Poor little Goliah was in rags and I have made him some clothes, but my forte is not tailoring and I could not get just the stuff I wanted for him. He speaks of himself as my "'ostler." I speak of him as my "man of all work," for such he is.
Sunday, April 15.
After service I went over to my house in Peaceville, which is just opposite the church, and took out four queer little, old-fashioned trunks full of papers which I have kept out there until now. Two of the trunks are covered with skins with the hair on and studded with brass nails. One has the initials "E. F. B." in brass on the top.
They all contain very old papers, among them grants to my ancestors for 6000 acres of land. These are very much the worse for age and I am going to take them on to Washington to see if I can have them repaired. I scarcely think it will be possible as the grant to my great-great-grandmother, Esther Allston, is falling to pieces, and the seal seems in danger of crumbling. The date is December 21, 1769.
The church in Peaceville.
I did not know the grants were in these old trunks, which I was gradually looking over. I kept them at Peaceville because the summer days are longer and more suitable for reading old letters and papers. I have been urged by two publishers to write all I can remember from my earliest years. It seems to me absurd for one who has lived such a secluded life to write her reminiscences, but I would find it most interesting work, as it would involve the reading over of old letters. I have every letter written to me since I was 10 years old. If the pressure of daily anxiety for the wherewithal to carry on the work is ever lightened I think I will try to do it just for my own satisfaction, for I do not think it would ever be a profitable venture for publication.
I have always kept a diary of some sort. When I was married and was ambitious to become a fine housekeeper, though I could never hope to rival my belle-mère, who had a genius for housekeeping besides being a brilliantly clever woman, I kept a "Diary of Dinners," in which I recorded every culinary triumph of my belle-mère, with whom we lived for two years. Then when thrown upon my own resources, I had this delightful guide to the possibilities of the season as to dinners.
It was not so difficult then to provide because we raised great quantities of poultry, turkeys, and ducks and guinea fowl as well as chickens, for the negroes did not steal things then as they do now; they all raised an abundance of poultry themselves and so the temptation to steal was not so great. Now they raise less and less poultry every year. This comes from their selling all their chickens and eggs and buying canned salmon, sardines, biscuit, and ginger snaps.