Drove S— to church in our little pine-land village; she seemed to enjoy the very simple service. Then I took her over to my summer-house which is just across the road from the church. She was amused at the roughness and plainness of the pine-land house as compared to the winter quarters. Drove her then in to Hasty Point, which is named from Marion's hasty escape in a small boat from the British officers during the Revolution, and is a very beautiful point, overlooking the bold Thoroughfare and Peedee River; then home to a dinner of English ducks. I am very stiff from my agricultural efforts.
November 24.
Yesterday just as I was getting into the buckboard to drive S— down to Gregory to take the train Jim arrived. He has come to begin the colts' education and can only stay a month, as his employer in Gregory gave him a month's holiday. I am so glad to have him—told him to get all the harness together and mend things up and see if he could contrive a harness fit to put on Marietta to break her in the road cart.
S— was so anxious to see Casa Bianca that I thought we could drive in there on our way to Gregory, eat our lunch there, and still get down in time for the train, but we failed to do it. She was so delighted with the place and wanted to see everything in the rambling old house, even the garret with its ghostly old oil portrait of a whole family in a row and a broken bust of another member, that we delayed too long. Besides, the train left at 4:10 instead of 4:45, as it has been doing for some years. I had to leave S— to spend the night at the hotel, which I hated to do, but she said she must get off on the 6 a.m. train, and I was equally obliged to come home, so we parted with mutual regret.
The roughness and plainness of the pine-land house.
It was late for my long, lonely drive. By the time I got to the ferry it was dark, and I wondered how I was to manage. I asked the two old men to lend me their lantern, but they said they could not spare it. However, about half a mile farther on I stopped at a cottage and asked for the loan of a lantern, and the owner, a darky, brought out a bright, well-trimmed lantern and with true courtesy assured me he was happy to lend it, and I made the drive without accident, truly thankful to get into my dear home, with its bright fire of live-oak logs, at 8:30 out of the cold and darkness.
December 8.
To-day Richard Dinny came to say he would undertake to mend the break in the rice-field bank. As it is about two miles round there in a boat, I had him paddle me through the canal to Long field trunk, and I walked from there on the banks. I hurried along because the time was short before hour for luncheon. I had had the bank hoed just in the middle, so that a sportsman could go through unseen by the ducks in the field. Sometimes it was hard for me to get through with my skirt, but the man found it hard to keep up with me. The break looked very alarming, the water rushing over, and every tide that goes over will double the work.