beautiful rugs from the rushes that grew along Long Cane Creek. One day as she sat on the ground weaving a rug which she had hung from a tree, and my mother was listening to her stories of her home in Africa, the little girl said in a voice of sympathy: “Maum ’Ria, you must be dreadfully sorry they took you away from all that, and brought you to a strange land to work for other people.” Maum Maria stopped her work, rose to her full height—she was very tall and straight—clasped her hands and said, dropping a deep courtesy as she spoke: “My chile, ebery night on my knees I tank my Hebenly Father that he brought me here, for without that I wud neber hev known my Saviour!” She remained, hands clasped, and a look of ecstasy on her face, for some time before she sat down and resumed her work, and the little girl, greatly impressed, asked no more questions that day. When grandmother died, she left these three free, with a little sum to be given them yearly; not much, for she had little to leave. Daddy Tom took his freedom, but Daddy Prince and Maum Maria said they were grateful to their beloved mistress, but they would rather remain just as they were; they had all they needed and were happy and loved their white family, and they did not want to make any change.

My grandfather Pettigrew, with all his charming qualities of wit and good humor, had no power to make or keep money. And among the few sad memories my mother had of her childhood was that of seeing her beloved little mother sitting at the window looking out, while tears coursed down her cheeks, as she saw the sheriff taking off all their cattle, and two families of their negroes to be sold!... her husband having gone security for a worthless neighbor. My mother told it with tears, even when she was very old, the scene seemed to come so vividly before her of her mother’s silent grief.

It is curious to me that my paternal grandfather, Ben Allston, also lost his plantation for a security debt, having signed a paper when he was under age for a cousin who was in trouble pecuniarily. Grandfather was advised by a lawyer to contest the matter, as he had been a minor and it was not valid, but he would not avail himself of that plea, I am thankful to say, and lost the beautiful and valuable plantation which he had inherited, Brook Green on the Waccamaw. That is the only point of similarity between my two grandfathers, however, as they were totally different types, one Scotch-Irish, the other pure English.

The little Frenchwoman, so beloved by her children, did not live to show any sign of age, and the memory remained with my mother of her beauty, her olive skin and black hair, in which no strands of white appeared, and her graceful, small, active figure and tiny hands and feet. She always spoke broken English, but, as her husband did not speak or understand French, she never spoke it with her children through courtesy to him, and none of them spoke French. Her illness was short and the family had no idea it was to be fatal, but evidently she recognized it, for she called my mother and kissed her, and said: “My child, I want to tell you that you have been my greatest comfort. I want you to remember that always.”

CHAPTER VI
MARRIAGE

AFTER the mother’s death the home seemed very desolate; and when the eldest brother’s, James L. Petigru’s, wife proposed most generously to take the younger girls to live with them in Charleston, so that their education might be carried on, their father gladly consented, and my mother from that time lived with her brother in Charleston until her marriage, having the best teachers that the city afforded and enjoying the most charming and witty social surroundings. Aunt Petigru, though a beauty and belle, was a great invalid, so that the care of the house and her two young children came much on the sisters-in-law. Louise, two years older than my mother, married first and was established in her own home. After two years in society, which was very gay then, my mother became engaged to Robert Allston. When the family heard of the engagement they were greatly disturbed that my mother should contemplate burying her beauty and brilliant social gifts in the country, and her sister Louise thought fit to remonstrate, being a matron properly established in her city residence. She made a formal visit and opened her batteries at once.

“My dear AdÈle, I have come to remonstrate with you on this extraordinary announcement you have made! You cannot think of accepting this young man. Mr. Allston lives winter and summer in the country. He will take you away from all your friends and family. That he is good-looking I grant you, and I am told he is a man of means; but it is simply madness for you with your beauty and your gifts to bury yourself on a rice-plantation. Perhaps I would not feel so shocked and surprised if you did not have at your feet one of the very best matches in the city. As it is, I feel I should be criminal if I let you make this fatal mistake without doing all I can to prevent it. If you accept Mr. Blank, you will have one of the most beautiful homes in the city. You will have ample means at your command and you will be the centre of a brilliant social circle. My dear sister, my love for you is too great for me to be silent. I must warn you. I must ask you why you are going to do this dreadful thing?”

My mother was at first much amused; but as my aunt continued to grow more and more excited, contrasting her fate as my father’s wife with the rosy picture of what it would be if she accepted the city lover, mamma said: “Louise, you want to know why I am going to marry Robert Allston? I will tell you:—because he is as obstinate as the devil. In our family we lack willpower; that is our weakness.”

My aunt rose with great dignity, saying: “I will say good morning. Your reason is as extraordinary as your action.” And she swept out of the room, leaving my mother master of the field.

It was indeed a brave thing for my mother to do, to face the lonely, obscure life, as far as society went, of a rice-planter’s wife. She had been born in the country and lived there until she was fifteen, but it was a very different country from that to which she was going. It was in the upper part of the State, the hill country, where there were farms instead of plantations, and there were pleasant neighbors, the descendants of the French colony, all around, and each farmer had only one or two negroes, as the farms were small. In the rice country the plantations were very large, hundreds of acres in each, requiring hundreds of negroes to work them. And, the plantations being so big, the neighbors were far away and few in number. Whether my mother had any realization of the great difference I do not know. I hope she never repented her decision. I know she was very much in love with her blue-eyed, blond, silent suitor. They were complete contrasts and opposites in every way. Papa outside was considered a severe, stern man, but he had the tenderness of a very tender woman if you were hurt or in trouble—only expression was difficult to him, whereas to my mother it was absolutely necessary to express with a flow of beautiful speech all she felt.

They were married at St. Michael’s Church, Charleston, April 21, 1832, and went into the country at once. There was a terrible storm of wind and rain that day, which seemed to the disapproving family an appropriate sign of woe. But it was only the feminine members of the family who were so opposed to my father. My uncle approved of mamma’s choice, for he recognized in my father rare qualities of mind and spirit and that thing we call character which is so hard to define.

My uncle feared my mother would find only raw, untrained servants in her new home, so he gave her a well-trained maid and seamstress to whom she was accustomed, and who was devoted to her. Maum Lavinia was a thoroughly trained, competent house-servant, and must have been a great comfort, though she had a terrible temper. She married on the plantation and had a large family, dying only a few years ago, keeping all her faculties to extreme age. One of her grandsons is a prosperous, respected man in New York now, Hugh Roberton. I keep track of all the descendants of our family servants, and it gives me great pleasure when they make good and do credit to their ancestry. It does not always happen. In so many instances, to my great regret, they have fallen in character and good qualities instead of rising;—without training or discipline that is to be expected.

Mamma has told me of her dismay when she found what a big household she had to manage and control. Not long after they were married she went to my father, almost crying, and remonstrated: “There are too many servants; I do not know what to do with them. There is Mary, the cook; Milly, the laundress; Caroline, the housemaid; Cinda, the seamstress; Peter, the butler; Andrew, the second dining-room man; Aleck, the coachman; and Moses, the gardener. And George, the scullion, and the boy in the yard besides! I cannot find work for them! After breakfast, when they line up and ask, ‘Miss, wha’ yu’ want me fu’ do to-day?’ I feel like running away. Please send some of them away, for Lavinia is capable of doing the work of two of them. Please send them away, half of them, at least.”

But papa made her understand that he could not. These were house-servants; they had been trained for the work, even if they were not efficient and well trained. It would be a cruelty to send them into the field, to work which they were not accustomed to. Then he said: “As soon as you get accustomed to the life here you will know there is plenty for them to do. The house is large and to keep it perfectly clean takes constant work. Then there is the constant need of having clothes cut and made for the babies and little children on the place; the nourishment, soup, etc., to be made and sent to the sick. You will find that there is really more work than there are hands for, in a little while.” And truly she found it so. But it took all her own precious time to direct and plan and carry out the work. The calls to do something which seemed important and necessary were incessant. One day my father came in and asked her to go with him to see a very ill man. She answered: “My dear Mr. Urston” (she always called papa Mr. Allston, but she said it so fast that it sounded like that), “I know nothing about sickness, and there is no earthly use for me to go with you. I have been having the soup made and sending it to him regularly, but I cannot go to see him, for I can do him no good.” He answered with a grave, hurt look: “You are mistaken; you can do him good. At any rate, it is my wish that you go.” Mamma got her hat and came down the steps full of rebellion, but silent. He helped her into the buggy and they drove off down the beautiful avenue of live oaks, draped with gray moss, out to the negro quarter, which is always called by them “the street.”

The houses were built regularly about fifty yards apart on each side of a wide road, with fruit-trees on each side. There are generally about twelve houses on each side, so that it makes a little village. On Chicora Wood plantation there were three of these settlements, a little distance apart, each on a little elevation with good Southern exposure, and all named. One was called California, one Aunty Phibby Hill, and one Crick Hill, because Chapel Creek, a beautiful stream of water, ran along parallel with it and very near. In California, which was the middle settlement, was the hospital, called by the darkies “the sick-house.” To this, which was much larger than the other houses, built for one family each, my father drove. He helped mamma out and they entered; the room was large and airy, and there on one of the beds lay an ill man with closed eyes and labored breathing; one could not but see that death was near. He appeared unconscious, with a look of great pain on his face. My father called his name gently, “Pompey.” He opened his eyes and a look of delight replaced the one of pain. “My marster!” he exclaimed. “Yu cum! O, I tu glad! I tink I bin gwine, widout see yu once more.”

Papa said: “I’ve brought something good for you to look upon, Pompey. I brought your young mistress to see you,” and he took mamma’s hand and drew her to the side of the bed where Pompey could see her without effort.

His whole face lit up with pleasure as he looked and he lifted up his hands and exclaimed: “My mistis! I tank de Lawd. He let me lib fu’ see you! ’Tis like de light to my eye. God bless you, my missis.” And turning his eyes to papa, he said: “Maussa, yu sure is chuse a beauty! ’Tis like de face of a angel! I kin res’ better now, but, my marster, I’m goin’! I want yu to pray fur me.”

So papa knelt by the bed and offered a fervent prayer that Pompey, who had been faithful in all his earthly tasks, should receive the great reward, and that he might be spared great suffering and distress in his going. Then he rose and pressed the hand which was held out to him, and went out followed by my mother. As they drove home she was filled with penitence and love. She wanted to express both, but as she glanced at my father she saw that his mind was far away and she could not. He was, in mind, with the dying man; he was full of self-questioning and solemn thought: “Had he been as faithful to every duty through life as Pompey in his humbler sphere had been?” No thought of his bride came to him.

At last she spoke and said: “I thank you for having made me come with you, and I beg you to forgive my petulance about coming. I did not understand.” He pressed her hand and kissed her but spoke no word, and they returned to the house in silence.

My heart has always been filled with sympathy for my mother when she told me these things of her early life, for I was very like her, and I do not know how she stood that stern silence which came over papa when he was moved. And yet I adored him and I think she did, but all the same it must have been hard.

She found the life on the plantation a very full one and intensely interesting, but not at all the kind of life she had ever dreamed of or expected, a life full of service and responsibility. But where was the reading and study and self-improvement which she had planned? Something unexpected was always turning up to interrupt the programme laid out by her; little did she suspect that her mind and soul were growing apace in this apparently inferior life, as they could never have grown if her plans of self-improvement and study had been carried out.

CHAPTER VII
MOVE TO CANAAN—AUNT BLYTHE

THE cultivation of rice necessitated keeping the fields flooded with river water until it became stagnant, and the whole atmosphere was polluted by the dreadful smell. No white person could remain on the plantation without danger of the most virulent fever, always spoken of as “country fever.” So the planters removed their families from their beautiful homes the last week in May, and they never returned until the first week in November, by which time cold weather had come and the danger of malarial fever gone. The formula was to wait for a black frost before moving; I believe that is purely a local expression; three white frosts make a black frost; that means that all the potato vines and all the other delicate plants had been killed so completely that the leaves were black.

At the end of May my father’s entire household migrated to the sea, which was only four miles to the east of Chicora as the crow flies, but was only to be reached by going seven miles in a rowboat and four miles by land. The vehicles, horses, cows, furniture, bedding, trunks, provisions were all put into great flats, some sixty by twenty feet, others even larger, at first dawn, and sent ahead. Then the family got into the rowboat and were rowed down the Pee Dee, then through Squirrel Creek, with vines tangled above them and water-lilies and flags and wild roses and scarlet lobelia all along the banks, and every now and then the hands would stop their song a moment to call out: “Missy, a alligator!” And there on the reeds and marsh in some sunny cove lay a great alligator basking in the sun, fast asleep. As soon as the sound of the oars reached him, he would plunge into the water, making great waves on which the boat rose and fell in a way suggestive of the ocean itself. The way was teeming with life; birds of every hue and note flew from tree to tree on the banks; here and there on top of a tall cypress a mother hawk could be seen sitting on her nest, looking down with anxious eye, while around, in ever-narrowing circles, flew her fierce mate, with shrill cries, threatening death to the intruder. No one who has not rowed through these creeks in the late spring or early summer can imagine the abundance and variety of life everywhere. On every log floating down the stream or lodged along the shore, on such a summer day rows of little turtles can be seen fast asleep, just as many as the log will hold, ranging from the size of a dinner-plate to a dessert-plate, only longer than they are broad—the darkies call them “cooters” (they make a most delicious soup or stew)—so many it is hard to count the number one sees in one trip. Besides all this, there is the less-pleasing sight of snakes on the banks and sometimes on the tree overhanging the water, also basking in the sun so trying to human beings at midday. But my mother was enchanted with this row, so perfectly new to her, and the negro boat-songs also delighted her. There were six splendid oarsmen, who sang from the moment the boat got well under way. Oh, there is nothing like the rhythm and swing of those boat-songs. “In case if I neber see you any mo’, I’m hopes to meet yu on Canaan’s happy sho’,” and “Roll, Jordan, Roll,” and “Run, Mary, Run,” “Drinkin’ Wine, Drinkin’ Wine,” “Oh, Zion!” I am filled with longing when I think of them. I was born at the seaside, and from that time until I was eighteen, the move from the plantation to the sea beach at the end of May, and the return home to the plantation the first week in November were great events and a perfect joy.

Of course, it was different for my mother, for the tearing up of stakes just as she had got accustomed to her new home and new life, the packing up of everything necessary for comfort for every member of the household for the summer and autumn was terrific. It required so much thought, so many lists, so much actual labor. At the same time carpets, curtains, and all the winter clothing had to be aired, sunned, and put up with camphor against the moths. She was pretty well worn out and tired by this new aspect of her future life, this upheaval and earthquake to be gone through twice a year, so that when she stepped into the boat she was not her gayest self; but, when the things were all stored in, the lunch-baskets and valises and a big moss-wrapped bunch of roses, and the dogs at her feet; when papa, seated by her, took the rudder ropes, when the boat shot out into the river and the hands broke into song, preceded by each one calling aloud to the other, “Let’s go, boys, let’s go,” she told me it was the most delightful revelation and sensation of her life almost. She had never been in a rowboat before; she had never been on a river. She had grown up in the interior, far in the hill country near the upper waters of the Savannah River, a rocky stream, where no woman ever thought of going in a boat. This swift, delightful movement, with the glorious sunshine and fresh morning breeze—for they always made an early start, there being so much to be done at the other end—made the row only too short.

But new pleasures awaited her, for the flat with the horses had gone ahead of them, starting with the ebb tide, at four in the morning; and, when they landed at the wharf at Waverly on the Waccamaw (which belonged to my father’s elder brother, General Joseph Allston, who died leaving his two sons, Joseph Blythe and William Allan, to papa’s care and guardianship), they found the horses all ready saddled, and they mounted and rode the four miles to “Canaan,” where they were to spend the summer. It was on the seashore, just at an inlet where the ocean view was; and, as mamma saw the great waves come rolling in, she was filled with joy anew. To me it has always been intoxicating, that first view each year of the waves rolling, rolling; and the smell of the sea, and the brilliant blue expanse; but then I was born there and it is like a renewal of birth.

My mother enjoyed her life here. It was much simpler than that at the plantation, with fewer servants, and that she much enjoyed. They had breakfast at six o’clock every morning, and as soon as breakfast was over, papa mounted his horse and rode to Waverly, where the boat met him. His horse was put in the stable and he rowed to Chicora, went over all the crop, the rice-fields first, landing on the bank opposite the house and walking round all the planted fields, seeing that the water was kept on the rice just at the right depth, that the fields which had been dried for hoeing were dry enough to begin on them with the hoe. There is a real science in rice-planting, and my father was thoroughly versed in it and most diligent in seeing after the treatment of each field. He was always followed by the trunk minder, Jacob, and in every field Jacob went down the bank to the water edge and drew out a stalk or two of rice for papa to examine the root growth, by which the water is managed. This accomplished, papa crossed to the house, where a horse was ready saddled. He mounted and rode all over the upland crop, corn, potatoes, oats, peas; went into the house, which Maum Mary kept fresh and clean, wrote a few letters, drank a glass of buttermilk and ate some fruit, got into his boat again, and returned to the seashore for a three-o’clock dinner, having done a tremendous day’s work; and he never failed, with all his work, to go into the garden and gather a bunch of roses and pink oleander to bring to mamma. Of course, his homecoming was the event of the day to my mother.

Soon papa’s aunt, Mrs. Blythe, came to be with them for the summer, which was a great pleasure to mamma. She was a woman of noble character and ample means, who was specially devoted to my father, having no children of her own, and recognizing in him a kindred nature. Aunt Blythe was a true specimen of the “grande dame” of the old South. She had been brought up to responsibility, to command herself and others; she was an old lady when mamma first knew her, but tall and stately in figure and beautiful in face. She brought her own barouche, horses, and coachman and footman, and her own maid and laundress—in short, a retinue. I never saw Aunt Blythe, as she died before I was born, but the tales of her generosity and her grandeur which were told by white and black placed her in the category of fairies and other benign spirits. I was named after Aunt Blythe, a rare instance of posthumous gratitude, I think; and my mother, in the way she did it, showed a sympathetic, romantic understanding of Aunt Blythe’s nature. She had been sought in marriage in her early youth by her first cousin, John Waties; but, when he approached her father and asked for his consent, he refused absolutely, as he disapproved of the marriage of cousins. So Aunt Blythe and her lover agreed not to be married during the father’s lifetime. Alas, alas! John Waties died very soon! He left all his property to his fiancÉe, which made her the rich woman of the family. This property included a large and valuable rice-plantation, with a large number of negroes. Aunt Blythe felt this a great trust and responsibility and most difficult to manage, for it was almost impossible to get an overseer who would treat the negroes with gentleness and justice. The men who sought the place of overseer in those days were invariably from the North, their one idea being to get as much work from the hands as possible, and, consequently, make as much money. Aunt Blythe could not live alone in this isolated spot, the barony of Friendfield (it is the plantation now owned by Doctor Baruch and kept by him as a game-preserve), and, after trying one overseer after another, and finding them cruel and regardless in their treatment of her people, she accepted one of her many suitors, Doctor Blythe, who had been a surgeon in the Revolutionary War. She was then able to live on her plantation and to see that her negroes were kindly and properly managed and looked after. Mamma became devoted to Aunt Blythe and wanted to name her second daughter after her, but my father wanted her named after his mother, who had died a few years before his marriage, so he named her Charlotte; but mamma wanted Aunt Blythe’s name in, so she asked to have the name Charlotte Frances—Aunt Blythe’s name was Elizabeth Frances—and papa consented, but he always called the beautiful little girl Charlotte, while mamma called her Frances. She died when she was about four, a grief my mother felt to the very end, with strange poignancy. When, some years after Aunt Blythe’s death, I made my appearance on the scene, mamma named me for her; but, instead of giving me the very pretty name of her excellent husband, she gave me the name of the man she loved, John Waties. So, instead of being Elizabeth Blythe Allston, I was named Elizabeth Waties Allston; not nearly so pretty a name, but it really made me the child of romance, I think. It was a beautiful thought and would have greatly pleased Aunt Blythe if she had known.

All of this has taken me from that first summer of my mother’s married life on the seashore. It was a very happy one, the long mornings spent in sewing and talking with one who knew people and life, which my mother did not at all; and, above all, who knew this very peculiar life, surrounded by hundreds of a different race, with absolutely different characteristics and ideas. Mamma told me that once she had said in a despairing voice to her:

“But, auntie, are there no honest negroes? In your experience, have you found none honest?”

“My dear, I have found none honest, but I have found many, many trustworthy; and, AdÈle, when you think of it, that really is a higher quality. It is like bravery and courage; bravery is the natural, physical almost, absence of fear; courage is the spiritual quality which makes a man encounter danger confidently in spite of inward fear. And so honesty is a natural endowment, but trustworthiness is the quality of loyalty, of fidelity which will make a man die rather than betray a trust; and that beautiful quality I have often found. When found, you must give it full recognition and seem to trust absolutely; one trace of suspicion will kill it; but one may make a mistake, and it is well, with every appearance of complete trust, to keep your mind alert and on the subject.”

My mother exclaimed: “Oh, my dear auntie, I do not see how I can live my whole life amid these people! I don’t see how you have done it and kept your beautiful poise and serenity! To be always among people whom I do not understand and whom I must guide and teach and lead on like children! It frightens me!”

Aunt Blythe laid her hand on my mother’s hand and said: “AdÈle, it is a life of self-repression and effort, but it is far from being a degrading life, as you have once said to me. It is a very noble life, if a woman does her full duty in it. It is the life of a missionary, really; one must teach, train, uplift, encourage—always encourage, even in reproof. I grant you it is a life of effort; but, my child, it is our life: the life of those who have the great responsibility of owning human beings. We are responsible before our Maker for not only their bodies, but their souls; and never must we for one moment forget that. To be the wife of a rice-planter is no place for a pleasure-loving, indolent woman, but for an earnest, true-hearted woman it is a great opportunity, a great education. To train others one must first train oneself; it requires method, power of organization, grasp of detail, perception of character, power of speech; above all, endless self-control. That is why I pleaded with my dear sister until she consented to send Robert to West Point instead of to college. Robert was to be a manager and owner of large estates and many negroes. He was a high-spirited, high-tempered boy, brought up principally by women. The discipline of four years at West Point would teach him first of all to obey, to yield promptly to authority; and no one can command unless he has first learned to obey. It rejoices my heart to see Robert the strong, absolutely self-controlled, self-contained man he now is; for I mean to leave him my property and my negroes, to whom I have devoted much care, and who are now far above the average in every way, and I know he will continue my work; and, from what I see of you, my child, I believe you will help him.”

My mother told me that this talk with Aunt Blythe influenced her whole life. It altered completely her point of view. It enabled her to see a light on the path ahead of her, where all had been dark and stormy before; the life which had looked to her unbearable, and to her mind almost degrading. Aunt Blythe urged her daily to organize her household so that she would have less physical work herself, and that part should be delegated to the servants, who might not at first do it well, but who could be taught and trained to do it regularly and in the end well. With Aunt Blythe’s help she arranged a programme of duties for each servant, and Aunt Blythe’s trained and very superior maid was able to assist greatly in the training of mamma’s willing but raw servants.

The old lady was most regular in taking her daily drives and always insisted on my mother’s going with her. It was a great amusement to her to see the preparations made. Aunt Blythe was big and heavy and always wore black satin slippers without heels. Mamma said she had never seen her take a step on mother earth except to and from the carriage, when she was always assisted. She wore an ample, plainly gathered black silk gown, with waist attached to skirt, cut rather low in the neck, and a white kerchief of fine white net for morning, and lace for dress, crossed in front, and a white cap. We have her portrait by Sully in that dress. She always carried a large silk bag filled with useful things, and as they met darkies on the way, Aunt Blythe would throw out to each one, without stopping the carriage, a handkerchief or apron, a paper of needles, or a paper of pins, or a spool of thread, or a card of buttons or hooks and eyes, or a spoon or fork—all things greatly prized, for in those days all these things were much scarcer than they are to-day, and there were no country shops as there are now, and, consequently, such small things were worth ten times as much as now to people, though they might not really cost as much as they now do. Sometimes it was a little package of tea or coffee or sugar which she had Minda, her maid, prepare and tie up securely for the purpose. Naturally, “Miss Betsey Bly” was looked upon as a great personage, and her path in her daily drives was apt to be crossed by many foot-passengers, who greeted her with profound courtesies, and apron skilfully tucked over the arm, so that it could be extended in time to receive anything.

CHAPTER VIII
FIRST CHILD—PLANTATION LIFE

THE next winter, in February, mamma’s first child, a son, named Benjamin, after papa’s father, was born. She was desperately ill, and her beautiful hair was cut as short as possible. Papa had thought it wisest for her to accede to her brother and his wife’s urgent request that she should go to them in Charleston for the event; and it was most fortunate, for had she been taken ill at home, with a doctor far away, she probably would not have lived. As it was, her recovery was slow, and it was some time before she could resume her normal life at home. Aunt May, her unmarried sister, went home with her when she returned, and stayed until she regained her usual health. Aunt May was the only plain sister, for although she had beautiful complexion, brown hair, and fine figure, her face was not pretty,—but she made up in wit what she lacked in beauty. She was the wittiest, most amusing companion, and had great domestic gifts as housekeeper. Aunt May’s coffee, Aunt May’s rolls and bread, in short, every article on her table was superior, and, of course, this was a great comfort to mamma. There was only one drawback. Aunt May had no patience with incompetence, and the servants were a terrible trial to her, and mamma had to hear hourly of their shortcomings, which she knew only too well already, and to sympathize with Aunt May over them.

My mother spent a very anxious time in the first year of her eldest child’s life. He was very delicate, and mamma knew nothing about babies. The plantation nurses seemed to her very ignorant, and she was afraid to trust the baby to them. However, any one who has read Doctor Sims’s very interesting account of his early practice, especially among babies, well knows that these nurses, many of them, had learned through the constant care of babies how to manage them in a way surprising to one whose knowledge is altogether theoretic and scientific. Anyway, my brother grew and strengthened before the next baby came two years afterward. Robert was a very beautiful, strong child, and from the first gave no anxiety or trouble, only delight to mamma; and the little boys were always taken for twins, the elder being small for his age and the younger large.

Two years passed, and another baby came. This was the first little girl, and papa wished to name her for his mother, Charlotte Ann, and mamma asked that part of Aunt Blythe’s name be added—her name was Elizabeth Frances. She had died the winter before, and mamma missed her dreadfully. So the little girl was called Charlotte Frances; and, in the household with its number of servants, you could always distinguish those devoted to my mother, who always spoke of “Miss Fanny,” and those devoted to my father, who spoke of “Miss Cha’lot.” But I never knew this from mamma, and do not know if it were so. Hearing of her only from mamma, I only knew of her as Fanny, my perfectly beautiful little sister.

Of these years I know very little, nothing, indeed, except that my parents went the summer following to Newport and New York, and visited papa’s uncle, the great painter, Washington Allston, in Boston. When Mr. Flagg was looking over the great man’s letters preparatory to publishing his life and letters, he found one from Washington Allston to his mother, speaking of this visit and of my mother’s beauty and charm; and Mr. Flagg very kindly sent this letter to my mother, who gave it to me, and there is quite a contest among my nieces and nephews as to who will be the lucky one to whom I leave it. Mamma was greatly impressed by the ethereal beauty of the artist. She had at this time as nurse for the baby a woman from the State of New York, who took the little one in to see and be seen by her great-uncle. When she came out of the studio she said to mamma: “Surely, your uncle has the face of an angel, ma’am.”

Three years passed, mamma very happy with her little family of interesting children, two of them so beautiful that wherever they went the nurse was stopped on the street by those who remarked on the wonderful beauty of Robert and Fanny. Poor, dear little Ben was neither beautiful nor strong, but he had a good mind and powerful will. Mamma often went to Charleston to visit her brother and sisters there, for by this time the youngest sister, Harriet, was also married to a young and very clever lawyer, Henry Deas Lesesne, who was in the law office of James L. Petigru, and she had her charming home in Charleston; so there were three homes to be visited there. Aunt Louise had relented in her attitude to my father and was always hospitably anxious to entertain the little family. Aunt Blythe had left her fortune to my father and the two boys, still babies though they were, to the surprise and indignation of many. So these were happy prosperous years.

Papa found the house at Chicora too small for the growing family, and began the planning of a new one, to which the two very large down-stairs rooms of the old one should be attached as an L. As the spring came on, a new baby was expected, and mamma hoped it would be a little girl, to name after her mother. As my mother dreaded the move to the sea, which involved so much troublesome packing, my father built a summer house, what would now be called a bungalow, for it had large, airy rooms, but all on one floor, at a pineland about eight miles north of the plantation on the same side of the Pedee, where he had a large tract of land, and where the cattle went always in summer. It was called “The Meadows.” Mamma was very pleased to be so near the plantation, for she could drive down in the afternoons and see after her flower-garden, which was beautiful and her delight. She gathered great baskets of roses and brought them back. The Meadows was very prettily situated in a savannah, which was a natural garden of wild flowers—great, brilliant tiger-lilies, white and yellow orchis, the pink deer-grass, with its sweet leaf, pink saltatia, as well as white, and ferns everywhere.

Here, in this isolated new summer home, miles away from any neighbor, mamma was taken ill about two months before the time set for the baby’s coming. Hastily the doctor was summoned, a very young man, still unmarried, but one who showed early his skill and proficiency as a family doctor; then the monthly nurse, as it was then called, Mary Holland, was found and brought. Fortunately, she had been employed in Georgetown and had not yet returned to Charleston, where she lived, and was in great demand by the doctors of best standing. I remember her as an old woman, but still tall and stately in figure, and with great dignity and poise. She was about the color of an Indian. It was a mercy she could be got, for my mother was desperately ill; but the little girl so hoped for was born, and my mother did not die. When she became strong enough to speak, and my father was with her, she said: “I want to see little Louise.”

My father answered: “I will bring little AdÈle to you myself.”

She exclaimed: “Oh, Mr. Allston, I do not want the baby named after me! I must name her for my dear mother.”

But he answered: “I wish her to bear the name of my beloved wife.”

She said nothing, but the tears which all of her suffering had not brought, now rolled down her cheeks. In a little while papa returned with the small bundle of flannel wrappings and most skilfully and tenderly unfolded them until the baby was visible.

Mamma looked at her, and then with something of her wonted spirit said: “You may call her AdÈle if you like! Poor little soul, she cannot live! Take her away!”

I must think that this exhibition of almost cruel obstinacy on my father’s part was due to the fact that the doctor had told him mamma could not possibly recover, and he thought it the only chance to have a little girl to name after her.

Wonderful tales were told of the smallness of the little AdÈle. “She was put into a quart cup with ease and comfort to her.” After mamma was well enough to hold her and play with her, she passed her wedding-ring over her hand and on her arm as a bracelet! But the little AdÈle had a grit and grip on life which astounded every one, and she grew to womanhood, a beautiful creature in face, form, and spirit. She married and had seven children, and never lost one from illness. They grew up healthy and strong. The tiny AdÈle was born August 16, 1840, in the very middle of a very hot summer. Of course, my mother’s return to health was slow and tedious.

One can cast one’s mind back to that date, when ice was so great a luxury that it was only to be had in the North, where it was cut and put up in the winter. The Meadows was twenty miles from the nearest town and post-office, Georgetown, and everything had to be brought up by the plantation wagons and team. But milk and butter and cream were abundant, also poultry and eggs; and the Pedee furnished most delicious fish—bream and Virginia perch and trout. There were figs in abundance and also peaches, but the latter were small and a good deal troubled with cuculio. They were, however, very good stewed, and my mother made quantities of delicious preserves from them.

Around the house at Chicora grew luxuriant orangetrees, only the bitter-sweet; but these oranges make the nicest marmalade, so mamma put up quantities of that for winter use. Her vegetable-garden was always full of delicious things—cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and okra; and, as my father killed beef and mutton every week for use on the plantation, she had the very best soups and steaks; and there were always wild ducks to be had. Also, after August 1, there was venison in the house, for my father was devoted to deer-hunting. At the time the negroes understood preserving the venison in the hottest weather by exposing it to the broiling sun. I do not know what else they did, for it is now a lost art; but it was called “jerked venison” and was a delicious breakfast dish, when shaved very thin and broiled. They also preserved fish in the same way—called “corned fish”—it was a great breakfast dish broiled. Besides all this, about the end of August the rice-birds began to swarm over the rice, sucking out all the grain when in the milk stage. This necessitated the putting out of bird-minders in great numbers, who shot the little birds as they rose in clouds from the rice at the least noise. These rice-birds are the most delicious morsels; smaller than any other bird that is used for food, I think, so that a man with a good appetite can eat a dozen, and I, myself, have eaten six. When they go out at the end of harvest, another delicious little bird comes in, called locally a coot, but really the rail or soarer of Maryland. All these things made living easy and abundant, for they came in great quantities.

Mamma spoke with great pleasure of this part of her life when she could thoroughly enjoy her little family, sorrow not yet having clouded her horizon. When the little AdÈle was two years old came a little sister, strong, healthy, and beautiful, to bear the name of the beloved little French mother, Louise Gibert—then her cup of happiness was full. She had come to love the plantation life, with its duties and its power to help the sick, to have the girls taught to sew and cut out simple garments, to supply proper and plentiful nourishment for the hospital—all this came to be a joy to her. There was on the plantation, besides the hospital or “sick-house,” a “children’s house,” where all the mothers who were going out to work brought their children to be cared for during the day. The nursing babies, who were always taken care of by a child of ten or eleven, were carried to the mothers at regular intervals to be nursed. The head nurse, old Maum Phibby (Phoebe), was a great personage, and an administrator, having two under her, a nurse and a cook. Maum Phibby trained the children big

enough to learn, teaching them to run up a seam and hem, in the way of sewing, and to knit first squares for wash-cloths, and then stockings, and then to spin. When the war came there was not a grown woman on the plantation who could not knit stockings or spin yarn. Weaving was only taught to certain young women who showed ability and some mechanical skill.

Mamma walked out often to the sick-house to see the patients and taste the soup and other nourishment, and then on to the “chillun’s house” to see how their food was prepared, and whether they were all kept clean and healthy. This she did all her life, and I remember the joy of being allowed to go with her and of seeing the children all lined up in rows, their black skins shining, as clean black skins do, in a delightful way, their white teeth gleaming as they dropped their courtesies as mamma passed, each one holding in her hand some piece of work to exhibit. They were a healthy, happy lot and very clean, as it was an important part of Maum Phibby’s duties to report the mothers who were negligent of “clean linen.”[3] There was in the children’s house, as well as the sick-house, a tin tub, that in the hospital big enough for the tallest man to lie straight in, and that at the children’s house smaller; and any number of huge black kettles, so that hot water in great quantities could be got very quickly on the open fires. The children were bathed and scrubbed once a week by Maum Phibby, and woe to the mother whose child was not found to have been kept clean in the meantime. I have two of those immense coffin-shaped tubs now, perfectly good and strong, and I had one freshly painted and used it until two years ago, when I was able to put in a modern bathtub. At the end of the war, when furniture and every portable thing was carried off by the darkies, the bathtubs from the sick-house were the one thing not taken. They were conspicuously in poor repute, one thing that nobody wanted! The coffin-shaped tub has a great recommendation, as taking less than half the water to cover a person entirely than the modern tub, and a very hot bath could be quickly given.

Mamma every Sunday afternoon had all the children big enough to come assembled in the little church in the avenue, and taught them what she could of the great mercy of God and what he expected of his children. It was always spoken of as “katekism,” and was the event of the week to the children—their best clothes, their cleanest faces, and oh, such smiling faces greeted mamma when she arrived at the church! After the lesson a big cake was brought in a wheelbarrow by one of the house-boys, convoyed by Maum Mary, who cut it with much ceremony, and each child went up to the barrow, dropped a courtesy and received a slice, then passed to my mother with another courtesy, filed out and scampered happily home as soon as safe from Maum Mary’s paralyzing eye.

All her life mamma kept this up, and in later years we children were allowed to go on condition that we should sit still and listen to the catechism, and ask for no cake until every child had had his share. Then we were allowed a few scraps, which tasted nicer than any other cake.

CHAPTER IX
FIRST GRIEVING

ONE spring, when the little Louise was about three, I think, AdÈle five, Fanny seven, Robert nine, Ben eleven, a neighbor wrote from Charleston to mamma, asking if she would receive her and her two children for a night. The children had been ill with scarlet fever, but were well again, and pronounced by the doctor fit to travel; but, in order to reach their home on Sandy Island in one day they would have to be out late in the evening; and she feared the night air, so took the liberty of begging mamma to receive them for the night. My mother wrote she would be happy to do so, and they came, spent the night, went on their way the next day. My mother had had no fear and the children played together. She felt as the doctor had pronounced them fit to travel it was perfectly safe. A few days after the visit Robert was playing, when he suddenly dropped his playthings and put his head in mamma’s lap, saying he felt sick. It was the dread disease. His illness was terrible from the first, but very short. He died. Then Fanny took it and followed rapidly, though Robert had been isolated from the moment he was taken. My poor mother was prostrated with her passionate grief. Every precaution then known was taken in the way of fumigation and burning up bedding and clothing, and the plague was stayed.

A great longing to visit the home of her childhood seized my mother, and my father felt it was a great thing that she should have the desire to go, as he really feared for her mind and health. So when all possible danger of contagion was considered over, he took her and the three children who were left up to Abbeville to the farm called Badwell, where she was born, and where her beloved mother lay in the family burying-ground with the pasteur of the desert, Jean Louis Gibert, her father. My father left them there and returned to his work. In a few days the beautiful little Louise was taken ill and died, and was laid by her grandmother in the God’s acre! I cannot bear to think of my mother’s suffering at this time. The tragedy of it! The child named at last for her mother, on this much-longed-for visit to her mother’s home. Now her three beautiful, strong children were gone, leaving only the delicate Ben and the delicate and tiny seven-months’ child, AdÈle. It seems like the crushing out of some dainty, happy creature, a beautiful, full, happy life drained of its joy, leaving only stern, exacting duty!

I know my dear father suffered terribly at this time, too, but he never spoke to me of it. He never found it possible to put his deeper feelings into words. I think he and my mother were a great comfort to each other in their grief, and I think it was this summer that my father had the desperate illness of which my mother has told me, and I believe it was his return from the jaws of death which made her first feel life held a future for her.

They were in the same isolated, remote summer house, The Meadows. Papa came home from his harvest work on the plantation much exhausted, went at once to bed, and when mamma followed him at midnight she knew he was desperately ill—a burning, consuming fever, and his rapid whispered speech showed him delirious. She called the servants, wrote a note to Doctor Sparkman, asking him to come at once, telling him how suddenly papa had been taken, put a man on horseback and sent him off in the night, telling him to go from place to place until he found the doctor. Then she proceeded to do what she could for the patient to reduce the awful fever. Cloths wrung out in water fresh from the spring on head and face and hands was all she could do to cool it, as there was no ice. Then she had a tub of hot water brought and with the help of Hynes, the house-servant, put his feet to the knees in that, covering him with blankets to produce steam. Mercifully this quieted him and the jabbering ceased and he slept. Daylight came, no doctor, no sound came to her listening ear of horse-hoofs. The heavy sleep as of one drugged lasted until she was frightened, but she feared to wake him. She looked after the children, having Hynes, who was very faithful and intelligent, to sit by papa and fan him. She gave the children their breakfast and tried to eat, herself, for she knew she would need all her strength. Dinner-time came, evening, night. Oh, the long hours, how they dragged! She thought of her desperate, passionate grief for her children, feeling she could not bear it. Had God heard her rebellious murmurings, and was he going to show her now how blessed she had then been, having her husband left to her! How unutterably worse this grief would be! How hopeless, indeed, would life be without him!

And so the hours wore on, but she was not idle; she thought of everybody and did everything for the comfort of the house. Just at midnight the dogs began to bark. She went on the piazza and heard wheels approaching. She had kept the dinner-table laid with flowers and silver and candles, all bright and cheery. As soon as she heard wheels she ordered the servants to bring in dinner, and when the doctor entered and said, “How is Colonel Allston?” she said, “Doctor, sit down and dine first, and then I will take you in to see him.” He sat down, and she went to the sick-room, where things were unchanged, the same drugged sleep and heavy breathing. As soon as the doctor had finished, he came and listened to her accurate account of all the symptoms. Then the fight began. I do not know what he gave or what he did, but he remained doing all that his skill and science suggested, for thirty-six hours, and then he felt for the first time that there was hope, and left to see after his other patients. He told my mother that he had been with a desperately ill patient on Santee, thirty miles south of his home, for twenty-four hours; when he returned to his home he found mamma’s note and the servant, and without going into the house, though he was famished for food after a thirty-mile drive, he had had a fresh horse put in and came right on. Then he said: “Oh, Mrs. Allston, if every one thought of the doctor as you do, the life of a country doctor would be a different thing, and fewer of them would become dependent on stimulants. I was exhausted, but expected to see and prescribe for the patient before having food. When I saw that delicious dinner of roast duck and vegetables I was completely surprised, but I blessed you and felt how much clearer my brain, how much better my condition to prescribe for the patient, and how much better chance it gave him for life, though, I confess, when I first saw Colonel Allston I did not feel there was any chance of saving him.” I tell all this just as my mother told it to me. It shows what a woman she was. My father recovered slowly, and it was the last summer they spent at The Meadows, the distance from all help in illness being too great.

The next May, 1845, they again moved to Canaan Seashore, where my mother had spent her first summer of married life. They went early in May and I was born on the 29th of that month. Naturally, I suppose, after all the sorrow and anxiety mamma had had, I was a miserably delicate, nervous baby, and I have heard mamma say that for months they were afraid to take me out of the house at all. At the end of that time the house which papa was building on Pawley’s Island, just across the marsh and creek from Canaan, was finished, and they determined to move the household over to the island for the rest of the summer. That was my first outing, and the times I was taken out of the room afterward were few and far between, for it seems after going out I never closed my eyes at all that night. I was a poor sleeper at any time, but after going out I was no sleeper at all. The floor of my dear mother’s room on the beach is seamed all over by the marks of the rocking-chair in which I was eternally rocked! They had a hard struggle to keep me alive. Both mamma and papa wanted me named for the dear old aunt who had been such a blessing to everybody, so I was named Elizabeth Waties, mamma with tender sympathy giving me the name she would have borne had her dream of love materialized. I seemed to be marked for sadness, with deep lines under my eyes, as though I had already wept much, which I certainly had, only with a baby it is not weeping, but crying, with the accompaniment of much noise.

The winter I was two years old, one Sunday mamma had gone with papa in a boat to All Saints’ Church, seven miles away on the Waccamaw. She looked out of the window as she listened to dear, saintly Mr. Glennie’s sermon, and across her vision passed a young man walking in the churchyard, holding by the hand little Ben, who had been allowed to go out when the sermon began. She was much excited, because she could not imagine what stranger could possibly be there. As he passed a second time she recognized her beloved brother Charles, whom she had not seen for several years. One can understand that the rest of Mr. Glennie’s excellent discourse was lost to her, and she could scarcely wait for the blessing, to rush out and meet the stranger.

He was in the army, having graduated from West Point in 1829. He told her he was on his way to Florida, and had managed to arrange to spend one day with her, but it could only be one. So when he reached the plantation and found she had gone by water to church so far away, he ordered a boat, and followed her, so as to lose nothing of his time with her. This visit was the greatest joy to my mother. He was her youngest brother and her special favorite. She was distressed when he told her where he was going and why. The U. S. post at Tampa, Florida, had proved a very deadly one. One officer after another who had been sent there in command had contracted the terrible malarial fever of the country and died soon after getting there. His friend Ramsay had been ordered there, and he found him in despair one day, having just received his orders. He said he had a wife and a mother, both dependent on him, and it was awful to him to be going to certain death when he thought of them and what would become of them. Uncle Charles said at once: “Ramsay, I will take your place; if I apply for the exchange, I can get it, and I have no one dependent upon me, so I have the right to do it.” The exchange had been effected and Uncle Charles was on his way to take the place which West Point for years sang of in their class song, “Benny Havens, Oh!” as “Tampa’s deadly shore.” Uncle Charles left early the next morning. By the time my next little brother came, a boy born the 31st of the next July, Uncle Charles had accomplished his sacrifice and fallen a victim to the fever, so the baby was named Charles Petigru; and everybody always loved him more than any of the other children. He was so beautiful and so sweet and good that we all expected him to die, but he didn’t, but grew up to be a man and always a blessing to all around him.

Mamma’s grief at her brother’s death was great, but she had learned to suffer without rebellion, and as some wise one has written, “there is great peace and strength in an accepted sorrow.” She always felt very proud of the heroism and self-sacrifice of Uncle Charles’s death. “No greater love is there than that a man give his life for his friend”; that is not quoted exactly, but it sets a man very high. Now we are living in such a heroic time, with men giving their lives on the battle-field to save one another, every hour, that perhaps it does not seem as grand a thing. But when one thinks of a very young, handsome, popular man deliberately giving up a choice army post to take one which meant certain, unheroic, painful, and obscure death, it seems to me very, very heroic and beautiful. After Uncle Charles’s death—I think he was the seventh commanding officer of the Tampa post who died in quick succession—the post was given up. Wonderful to say, now since the science of stamping out disease has reached such a height, Tampa is a health resort! and one wonders what was the cause of that death-dealing miasma which made the place so fatal. On our way to the Chicago Exposition, having to be some hours in Atlanta, we visited the military station there, and I met a Captain Ramsay, who told me he was the son of the officer whose life had been saved by my Uncle Charles Petigru’s generous heroism, and seemed quite excited to meet two nieces and three great-nieces of the heroic young lieutenant to whom his family owed so much.