"One moment, please, Mr. Carrington! Are the creeks too high for us to cross?"
"I think not, Madam. The carriage hangs high, and Peter knows all about freshets. Good morning."
There were swollen streams for us to cross. Several of them had overflowed the meadows until they looked like lakes. At one or two the water flowed over the floor of the carriage, and we gathered our feet under us on the seats. My little Theo enjoyed it, but my poor nurse was ashen from terror. Very wet, very cold, and very grateful were we when at night we reached our haven. My dear uncle, Dr. Rice, was already there, with cheering news from the polls.
The next morning we looked out upon a turbid yellow sea. The Staunton had sustained her reputation, overflowed her low banks, and spread herself generously over the face of the earth. It was a week or more before my husband was assured of his election. He spent the intervening days of rest sleeping—like the boy he was!
Several years later, when he was reëlected, we were in Richmond with my little family. Gordon and the two little boys were keen politicians. Of course I was now too busy a mother to concern myself with politics, as was my wont in the earlier days. Moreover, I knew my congressman would be reëlected. I was pretty sure by this time that he would always be elected—so the day passed serenely with me. I was overwhelmed with dismay when one of his friends called after the polls closed at sunset, and informed me that a torch-light procession would reach our house about eight o'clock, and would expect to find it illuminated.
"Illuminated!" I exclaimed. "And pray with what? There are not half a dozen candles in the house, and the stores are all closed. Besides, the baby will be asleep. It is bad for babies to be waked out of their first sleep."
My friend did not contradict me, but in the evening he sent a bushel of small turnips and a box of candles, with a note telling me to cut a hole in the turnips, insert a candle, and they would answer my purpose admirably. Everybody went to work with a will, and when the crowd, shouting and cheering, surrounded us, every window-pane blazed a welcome into the happy faces. My young congressman made one of his charming speeches, and then—the lights went out on the last election he was destined to celebrate! True, he was twice after elected to Congress—in the Confederate States; for the South had need of him in her legislative hall as well as in the field. In both he gave her all his heart and soul and strength, but the days were too sad for illuminations in his honor.
My story has now reached the period at which my "Reminiscences of Peace and War" begin. I shall not relate the political history of the period—which has been better told by others than I can hope to tell it. I shall endeavor to bring forward some things that were omitted in my late book, but in narrating the incidents of the Civil War and the preceding life in Washington, I may in some measure repeat myself. For this I have a valid excuse. Apologizing for quoting himself from a former book on Edmund Burke, John Morley remarks: "Though you may say what you have to say well once, you cannot so say it twice." Lord Morley strengthens his position by a quotation in Greek, which, unhappily, remains Greek to me, and I therefore cannot avail myself of its help, but I am glad to be sustained by his example. Besides, what says Oliver Wendell Holmes? "It is the height of conceit for an author to be afraid of repeating himself—because it implies that everybody has read—and remembers—what he has said before."