Got back from my delightful holiday last evening. I stopped on my drive from the Camps at Cherokee to see how everything was. Found my good old Bonaparte in deep distress; his faithful and devoted wife died two weeks ago.
They had lived together happily fifty-three years and he is crushed. He cried like a child on seeing me. I gave him my earnest sympathy. I'm so sorry her illness and death should have come while I was away. In broken words he told me what a surprise it was to him; he never thought "Liz could die en lef him." When a working-man loses a good wife he is indeed bereft; his companion, helpmeet, cook, washer, seamstress, mender, all gone at one fell swoop, and he is left forlorn.
I shall myself miss Lizette very much. There were certain things she always did in the sausage making and Christmas preparations. I always meant to get her to tell me all she remembered and to write it down. She belonged to a family much considered by my father and by his parents before him. They were distinguished for loyalty, fidelity, and honesty, and took great pride in their distinction as a family.
Lizette's mother, Maum Maria, was our nurse and her father, old Daddy Moses, could be trusted with anything. Put gold, silver, provisions, anything in his charge and it was safe. His sense of responsibility was sacred—alas, alas, to find such a one now! Some of his descendants are very smart, but none has just his character.
One of his sons, William Baron, who had been our third house servant, I mean in rank, there being two men above him, made quite a name for himself as a caterer and steward of the club in Charleston after the war, and one of his great-grandsons Sam Grice (Lizette and Bonaparte's grandson) is a minister of the Episcopal Church. He was educated in a church school here and when there was a call for a boy of high character to be taken and to be educated by the church he was chosen and proved most satisfactory in every way, and he passed a remarkably fine examination in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew before his ordination.
He used to visit his grandparents every year, but since he has been ordained priest he has not been here, as he has married and has work. He is the pride and joy of his grand-parents' heart, but there is always a little drawback in the fact that they are uncompromising Methodists and they feel he has deserted their church.
For the present Bonaparte's usefulness is quite gone, even his capacity to do anything with his hands, and he cannot stay in his house, has to go over to stay at his son's, a mile away. He seemed to feel that now I had come home things would be easier.
Chloe came home two weeks ahead of me so as to accomplish the move from the plantation to the pineland, and I found everything comfortably arranged for me, a nice dinner and no bad news.
My delightful new possession, a most high-bred and distinguished Scottish terrier, MacDuff, which I sent home with her, met me with enthusiasm. He was a present from my charming friend and hostess and is going to be a great pleasure to me. It is impossible to describe him, he reminds one of so many different wild beasts, all the time being strangely human.
After dinner Chloe brought out a beautiful fruit-cake which she had made for my birthday. She seemed afraid I might accuse her of extravagance and assured me she had only used up the odds and ends of fruit which were left in the storeroom and the fresh butter and fresh eggs which I was not at home to eat. I was delighted and praised her very much for her cleverness and thought; seeing me looking in the silver drawer for the cake knife, she added hastily:-