“EXIT TRAITOR.”
It was facetiously remarked by an observer, that the moral was,—
“Down with the traitor,
And up with the star.”
We understood that to Miss Lee, of Pennsylvania, and Miss Jennie Huddleson, of Indiana, the party was indebted for those ingenious and appropriate devices. Very likely; for wit and satire for traitors, and a cordial welcome to the loyal and patriotic, are characteristics of these whole-souled missionaries.
The reception-rooms were also decorated with flowers; and every thing around showed that “gentle hands” had laid on “the last touches” of fragrance, grace, and beauty.
These “ladies of the Management” were dressed in neat “patriotic prints;” they needed no addition to their toilets to add to the charming air of comfort which they so appropriately infused. Their smiles of welcome needed no verbal explanation; and the heartiness with which they were engaged in their labors of love, and the evidence of their success in all the surroundings, showed that they perfectly understood the science of making home happy. Whether they have read Mrs. H. B. Stowe’s “House and Home Papers” in “The Atlantic,” we know not, but there are many others, besides that literary lady (Mrs. Stowe), who understand how to keep house; by magic touches to turn the most simple objects into luxuries of ornamentation. We suspect also that Mrs. M. Watson and Miss Lizzie Findley had been engaged in these preparations, although appearing more in the character of guests. There were some other ladies, to whom we had not the honor of an introduction, who, doubtless, deserve particular mention; but your reporter, as the sequel of his story will show, only received his appointment as a publication committee after all was over, and, consequently, if he should omit anybody’s name that deserves mention, this must be his apology. He now declares his desire to be just to all, and especially to those whose devotion and patriotism rendered the 4th of July, 1864, the happiest day of the year.
THE GROUNDS.
On the grounds in front of the residence, the gunboat crew suspended a string of signal colors, on each side of the “starry banner,” presenting an effect amid the dense foliage of the live-oaks, and the gray moss, “altogether beauteous to look upon;” while on the tables under the trees were spread things not only “pleasant to the sight,” but “good for food.” And when we saw these pleasing objects, the “work of their hands,” and the merry, happy faces of the guests and their “escorts,” and reflected that the sable sons, by a guard of whom we were surrounded, were “no longer slaves;” that they had, with thousands of their brethren, been brought out from the house of bondage, by the “God of Abraham;” that the very house now occupied by missionaries and teachers had, but a year ago, been in the service of despotism, built, in fact, as a temple of slavery by the great chief, who preferred to rule in a miserable petty despotism to serving in a great and magnanimous republic,—we could but think that Heaven looked approvingly upon the scene; that “God saw every thing that he had made, and behold! it was very good.”