I must think that this exhibition of almost cruel obstinacy on my father’s part was due to the fact that the doctor had told him mamma could not possibly recover, and he thought it the only chance to have a little girl to name after her.
Wonderful tales were told of the smallness of the little Adèle. “She was put into a quart cup with ease and comfort to her.” After mamma was well enough to hold her and play with her, she passed her wedding-ring over her hand and on her arm as a bracelet! But the little Adèle had a grit and grip on life which astounded every one, and she grew to womanhood, a beautiful creature in face, form, and spirit. She married and had seven children, and never lost one from illness. They grew up healthy and strong. The tiny Adèle was born August 16, 1840, in the very middle of a very hot summer. Of course, my mother’s return to health was slow and tedious.
One can cast one’s mind back to that date, when ice was so great a luxury that it was only to be had in the North, where it was cut and put up in the winter. The Meadows was twenty miles from the nearest town and post-office, Georgetown, and everything had to be brought up by the plantation wagons and team. But milk and butter and cream were abundant, also poultry and eggs; and the Pedee furnished most delicious fish—bream and Virginia perch and trout. There were figs in abundance and also peaches, but the latter were small and a good deal troubled with cuculio. They were, however, very good stewed, and my mother made quantities of delicious preserves from them.
Around the house at Chicora grew luxuriant orangetrees, only the bitter-sweet; but these oranges make the nicest marmalade, so mamma put up quantities of that for winter use. Her vegetable-garden was always full of delicious things—cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and okra; and, as my father killed beef and mutton every week for use on the plantation, she had the very best soups and steaks; and there were always wild ducks to be had. Also, after August 1, there was venison in the house, for my father was devoted to deer-hunting. At the time the negroes understood preserving the venison in the hottest weather by exposing it to the broiling sun. I do not know what else they did, for it is now a lost art; but it was called “jerked venison” and was a delicious breakfast dish, when shaved very thin and broiled. They also preserved fish in the same way—called “corned fish”—it was a great breakfast dish broiled. Besides all this, about the end of August the rice-birds began to swarm over the rice, sucking out all the grain when in the milk stage. This necessitated the putting out of bird-minders in great numbers, who shot the little birds as they rose in clouds from the rice at the least noise. These rice-birds are the most delicious morsels; smaller than any other bird that is used for food, I think, so that a man with a good appetite can eat a dozen, and I, myself, have eaten six. When they go out at the end of harvest, another delicious little bird comes in, called locally a coot, but really the rail or soarer of Maryland. All these things made living easy and abundant, for they came in great quantities.
Mamma spoke with great pleasure of this part of her life when she could thoroughly enjoy her little family, sorrow not yet having clouded her horizon. When the little Adèle was two years old came a little sister, strong, healthy, and beautiful, to bear the name of the beloved little French mother, Louise Gibert—then her cup of happiness was full. She had come to love the plantation life, with its duties and its power to help the sick, to have the girls taught to sew and cut out simple garments, to supply proper and plentiful nourishment for the hospital—all this came to be a joy to her. There was on the plantation, besides the hospital or “sick-house,” a “children’s house,” where all the mothers who were going out to work brought their children to be cared for during the day. The nursing babies, who were always taken care of by a child of ten or eleven, were carried to the mothers at regular intervals to be nursed. The head nurse, old Maum Phibby (Phœbe), was a great personage, and an administrator, having two under her, a nurse and a cook. Maum Phibby trained the children big
MRS. BENJAMIN ALLSTON (NÉE CHARLOTTE ANNE ALLSTON), MOTHER OF R. F. W. ALLSTON.
Miniature by Fraser.