NOTE
It may be wise to explain a peculiarity of our low-country rice region. From the last week in May until the first week in November it was considered deadly for an Anglo-Saxon to breathe the night air on a rice plantation; the fatal high bilious fever of the past was regarded as a certain consequence, while the African and his descendants were immune. Hence every rice planter had a summer home either in the mountains, or on the seashore, or in the belt of pine woods a few miles from the river, where perfect health was found. In 1845 my father built a large, airy house surrounded with wide piazzas on Pawley's Island, and there he spent the summer, with occasional trips north and abroad, until the war made it unsafe to occupy the island. Then he built a log house in the pineland village of Peaceville: this large house with double shingled roof was built by his plantation carpenters with wooden pins, owing to the blockade there being no nails to be had. After the war my brother owned this, and my mother in spite of great difficulties returned to the beach as a summer home. As the crow flies this island was about three miles east of Cherokee, but for us mortals to reach it, many miles by land and water had to be traversed—all of our belongings, servants, horses, cows, furniture, were loaded on to lighters and propelled seven miles through broad rivers and winding creeks to Waverly Mills where they were disembarked and travelled four miles by land, but when we reached this paradise on the Atlantic Ocean we felt repaid for all the effort. It was here we spent our summers when I began my rice-planting venture. As my mother reached the limit which David places for the span of life, she shrank from the long move and bought a house in Peaceville just opposite the church and here the last beautiful summers of her life were passed in peaceful serenity.
CHAPTER II
January 1.
On the rice plantation the first of January is the time for the yearly powwow, which the negroes regard as a necessary function. It is always a trial to me, for I never know what may turn up, and the talk requires great tact and patience on my part, not more, I suppose, however, than any other New Year's reception. One is so apt to forget that the "patte de velours" which every one uses in polite society is even more of a help in dealing with the most ignorant, and makes life easier to all parties.
Saturday, January 2.
I went down to Casa Bianca for the important talk. I found two more families had been seized by the town fever. Every year more hands leave the plantations and flock to the town, and every year more funerals wend their slow way from the town to the country; for though they all want to live in town, none is so poor but his ashes must be taken "home"; that is, to the old plantation where his parents and grandparents lived and died and lie waiting the final summons. I met such a procession to-day, an ox-cart bearing the long wooden box, containing the coffin, and sitting on top of it the chief women mourners, veiled in crêpe; behind, one or two buggies, each containing more people than it was intended to carry; then behind that a long, straggling line of friends on foot, all wearing either black or white, for their taste forbids the wearing of any color at a funeral. The expense of a railroad journey does not deter them from bringing their dead "home." The whole family unite and "trow een" to make up the sum necessary to bring the wanderer home, and even the most careless and indifferent of the former owners respect the feeling and consent to have those who have been working elsewhere for years, and who perhaps left them in the lurch on some trying occasion, laid to rest in the vine-covered graveyard on the old plantation.
