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.
Pounding rice.
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.