A quiet night alone with MacDuff. He behaved very well, though he does not like staying in the house as Mops used to do. When I tried him before he walked about all night, making so much noise that I could not sleep.
Lizette cooked some hominy and corn-bread very well and boiled an egg, so that I had a good breakfast. Chloe returned at 8 o'clock, just as I had finished. Poor little Josephine died ten minutes before she got there, but she had the satisfaction of sitting up with the body last night, and left early this morning to give orders here about digging the grave, as she begged them to "bring her home en put her by her mudder." She told me the "castle" was ordered very fine and that she was beautifully dressed. She was wonderfully composed. I told her to lie down and rest at once.
Then she confided to me that she had nothing suitable to wear at the funeral. Nothing black but a silk trimmed with lace. I went and ransacked all my belongings and at last found something that I thought would do. Unfortunately Chloe is formed in a more generous mould and the present cut of skirts makes it difficult to stretch them, but Jim's wife, Hetty, happened to be here and she is clever with her needle, so she undertook to enlarge the skirt, while I got a black hat and trimmed it and found a suitable veil, so that by the time the funeral procession arrived from Gregory, Chloe looked very nice.
To-night before going to bed she gave me an account of it with great pride. The "castle" was beautiful and four carriages and three buggies came up from Gregory behind the "hurst." One of Josephine's aunts has adopted the baby. I wanted Chloe to take it, but she does not care for children.
June 21.
A most exhausting day. The only way we have of making money for our auxiliary is by making ice-cream for sale two or three times during the summer. Ice-cream is a rarity in Peaceville and consequently these sales are very successful and we had arranged to have one this afternoon. I and my dear little neighbor, who is secretary of the auxiliary, furnish part of the milk. As soon as I could get off after the many impediments which arose this morning I took the demijohn of milk and drove over to Mr. F.'s and got theirs and took them out to Peaceville, where Mrs. R. and J. F. are going to make the cream.
I came home, had a hurried dinner, and went back to Peaceville to serve the cream, which I always enjoy, but the heat and the drive back and forth, amounting to sixteen miles, were almost too much for me. I brought some ice-cream to poor ill Georgie. I had the can packed well in ice and her delight over it was pathetic. She washed off the salt and ate all the ice after finishing the cream. I also brought some for Chloe and Lizette.
When I got seated down in the cool dining room in Mama's big chair and my little lamp with the shade on it I was too tired to move until after 12 o'clock. On the table by me was a book which I read in every spare moment with much pleasure: "The Bible in Spain; or the Journeys, Adventures and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an Attempt to Circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula." George Borrow made these journeys as far back as 1835, so there is nothing new in the book, but it holds my attention when I am too tired to read anything else, and to-night it did not fail me.
June 22.
The cotton is coming up, also the corn which was so long in the ground. I am so glad cow-peas are selling for $3 a bushel, and I am having mine threshed out so that I can sell some and be able to pay for the hoeing which is absolutely necessary now. As long as the cotton had not come up it seemed dangerous to attempt to work it.