The lady then having arranged herself comfortably in Molly’s seat began in plaintive accents to tell her melancholy tale. She was a widow. She lost her husband in the battles around Richmond. Soon some one went out and a man offered her the vacant seat. Straight as an arrow she went in for a flirtation with the polite gentleman. Another person, a perfect stranger, said to me, “Well, look yonder. As soon as she began whining about her dead beau I knew she was after another one.” “Beau, indeed!” cried another listener, “she said it was her husband.” “Husband or lover, all the same. She won’t lose any time. It won’t be her fault if she doesn’t have another one soon.”
But the grand scene was the night before: the cars crowded with soldiers, of course; not a human being that I knew. An Irish woman, so announced by her brogue, came in. She marched up and down the car, loudly lamenting the want of gallantry in the men who would not make way for her. Two men got up and gave her their seats, saying it did not matter, they were going to get out at the next stopping-place.
She was gifted with the most pronounced brogue I ever heard, and she gave us a taste of it. She continued to say that the men ought all to get out of that; that car was “shuteable” only for ladies. She placed on the vacant seat next to her a large looking-glass. She continued to harangue until she fell asleep.
A tired soldier coming in, seeing what he supposed to be an empty seat, quietly slipped into it. Crash went the glass. The soldier groaned, the Irish woman shrieked. The man was badly cut by the broken glass. She was simply a mad woman. She shook her fist in his face; said she was a lone woman and he had got into that seat for no good purpose. How did he dare to?—etc. I do not think the man uttered a word. The conductor took him into another car to have the pieces of glass picked out of his clothes, and she continued to rave. Mr. Team shouted aloud, and laughed as if he were in the Hermitage Swamp. The woman’s unreasonable wrath and absurd accusations were comic, no doubt.
Soon the car was silent and I fell into a comfortable doze. I felt Molly give me a gentle shake. “Listen, Missis, how loud Mars Adam Team is talking, and all about ole marster and our business, and to strangers. It’s a shame.” “Is he saying any harm of us?” “No, ma’am, not that. He is bragging for dear life ’bout how ole ole marster is and how rich he is, an’ all that. I gwine tell him stop.” Up started Molly. “Mars Adam, Missis say please don’t talk so loud. When people travel they don’t do that a way.”
Mr. Preston’s man, Hal, was waiting at the depot with a carriage to take me to my Richmond house. Mary Preston had rented these apartments for me.
I found my dear girls there with a nice fire. Everything looked so pleasant and inviting to the weary traveler. Mrs. Grundy, who occupies the lower floor, sent me such a real Virginia tea, hot cakes, and rolls. Think of living in the house with Mrs. Grundy, and having no fear of “what Mrs. Grundy will say.”
My husband has come; he likes the house, Grundy’s, and everything. Already he has bought Grundy’s horses for sixteen hundred Confederate dollars cash. He is nearer to being contented and happy than I ever saw him. He has not established a grievance yet, but I am on the lookout daily. He will soon find out whatever there is wrong about Cary Street.
I gave a party; Mrs. Davis very witty; Preston girls very handsome; Isabella’s fun fast and furious. No party could have gone off more successfully, but my husband decides we are to have no more festivities. This is not the time or the place for such gaieties.