XI.
Leaving a broken home circle, I returned to southern Alabama, where everything was moving on as before; the thump of the house-loom and the whirring of the spinning-wheel were just as regular in every household; substitutes and expedients were still being devised or improved upon. There was no diminution of patience or perseverance, and we still felt, in that section, none of the effects of war, saving the privations and inconveniences to which allusion has been made.
We still had our merry social gatherings. Now and then a homespun wedding would occur, in which the bride and all who were bidden would be in homespun out and out. We were invited to one such marriage in our settlement. I wore a homespun dress of my own labor, but I neither carded, spun, nor wove it. I had become quite skillful in crocheting capes, vandykes, shawls, scarfs, and gloves, and as I had had more than enough work carding and spinning my second homespun dress, I took a neighbor at her word, when she said: “I’ll give you a hank of thread to crochet me a cape like yours.” The hank would weave one yard of cloth, and I could crochet two capes per week, besides discharging my school duties faithfully. I thus made two yards of cloth clear, as the thread was furnished for whatever piece I crocheted. More or less in cuts of thread were paid, according to the article I furnished, whether shoulder-cape, vandyke, shawl, or gloves. At one time I had so many hanks of homespun thread that they were quite a weight to lift, and I was proud of them, too, so proud that if a neighbor came to spend the afternoon, I always drew forth that bunch of thread from the large wardrobe where I kept it hanging, for her to view. Beside having enough for another full homespun dress, and all my knitting and crocheting, I sent to my mother as many as twenty hanks, that had been paid me for knitting and crocheting shawls, capes, vandykes, and similar articles for neighbors.
I had the thread for the dress just mentioned dyed blue with our home-made indigo, and a deep garnet with a strong tea of pine-tree roots. One-half was dyed blue, the other half garnet. In the warp it was four blue, and four garnet threads. Two shuttles were used, one with a blue quill of thread, the other with a garnet quill, and the result was a neat and simple plaid. I cut the buttons out of a gourd shell, and covered them with scraps of red merino. We always took pains to take such buttons off when our homespuns required washing. When the stuff had been starched and ironed, we stitched the buttons on again.
The bride’s dress was woven a solid light gray color, warp and woof; the buttons were made of gray thread, overcast with white thread. Special pains had been taken with some white cotton flannel, three rows of which, about three inches wide, were placed around the bottom of the skirt, with about three inches’ space between each row. The cuffs, collar, and shoulder-cape were trimmed with this white cotton flannel; and from only across the room it appeared as if the bride wore a real fur-trimmed dress, and the effect was graceful in the extreme.
Thread was often spun, both wool and cotton, with the band crossed, so as to knit and crochet with single thread. The wheel-band was crossed only in twisting thread for sewing or knitting purposes. In spinning the single strand the band was always uncrossed, unless we wanted to knit or crochet something very fine and soft, and did not want it double and twisted. Then it was spun with the band of the wheel crossed, so that in crocheting or knitting it would not become untwisted. The cotton thread was bleached by placing it on a line in the yard, where it hung for two or three weeks in the sun and dew. It was a common thing to see long rows of hanks of cotton thread hanging on a line out in the yards or gardens of all the dwellers of our settlement. Such thread would bleach almost as white as snow.
Now and then the stern fruits of war were forced upon our community by the home-coming of some Confederate soldier seriously or fatally wounded; or by the arrival of the corpse of some one of our soldiers whom we had seen quit the neighborhood in the flush of health and confident that the demands of the South would soon be allowed.
On one occasion I wept with a widow bereft of her only son and child, who had died in a hospital near Richmond, from wounds received in battle. She told us that when he had left for the front, in the midst of her terrible grief, her last words to him as she held his hand had been, “My son, remember it is just as near heaven in Virginia as it is here in our home in Alabama.” Years after the young man had been buried, I happened one Sunday to be attending divine service in Hamilton, Georgia, and in the course of his sermon the Rev. William Boothe, a godly Methodist minister, enforced his text by relating an incident. He told how a young man native of Alabama, wounded in battle, lay dying in a hospital near Richmond. The minister, in visiting that hospital, speaking words of cheer and comfort to the sick, was touched by the sight of the young man, who, it was plain to see, was in immediate danger of death. Taking the hand of the dying boy, Mr. Boothe had said in a kindly, fatherly way, “My son, is there any message or word you would like me to send, or, perhaps, that I can bear myself to your people, wherever they may live?” A glad smile lighted up the pale face of the soldier, who quickly replied, “I am so thankful that some kind friend will bear a message to my mother, who is a widow living down in Alabama. I am her only son and child. Please say to her from me these words: ‘Remember that it is just as near heaven in Virginia as it is in our home in Alabama.’ There has never been a night on the tented field, or when entering into battle, when those words, my mother’s words, and spoken as I left her, have not been with me.” So speaking, the soldier’s face was lighted up by a seraphic smile, and he expired.