Since the clay workers can be kept out it seems worth while to destroy all traces of them and have the wall white and fair once more. As the work progresses and the air of desolation is subdued my spirits rise, and I wonder how I have stood it so long. It is well there is something to cheer my spirits, for the financial outlook is appalling.
The storm-tossed crop is hopeless, the corn all damaged; in the little that there is, not a perfect ear.
November 14.
Great rejoicing! To-day's mail brought a letter from J. L. H. saying she would be here Monday. Day spent in trying to get the house in winter trim, for it is very cold. Got down most of the carpets and rugs, but could not get the curtains up. They are all sewed up in homespun bags in the spring with camphor or moth balls, and it really is a day's work to get them all out and beaten and aired.
November 15.
A tremendous day. Took my dearest J. down to Gregory and then to Woodstock, where it was so pleasant that I lingered too long. I had had a great deal of business to see about in Gregory, so that we were late getting in to Woodstock. I had fortunately bought a lantern and I needed it very soon after leaving Woodstock, the road being very winding and intricate for the first three miles.
At the ferry the man called to me to drive in quickly, as there was a tug coming down the river bringing him a new flat, and he must get me over as quickly as possible to return and change flats. Goliah, who had gone behind on the buckboard with me, was much excited and added all his strength to the two men in pulling the flat over. When we got about halfway over Moses, the ferryman, saw that the tug was coming down rapidly upon the wire. He called to the captain, a negro, to stop. This did no good at all. On, on, came the snorting tug like a relentless fate.
It was a dreadful situation, for I feared Ruth would turn her head, and then I knew she would jump out of the flat. Fortunately I had driven her hard and she was thankful to be quiet. While I was wondering that Ruth was so quiet something happened, I did not know what.
The four men and Goliah, who were pulling, were thrown to the floor of the flat, Ruth was nearly thrown flat, and the steel rope with which the flat was pulled lashed round the buckboard's wheels, fortunately not reaching the mare. I was thrown out on the wheel and before I had righted myself Goliah picked himself up and flew to Ruth's head, which I thought a wonderful evidence of fidelity to a responsibility, and it was lucky that he did so, for as soon as she realized that we were out of our course and not making for shore, Ruth became very restless and impatient.
Moses yelled to the man nearest the broken end of the rope to seize it, which he did, and that was a mercy, for if it had escaped we would have drifted down the river without any means of regulating or guiding our course. Then the men all pulled together on the rope and ran the flat up into the bushes about 200 feet from the slip where the flat lands.