Our day of adversity had not come; it was not unnatural that we sang with fervor and animation, “We conquer or die,” and “Farewell, Brother Jonathan.” But we did not forget to call upon the Lord in the day of our success, as well as in the day of our adversity. Often the inhabitants of our settlement—and it was just the same all over the Southern States—were called to the house of worship to sanctify a fast. What comfort and consolation we gathered from the reading of the first and second chapters of the book of the Prophet Joel; how fervently and devoutly we prayed that God would stay up the hands of our armies, till victory was won; and trusting God we would return lifted up in spirit to our homes and to our labor. It was well for us that we had not prophetic vision to foresee the result of the contest. We fasted, we prayed, we trusted; but victory did not crown our armies.
IX.
It may excite some amusement to record the fact that among the thousand and one industries and makeshifts which blossomed into life in southern Alabama during the period of the war, the making of hoopskirts, which were worn extensively before, as well as during, and even for some time after, hostilities between the North and South, was not neglected. One of the ladies of our county devised a means of weaving the hoopskirt on the common house-loom. It mattered not if the tapes were all broken, and the casing all worn off the steels, a new farthingale was warranted, if only the steels of the worn skirt came.
There were raids made upon garrets for all old broken-up hoopskirts and pieces of steel belonging to such skirts, which we either carried or sent to the renovator of dilapidated hoopskirts. Her first move was to tightly wrap the steels one by one with homespun thread, three or four strands double, but not twisted, piecing the steels, when necessary. An old hoopskirt not so worn was her guide as to the proper number and length of steels. The thread for the warp of the skirt was passed through the harness eyes and reeds of the sley about an inch wide, which was to answer for the tape of the skirt; a space of threads, six or more inches, was skipped in the harness and sley; the thread for the tape again passed through the harness and sley; another skip, and so on the length of the sley. When ready for weaving, one of the encased steels was placed in the openings of the narrow strips of warp, the steel projecting about three inches on each side of the outside tape; the steel was woven in; then about two inches or more of tape was woven; another steel was placed in; the same length of tape woven; another steel, and so on till all the steels required for the skirt were woven in. The space of tape for the top of the skirt was then woven, and half of the skirt was finished. The other half was woven in the same manner; the projecting ends of the steels were joined and closely wrapped, and the hoopskirt was complete so far as the weaving was concerned.
These skirts were neat and satisfactory when finished off by hand. The weaving was slow and difficult, however, because the shuttle could not make a clean shoot through the narrow openings of warp, but had to be passed through each one by hand. The maker above referred to was another humble cottager whose husband and son were in our army, and to use her quaint expression, she was trying “to make both buckle and tongue meet,” while husband and son were fighting for our cause.
It was really ridiculous, our way of making raids upon what remained of our fine bed-linen, pillow-shams, and slips, for garments of finer texture than our own home-woven cloth. I well remember that once, when I stepped into a friend’s room, her very first words were, “This is the last bleached, seamless bed-sheet I’ve got, and now I must cut it up for garments!” I doubt very much if a fine sheet could have been found in any house in our settlement when the war closed. Perhaps there was not one in the blockaded South.
Fine white pillow-shams were cut up and made into white waists, to wear with our heavy home-made skirts in the hot summer. Sometimes a family would happen to have a bundle of scraps of blue striped bed-ticking, which would be divided around among the neighboring girls. We would ravel it all up, taking care to save every blue thread (which was a fast color) to embroider flowers on the front, collar, and cuffs of our white waists, made of pillow-shams and slips; and we did think them beautiful and prized them all the more highly because of the narrow pass to which we had arrived for fine material to tide us over till our cause should be won; and if we used up all the fine sheets, pillow-slips, and shams of ante-bellum days for our wear, soft homespun, home-woven sheets took their place.
Cloth that was called thirded was woven for sheets and pillow-slips. Two threads of warp would be passed through the reeds of the sley for all plain or twilled cloth. For single sleyed cloth one thread only was passed through the sley-reeds. For cloth woven “thirded” the weaver would begin by drawing two threads through the first reeds of the sley and one thread through the next reeds, two threads again, and then one, thus alternating the width of the warp two and one. When filled in with soft fine-spun filling, this stuff was soft and yielding, and easy to handle in the wash.