lUCY LEE PLEASAOTS 
 
Class ) "^^Q 
 
 Book ?7-2- 
 
 ()opiglrtl>!". 
 
 o^ 
 
 CDPYRIGRT DEPOSm 
 
'^OLD VIRGINIA DAYS 
 AND WAYS 
 
 ^ 
 
 Reminiscencesfof 
 Mrs. Sally McCarty Pleasants 
 edited by her daughter 
 Lucy Lee Pleasants ^ 
 
 Qlfje (CoIIcgtaie ^reaa 
 
 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 Menasha, Wisconsin 
 
r\ 
 
 
 Copyright 1916 by 
 George Banta Publishing Company 
 Menasha, Wisconsin (/ 
 
 MAR 12 1917 
 
 'CI,A457437 ''' 
 
 •> 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapte,r 
 
 I. 
 
 Politics and Politicians . 
 
 5 
 
 Chapte,r 
 
 II. 
 
 Early Industries . 
 
 15 
 
 Chapter 
 
 III. 
 
 Colonial Times 
 
 21 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IV. 
 
 Domestic Affairs 
 
 . 29 
 
 Chapter 
 
 V. 
 
 Family Legends . 
 
 37 
 
 Chapteji 
 
 VI. 
 
 True and False Nobility 
 
 45 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VII. 
 
 Some Country Damsels . 
 
 55 
 
 Chapter 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Fire-Eaters .... 
 
 . 63 
 
 Chapter 
 
 IX. 
 
 Education .... 
 
 75 
 
 Chapter 
 
 X. 
 
 A Dilettante Poet . . 
 
 87 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XI. 
 
 Gallantry and Repartee . 
 
 95 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XII. 
 
 Ghosts 
 
 . 103 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Practical Jokes and Some C 
 
 )ld 
 
 
 
 Time Remedies 
 
 . Ill 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIV. 
 
 War Times .... 
 
 . 119 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XV. 
 
 Slavery as I Knew It 
 
 . 125 
 
 Chapte,r 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Piety 
 
 . 135 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Talent, Known and Unkno^ 
 
 wn 141 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Manners Upon the Road 
 
 . 149 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Tournament 
 
 . 157 
 
 Chapter 
 
 XX. 
 
 Conclusion .... 
 
 . 163 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 OFFER this little book as a 
 memorial to her whose remark- 
 able memory and unusual gift for 
 narration have made it possible. 
 To her children, who owe her 
 so much, it seems a pity that the 
 stories in which they delighted 
 should be forgotten, so I have 
 tried to set them down as nearty as may be in 
 the words in which she told them. 
 
 She embodied, we think, the grace and charm 
 of Virginia as it used to be — the Virginia of her 
 youth to which she was always tenderly loyal, and 
 I shall feel well repaid for my labors as editor 
 and scribe if I have been able, in some degree, 
 to catch the spirit of those bygone days. 
 
 Lucy Lee Pleasants. 
 
OLD VIRGINIA DAYS AND WAYS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Politics and Politicians 
 
 MY childhood was passed in Leesburg, a 
 historic town at the foot of the Blue 
 Ridge Mountains. Its narrow streets 
 and closely-huddled small brick houses testify to 
 its origin as a fort of the struggling colony of 
 Virginia. History records that it was the princi- 
 pal outfitting-post of the British and Colonial 
 forces during the French and Indian Wars, and 
 a stone house still enjoys local fame as having 
 been the headquarters of General Braddock, 
 when he passed through the village on his last 
 fatal march to the Wilderness. In this campaign 
 it was that he cut the road now known as the 
 Georgetown and Washington Turnpike, part of 
 which still bears his name, a road further distin- 
 guished as the first in the world to be macadam- 
 ized. Another landmark is the house where a 
 ball was given for La Fayette. But why specify 
 landmarks when the whole little town is glorified 
 by the legend that in the war of 1812, when 
 Washington was threatened by the British, the 
 archives of the government were brought hither 
 in wagons and deposited for safe keeping, thus 
 
6 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 making of it, for one day, the capital of the 
 United States? 
 
 During the Civil War, its situation in the heart 
 of "Mosby's Confederacy" made it the scene of 
 many a border raid and foray, but these it is not 
 my purpose to set down. My own associations 
 are with a time more remote, when the land was 
 unvexed with sectional strife and Virginia still 
 held a leading place in the government she had 
 helped to form. 
 
 My earliest recollections are of endless political 
 discussions. My father was an ardent Whig, and 
 our house was for many years headquarters for 
 the party. Being an only child I was much 
 indulged and was often allowed to sit up with my 
 elders when I should have been in bed. Thus I 
 became tolerably conversant with the great ques- 
 tions of the day. I remember marching in a 
 torchlight procession with a band of little girls 
 during the Harrison and Van Buren campaign. 
 Never was there device so impressive to a childish 
 mind as the log-cabin with the coon on the roof. 
 Windows were illuminated, every house was 
 thrown open, cold collations were spread and 
 punch and apple-toddy brewed without stint. 
 And the stirring party airs that bands seem to 
 have lost the trick of nowadays ! The words were 
 
Politics and Politicians 7 
 
 not always quite equal to the tune, as, for 
 instance, 
 
 "The log-cabin candidate will march into Washintgon 
 In eighteen hundred and forty-one." 
 
 But with "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" no fault 
 could be found. 
 
 The subject of a banner for our local delega- 
 tion was discussed with great excitement. The 
 ladies undertook to prepare it and when com- 
 pleted, all thought it a very splendid affair. It 
 was of satin, blue on one side and white on the 
 other, the lower edge trimmed with heavy gilt 
 fringe and the whole fastened with gold cords to 
 a staff surmounted by an eagle. The blue side of 
 the banner bore a laurel wreath, but the subject 
 of an appropriate device for the white side 
 gave rise to serious controversy. A local artist 
 offered to paint upon it the Goddess of Liberty, 
 that most popular of the dramatis persons of the 
 day, but as our tutelary deity is always depicted 
 in very scant attire, an eminently respectable 
 matron declared firmly that she would have noth- 
 ing to do with a banner which flaunted the figure 
 of a "nude female." Others were not wanting 
 to echo this praiseworthy sentiment, so the com- 
 mittee decided to turn down the goddess and sub- 
 stitute the following motto in gold letters: 
 
8 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 The Ladies of Leesburg 
 
 To the Whigs of Loudoun, 
 A Thousand Majority, 
 
 You Can and You Must. 
 
 The result presented an appearance which jus- 
 tified a wag in dubbing it "The Tombstone." 
 Yet in spite of ridicule it took its place among 
 the splendid flags that graced the inauguration 
 of the Log-Cabin candidate and our joy and 
 pride were overwhelming when we saw it there. 
 
 In those days as in these, election news was 
 eagerly awaited. A tri- weekly stage plied 
 between Washington and Leesburg, and on the 
 brow of a very high hill which the stage had to 
 cross, the townsfolk used to assemble to greet the 
 messenger of the latest tidings. Local sentiment 
 being strongly Whig, the driver, himself a Whig, 
 would put up a small flag when he bore the news 
 that a State had gone for General Harrison. 
 Great was our excitement on the day when the 
 stage displayed two flags instead of one and the 
 eager throng were greeted with the announce- 
 ment that New York and Pennsylvania had both 
 declared for the Log-Cabin candidate. 
 
 Of Van Buren, the Democratic leader, whose 
 nomination was supposed to be due to the influ- 
 ence of Andrew Jackson, it was said and sung 
 
Politics and Politicians 9 
 
 that he had ridden into the White House "On 
 the back of Andrew Jack." Another campaign 
 song had the refrain, 
 
 "Little Van's a used up man" — 
 
 a prediction fully justified by the outcome. 
 
 As is well known, General Harrison caught a 
 severe cold while riding bareheaded through the 
 rain from the Capitol to the White House and 
 died of pneumonia a month after his inaugura- 
 tion. This tragic event was commemorated by 
 N» P. Willis in a poem, beginning : 
 
 "Death, death in the White House ! 
 Ah, never before 
 Trod his skeleton foot 
 On the President's floor." 
 
 If I may be pardoned for reviewing the most 
 elementary United States history, I will here 
 remind my readers that Harrison was succeeded 
 by his Vice-president, John Tyler, who had been 
 a Democrat, but who had pledged himself to 
 carry out the principles of the Whig party. This 
 seems less astonishing if we recall the fact that 
 in the first days of the Republic, the President 
 and Vice-president were of opposite parties. 
 When Tyler became President through the death 
 of Harrison, the Whigs naturally expected that 
 he would redeem his pledges and great was their 
 chagrin when it became apparent that he 
 
10 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 intended, in the slang of a later day, to "go back 
 on his party." 
 
 The chief issue of the campaign had been the 
 United States Bank Bill. This was the plank 
 in the platform which had carried the Whigs to 
 victory in the election. All the winter little else 
 was talked of in political circles. Judge then of 
 the consternation and anger with which the news 
 was received the following summer that the bill 
 had been vetoed. 
 
 In those days the interest in politics was so 
 keen that public events affected people as vitally 
 as their own private affairs. I was only seven 
 years old at the time, but the disappointment and 
 gloom of my elders impressed my youthful spirits 
 to such a degree that when I was asked to dance 
 that night at the "hop" at the White Sulphur 
 Springs, I declined, giving as my reason that 
 "Tyler had vetoed the Bank Bill." 
 
 This perfidy on the part of the President gave 
 rise to an incident which was widely commented 
 upon at the time. A Virginian, with whom 
 Tyler had been on terms of intimacy before the 
 veto, was walking with a party of friends after 
 a race won by the celebrated horse, Boston, when 
 Tyler with several members of his cabinet 
 approached from the opposite side of the track. 
 
Politics and Politicians 11 
 
 As soon as the President recognized his former 
 friend, he advanced eagerly with extended hand, 
 exclaiming, 
 
 "Why, my dear Colonel, I am delighted to 
 see you." 
 
 To the astonishment of his companions, the 
 gentleman addressed drew himself up and, dis- 
 daining the proffered hand, with a contemptuous 
 gesture, replied, 
 
 "Get away. Sir, I have nothing to say to you," 
 and passed on. 
 
 I relate this anecdote, which is absolutely true, 
 to illustrate the spirit of the time — the indepen- 
 dence, the hatred of falsehood and the utter dis- 
 regard of place and power. The incident was 
 pubhshed in The Independent, a Washington 
 paper, short-lived but briUiant, with the editorial 
 comment that it was the finest example of the 
 Repubhcan spirit that had ever been shown. 
 
 But the excitement of the Harrison campaign 
 by no means equalled that of the succeeding one 
 in which the opposing candidates were Henry 
 Clay and James K. Polk. Again the Httle town 
 of Leesburg was the scene of Whig celebrations 
 and again the Loudoun Whigs ralhed around the 
 "Tombstone" banner at barbecues, glee clubs and 
 stump speeches. The procession on Barbecue 
 
12 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Day was headed by a great wagon containing 
 fourteen girls, thirteen of whom, robed in white 
 and crowned with flowers, bore the insignia of 
 the States which they symboHzed, while the four- 
 teenth, the tallest and most beautiful, was dressed 
 in flags and a liberty cap to represent the Union. 
 Another feature which attracted great atten- 
 tion was a cart drawn by oxen and trimmed with 
 garlands, in Avhich an old lady and her three 
 daughters, arrayed in calico dresses and sun- 
 bonnets, sat on rush-bottomed chairs playing the 
 party airs on fiddles. Their instruments were in 
 admirable accord and the leader, a woman of 
 portly form and stately mien, surveyed the crowd 
 over her spectacles with an inimitable expression 
 of pride and self-satisfaction. And the airs she 
 played! Even now, after the lapse of seventy 
 years, my pulses throb and my eyes fill as some 
 of the strains recur to me: 
 
 "Here's to you, Harry Clay, 
 
 Here's to you, my noble soul. 
 Here's to you with right good will, 
 
 And you shall be next President, 
 The chair of State to fill; 
 
 Here's to you, Harry Clay !" 
 
 Another of her songs which comes to mind is less 
 elevated in tone. The only stanza that I can 
 recall runs thus: 
 
Politics and Politicians 18 
 
 "In Lindenwald the *Fox was holed, 
 
 The f coons all laughed to hear it told, 
 Ha, ha, ha, such a nominee, 
 
 As Jimmy Polk of Tennessee !" 
 
 Here is the refrain of another — 
 
 "Rally Whigs, rally Whigs, rally Whigs, 
 Come from the East, come from the West, 
 North and South with glowing breast. 
 Rally Whigs, rally Whigs, ho !" 
 
 As glees and songs played a very important 
 part in political campaigns of the day, it was a 
 popular grievance, at the nomination of Clay 
 and Frelinghuysen, that no rhyme could be found 
 to the name of the second party on the ticket. 
 My father overcame this difficulty when rising 
 at a banquet he proposed this toast : 
 
 "The cure for Loco-Foco pizen 
 Is Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen." 
 
 Needless to say it was drunk with loud acclaim. 
 
 *Martin Van Bm-en thought to resemble a fox, 
 tThe Whigs. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Early Industries 
 
 ONE of the great principles of the Whig 
 party and the chief issue of the Harrison 
 and Tyler campaign was the tariff. Our 
 "infant industries" certainly needed protection 
 then, whatever they may need or not need now 
 that thej^ have grown to colossal proportions, and 
 many patriotic efforts were early made to show 
 to what perfection home manufactures could be 
 carried. Among the specimens of native handi- 
 craft exhibited in Washington at this time, was 
 a rug worked with a design combining in an 
 artistic ensemble a lion, an eagle, and a ship. It 
 was made by a lady in the West who had spun 
 and dyed the wool with her own hands and who 
 was not considered unqualified for her task 
 because she had never seen any of the objects she 
 depicted. 
 
 Another interesting exhibit was a pair of silk 
 gloves knit by a Virginia housewife whose hus- 
 band, after raising the silk worms, spun and dyed 
 the silk, and wound and twisted it on a reel of his 
 own invention. These gloves were presented to 
 
16 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 the wife of that most ardent exponent of the 
 protective tariff, Henry Clay. 
 
 At this time it was believed to be very profitable 
 to raise silk worms in Virginia. Large tracts of 
 ground were planted with the mulberry tree, or 
 morus multicaulis. Gentlemen set out even their 
 lawns with it, uprooting ornamental trees to 
 make place for it. The large open fireplaces of 
 the planters' houses were filled in summer with 
 the leaves, and here the insects laid their eggs, 
 which hatched and grew in a few days from the 
 size of pin-heads to worms an inch long. The 
 appetite of the creatures was voracious ; on enter- 
 ing a room devoted exclusively to their use, one 
 would think from the noise that horses were 
 champing their food. 
 
 Attic rooms served for nurseries, being fitted 
 up with long tables on which the cocoons were 
 piled in pyramids. 
 
 Unfortunately, after a fair trial, the climate 
 of Virginia was found unsuited to the morus 
 multicaidis and the vast sums which had been 
 expended upon it were utterly lost. 
 
 As the artistic taste of the American people 
 had not developed in proportion to their industry 
 or their patriotism, some of the earliest products 
 of the home manufacturer were very amusing. 
 
Early Industries 17 
 
 I remember a counterpane woven in a pattern of 
 wreaths of lily-of-the-valley, every blossom of 
 which was at least as large as a dinner bell. Each 
 of these wreaths enclosed a young lady playing 
 on the guitar for the benefit of a gentleman who 
 languished at her feet. The calico hangings of 
 my grandmother's bedroom showed medallions of 
 blue on a white ground, each medallion contain- 
 ing a female figure seated in regal state behind a 
 table, to whom another female presented (on 
 something that looked like a platter) the heads 
 of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and 
 other eminent patriots, the whole encircled by this 
 explanatory legend: 
 
 "Virginia presenting to America, 
 
 upon the altar of liberty, the portraits 
 
 of her illustrious sons." 
 
 It was quite possible to carry out designs 
 inspired by individual patriotic or poetic impulse, 
 for every plantation had its own weaver as well 
 as its own shoemaker, carpenter and blacksmith. 
 While the finer wearing apparel of the planter's 
 household was purchased abroad, everything worn 
 by the negroes was made at home. When the 
 New England mills began to fill the markets 
 with cheaper wares turned out by factories, the 
 money of the planters went into the pockets of 
 New England, the plantation ceased to be self- 
 
18 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 supporting, and the industrial decay of the South 
 set in. 
 
 From the standpoint of modern attainment it 
 is rather amusing to look back upon the primitive 
 contrivances familiar in my earlier years. 
 
 India rubber shoes, as I remember them, were 
 far from being the ideal foot-protection that they 
 are today. They were made upon moulds in the 
 shape of a last, and this last must have been 
 dipped in the liquid rubber again and again until 
 the finished product was a quarter of an inch 
 thick and nearly round. These overshoes, called 
 "gums," were tastefully ornamented with little 
 wheels stamped in the rubber. Furthermore, 
 they were trimmed with fur around the ankles 
 and when the fur got wet, as it invariably did in 
 the rain, the stockings and low shoes which were 
 then in vogue suffered correspondingly. 
 
 The first matches that I can recall were little 
 sticks of wax. When a liglit was needed one of 
 these would be dipped in a bottle of phosphorus. 
 This was considered the greatest invention of the 
 age, because previously people had been depen- 
 dent upon flint and steel and the tinder-box. 
 Household fires were carefully banked at night 
 to keep them from going out, and it was quite 
 customary for a negro to fill his palm with ashes 
 
Early Industries 10 
 
 and carry a coal on it for some distance to start 
 another fire. 
 
 About this period an uncle of mine who was 
 engaged in writing a great work on the Consti- 
 tution, suffered somewhat from the fact that 
 inspiration would insist on visiting him in the 
 middle of the night when he had no means of 
 recording the bright ideas which were liable to 
 vanish before he could set them do^vn. Keeping 
 paper and pencil by his bedside, he would seize 
 them in the darkness and furiously jot down 
 sentiments and reflections which he found impos- 
 sible to decipher in the morning. Judge then of 
 his delight over the wax sticks and the bottle of 
 phosphorus! Returning home from the city at 
 midnight he waked his wife to show her the new 
 invention w^hich was so greatly to facilitate his 
 literary labors. I grieve to be obliged to record 
 that in spite of the matches, his valuable work 
 never saw the light. 
 
 Whale oil is the first illmninant that I remem- 
 ber. It was ill-smeUing and kept the lamps 
 ahvays dirty; consequently it never came into 
 favor with fastidious housekeepers. Candles of 
 spermaceti were used by the rich, and an espe- 
 cially beautiful illumination was produced by 
 those made of bees-wax and myrtle berries, the 
 
20 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 latter the product of a plant which grows wild 
 in Virginia. The berries after being boiled and 
 clarified, were mixed with bees-wax and poured 
 into molds. For kitchen lamps, a saucer of 
 grease with a floating wick of rag was considered 
 sufficient. Astral lamps that burned lard came 
 later into use. They were furnished with a con- 
 trivance for keeping the lard melted, and the 
 flame yielded a lovely mellow light. On festive 
 occasions the sockets of the candelabra would be 
 decorated with paper cut into lacelike patterns. 
 The lace had been previously dipped in sperma- 
 ceti which gave a silvery, frostlike efl'ect that was 
 very decorative. A table, dressed in this way was, 
 in the opinion of a certain old lady, quite equal 
 if not superior to the paper shades and electric 
 globes of the present day. 
 
 When the wax candle donned its lacelike frills, 
 the floor was waxed and polished to a high degree 
 of slipperiness, and adorned with garlands of 
 flowers drawn in chalk. In dancing the dancers 
 demolished the garlands, but they also distributed 
 the chalk and made it possible to cut the pigeon- 
 wing and other flourishes without danger to life 
 and limb. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Colonial Times 
 
 AMONG my earliest recollections is the 
 account my grandmother, Mrs. Thomas 
 Ludwell Lee, nee Fanny Carter, used to 
 give of her girlhood at Sabine Hall in Richmond 
 County, Virginia. 
 
 Her brothers and male cousins were sent to 
 England to College, but as the higher education 
 for women had not then been even thought of, a 
 scant knowledge of reading and writing was con- 
 sidered sufficient for her. She had a very active 
 mind, however, and a great love of reading which 
 could not be satisfied by her father's library of 
 Greek and Latin books, but some old volumes of 
 The Rambler and The Spectator read by her until 
 she knew them by heart, furnished a not injurious 
 mental pabulum. 
 
 Her father's estate, Sabine Hall, lay along the 
 Potomac River and, like all the other river plan- 
 tations, had its own dock from which it loaded its 
 own crop of tobacco on the little schooners which 
 plied to Norfolk and back. The tobacco was 
 shipped to England by Norfolk merchants who 
 
22 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 trafficked directly with the planters, merchants 
 who were glad to take orders from the Virginia 
 belles for brocaded gowns, hats trimmed with 
 bugles, and silk stockings and perfumed gloves 
 to match every costume. Great was the excite- 
 ment when a schooner appeared at the dock with 
 its invoice of London finery. 
 
 The fashions of the period have been naively 
 described in a series of letters, written in 1782, 
 which passed between a Miss Lucinda Lee, a 
 cousin of my grandmother, and a Miss Polly 
 Brent, also a connection of this family, during a 
 visit paid by the former to her relatives the Lees 
 and the Washingtons who lived in lower Virginia. 
 These letters, intended solelj^ for the eyes of Miss 
 Lee's correspondent, were printed nearly a hun- 
 dred years later in a small volume and sold for 
 the benefit of the Lee Memorial Fund. They 
 contain an account of a round of gaieties in which 
 the writer took part. 
 
 Let us dip into them for a little local color. 
 "Sept. 20, 1782. 
 
 They are come to tell me a Mr. Grimes and his 
 lady are come to wait on us. I must throw down 
 my pen and go down to be introduced. I shall 
 have but little time to smart myself. Adieu. My 
 Great-Coat shall be mv dress today. 
 
Colonial Times 23 
 
 Se]3t. 21. — Today we return Mrs. Grimes' 
 visit. I am going to wear my straw dress and my 
 large hat ; Sister wears a blue habbit with a white 
 sattin scirt. Adieu." 
 
 This "habbit" must have been an especially 
 fashionable and recherche garment for it figures 
 at a number of social gatherings. "Cousin Han- 
 nah" is described as wearing "a lead colored 
 habbit, open, with a lylack lutestring scirt" and, 
 on her head, "a butifull crape cushion ornamented 
 with gauze and flowers." At another time she 
 wears "a blue lutestring habbit, taffety apron and 
 handkerchief, with the most butifull little hat on 
 the side of her head" that the writer "ever saw." 
 
 The manners of the time, too, are thus artlessly 
 recorded: "We have supped and the gentlemen 
 have not returned yet. Lucy Gordon and myself 
 are in a peck of troubles for fear they should 
 return drunk. Sister has had our bed moved in 
 her room. Just as we were undressed and going 
 to bed, the Gentlemen arrived, and we had to 
 scamper. Both tipsy!" 
 
 And again: 
 
 "Hannah and myself were going to take a 
 long walk this evening but were prevented by 
 the two horrid mortals, Mr. Pinkard and Mr. 
 Washington, who seized me and kissed me a 
 
24 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 dozen times in spite of all the resistance I could 
 make. They really think, now they are married, 
 they are privaleged to do anything." 
 
 This "Mr. Washington" seems to have offended 
 on several occasions. I quote from another letter : 
 
 "Today we were in the garden mighty busy 
 cutting thistles to try our sweethearts when Mr. 
 Washington caught us and you can't conceive 
 how he plagued us, chased us all over the garden 
 and was quite impertinent." She goes on, 
 
 "I must tell you of our frolic after we went in 
 our room. We took it into our heids to want to 
 eat; well, we had a large dish of bicon and beaf ; 
 after that, a bowl of sago cream; and after that 
 an apple pye. While we were eating the apple 
 pye in bed — God bless you! making a great 
 noise — in came Mr. Washington, dressed in Han- 
 nah's short gown and petticoat, and seazed and 
 kissed me twenty times in spite of all the resis- 
 tance I could make; and then Cousin Molly. 
 Hannah soon followed dressed in his coat. They 
 joined us in eating the pye and then went out. 
 After this we took it into our heads to want to eat 
 oysters. We got up, put on our rappers and 
 went down in the Seller to get them. Do you 
 think Mr. Washington did not follow and scear 
 
Colonial Times 25 
 
 us to death? We went up, tho' and eat our 
 oysters." 
 
 In spite of these vagaries on the part of Mr. 
 Washington, he seems to have been a very satis- 
 factory husband. The writer comments thus on 
 his relations with his wife: 
 
 "Mr. Washington returned today from Fred- 
 ericksburg. You can't think how rejoiced Han- 
 nah was and how dejected in his absence she 
 always is. You may depend upon it, Polly, this 
 matrimony alters us mightily. I am afraid it 
 alienates us from every one else. It is, I fear, 
 the bane of Female Friendship." 
 
 The letters from which the foregoing extracts 
 are taken give a delightful picture of life in the 
 Old Dominion at this early day. The ladies and 
 gentlemen eat figs and peaches under "butifull 
 shade trees"; the ''chariot" seems to be always at 
 the door to take them for an airing ; they dine at 
 each other's houses and "pore tea" in the after- 
 noon; on one occasion are invited to sip the fra- 
 grant brew with a gentleman who has "a new 
 cargo" just arrived. In the evening they dance 
 a minuet, and once, when the old man who played 
 "the Fidle" was sick, they diverted themselves 
 with "Grind the Bottel and Hide the Thimble." 
 On rainy davs thev read Evelina, or Telemachus, 
 
26 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 and showed each other the "new cloaths" they had 
 received from liOndon. 
 
 JNIiss Lucinda is evidently very fond of read- 
 ing. In what old library, long superseded by 
 successive Best Sellers, do you suppose one could 
 find a "new Novel" lent by "Mrs. A. Washing- 
 ton," entitled Victoria? She writes, I "can't 
 say I admire the Tale though I think it prettily 
 told." Again, "I have been very agreeably 
 entertained this evening readding a Novel called 
 Malvern Dale. It is something like Evelina 
 though not so pretty. I have a piece of advice 
 to give you," continues this moralist of seven- 
 teen, "that is to read something improving. 
 Books of instruction will be a thousand times 
 more pleasing than all the Novels in the World." 
 
 That she carries this precept into practice is 
 evidenced on the next page: "I have entertained 
 myself all daj^ reading Telemachus. It is really 
 delightful and very improving." 
 
 In another place she says, "I have for the first 
 time read Pope's Eloiza. I will give you my 
 opinion of it: the poetry I think is butifull but 
 I do not like the sentiments. Some of Elioza's 
 are too Amorous for a female, I think." 
 
 Mr. Pinkard reads aloud to her the Belle's 
 Strattegem, and Mr. Newton, who was present, 
 
Colonial Times 27 
 
 must have dozed, for on being asked the name of 
 the play, he repKed The Country Cousin, whereat 
 Miss Lucy nearly burst with laughter. 
 
 Poor Mr. Pinkard! She discovers that he is 
 interested in her cousin Nancy, and makes this 
 heartless comment: "He got his discard yester- 
 day," but in spite of "discard" he continues to 
 take part in all the merry making. 
 
 Not long after, Cousin Polly comes to propose 
 dressing him in women's "cloaths." That day, 
 after the beaux were supposed to have departed, 
 Nancy and Lucinda had a fire built in one of 
 the upstairs rooms and were busily engaged in 
 conversation when Mr. Pinkard bolted in upon 
 them. He had overheard part of their talk 
 which "hily dehghted him." We are not sur- 
 prised at this when we learn that the topic of 
 their conversation was "regretting the manner in 
 which we had spent our past lives." 
 
 Alas, that the serpent of worldliness should 
 enter this Eden where every page breathes love 
 and kindliness and innocent fun ! Lucinda looks 
 forward with delight to seeing "Flora," but let 
 her voice her own bitter disappointment. 
 
 "They returned and as I expected brought 
 Flora with them. She is very genteel and wears 
 monstrous Bustles. Her face is just as it always 
 was. You, my dearest, that possess a great deal 
 
28 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 of Sencibility, would have supposed she would 
 have been delighted to see me — far from it. I 
 assm^e you she saluted me as if I had been a 
 common acquaintance. I suppose it is fash- 
 ionable to affect indifference. I hope, my dear- 
 est, we shall always stear clear of such unnatural 
 fashions." 
 
 Was Lucinda a bit of a prig? Else why, at 
 the age of seventeen, does she make these edify- 
 ing moral reflections? 
 
 "How pref arable is good sense and affability 
 to beauty! More pleasing a thousand times!" 
 and "I would not have you think that I pay no 
 attention to the opinion of the world; far from 
 it : next to that of a good conscience the opinion 
 of the world is to be regarded." 
 
 In these pages she all unconsciously reveals 
 her qualities. She is prompt at a literary criti- 
 cism but it takes her all day to make a cap. She 
 has much to say of the other girls' beaux, but 
 only once does she allude to her own when she 
 observes naively, "Mr. Beal was also of the 
 party, and Nancy sais she could almost sware that 
 he is my slave." 
 
 I close the slender volume with the feeling that 
 no Iiistory of the period could portray the 
 manners of Virginia in 1782 as does this artless, 
 girlish narrative. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Domestic Affairs 
 
 MY grandmother, Fanny Carter of Sabine 
 Hall, who was a contemporary of the 
 Miss Lucinda Lee from whom we have 
 been quoting, married Thomas Ludwell Lee of 
 Coton and came down to breakfast on the morning 
 after her wedding in a "queen's nightcap," an 
 elaborate structure of muslin and lace which com- 
 pletely covered her beautiful auburn hair. From 
 that morning, not long after her sixteenth birth- 
 day, to the day of her death at the age of eighty, 
 she was never free from the thraldom of caps. 
 
 She became the mother of a large family and 
 the mistress of many slaves. In spite of the 
 isolation of the plantation, she fell a victim to 
 smallpox. When her husband, who was absent 
 at the time of her illness, saw her for the first 
 time after his return, he fainted with the shock 
 of her altered appearance. 
 
 At the age of thirty-six she was left a widow 
 with eleven children. According to the custom 
 of the period, my grandfather had "gone 
 security" for his brother-in-law, but on his death- 
 bed he told his wife that he had settled that debt 
 
30 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 as well as all others and had left the vouchers in 
 a certain drawer in the library. Immediately 
 after his death she placed these papers in the 
 hands of her lawyer. Judge of her sensations 
 when suit was brought against the estate for pay- 
 ment of the security debt! The vouchers and 
 receipts had mysteriously disappeared from the 
 desk of the attorney to whom they had been 
 entrusted and could never be found. The estate 
 was thrown into chancery and remained tied up 
 in the courts until my grandmother died, in pov- 
 erty, embittered by misfortune. One wonders 
 nowadays that these important papers had not 
 been recorded in the proper county offices, but 
 possibly the modern system of records did not 
 then exist in Virginia. 
 
 Social life in my grandmother's day must have 
 been almost exactly like country life in England 
 of the same, or, perhaps an earlier period. Fox- 
 hunting was a favorite pastime. The planters 
 would assemble in turn at each other's houses to 
 partake of a heavy hunting breakfast before 
 setting forth. A dish held in high esteem was a 
 pie baked at Christmas and not cut until Twelfth 
 Day, or "Old Style Christmas." A peck of flour 
 went to the making of the crust which was three 
 feet in diameter. It was filled with boned fowls 
 
Domestic Affairs 31 
 
 of every kind from a chicken to a turkey and 
 included birds, small and great, pheasants, par- 
 tridges, robins and even the tiny sora. By the 
 time it came to be cut the gravy had become a 
 jelly and the different flavors so blended that the 
 result was a delight to the palate. 
 
 The mention of a peck of flour reminds me of 
 an anecdote which I have heard my father tell of 
 his childhood. His aunt. Miss Molly McCarty, 
 was a spinster six feet tall for whom some wag 
 wrote this epitaph: 
 
 "Here lies Miss Molly IVIcCarty, 
 Always complaining, but always ate hearty, 
 She lived to the age of three score and ten. 
 And died an old maid in spite of the men." 
 
 Once my father and his ten brothers were sent 
 to pay her a visit of duty. She welcomed them 
 affectionately and at once invited them to stay 
 to supper. Sending for her cook, she gave this 
 order which the children overheard : 
 
 "Minerva, I want you to get out a pint of flour 
 and make some very nice biscuits." 
 
 The hungr}^ guests, who had never heard of 
 less than a peck of flour being used for this pur- 
 pose, fell into such an uproarious fit of laughter 
 that the good lady, much incensed, packed them 
 into their carryall and sent them home again. 
 
32 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Of late years the idea prevails in some quarters 
 that Southern women are careless housekeepers. 
 As to this I cannot speak with authority, but I 
 know that the ladies of my mother's and grand- 
 mother's day ordered the affairs of their great 
 households with care and skill. I have often 
 heard my grandmother laugh over a mishap that 
 befell her in her younger days. A relative who 
 enjoyed the reputation of being a too good house- 
 keeper, invited herself to spend the day. My 
 mother, knowing her inquisitive ways, had the 
 house put in immaculate order from attic to 
 cellar. Nothing, she felt sure, had been omitted 
 that could possibly invite criticism, but so anxious 
 was she that even after the visitor had arrived at 
 the door she sped upstairs again to satisfy herself 
 that all was as it should be. Imagine her dismay 
 when she discovered in the closet of the guest- 
 chamber a disreputable old coat which her husband 
 sometimes wore in bad weather on his rides about 
 the plantation ! What to do with it she could not 
 think. Already she heard footsteps in the hall 
 and the little hubbub of greeting. Then came an 
 inspiration. Mounting a chair she dropped the 
 offending object behind the deep cornice that 
 surmounted the wardrobe. iVfter the elaborate 
 dinner had gone off without a hitch, the guest 
 
Domestic Affairs 33 
 
 feigned a desire for sleep and my grandmother, 
 secure in the safety of her hiding place, conducted 
 her to the "charmber." Time passed and she did 
 not emerge. When tea was served, the hostess 
 went in person to summon her and a light tap 
 being unanswered, softly opened the door expect- 
 ing to find her still asleep. To both her amuse- 
 ment and chagrin, she beheld the immaculate 
 housekeeper standing upon a chair, her nose ele- 
 vated in an unmistakable sniff, holding at arm's 
 length the disreputable old coat which she had 
 fished from the hollow behind the cornice of the 
 wardrobe. 
 
 Besides sewing, knitting and weaving, these 
 old-time matrons took pleasure in concocting 
 dainties that won them at least local renown. 
 Their pickles, preserves and brandy-peaches were 
 widely celebrated and it was said that every Vir- 
 ginia housewife boasted of possessing the only 
 infallible recipe for curing a ham. The "Old 
 Yellow Pickle" was another delicacy not to be 
 found elsewhere in equal perfection. Weeks were 
 required for its preparation and years for its 
 maturity. Baby cucumbers, onions, ears of corn 
 and cauliflowers were scalded day after day in 
 brine and exposed on trays in the burning sun 
 until sufficiently cured for the addition of oil, 
 vinegar and spice. 
 
34 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Delicious conserves were similarly prepared by 
 paring ripe peaches in circles from the stone, 
 scalding the luscious spirals in syrup and spread- 
 ing them on dishes in the sun. 
 
 I have in my possession an ancient cookery 
 book called the Virginia Housewife, which was 
 written by a Mrs. Randolph of great local celeb- 
 rity. This manual is bound in calf and its pages 
 are yellow with age. Although every recipe is 
 warranted infallible, it has fallen into disuse 
 through the extravagance of its demands. The 
 formulas, commencing as they frequently did, 
 "Take a quart of the richest cream that can be 
 procured," or "Break into a clean dish two dozen 
 perfectly fresh eggs," were calculated to daunt 
 the least economical cook. 
 
 That the Southern woman of the past should 
 be a good housekeeper was a necessity forced 
 upon her by circumstances without regard to 
 individual taste. Her large family, the immense 
 retinue of slaves who all had to be fed, clothed 
 and nursed, not to mention the incessant and 
 heavy demands of hospitality, made her the real 
 burden-bearer of the community. 
 
 A characteristic fashion of the period was the 
 custom of visiting for months at a time in the 
 families of relatives and friends. My grand- 
 
Domestic Affairs 35 
 
 mother would pack her five younger daughters 
 into a coach, and with driver, postilions and maids 
 go merrily off to spend the winter with her sisters 
 and married daughters in Lower Virginia. When 
 summer came these visits were duly returned. 
 
 So popular and so universal was this custom, 
 that it was currently related of one young couple 
 that they started on their wedding tour and con- 
 tinued their round of visits until nine children 
 had come to bless the homes of their friends. It 
 is needless to say that every last family which 
 they honored with their society would cheerfully 
 pay their expenses on to their next stopping 
 place. 
 
 Another authentic instance is of a guest who 
 came to spend the day and stayed for thirty 
 years. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Family Legends 
 
 FOR years the slave-ships had come from 
 Washington to Alexandria and Dmnfries 
 with their cargo, the planters going to 
 these ports to choose such slaves as they needed 
 for work on the plantations. My grandfather, 
 whose estate of Cedar Grove lay just below 
 JMount Vernon, on the Potomac River, once 
 accompanied some friends on board a slaver just 
 arrived in port. He had not intended to make 
 any purchases, but his attention was attracted by 
 a tall and handsome young woman whose great 
 melancholy eyes followed him wherever he went 
 so persistently that at last he divined she was 
 making some sort of appeal to him. When he 
 was about to leave the ship she approached, threw 
 herself at his feet and clasping his knees made 
 him understand that she wanted him to buy her. 
 Struck by her manner and unable to resist her 
 entreaties, he paid her price and embarked with 
 her on the little vessel which was to take him 
 home. On reaching the shore, she took from her 
 mouth a large bead of soft red gold and pressed 
 it into his hand. Later, after she learned to 
 
38 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 speak English, she told him that she had been a 
 princess in her own country and wore a necklace 
 of these beads. At the time of her capture the 
 string broke and she had been able to save only 
 one bead. This she kept in her mouth during the 
 voyage. My grandfather had the bead made 
 into a ring which became a treasured heirloom in 
 the family. Inside it was inscribed the motto ; 
 "The royal slave 
 Freely gave." 
 The heroine of this story was taken into the 
 household of my grandmother and became her 
 favorite maid. She is said to have been six feet 
 tall and remarkably comely. In due time she 
 married one of the men on the plantation and 
 distinguished herself by giving birth to triplets. 
 My grandfather called these boys Shem, Ham 
 and Japhet, and told their mother that if she 
 would rear them to manhood she need never do 
 any other work. He gave her a cabin in the 
 orchard near the great house and there she raised 
 fruit and chickens, being called upon for service 
 only when there was sickness in the house or 
 unusual domestic stress. She lived to a great age 
 and her sons were highly valued servants on the 
 plantation. 
 
Family Legends 39 
 
 In those days slavery was not a "question" at 
 all. Most of the slaves, indeed, were brought 
 into the ports of New York or Boston and after- 
 wards sold to the South. Of course the evils that 
 grew out of the institution were very serious, but 
 in the times and in the families of which I write 
 it seemed a natm^al part of the patriarchal system 
 of the great plantations, and was, moreover, 
 justified by Scriptural example. Cases of cruelty 
 were extremely rare in Virginia and were never 
 spoken of without horror. Such discipline as the 
 negroes required fell to the lot of the overseer, 
 and as in certain factory towns nowadays it might 
 be thought impolite to discuss child labor, so it 
 was then considered bad taste even to mention 
 the name of a negro trader. 
 
 In later years, Virginia, as lying nearest the 
 border, received many visits from emissaries of 
 the abolition party, and a good many negroes ran 
 away and took refuge in Canada, the only place 
 where they were safe from being captured and 
 restored to their owners. These things happened 
 before the passage of the Free Soil Law which 
 conferred freedom on every slave who set foot in 
 a non-slave holding State. 
 
 One of my earhest recollections on this subject 
 is the escape of a negro named Vincent with his 
 
40 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 wife and nine children. Vincent, himself free, 
 was a very respectable man who worked as a 
 hostler in the hotel in Leesburg, the county seat. 
 Many lawyers repaired thither to attend the 
 courts and with these guests and others he became 
 a great favorite for his faithful service and oblig- 
 ing ways. Besides his regular wages he received 
 many presents of money, for it was generally 
 known that he was trying to get together a suffi- 
 cient sum to buy his wife and children. Their 
 owner had agreed to sell them for fifteen hundred 
 dollars, but after Vincent, by hard work and 
 rigid economy, had succeeded in collecting the 
 amount, the former refused to fulfil his promise 
 on the ground that Vincent's wife was so valuable 
 to him as a cook that he could not let her go. 
 
 When this became commonly known the black 
 man's white friends expressed strong indignation 
 and a great deal of sympathy, but there seemed 
 to be no remedy for the situation. Vincent con- 
 tinued to work at the tavern, keeping his own 
 counsel. 
 
 One morning of the following winter, Mammy, 
 my nurse, came into my mother's room where I 
 slept, to make the fire and when answering the 
 usual questions about the weather, my parents 
 noted her very peculiar manner and expression 
 
Family Legends 41 
 
 of countenance. After she went out my father 
 said, "Mammy has heard some news that she 
 wants to tell." At breakfast an excited neighbor 
 came in to say that a rumor was abroad that 
 Vincent had disappeared with his entire family. 
 For days no other topic was talked of. Scouts 
 were sent out to bring back the fugitives, letters 
 were written in every direction and men posted 
 along the route which it was supposed they would 
 take. But no slightest clue rewarded the search 
 until about a week later, when a carryall and pair 
 of horses were found at a stopping place on the 
 other side of the river with a note from Vincent 
 enclosing the hire of the vehicle and horses, 
 explaining that he had taken them to transport 
 his family thus far, and begging that they be 
 returned to the tavern to which they belonged. 
 Several months later a letter came saying that 
 the whole party had arrived safe in Canada. The 
 disappearance of eleven people out of a commu- 
 nity seems the more remarkable when one reflects 
 that there were no railroads at the time and that 
 the country was so sparsely populated that the 
 arrival of a large family in any place must have 
 attracted far more attention than it would cause 
 at present. The fugitives had to depend entirely 
 on the chance of finding friends to help them. 
 
42 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 They must have been obliged to conceal them- 
 selves during the day and to travel by night, 
 planning their course by the compass. We who 
 gaze nightly with indiiferent eyes upon the 
 Xorth Star can scarcely realize how much it must 
 have meant to the poor slave whom it lighted to 
 freedom. 
 
 Mammy's only remark upon the subject is a 
 curious commentary upon the way the institution 
 was regarded by the negroes themselves, and 
 their perfect acquiescence in it: 
 
 "Well," she said, "it serves Mr. M right. 
 
 Vincent wanted to go in honor/' 
 
 Another, and more agreeable incident, illus- 
 trating the relations between master and slave, 
 occurred in the family of my husband's grand- 
 mother, Mrs. Eustace of Staffordshire. I have 
 often heard my husband tell the story just as I 
 now set it down. 
 
 The estate was heavily encumbered and the 
 number of negroes out of all proportion to the 
 size of the plantation. To remedy the situation 
 my grandmother's lawyer advised her to "hire" 
 out as many of the slaves as possible, and a dozen 
 or more of the likeliest were sent to work in the 
 coal pits in Chesterfield County. Among them, 
 amid tears and lamentations, went Castor and 
 
Family Legends 43 
 
 Pollux, the twin sons of Mammy Lily, Mrs. 
 Eustace's cook and factotum. Mammy Lily was 
 six feet tall and possessed a vigor of mind in 
 keeping with the size of her body. She ruled 
 everything in the household; no one dreamed of 
 disputing her sway. A few weeks after the depar- 
 ture of Castor and Pollux, rumors were heard 
 that the}^ were receiving harsh treatment in the 
 coal pits. ^ly husband, a little boy at the time, 
 remembers that JSIammy Lily cried and that his 
 grandmother spent many hours in prayer. Then 
 came the news that Castor and Pollux had run 
 away. A large reward was offered for their 
 apprehension and the country round Mrs. 
 Eustace's plantation soon swarmed with people 
 searching for the fugitives, it being conjectured 
 that their devotion to their home would bring 
 them back to it. A searching party that actually 
 invaded the Eustace kitchen was driven off by 
 Mammy Lily with blows and abuse. My husband 
 says that about this time strange noises would be 
 heard late at night and that when he had to go 
 on an errand in the evening the fear of ghosts 
 would send him flying along the dark passages. 
 One morning the ghosts turned into very substan- 
 tial flesh and blood when Mammy Lily threw 
 open the dining-room door and dramatically 
 
44 Old Vkginia Days and Ways 
 
 aiinoiincing, "JMistis, here's your niggers," ush- 
 ered Id the dehnquent Castor and Pollux who had 
 been concealed for a week or more in the closet 
 under the stairs. 
 
 They Avere not sent back to work in the coal 
 pits in Chesterfield. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 True and F^u^se Nobility 
 
 I INHERITED from my father about twelve 
 hundred acres situated in Loudoun County 
 on the Potomac River, about twenty miles 
 from Washington. This is all that is left to the 
 family of a tract granted to Daniel McCarty in 
 1660 or thereabouts (I have forgotten the exact 
 date) by Lord Fairfax and Lady Suffolk, who 
 in their turn had received it from Queen Anne. 
 This tract embraced a strip of country extending 
 from Broad Run to Sugar Land Run, and cov- 
 ered parts of several counties. The family seat 
 of the McCartys was at Cedar Grove, in Fairfax, 
 fourteen miles below Alexandria. At this point 
 the Pohick and Accotink Creeks pour their waters 
 into the Potomac, making it nine miles wide. 
 From the porch of Cedar Grove on a clear day 
 one could look across this wonderful expanse and 
 with a glass make out famous Gunston Hall, the 
 home of George Mason, framer of the Bill of 
 Rights and signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. My grandfather, Daniel McCarty, 
 whose mother was a Miss Ball, a near relative of 
 Washington, married a daughter of George 
 
46 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Mason of Gunston, and from her I inherit one 
 of the pear-shaped diamond rings which she sent 
 to London to buy for her three daughters. This 
 ring invariably attracts notice whenever it is 
 worn, both for its antiquity and its intrinsic 
 beauty. The stone is placed over silver foil 
 ( formerly supposed to enhance the brilliancy of a 
 gem ) in a setting of wa^ought gold, is surrounded 
 with rubies and surmounted with a little coronet 
 of rubies and diamonds. 
 
 My grandmother jMcCarty had, as I have said, 
 ten sons and one daughter. When they all grew 
 up Cedar Grove became the scene of continued 
 f rollicking. Fox hunting was a favorite pastime, 
 especially of Daniel, the eldest son. So do om- 
 predilections decide our fate ! One day when the 
 chase had been unusually long and hard, he 
 became separated from his companions and fol- 
 lowed the quarry, until after many doublings and 
 windings, it ran unexpectedly into the wooded 
 lawn of a gentleman's house. Daniel rushed 
 after in hot pm'suit to find himself confronted by 
 a beautiful young woman in whose arms the fox 
 had taken sanctuary. With flashing eyes she 
 dared him to touch it and he instantly divined 
 that the little animal must be a pet in the family. 
 
True and False Nobility 47 
 
 Confused and contrite he threw himself from his 
 horse and, hat in hand, stammered his apologies. 
 Alas! the fox got the better of the hunter that 
 October day, for Daniel was so hard hit that he 
 never rested until he won the spirited damsel for 
 his wife. The temper, however, which had 
 seemed so charming in the maid proved less 
 attractive in the spouse, and many tales are told 
 of her violent and unreasonable behavior. Poor 
 Uncle Daniel died before he was forty and his 
 friends were accustomed to say in speaking of 
 him that in chasing a fox, he had caught a viocen. 
 His widow married a Captain Saunders who, 
 after her death, wedded Mrs. Fairfax. This lady 
 was grandmother of the present Baron Fairfax 
 who now resides in England in full enjoyment 
 of his title which has been acknowledged by the 
 British crown. 
 
 Of the Fairfax family in Virginia much has 
 been written. They lived at Greenway Court, 
 and the title they might not bear in Virginia was 
 tacitly acknowledged in the consideration which 
 they received. 
 
 In a later generation Donald Fairfax, who 
 remained on the Northern side during the Civil 
 War, distinguished himself by the part he played 
 in the capture of Mason and Shdell, representa- 
 
48 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 tives of the Confederate government. Gossip 
 relates that on that occasion Mathilde Shdell 
 slapped her captor in the face. 
 
 In no country of the civilized world does more 
 simplicity of manners exist along with perfect 
 breeding than in Virginia. Social position is 
 entirely independent of money; manners are 
 inherent, being inherited like eyes or complexion, 
 not to be laid off and put on like clothes. This 
 local peculiarity is illustrated by the following 
 incident which made a deep impression on me at 
 the time. 
 
 The old dancing master who had taught me to 
 dance, and may have given my mother lessons for 
 all I knovf, formed a class to which I sent my 
 children. All the neighborhood came thither, 
 attracted by the ravishing strains of his fiddle, 
 and among the rest two sun-burned, bright-eyed, 
 bare-foot boys answering to the name of 
 Dulaney. 
 
 "Why Sonny," asked the teacher of the oldest 
 one, "where are your shoes?" 
 
 "We forgot 'em," answered Hal, laughing up 
 in his face and twisting one bare foot around the 
 other. 
 
 "Tut, tut," said the old man. "You must run 
 home and get 'em; I can't teach you to dance 
 without shoes." 
 
True and False Nobility 49 
 
 A smile went around the room, for the boys 
 who had come to dancing school without shoes 
 were the orphan sons of my cousin, Kebecca 
 Dulaney, whose inheritance of a great English 
 fortune might have furnished a plot for Thack- 
 eray. Her father on coming of age found him- 
 self nearly penniless, and having no business to 
 attend to at home, accepted an invitation to visit 
 his relations in England. As he had been highly 
 educated and possessed, moreover, great charm of 
 person and manner, he made a favorable impres- 
 sion upon them all, but especially on a cousin who 
 had been a hopeless and helpless invalid for many 
 years. Rosier, as kind-hearted as he was hand- 
 some and clever, devoted a great deal of time to 
 her, feeling himself repaid by her conversation 
 which evinced a rarely cultivated mind. Under 
 the new interest in her life her health began to 
 improve. One day he startled her by the sugges- 
 tion that he believed she could walk if she would 
 make the effort . At first she refused but was 
 finally persuaded to try. With the aid of his 
 arm she succeeded in taking a step or two. He 
 encouraged her to persevere until she learned to 
 walk again, finally recovering her health com- 
 pletely. She was much older than Rosier and 
 there was nothing but friendship between them, 
 
50 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 but in her gratitude to the lad for restoring her 
 to health and happiness she made a will leaving 
 all her property, amounting to about twelve hun- 
 dred thousand dollars, to his oldest daughter — in 
 the event of his having one — provided that the 
 child should bear her name, Rebecca. There was 
 a further proviso that the namesake, when she 
 married, should forfeit the inheritance unless her 
 husband took her surname, Dulaney. 
 
 My cousin Rosier returned to Virginia, married 
 and in due time welcomed a little Rebecca. The 
 English Rebecca had in the meantime married 
 Sir Richard Hunter, to whom at her death she 
 left only a life estate in the property which she 
 had promised to her cousin's daughter. When 
 Lady Hunter died Sir Richard wrote to inquire 
 what sum would be considered adequate in this 
 country for the education and maintenance of a 
 young lady of Rebecca's station, and upon being 
 informed immediately settled the amount upon 
 her. 
 
 The proviso insisting that her husband should 
 take her name made her marriage rather uncer- 
 tain until her cousin, Richard Dulaney, fell in 
 love with her, and thus name and fortune were 
 happily united. Fabulous tales circulated when, 
 along with money and securities, the household 
 
True and False Nobility 51 
 
 effects were sent to the heiress. To my certain 
 knowledge ten wagon-loads of plate came to 
 Rebecca from her English inheritance. I have 
 seen an entire dinner-service of silver with spoons 
 and forks so heavy one could scarcely lift them, 
 besides countless little sets which in this day we 
 would call "individual," consisting of tiny teapot, 
 sugar-dish and cream pitcher, probably used for 
 the informal English breakfast. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which traveling for- 
 eigners were welcomed led more than one impos- 
 tor to take advantage of the innocent credulity 
 of American society. One summer when we were 
 staying at Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania, the 
 guests were thrown into intense excitement bj^ 
 the arrival of an Italian nobleman, who attracted 
 attention by his handsome person and distin- 
 guished bearing as well as by the number of 
 jewelled orders and decorations that he wore. 
 Of course all received him with open arms, and 
 not a little envy was excited among the young 
 ladies and their mothers when he began to pay 
 marked attention to a beautiful heiress. My 
 father admired the young lady too, in a paternal 
 way, and one night accepted her mother's invita- 
 tion to come and inspect her appearance before 
 she should start for a ball. She was beautifully 
 
52 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 dressed in white, but it startled him to see the 
 bosom of her gown almost covered with foreign 
 orders and decorations. After praising her 
 appearance in all sincerity, my father added: 
 
 "Now, my dear, I am going to take an old 
 man's privilege and be perfectly frank with you. 
 You do not know anything about this young gen- 
 tleman except what he has told you. By wearing 
 his decorations you compromise yourself and 
 invite criticism. So, if you take my advice — and 
 of course you are perfectly free to reject it — you 
 will not wear these things which do not make you 
 look any lovelier, but will wait to put them on 
 until you know more than you do now." 
 
 The young girl reflected a moment before she 
 answered: "You are quite right, Colonel; I 
 ought to have thought of that myself," and in 
 spite of her mother's protests, she unfastened the 
 decorations and laid them off. A few days 
 later the nobleman disappeared from Bedford 
 Springs, nor was it long before the people whom 
 he had duped learned, with the news of his arrest, 
 that he was a valet who had rifled his master's 
 jewel casket and had been masquerading in his 
 master's clothes. 
 
 That same summer we made the acquaintance 
 of the ex-Empress of Mexico, known, in Ameri- 
 
True and False Nobility 53 
 
 can society as Mrs. Iturbide. She was veiy plain, 
 very dark, and careless in her dress. She lived 
 at that time with her family in Georgetown, and 
 in later years interesting things befell them. It 
 was her grandson whom Maximillian adopted 
 and chose as the heir of the Mexican throne. 
 When Maximillian was shot, the child's mother 
 learned indirectly that he would be taken to Italy 
 to be educated in a monastery. She started at 
 once for Mexico, and arrived only to hear that 
 the vessel bearing her son had already set sail. 
 But learning also that it would make a brief stop 
 at Havana, she followed on to Cuba, appealed to 
 the American consul there for assistance, and got 
 it. The Consul accompanied her on board the 
 ship, where, asserting her rights as the boy's 
 mother, she took him almost forcibly from the 
 Roman Catholic Priest who was carrying him 
 to Rome. 
 
 The child was brought to Georgetown and 
 grew up in the same household as his little cousins. 
 The neighbors told amusing stories of his imperi- 
 ous bearing; how he expected the other children 
 to wait upon him, and would stamp his foot and 
 fly into a passion if thwarted. When he grew to 
 manhood he went to ^lexico and volunteered in 
 the army there. Of his subsequent fate I never 
 heard. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Some Country Damsels 
 
 MY mother's name was Anne Lucinda Lee. 
 Until her marriage she Hved at the 
 family seat of Cot on on the Potomac. 
 Often has she told me that her childhood was 
 ideally happy. In summer she with her sisters 
 played all day long in the garden where they 
 made baby-houses under the low branches of the 
 old pear trees. Their dolls were of wood, cun- 
 ningly carved and painted. ISIy mother's had 
 blue eyes and yellow hair like her own; Aunt 
 Fanny's, like its little mother, was a brunette with 
 brown eyes and raven curls. My mother's doll 
 must have been made of scented wood, for she 
 always smelt a sweet and pungent fragrance 
 when she kissed her. 
 
 In winter they went to school to M. Mongrand, 
 their tutor, an old French emigre, who had found 
 an asylum in Virginia. For their amusement in 
 bad weather, they danced or played battledore 
 and shuttle-cock in the long corridor. 
 
 They were taught to knit and sew at a very 
 early age, nor is it surprising that they were fine 
 needlewomen when we learn that their mother 
 put a pencil-dot to mark the place where every 
 
56 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 stitch should go. 1 have in my possession a quilt- 
 square made b}^ my cousin, Anne Fenton Brent, 
 when she was but five years old, which is sewed 
 together with a skill I have never seen surpassed. 
 The girls wore low-necked white cambric 
 frocks and red morocco slippers all the year 
 round, in spite of the fact that Virginia winters 
 are often intensely cold for weeks at a time. The 
 only other fabrics then in use for dresses were 
 silk, bombazine, and a woolen material called 
 "stuff." Printed cottons were introduced later. 
 One of my uncles, who was an importer, gave my 
 mother a book of cotton samples of beautiful 
 designs, which she thriftily sewed into a patch- 
 work quilt. 
 
 When the sisters, of whom there were live, 
 grew to woman's estate, Coton became the objec- 
 tive point of the beaux of several counties. They 
 married early, and each girl after her marriage 
 dropped her maiden appellation and became 
 "Sister Brent," "Sister Carter," "Sister Ring- 
 gold," or "Sister Maffett," as the case might be. 
 
 There was little gaiety in rural neighborhoods 
 in the way of balls and dancing parties. The 
 only formal entertainments were dinners, or "din- 
 ings" as they were called, to which the guests 
 came in the forenoon, partook of a lavish mid- 
 
Some Country Damsels 57 
 
 day meal and remained until dark. In the after- 
 noon the ladies withdrew to the upper rooms 
 while the gentlemen remained below to smoke 
 and talk pohtics. A little negro footman was 
 always in attendance with a tray of glasses con- 
 taining apple toddy, sangaree, or mint julep (fra- 
 grant, and tinkling with ice), and the order to 
 "walk about," frequently given, meant that he 
 should proffer these refreshments at short niter- 
 vals to the guests. 
 
 In this connection I am reminded of a story 
 which my father was very fond of telling of a 
 French gentleman. He was invited to one of 
 these Virginia banquets and regaled with some 
 seductive compound of which nutmeg was an 
 ingredient. After many rounds of the beverage, 
 the Frenchman drew my father aside and whis- 
 pered to him: — 
 
 "Mon cher JMcCarty, I have fear that I am 
 dronk. What was in de ponch dat you gave me?" 
 
 "Why, let me see," said my father; "there was 
 rum" — 
 
 "No, I have drunk rum biiFor; it wass not 
 rum." 
 
 "And sugar" — 
 
 "iSTo, it wass not sugar." 
 
 "And water"— 
 
58 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 "No, I have often drink water." 
 
 "And nutmeg" — 
 
 "Ah, it wass dat nootmeg! I have not had 
 nootmeg biiFor; it wass dot nootmeg dat made 
 me dronk." 
 
 If gluttony is one of the sins to be ascribed to 
 the Virginians of an earher day, it is probably 
 because there were so many good things to eat. 
 In this favored clime all the fruits and vegetables 
 of the temperate zone grew in abundance. The 
 woods then were full of game, the rivers and bays, 
 of fish. One of my friends who lived in the tide- 
 water region on the coast used to send her cook 
 with a basket to the bottom of her garden to get 
 oysters, crabs, lobsters or clams. For dessert she 
 could gather figs, peaches or grapes. A gentle- 
 man dining with her was told that the pepper and 
 salt were the only ingredients of the sumptuous 
 meal which had not been produced on the 
 plantation. 
 
 When I was a girl I visited at a coimtry house 
 where broiled goslings were served for breakfast. 
 Partridge eggs were one of the delicacies upon 
 which we feasted now and then. As many as 
 twenty-four eggs were sometimes found in a 
 single nest, but as the bird would not return to it 
 if it had been touched by the hand, a long-handled 
 
Some Country Damsels 59 
 
 tin ladle was provided for removing the eggs and 
 was used for no other purpose. 
 
 To return to my grandmother's menage where 
 meals succeeded each other in the English rou- 
 tine. Five o'clock tea was served every afternoon 
 in the drawing-room or the garden and at nine 
 the family repaired to the dining-room to partake 
 of a "hot buttered loaf" with preserves or fresh 
 fruit and rich milk ladled from a china bowl into 
 glasses. 
 
 As the girls grew up each one in turn had a 
 season in Washington. My mother and Aunt 
 Fanny were formally introduced into society by 
 ]Mrs. Dolly Madison, at one of her own levees, as 
 "specimens of Virginia ladies." 
 
 For sti'eet wear that winter the sisters had long 
 pelisses and chinchilla caps. Fanny's pelisse was 
 of yellow silk, Lucinda's of blue, and both were 
 trimmed of swansdown. It is needless to say 
 that the wearers have left a reputation for beauty 
 which their descendants have never attained. 
 
 The gloves of the period, my mother told me, 
 were remarkably fine and soft. She was pre- 
 sented by an admirer with a pair folded in an 
 English-walnut shell which was lined with green 
 silk and laced with silken cords. 
 
 In that day, as in these, excessive slenderness 
 was the mode, and a young woman disposed to 
 
60 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 embonpoint would wear only a linen chemise 
 under her silk gown. No wonder these pretty 
 dames paid for imprudence in youth with inflam- 
 matory rheumatism in age. With this scant cos- 
 tume married ladies wore turbans of colored 
 gauze, sometimes ornamented with a jewel. One 
 of my relatives had a turban of coquelicot gauze 
 trimmed with gold lace, and another, a blonde, 
 one of silver gauze adorned with a white ostrich 
 feather. 
 
 The wearer of the coquelicot turban must have 
 possessed much of the enterprise which is sup- 
 ]DOsed to be distinctively characteristic of the 
 present day. Hearing that the young man whom 
 she had decided to marry was visiting in Alex- 
 andria where a beautiful rival was spending the 
 winter, she mounted her horse behind a man 
 servant, and taking her wardrobe in saddle-bags 
 rode thither through bitter weather and captured 
 him out of hand. 
 
 This lady became in her age such a martyr to 
 rheumatism that her limbs were twisted com- 
 pletely out of shape. Her little hands were like 
 bird-claws and her knees were drawn up to her 
 chin. A terrible itching afflicted her which she 
 said was in the marrow of her bones, and she used 
 to endeavor to allay it with a little carved ivorv 
 
Some Country Damsels 61 
 
 hand fitted to a long whalebone handle which a 
 sailor relative had brought her from China. 
 
 A curious episode of about the same period 
 was the reappearance of Cousin Adelaide Brent 
 after having been lost sight of for years. She 
 had gone to Louisiana and married there, but 
 owing to a quarrel regarding the division of the 
 property, she had become estranged from her 
 family and so much time had elapsed since she 
 had been heard from that her relations supposed 
 her dead. Then one day a lady announcing 
 herself as Adelaide Brent, took a house in the 
 neighborhood and gave out that she had come 
 back to prove her right to a larger share of the 
 paternal estate than she had received. 
 
 Always had Adelaide been eccentric, so this 
 conduct was quite in keeping with her character. 
 As a girl she was very handsome, with red hair 
 and a dazzlingly white skin. The other claimant, 
 an elderly woman at this time, had red hair also 
 and the remains of a fair complexion. The new 
 comer showed considerable familiarity with local 
 conditions, talking freely about things that had 
 happened in her youth; but her supposed girl- 
 hood friends who, actuated by sympathy or curi- 
 osity, called upon her came away with a feeling 
 of distrust and the suspicion that the woman was 
 
62 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 not really Adelaide Brent. At last the brother, 
 with whom she had held communication only 
 through a lawyer, went to see her and at once 
 pronounced her an impostor. After remaining 
 in the neighborhood for some time, she disap- 
 peared as mysteriously as she had come, leaving 
 the family unanimous in the conclusion that she 
 Avas some maid or companion who, resembling 
 Cousin Adelaide in height and general appear- 
 ance and having heard much of her antecedents 
 and early life, thought it would be feasible to 
 personate her and put in a successful claim to 
 her inheritance. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Fire-Eaters 
 
 MY father possessed in a high degree those 
 qualities of honor, courage and gener- 
 osity with which our imagination endows 
 those who bear "without reproach the grand old 
 name of gentleman." He was about six feet in 
 height, had black hair, an aquiline nose and 
 remarkably bright, piercing eyes. So well 
 trained in athletic exercises was he that in his 
 youth he could walk under a horizontal bar, turn 
 and jump over it. I have been told also on good 
 authority that he could take a fifty-pound weight 
 on each little finger and crack them together 
 above his head. He had an excellent memory, a 
 ready wit and an inexhaustible flow of spirits. 
 
 Though he was by taste a j)olitician and by 
 inclination a rover, after leaving college he took 
 up the study of law. Our country in those days 
 offered great opportunities for profitable invest- 
 ment and the young man went on long journeys 
 hither and thither looking for lands. Once with 
 a bowie knife and an Indian guide he journeyed 
 to Wisconsin where he took up government land 
 at a number of places which afterwards became 
 
64 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 the sites of flourishing manufacturing towns, 
 among others, JMilwaukee. There at one time he 
 owned five hundred lots in what is now the most 
 desirable part of the city. 
 
 Of his adventures with the Indian guide he 
 told some amusing stories. My father must have 
 exercised the same charm of manner upon the 
 aborigines which he exerted on other people, for 
 they became very fond of him, and on one occa- 
 sion invited him to a feast made in his honor. 
 While on his way to the place of meeting accom- 
 panied by Jake, his guide, he noticed that Jake, 
 instead of being cheerful and chatty as usual, 
 seemed sombre and taciturn, but he was hardly 
 prepared for the sudden question: 
 
 "Colonel, do you like dog meat?" 
 
 "Why no," said my father, "I'm not particu- 
 larly fond of it." 
 
 "Well, it's all you'll get there," said Jake. 
 
 My father, knowing that his hosts would be 
 deeply offended if he did not appear at their 
 banquet, feigned a sudden indisposition and 
 returned to his boarding house. When the 
 Indians, according to Jake's prediction, post- 
 poned the feast to come to inquire after the white 
 man, they found him in bed groaning terribly. 
 The feast was indefinitely postponed and my 
 father, for the nonce, escaped eating dog-meat. 
 
Fire-Eaters 65 
 
 Once he was detained a whole winter in 
 Xatchez, Mississippi, because transportation 
 homeward had failed him. In the dearth of other 
 amusement he played cards with several choice 
 spirits of the town. Now in those days playing 
 cards invariably meant what nowadays we call 
 gambling. A strict account of the winning and 
 losing was kept on both sides and when the time 
 for my father's departure arrived it was found 
 that he had won several thousand dollars. On the 
 last evening of their stay they met to settle up 
 their accounts. Vouchers and securities for the 
 amount were duly handed him. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, rising, "I have spent a 
 winter with you; I have accepted your hospi- 
 tality; I have enjoyed your societ}^, and I have 
 not come here to rob you of your money." So 
 saying, he held the papers in the candle and 
 burned them to a crisp. 
 
 He married Miss Lucinda Lee of Coton, after 
 strenuous opposition from her family and friends 
 on account of his part in a duel. This duel has 
 since become one of the most celebrated in the 
 history of the code in America. An account of 
 it has been published time and again, and to this 
 day papers with a little space to fill will reprint 
 it.* It is generally in a version so incorrect that 
 
 *Only last winter it appeared in the New York Herald (1911). 
 
66 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 it seems only fair that I should now set down the 
 truth. 
 
 The story related to me by my father runs, to 
 the best of my recollection, as follows: 
 
 A difference in politics was the cause of quar- 
 rel between him and his second cousin, General 
 Armistead Mason, his antagonist in the duel. 
 
 Mason was a violent Democrat, my father an 
 equally violent Federalist. Mason was a candi- 
 date for some office and my father registered his 
 first vote against him. Mason challenged his 
 right to vote on the ground that he was not yet 
 of age, and insulted him by compelling him to 
 make oath that he had passed his twenty-first 
 birthday. After the oath vv^as taken he called him 
 a "d — d perjured scoundrel." My father there- 
 upon knocked him down and the fight had made 
 considerable progress when they were forcibly 
 separated by the bystanders. 
 
 Mason sent McCarty a challenge at once, 
 which was, of coures, accepted, but friends and 
 relatives interposed to keep the peace and the 
 matter was, as my father supposed, finally set- 
 tled. After a year had elapsed, however. General 
 Mason, acting under advice of political friends, 
 one of whom was General Jackson, wrote to 
 JMcCarty saying that he was not satisfied with 
 
Fire-Eaters 67 
 
 the termination of the aif air and desired to settle 
 it with a duel. My father consented, claiming 
 the right to name the terms, as the challenged 
 party. One can scarcely wonder that they were 
 not accepted. His first proposal was that they 
 should fire across a handkerchief; his second, 
 that they should sit together upon a keg of gun- 
 powder and touch it off with a match ; his third, 
 that they should leap, bound together, from the 
 dome of the Capitol in Washington. It seems 
 that he was in deep despair over the miscarriage 
 of his love-affair and had no desire to come out 
 of the encounter alive. When all these proposi- 
 tions had been refused by Mason's friends, 
 McCarty told them to name their own weapons. 
 Mason, an old soldier, chose muskets. McCarty 
 then asserted his right to name the distance and 
 made it so short that the muzzles of the gun- 
 barrels almost met. 
 
 The meeting took place at Bladensburg, Mary- 
 land, in February, 1819, at daybreak. Although 
 it was snowing and very cold, McCarty appeared 
 stripped to his shirt and trousers. Mason wore 
 a heavy overcoat. Both fired at the word and my 
 father's ball entered Mason's heart, killing him 
 instantly. Mason's shot tore the flesh of McCar- 
 ty's forearm from elbow to wrist, leaving a scar 
 which he carried to his grave. 
 
68 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 When Mason's body was examined two wounds 
 were discovered besides the bullet vv^hich caused 
 his death. JMcCarty's enemies at once accused 
 him of foul play, charging that his weapon was 
 improperly loaded, but upon further investiga- 
 tion my father was acquitted of any dishonorable 
 action. It was discovered that McCarty's ball 
 had grazed Mason's elbow and fractured it, car- 
 rying two splinters of bone into his side. 
 
 After the duel, finding it intolerable to remain 
 in Virginia where his conduct had alienated his 
 sweetheart's family and established a bitter feud 
 with some of his relations, he went to New York 
 and enlisted with a body of troops that were being 
 sent out to fight Bolivar. On the eve of starting, 
 however, he was seized with a brain fever occa- 
 sioned by the terrible strain he had undergone, 
 and lay unconscious with delirium while the ship 
 sailed without him. 
 
 His mother, after undergoing tortures of 
 anxiety, discovered his whereabouts and sent his 
 brother William to bring him home. 
 
 Still a semi -invalid (very interesting, I doubt 
 not) he discovered, while cooling his heels in 
 Washington, that Miss Lucinda Lee was to be a 
 guest at a party to which he v/as invited. He 
 went to the party but dared not approach her. 
 
Fire-Eaters 69 
 
 While he feasted his eyes, at a distance, upon her 
 lovehness, he noted that she was being urged to 
 sing and heard somebody say that nothing suited 
 her voice hke the melodies of young Mr. Thomas 
 Moore, which were then the rage. Still he was 
 not prepared for the transport that filled his soul, 
 when there fell from her lips these ravishing 
 words : 
 
 "Come rest in this bosom my own stricken deer. 
 Though the herd have all left thee, thy home is still here !" 
 
 Can you wonder that he felt encouraged to 
 propose ? 
 
 This duel, though it cast no shadow over his 
 life, made him nevertheless a marked man. He 
 regretted it greatly and threw all of his influence 
 against the practice, never afterwards losing an 
 opportunity to make up a quarrel. 
 
 In this connection I will relate an incident that 
 occurred to him in middle life. Going to New 
 Orleans on business, he took lodging at the Ver- 
 andah Hotel. He was a stranger in the city but 
 his name on the register attracted attention and 
 he made some acquaintances in the office with 
 whom he spent a delightful evening. When bed- 
 time came, being very tired with his journey, he 
 said good-night to his companions and taking his 
 candle proceeded along the verandah on which 
 
70 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 the windows of the office opened. As he neared 
 the staircase a gentleman approached him from 
 the opposite direction who seemed to be observing 
 him with interest. As my father was about to 
 pass he was accosted by this stranger. 
 
 "You, I beheve, Sir, are Colonel McCarty of 
 Virginia?" 
 
 "I am. Sir." 
 
 "I am Colonel K of Louisiana. You, I 
 
 understand, are accounted the bravest man in 
 your part of the country, as I am of mine, and, 
 frankly, I'd like to measure swords with you." 
 
 My father, much astonished at this address, 
 fixed his eyes upon his companion and replied : 
 
 "I have just arrived in your city. Sir, and am 
 unacquainted with its customs. Am I right in 
 understanding you to say that you wish to fight 
 me — a man whom you have never seen before and 
 with whom you can have no cause of quarrel?" 
 
 "You apprehend my meaning, Sir," said the 
 Louisianian. 
 
 "Very well," replied my father, "I have never 
 refused a challenge, although this one seems to 
 me most extraordinary. I will meet you tomor- 
 row morning at daylight, at any place you may 
 appoint. As the challenged part}^ I claim the 
 right to name the weapons, and I choose pistols." 
 
Fire-Eaters 71 
 
 He was highly indignant and the expression 
 of his piercing eyes must have been very 
 remarkable, for the Louisianian turned pale and 
 fell back a pace. 
 
 "Good God, Sir," he exclaimed, "It seems as 
 if you would look me through the brain." 
 
 "I will shoot you through the brain tomorrow 
 morning at daylight," replied my father with 
 great emphasis, "and I shall wait in my room for 
 your second to make arrangements for the 
 meeting." 
 
 "Why, Colonel," exclaimed the bully, "you 
 take this too seriously. I was only jesting, a 
 harmless jest. Sir, to try your mettle." 
 
 "I have no taste for such jests. Sir," replied my 
 father coldly, "and I decline all further conver- 
 sation with you." Turning away, he proceeded 
 to his room, but before he reached the staircase 
 he heard from the office the sound of laughter. 
 
 Much shocked by this encounter, he wrote a 
 letter to my mother and put his affairs in such 
 order as the short time left him permitted. Then 
 he took oiF his coat and shoes and threw himself 
 on the bed for an hour's rest before dawn. He 
 slept heavily. When he awoke the sun was 
 streaming into his room. He looked at his watch 
 and saw that it was nine o'clock. Dressing in 
 
72 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 haste, he descended to the breakfast room expect- 
 ing to find there some news of the Colonel K.'s 
 messenger. To his astonishment his appearance 
 was greeted with a shout from his acquaintances 
 of the night before, who all crowded about him. 
 
 "You have backed down the greatest bully in 
 the State, Sir," they cried, "and we owe you a 
 
 vote of thanks for it. Colonel K left for parts 
 
 unknown this morning at daybreak and it is likely 
 to be a long time before he shows his face here 
 again." 
 
 On his way back to Virginia, my father met 
 with another adventure. 
 
 He traveled naturally upon a Mississippi 
 steamer, the great river in those days being the 
 main highway of traffic. These boats were fre- 
 quented by desperadoes and gamblers who be- 
 guiled the passengers into playing cards with 
 them and then cheated them out of their money. 
 
 My father was enjoying a quiet game with 
 two men of his own sort, when one of these gen- 
 tlemen of fortune approached and proposed to 
 join them. It was explained to him politely that 
 the party was satisfied as they were and did not 
 care for a fourth. The intruder insisted and 
 proceeded to make himself very objectionable — 
 cursing, swearing, even drawing a knife. The 
 players, rather white, looked at each other. They 
 
Fire-Eaters 73 
 
 were unarmed and it seemed that they would 
 either have to admit the fellow to their game or 
 get into an ugly scrimmage. Suddenly my 
 father, still holding his cards, arose, seized the 
 desperado by the collar, walked with him to the 
 side of the boat and flung him over into the 
 stream. Returning to his seat, he threw down an 
 ace, observing quietly, 
 
 "My trick, gentlemen." 
 
 This story was told me long after my father's 
 death by a man who heard it from one of the 
 other participants in the game. 
 
 "The bully was never heard of again," he 
 observed quietly, "but as the Mississippi is a 
 shallow stream at some seasons, he probably 
 swam or waded ashore." 
 
 There is nothing that appeals to me more than 
 the spirit which animated these fine old Southern 
 gentlemen, a spirit which they must have inher- 
 ited from their knightly ancestors. 
 
 Two noticeable figures of the Richmond of an 
 earlier day were Patrick Coutts and Colonel 
 Gamble. For the latter. Gamble's Hill (one of 
 the seven on which Richmond is situated) was 
 named. 
 
 When Colonel Gamble was nearing his end, 
 word came to him that the hours of Mr. Coutts 
 
74 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 also were numbered. He sent a servant with this 
 message: "Ask Mr. Coutts to wait for Colonel 
 Gamble a little while, as he would like to go along 
 with him." 
 
 To this the dying man replied, "Say to Colonel 
 Gamble with my compliments, that Patrick 
 Coutts, booted and spurred, waits for no man." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Education 
 
 GIRLS' schools were kept for the most paii: 
 by "decayed" gentlewomen with little 
 training for their calling. My first teacher 
 was Mrs. Haggerty, an old Irish lady of high 
 family and connections, whose fallen fortunes 
 obliged her to work for her living. Me she 
 treated with great consideration, telhng me that 
 I belonged to the "royal race of Desmond," a 
 statement that I discredited at the time but have 
 since found to be based on the fact that my 
 father's ancestor, Desmond McCarty, before 
 being defeated and dispossessed by Fitzgerald, 
 was king of the counties of Cork and Desmond 
 in Ireland. I am less proud of my royal lineage, 
 however, than I am of the fact that Daniel 
 McCarty, founder of the family in this country, 
 was a President of the House of Burgesses, the 
 first legislative assembly ever held in America. 
 He was the original of Thackeray's Henry 
 Esmond, the name Esmond being derived from 
 the estate of Desmond, the Irish contraction of 
 the Norman D'Esmond. 
 
 In this connection it may not be amiss to relate 
 the legend of the McCarty crest. The device is 
 
76 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Si mailed hand grasping a lizard, and the motto, 
 "Forti et fideli nil difficile," which I like best in 
 its English translation, "To the brave and faith- 
 ful nothing is difficult." 
 
 The story of the motto goes back to that remote 
 antiquity when Ireland, or probably some small 
 part of it, lay waiting to be claimed by bold 
 explorers. McDermott and JMcCarty, setting 
 forth simultaneously upon this project, agreed 
 that whoever first touched the soil should possess 
 it. McCarty's keel first beached the sand but 
 McDermott in a frenzy of wrathful envy, smote 
 off his own left hand with his sword and flimg it 
 on the land. McCarty leaped from his boat and 
 seizing a lizard that had just run out of its hole 
 held it up in token of possession. Thus neither 
 established a clear title and that portion of Ire- 
 land passed into other hands. 
 
 At Mrs. Haggerty's school I studied Olney's 
 Geography, jMurray's Grammar, and a blue- 
 covered book entitled "Speller and Deiiner." 
 This ancient work begins "A-g-e, age, any period 
 of time." This I remember glibly rendering, 
 "A-g-e, age any pyramid of time," going on 
 without pause or correction to — 
 
 "A-l-e, ale, malt liquor; A-i-1, ail, to be sick." 
 
 Although by no means a backward child, I did 
 not learn to read until I was five years old. I was 
 
Education 77 
 
 so mortified on this account as to fret myself into 
 a fever. The precocity of old-time children seems 
 to us nowadays little short of marvellous. My 
 brother John could read the Bible at the age of 
 three. James was considered very backward 
 because he did not read until he was four, 
 although he knew his letters and pointed them 
 out before he could speak. James was a very deli- 
 cate child who had to be carried a great deal. One 
 day my father was holding him upon his shoulder, 
 when some acquaintances stopped to chat. The 
 child, attracted by a handbill affixed to a lamp- 
 post near by, began to read it aloud to the aston- 
 ishment of the group. 
 
 Boys when of sufficient age went to academies 
 where they were prepared for college. Gentle- 
 men of an earlier day were sent to Oxford and 
 Cambridge, but my father went to William and 
 Mary, which enjoyed a high reputation for 
 learning in his time. 
 
 Country people sent their children to the "Old 
 Field School House" generally kept by some 
 brilliant classical scholar who had taken a B.A., 
 but whose Greek and Latin had not helped him 
 very much in the struggle of life. I have heard 
 my father say that in approaching one of these 
 old field school houses one would think he was 
 
78 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 nearing a "bee tree," so continuous was the mur- 
 mur of voices reciting or studying aloud. 
 
 Owners of large estates, owing to the isolation 
 of their plantations, were obliged to employ 
 tutors and governesses and the rod was the only 
 argument used to convince a pupil of the desira- 
 bleness of learning. This custom led to much 
 cruelty. One of the tutors at Cedar Grove once 
 beat my father — then six — in the hand with a 
 ferule until the child, taught by his Virginian 
 code of honor that it was cowardly to utter a 
 complaint, fainted with the pain. For some 
 trifling piece of mischief this tutor flogged 
 another pupil until his back bled. 
 
 My father's mother, who was left a widow at 
 the age of forty, had ten sons. In addition, she 
 adopted the two little boys of her dead sister. 
 They used to say that so many babies were crawl- 
 ing about the floor of her room in the morning 
 that she had to stand on a stool to dress her hair. 
 There being a nurse for every baby, however, the 
 situation was not quite so intolerable as it seems. 
 Of course, these children must have schooling, 
 preferably at home. It is reasonable to suppose 
 that the tutor of twelve boys would have his 
 hands full. Moral suasion had not yet come in 
 fashion. 
 
Education 79 
 
 The young McCartys, goaded to fury by 
 injustice and cruelty, held a council of war. It 
 was of no use to appeal to their mother; she felt 
 herself in duty bound to support the teacher's 
 authority. The only plan that satisfied their 
 sense of justice and at the same time would 
 avenge their wrongs was to give the tyrant a 
 taste of his own medicine. But this plan required 
 some outside help to carry into execution. Their 
 assistant and friend in every enterprise was a 
 young negro named Demas, who had been a 
 playmate and body-servant to the whole brood. 
 To him they confided their scheme. The plan 
 was to cut a number of stout hickory switches 
 and conceal them in the schoolroom. When the 
 teacher should enter on ISIonday morning the 
 door would be locked, then, at a concerted signal, 
 all the boys would set upon him in a body. The 
 switches were long and keen ; they had been well 
 tested; every one of them would split the bark 
 off a tree. Demas had grave misgivings, for he 
 knew his young masters well enough to be sure 
 there was little hope that the detested pedagogue 
 would come out of the ordeal alive, so he betrayed 
 the plot and helped him to escape. 
 
 When school-time arrived the teacher failed 
 to appear, and it was long before anybody knew 
 
80 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 what had become of him. Years afterwards 
 Demas confessed. He had helped the tutor to 
 carry his effects to a httle boat that lay at the 
 bottom of the garden, had rowed him along 
 Accotink Creek mitil they reached the Potomac, 
 where he had put him on board a fishing-smack 
 and left him to find his w^ay home to the North. 
 Even under more favorable conditions, how- 
 ever, I fear that my father would never have been 
 a "teacher's pet." Later he went to a boys' 
 school which is now known as the Georgetown 
 College. If the pupils at this institution became 
 refractory, they were "horsed"; that is to say, 
 fastened on the back of a gigantic negro who got 
 down on all fours to receive the culprit. In this 
 position the boy was flogged to the Queen's taste. 
 An under-master named Boler was in charge of 
 these punishments and one of his proteges acted 
 as spy, tell-tale and general informer. One day 
 my father, having good reason to know that he 
 was to be horsed after school hours, armed him- 
 self with a bandy-stick, but though he kept very 
 carefully in the background, the spy discovered 
 him and called out, "Here he is! Here's Jack 
 McCarty! Run, Mr. Boler; run, Mr. Boler," 
 whereupon Mr. Boler appeared promptly to take 
 the offender in charge. Jack exclaiming, "No, 
 
Education 81 
 
 you don't, Mr. Bolerl" lifted his bandy-stick and 
 whacked the pedagogue in the face with it, and 
 in the ensuing turmoil made good his escape, 
 only, I suspect, to receive the punishment with 
 interest later on. 
 
 This foolish Jack found out from a fellow 
 pupil whose father kept a book store that several 
 handsome volumes had been bought by the fac- 
 ulty as prizes for scholarship and that he — Jack 
 — was to receive one of them. Whereupon he 
 boasted of his good fortune, and this indiscretion, 
 together, perhaps, with some of his escapades, 
 coming to the ears of his teachers, they unjustly 
 decreed that he had forfeited the prize. My 
 father was very angry, but he lay low and kept 
 his own counsel. 
 
 The great feature of the closing exercises of 
 the school was the play of Barharossa. Jack was 
 to take the part of Barharossa. When the time 
 came for the performance, the principal actor 
 did not appear. In hot haste a messenger was 
 dispatched to summon him. In one of the upper 
 rooms, apparently absorbed in a book, sat the 
 young man. 
 
 "Why, Jack," cried the breathless messenger, 
 "why don't you come down ? The play's all ready 
 to begin as soon as you get there." 
 
82 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 "I am not going to play Barbarossa tonight," 
 he replied quietly. 
 
 "Not going to play Barbarossa? But you 
 must! You've got to. Nobody else knows the 
 part. Come along, Jack, don't keep all the 
 fathers and motliers in Georgetown waiting." 
 
 But Jack was obdurate, nor could entreaties 
 move him. At last the principal himself came to 
 argue, even to implore. The boy replied that he 
 was going home the next day not to return ; that 
 he didn't care to take the part and considered the 
 matter ended. 
 
 Barbarossa was the much-advertised feature 
 of the evening. If the refractory conduct of the 
 chief performer should get out it would reflect 
 seriously upon the discipline of the school. 
 
 "Is there nothing that will induce you to do 
 it?" asked the principal at last, in desperation. 
 
 "Yes," said Jack, "there is. If you will go 
 before that audience and tell them that I have 
 earned a prize and that you have withheld it 
 unjustly, I will play Barbarossa, but not unless 
 you do." 
 
 So the faculty made an explanation that was 
 satisfactory to the wounded pride of Barbarossa 
 and the play came off. 
 
Education 83 
 
 The school days of my mother were much 
 more tranquilly spent than those of my father. 
 M. Mongrand, an abbe forced to leave France 
 during the Reign of Terror, took up teaching 
 as a means of livelihood. The office, a small 
 detached building such as was provided on every 
 estate for the transaction of business, remained 
 unused at Coton on account of the death of 
 the master. It was turned into a schoolroom 
 and here the old emigre lived for seven years, 
 teaching his pupils a good deal of French and 
 a little English. He loved the household of 
 his adoption and gave the girls pretty French 
 nicknames which characterized them according 
 to his fancj^ Winifred, the studious, was 
 "La Bonne"; Betsy, the sleepy head, "La belle 
 Doremuse"; Fanny, the beauty, was "Venus." 
 With his many virtues Mon. IMongrand was 
 quick-tempered, and insistent as to all his 
 rights as he regarded them. He was very fond 
 of peaches and cream and the story is told that 
 on one occasion when a sudden severe thunder- 
 storm prevented the servants from carrying 
 him the second course of his supper, a violent 
 knocking was heard on the door and M. Mon- 
 grand appeared bare-headed in the rain, demand- 
 ing angrily, "Why you no bring me my 
 payches?" 
 
84 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 When peace was restored he returned to his 
 own country to live and die happy in his old 
 parish; but my grandmother thought that his 
 happiness was somewhat clouded by reason of his 
 inability to convert her and her family to the 
 Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 I, myself, some thirty years later, went to a 
 boarding school kept at Belmont by Miss Mar- 
 garet Mercer, one of the most accomplished 
 women of her day. In addition to her service to 
 her school, she interested herself greatly in public 
 work, and one of the schemes to which she devoted 
 much time and more money than she could afford 
 was the colonizing of the negroes in Liberia. 
 
 Belmont had been the family seat of the Lees 
 before Mr. Ludwell Lee, becoming bankiaipt in 
 his old age, was forced to sell it. It was, and is 
 still, a fine Elizabethan mansion built of Colonial 
 brick brought from England. Two long corri- 
 dors, originally ''covered ways," but since en- 
 closed and lighted with arched windows, led to 
 kitchen and pantries on one side and to class- 
 rooms on the other. In these corridors on rsimy 
 days the girls used to dance, and play battledore 
 and shuttle-cock. 
 
 The great upper chambers were converted into 
 dormitories, each furnished with five double beds 
 
Education 85 
 
 accommodating ten girls. For toilet purposes a 
 round table in the middle of the room served; on 
 this five basins were ranged around a bucket of 
 water provided with a dipper. In winter we 
 broke the ice for our scanty ablutions. 
 
 At meals a rigid abstemiousness was incul- 
 cated; it would have been considered the acme 
 of bad taste to ask for a second helping of any- 
 thing. In winter, butter was served in very small 
 pieces and no girl could get more than her allow- 
 ance. One Sunday, after the chicken had been 
 made to go as far as possible, my neighbor at 
 table was served with the carcass, which had the 
 deceptive appearance of being a liberal helping. 
 Lifting her hands she exclaimed in boarding- 
 school French, "Oh, ma chere, ma chere!" To 
 which I replied, enviously, "I think it's more than 
 your share." 
 
 Contributions to the bill of fare were, to speak 
 in moderation, kindly welcomed. Two New 
 Orleans girls used to receive from home every 
 winter a barrel of oranges, a box of pecans and 
 a cask of delicious syinip which they called 
 "sero." The syrup was put on the table but we 
 could never get as much of it as we wanted, so 
 we used great ingenuity in contriving to get 
 enough bread and butter to eat with it in our 
 
86 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 rooms at night. Slice after slice we slipped sur- 
 reptitiously into aprons and handkerchiefs at 
 table, and at nine o'clock when the lights were 
 out, we would rise stealthily and heat our stolen 
 provender on the top of the wood stove. Will 
 anything ever again smell or taste as good to me 
 as that bubbling* sero and that hot buttered toast? 
 
CHAPTER X 
 A Dilettante Poet 
 
 IMPROMPTU verses were by no means rare 
 in our society; indeed, much talent was 
 allowed to lie dormant, or was squandered on 
 social occasions, which now would find a ready 
 market in the magazines. 
 
 My uncle, St. Leger I^andon Carter, was a 
 poet of some ability. His "Mocking Bird," in 
 spite of defects of construction has a haunting 
 and lyric quality which makes it worthy of quo- 
 tation here: 
 
 "Come listen, Oh, list to that soft dying strain 
 Of my mocking bird up on the housetop again. 
 He comes every night to these old ruined walls 
 And soft as the moonlight his melody falls. 
 Oh, how can the bulbul's or nightingale's chant 
 In the climes which they love or the groves which they 
 
 haunt. 
 Be more thrilling and wild than the songs I have heard 
 In the stillness of night from my sweet mocking bird.^ 
 
 "I saw him today on his favorite tree. 
 Where he constantly comes in his glory and glee. 
 Perched high on a limb that was standing out far 
 Above all the rest like a tall taper spar. 
 
88 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 The wind it was wafting the limb to and fro 
 And he rode up and down like a skiff in a blow 
 When it sinks with the billow and mounts with its swell; 
 He knew I was watching, he knew it full well. 
 
 "He folded his pinions and swelled out his throat, 
 And mimicked each bird in its own native note, 
 The thrush and the robin, the redbird and all. 
 And the partridge would whistle and come at his call. 
 Then stopping his carol, he seemed to prepare 
 By the flirt of his wings for a flight in the air; 
 When rising sheer upward he wheeled down again 
 And took up the song where he left off the strain. 
 
 "Would you cage such a creature and draggle his plumes. 
 Condemn him to prison, that worst of all dooms. 
 Take from him the pleasure of flying so free. 
 And deny him his ride on the wind-wafted tree.^ 
 Would you force him to pine within merciless bars 
 When earth is all sunshine and Heaven all stars? 
 Forbid it, ye Powers, and grant him the boon 
 Of a sail in the sun and a song to the moon." 
 
 This poem with others was printed in a Httle 
 book called Nugae by Nugator, which reads 
 for all the world like the Gentleman s Magazine. 
 
 I have always felt a great sympathy for this 
 poet-kinsman of mine. His were the scholarly 
 tastes, the playful fancy, the vague aspirations, 
 which so often spell loneliness and disappoint- 
 ment for the possessor. 
 
A Dilettante Poet 89 
 
 His character is unconsciously betrayed in a 
 letter dated February 14, 1847, and addressed 
 to his brother-in-law, William Brent, at the lat- 
 ter's country seat of Palermo, near Alexandria, 
 Virginia. It begins — 
 
 "Your letter filled my eyes with tears by awak- 
 ening recollections of our former days. I would 
 I could attain your happy condition of faith and 
 trust in Heaven, but I cannot. As I have lived 
 a careless being, so shall I die. It is too irksome 
 to my nature to be good, and when in Heaven 
 you shall join the sainted spirits of our dear ones, 
 tell them how much I adored a virtue I cannot 
 attain. But this is too serious a vein for me — I 
 shake it off, or rather let it out — that is, the vein. 
 
 "Palermo! Ah, you are in Sicily comfortably 
 established on your little Sabine farm enjoying 
 the otium cum dignitate, how far to be preferred 
 to a wide domain or sterile fields which 'cheat with 
 hope the husbandman Avho sows.' Why did you 
 not call it Sabina and invite me to drink with you 
 some good old Falernian? 
 
 "I would gladly add to the adornment of your 
 Palermo, as you suggest, but I have no young 
 fruit trees now. Budding and grafting have 
 passed away with me. I never could stick to any- 
 thing long, and now being disappointed in my 
 
90 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 dearest hopes, I have given up all schemes for 
 improvement and take a sort of pleasure in the 
 dilapidation that surrounds me. I like to see a 
 gate off its hinges and a wall tumbling down. 
 There is a luxury in seeing other things decay as 
 well as one's self. At this very moment my house 
 leaks, my stable walls are giving way, my garden 
 gate is broken, my orchard gate is prostrate, and 
 I have strictly forbidden all repairs. 
 " 'It suits the funny habit of my soul.' " 
 "The wide domain of sterile fields" to which he 
 refers was the estate of Cleve on the Potomac, 
 near I'redericksburg. The house was and is still 
 a fine brick mansion. The spacious entrance, then 
 called "the saloon," was so lofty that I as a child 
 felt myself dwarfed to the proportions of a fly. 
 The upper hall was formerly used as a picture 
 gallery and filled with family portraits. 
 
 In one of the rooms stood an old spinet which 
 had been played upon by the belles of Queen 
 Anne's day. One night at the eerie hour that 
 precedes the dawn, a terrible screech resounded 
 through the echoing chambers of Cleve, a wail 
 so wild and unearthly that it curdled the very 
 marrow in the bones. I have neglected to men- 
 tion the family ghost — no family mansion of any 
 pretensions would be without one. Loyally 
 
A Dilettante Poet 91 
 
 accepting the ghost theory, no one made any 
 investigation, only whispered the story to one 
 another with blanched cheeks and staring eyes. 
 Then, accidentally, somebody opened the door of 
 an unused apartment and there under a heap of 
 fallen plaster — plaster that had been brought 
 from England a hundred years before and fas- 
 tened to the rafters with heavy-headed nails, lay 
 the crushed form of the old spinet whose jarred 
 strings had given forth their last sounds. In spite 
 of this rational explanation of one of the super- 
 natural happenings at Cleve, my Uncle Landon 
 continued to believe in ghosts, or to pretend that 
 he did. 
 
 Requiring a considerable sum of money which 
 he could not take legitimately from the revenues 
 of the estate, after long deliberation and acute 
 distress of mind, he decided to sell a splendid 
 avenue of trees which formed the approach to the 
 house. Always interested in new inventions, he 
 was especially impressed about this time with the 
 daguerreotype, then greatly in vogue. The sacri- 
 fice of his trees must have affected him more than 
 he realized, for descending to his cellar one night 
 for a bottle of wine, he distinctly saw, daguerreo- 
 typed on the wide stone floor, the huge trunks 
 and waving branches of every one of his stately 
 
92 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 trees. Dropping his candle with a scream, he fled 
 upstairs and could never be induced to enter the 
 cellar again. (The only thing that has ever 
 shaken my loyal belief in this legend is that tradi- 
 tion does not state whether it was the first bottle 
 of wine or the seventh or eighth which my bril- 
 liant uncle was seeking in the cellar. ) 
 
 Another experience which I used to love to 
 hear him tell was the story of "Black Hawk." 
 He had been spending the summer at Bedford 
 Springs and had made many friends among the 
 guests. Being an especial favorite with ladies, 
 there was great lamentation when, toward the 
 close of the season, he announced that he must 
 go. On the day of his departure he came to the 
 breakfast table looking haggard and worn. One 
 of his fair friends commented on his appearance, 
 when my uncle explained that he had passed a 
 most wretched night, for a dog had stationed 
 himself under the window and barked for hours, 
 and that every time he barked he distinctly uttered 
 the words, 
 
 "Black Hawk! Black Hawk!" 
 
 This created a good deal of merriment. In the 
 midst of the laughter the conveyance that was to 
 take him away drove up to the door. In those 
 days stage coaches were named just as sleeping- 
 cars are now, and great was the consternation of 
 
A Dilettante Poet ■ 93 
 
 the company to read on the side of the huge coach 
 in large gilt letters the words, "Black Hawk." 
 All clustered immediately about my uncle and 
 begged him not to go, declaring that his dream 
 must have been an omen of evil and that the dog 
 had been sent as a warning. In vain; he replied 
 that his plans were all made and that he had 
 important engagements to meet. So he made his 
 adieux with mock solemnity and departed. 
 
 The coach bumped and thumped for hours up 
 and down the mountain side. At noon they 
 stopped for dinner at a tavern where the driver 
 accompanied his meal with huge draughts of 
 mountain whiskey with which he also filled his 
 pocket flask. The weary passengers climbed back 
 to their places, the road grew worse and worse, 
 and the already intoxicated driver drank at short 
 intervals from his flask. Presently they reached 
 a place where recent rains had washed the earth 
 away, leaving frightful gulleys. At one point 
 the road was so narrow that it seemed impossible 
 for the coach to pass. 
 
 The passengers protested and fell into an 
 altercation with the driver who was now too drunk 
 for prudence. Striking the horses with his whip, 
 he drove the stage over into the ravine and my 
 uncle remembered too late the unheeded warning 
 of "Black Hawk." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Gallantry and Repartee 
 
 IN my yoLUiger days "gallantry" was much 
 more in vogue than at present. Ladies, 
 especially when young and beautiful, were 
 the object of respectful and chivalrous admira- 
 tion. It has been since said that chivalry was an 
 institution which enabled a man to protect a 
 woman from everybody except himself, but in 
 the days of which I write such heresy was un- 
 known. Men took pride in their devotion to "the 
 sex" and thought it no shame to offer themselves 
 and be rejected. It was said of a cousin of mine 
 whose ardent temperament led him to propose to 
 every pretty girl he saw, that he had been dis- 
 carded from the Rappahannock to the Lower 
 James, and it is related of a gentleman who had 
 made an offer for the hand of a young lady 
 which was respectfully declined, that he ex- 
 claimed indignantly to her father, 
 
 "I assure you, Sir, that I have been refused by 
 some of the finest young ladies in the State." 
 
 This temperament on the part of the men 
 developed a species of belle which, I believe, has 
 never been equalled elsewhere. If a girl chanced 
 
96 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 to be young, beautiful, vivacious and, moreover, 
 the heiress of a great estate, there was positively 
 no limit to her sway. It was considered perfectly 
 legitimate for her to secure as many proposals 
 as possible, and I have known more than one 
 Virginia matron who, although wedded early, 
 boasted of having received seventy-five offers of 
 marriage. 
 
 Of course, with such a code it would be consid- 
 ered a great stigma to remain single, while to 
 pass the age limit of twenty-five unmarried was 
 a thing to be spoken of with bated breath. A lady 
 described to me once the tragic and violent death 
 of her sister. After expressing sympathy, I 
 asked if she were married. The lady replied — 
 
 "No 'm, she never married. She had a great 
 many offers but she never would marry." 
 
 "How old was she when she was killed?" I 
 ventured to ask. 
 
 "Eighteen, Mm." 
 
 Given ample fortune, youth, high spirits and 
 good looks, love-making, when involving no 
 responsibilities becomes an agreeable pastime, 
 and very naturally would it find expression in 
 poetical quotation or in original verses written 
 on the spur of the moment. Byron and Sir 
 Walter Scott were on everybody's tongue. 
 
Gallantry and Repartee 97 
 
 When my father first proposed to my mother 
 she refused him. He carried his grief to a dear 
 friend and confidante who tried to comfort him. 
 
 "Come, Jack," she said, "don't give up hope. 
 A woman's 'No' often means 'Yes.' I'm sure 
 she loves you in spite of everything!" 
 
 "Ah, no," he rephed sadly, 
 
 " 'There shot no glance from Ellen's eye 
 To give her steadfast speech the lie,' " 
 
 Quickness in repartee was the natural outcome 
 of a social system where society was the chief 
 business of one's days and conversation the chief 
 interest. A dashing and handsome officer of a 
 militia regiment in his uniform of green faced 
 with white and trimmed wdth gilt braid and but- 
 tons, was talking one day to some young ladies 
 when one of them exclaimed archly, 
 
 "Ah, Captain ! 'Green and white, 
 Forsaken quite.' " 
 
 Laying his hand on his heart he replied quick 
 as thought, 
 
 "But green and gold 
 Will still be bold." 
 
 My father, riding a long way to visit his lady- 
 love in windy March w^eather, wore a pair of 
 green goggles to protect his eyes. When he went 
 home he forgot them and a friend returned them 
 with these lines: 
 
98 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 "McCarty is so much in love, 
 That when he goes away, 
 He leaves his eyes behind, by Jove ! 
 To gaze another day." 
 
 To this my father rephed promptly — 
 
 "You ascribe to me the lover's sigh; 
 True, I adore the lasses. 
 But much prefer the naked eye 
 
 To gazing through green glasses." 
 
 His f acihty in rhyming was so well known that 
 he was frequently challenged to make rhymes to 
 impossible words. Many years later a young 
 lady dared him with the two Mexican volcanoes, 
 Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl. He immediately 
 replied that if she ceased to smile upon him 
 he would 
 
 "Leave the world and settle 
 On snowy Popocatapetl, 
 Or quaff his solitary bottle 
 On yon tall peak, Iztaccihuatl." 
 
 In connection with repartee I am reminded of 
 a story of John Randolph of Roanoke, which I 
 believe has never been printed. 
 
 Randolph had had a bitter disagreement with 
 my husband's cousin, John Hampden Pleasants, 
 member of Congress from Virginia. The streets 
 of Washington, at the time, were a succession of 
 mud-holes and over an especially bad one a nar- 
 
Gallantry and Repartee 99 
 
 row plank had been laid for a crossing. Pleas- 
 ants, going to his office one morning, descried 
 Randolph approaching from the opposite direc- 
 tion. He saw that they must meet upon the 
 plank and felt that this was the opportunity to 
 force the quarrel he desired. Stepping into the 
 middle of the foot-way he folded his arms and 
 as Randolph came up said belligerently: 
 "I never make way for a d — puppy." 
 "I do, Sir," Randolph replied in his high, 
 squeaky voice, and stepping out into the mud he 
 picked his way through it. Pleasants told the 
 story on himself, adding that he laughed all the 
 way to the Capitol over his own discomfiture. 
 
 At the time of tJie Greek struggle for inde- 
 pendence, Mr. Randolph went to call upon a lady 
 in Philadelphia who was warmly interested in 
 their cause, and like Mrs. Jellaby, gave more time 
 to it than to the concerns of her family. After 
 a conversation, on the subject which she monopo- 
 lized, she finally stopped talking long enough for 
 him to make his adieux. On leaving the house 
 he found several dirty and negiected-looking 
 children playing on the front steps. Quickly he 
 rang the bell and was readmitted. Finding the 
 lady still in the drawing-room, he made her a 
 profound bow and administered this scathing 
 rebuke : 
 
100 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 ''Madam, the Greeks are at 3^our door." 
 
 His bitter and caustic spirit found expression 
 in a coarse and violent manner of speech which 
 to modern taste, is most oiFensive. A cousin of 
 mine told me that he heard him say of Henry 
 Clay, of whom Randolph was a violent political 
 opponent, 
 
 "He stinks and shines and shines and stinks 
 like a rotten mackerel by moonlight." 
 
 But ready-witted as he was, one man at least 
 was a match for him. 
 
 He stopped one night at a countr}^ tavern and 
 when taking his leave the next morning, the inn- 
 keeper said politely, 
 
 "Which way are you driving this morning, 
 Mr. Randolph?" Randolph's slumbering ill- 
 nature took offense, and turning he retorted in 
 his squeaky voice — 
 
 "Have I paid your bill, Sir?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Randolph." 
 
 "Do I owe you anything?" 
 
 "Nothing, Mr. Randolph." 
 
 "Then I'm going whichever way I d — n 
 please." 
 
 He drove away and within a very short dis- 
 tance came to a place where the road forked. Not 
 knowing which one w^ould carry him to his desti- 
 
Gallantry and Repartee 101 
 
 nation, he sent his servant back to inquire. The 
 inn-keeper, who was still standing in the door- 
 way, raised his voice and replied: 
 
 "You have paid your bill, JMr. Randolph. You 
 owe me nothing whatever. You can take which- 
 ever road you d — n please." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Ghosts 
 
 THE isolation of the plantations, the envi- 
 ronment of an ignorant and superstitious 
 race, tales and traditions transplanted 
 from the old world — all fostered a belief in the 
 supernatural. Sometimes I have fancied that 
 there might have been actual foundation for some 
 of these stories and that ghosts did continue to 
 manifest themselves in the South long after they 
 had ceased to be welcome in more frequented 
 parts of the earth. As rats, when driven from 
 one place repair to another, so the poor dis- 
 credited apparitions. 
 
 Telepathy had not been invented in those days, 
 while as for the sub-conscious mind, if anybody 
 had one nobody ever said anything about it. 
 Moreover, if you had more confidence in the 
 veracity of the people who saw the ghosts than 
 you had in your own how could you help 
 believing? 
 
 My brother James was killed at the age of 
 seventeen by the accidental discharge of his gun 
 while hunting. He was very fond of his cousin, 
 ^^irginia Bronaugh, and loved to hear her play. 
 
1Q4 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 At the very hour of the fatal shot, as she was 
 practising, she looked up from her music and saw 
 him, leaning in his accustomed attitude upon the 
 piano. "Why, James McCarty," she exclaimed, 
 "I didn't see you come in." 
 
 To her surprise he made no reply but turned 
 and passed into the adjoining room where her 
 mother and sisters sat with their sewing. She 
 sprang up and followed him. 
 
 "You can't hide from me," she cried (they were 
 always romping together and playing tricks on 
 each other) ; "I saw you!" 
 
 "Why, Virginia," said her mother, "what are 
 you talking about?" 
 
 "James McCarty came in here a minute ago. 
 He is in this room somewhere now. I know you 
 are hiding him from me." 
 
 "Virginia, you are crazy," they cried; "James 
 McCarty hasn't been here." But she would not 
 be convinced until she had looked behind the cur- 
 tains and under the furniture. Later in the day 
 a messenger brought the dreadful tidings. Then 
 she knew that she had been privileged to see her 
 beloved cousin at the moment of his passing. 
 
 At Contention, the home of Governor Pleas- 
 ants, there was an apparently well-founded belief 
 that when one of the family was about to die, a 
 
Ghosts 105 
 
 wagon loaded with boards to make the coffin 
 would be driven into the yard and its burden 
 dumped at the door. Fancy, if you can, the 
 scene! The sufferer, with burning cheeks and 
 glazing eyes, tossing, picking at the sheets, the 
 wind roaring in the chimney and rattling the 
 windows, then the creaking and rumbling of the 
 invisible wagon driving round the circle in the 
 lawn and the awful thud of spectral planks 
 thrown out at the door! 
 
 A relation of my husband had a little daughter 
 named Rosy, a child so utterly lovely that few 
 people saw her without declaring that she was too 
 sweet to live. One day she came to her mother 
 and said, "Mother, I have seen a spirit." 
 
 "Did you, dearest?" said her mother, alarmed 
 but fearing to frighten the child by showing what 
 she felt. "Yes, Mother, and he spoke to me. He 
 said 'How d'y do. Rosy?' and I said 'How d'y do, 
 Spirit?' Then he said, 'I'm coming for you to- 
 night, Rosy.' Is he. Mother? Is he coming for 
 me tonight?" "Hush, hush, my darling, of course 
 he isn't. Mother will keep you safe with her." 
 
 That night, towards the small hours, the baby 
 was seized with a frightful attack of croup and 
 died before morning. 
 
106 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 One of the choice spirits who aided and abetted 
 my father's frohcs was a young kinsman named 
 Townsend Dade, who boasted one day that he 
 was afraid of nothing alive or dead. Upon this, 
 his companions dared him to go at midnight to 
 the old haunted Church at Currotoman and write 
 his name on the parish register. He accepted the 
 challenge and with a bottle of ink in one hand 
 and a lighted candle stuck in his cap, he strode 
 oiF through the woods whistling merrily. His 
 companions waited for him until long after cock- 
 crow, but he did not return. The next day he 
 was not to be found, nor the next, nor the next. 
 A posse deputed to search for him went by day- 
 light to the Church. There were found his foot- 
 prints in the ancient dust of the aisle. On the 
 yellowed page of the old register in fresh ink 
 was a large capital T, followed by a long scrawl 
 that trailed to the foot of the page. The ink- 
 bottle had been overturned and the ink was dried 
 on the floor. 
 
 That was all for many weeks. Then Townsend 
 Dade returned from parts unknown with a white 
 lock on his temple, but no persuasion could induce 
 him to tell what he saw at midnight in the ruined 
 chapel of Currotoman. 
 
Ghosts 107 
 
 Haven't I said somewhere in this narrative that 
 our plantation was in "Mosby's Confederacy"? 
 Well, perhaps that may account for the following 
 absolutely authentic incident: 
 
 One winter night several years after the war, 
 two of our neighbors went coon-hunting. The 
 moon shone bright, the air had a frosty stillness 
 and the ground was frozen hard. The men 
 bagged their game and were returning home 
 about midnight when they distinctly heard a 
 sound which had grown familiar during the years 
 of conflict, the sound of clanking sabres and of 
 thudding hoofs. So vivid was the impression, so 
 certain were they that a squad of cavalry was 
 coming down the road that involuntarily, by a 
 common impulse, they both stepped aside to let 
 it pass. It passed! The invisible host went by, 
 the rush of whose riding stirred their hair ! Terror- 
 stricken they looked into each other's eyes and 
 each murmured in a breath the one word "Yan- 
 kees!" Then, as they told me in relating the 
 experience, they took to their heels and ran home 
 as fast as if the Yankees were really pursuing 
 them. 
 
 The only noteworthy thing in the way of 
 visions or warnings that ever came to my personal 
 knowledge was a dream that visited my room- 
 
108 Old Virginia Days and IF ays 
 
 mate when we were at boarding school. She 
 awoke one morning disturbed and unhappy. She 
 had dreamed that her guardian, with whom she 
 hved, was dead and that she had seen him carried 
 through the streets for burial in his arm-chair 
 robed in the dressing gown that he habitually 
 wore. The dream haunted her all the morning. 
 She could not speak or smile. About noon she 
 was simimoned from the classroom. A messen- 
 ger had come for her with the tidings that her 
 guardian was dead. While sitting in his arm- 
 chair in his library, he had committed suicide by 
 cutting his throat. 
 
 These stories, except the last, have come to me 
 from hearsay. In my own experience the super- 
 natural has not played a prominent part. My 
 feeling in the matter is that of an acquaintance 
 who on being asked if he believed in ghosts 
 replied, 
 
 "No, I don't believe in 'em, but I am afraid 
 of 'em." 
 
 Of course the modern explanations of the inex- 
 plicable were unknown in my day. 
 
 The first spiritual rappings that I ever heard 
 of occurred in Fairfax, the county adjoining 
 Loudoun, several years before the Fox Sisters 
 astonished the world with manifestations that laid 
 
Ghosts 109 
 
 the foundation for a new cult. These rappings 
 were heard at the house of a widow who hved 
 alone with her young daughter. They attracted 
 so much attention that people went for miles to 
 investigate them. Local skepticism explained the 
 matter by saying that the widow wanted to marry 
 a man of whom the daughter did not approve and 
 that the rappings were contrived to frighten her 
 into going to live with her father's relations. 
 Nothing was ever found, however, to substantiate 
 this hypothesis, and when the Fox manifestations 
 were spread abroad, man}^ wondered if these 
 earlier ones had received tlie consideration they 
 deserved. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Practical Jokes and Some Old Time 
 Remedies 
 
 I NEVER wearied of hearing my father tell 
 of the pranks and frolics of his youth. His 
 companion and arch-conspirator was a young- 
 man named Townsend Dade, a fellow of infinite 
 jest and daring, whose adventure at old Curroto- 
 man Church we have already chronicled. An- 
 other member of the same set was John Keith, 
 remarkable for a splendid figure, a serious de- 
 meanor and an extraordinarily dark complexion. 
 
 When the celebrated Indian chief, King 
 Kickapoo, visited A¥ashington, these three choice 
 spirits chanced to be present at one of the Presi- 
 dent's levees. Keith wore a red necktie, and his 
 raven hair, after the fashion of the hour, hung 
 long over his coat collar. Towards the middle of 
 the evening he came to my father in great excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "McCarty," he said, "do you see anything ex- 
 traordinary in my appearance tonight?" 
 
 "Nothing, except that you are looking re- 
 markably well." 
 
112 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 "But," he cried, "everywhere I go people are 
 following me about and staring me out of coun- 
 tenance. What can be the reason of it? What 
 can be the matter?" 
 
 Although my father could not tell, he had a 
 shrewd suspicion that Townsend Dade could. 
 Later it was discovered that Townsend had 
 pointed Keith out to people as King Kickapoo 
 enjoying Washington society incog. 
 
 Another of Dade's jokes at Keith's expense 
 came near costing the humorist dear. He pointed 
 out his swarthy friend to a negro trader as a 
 refractory and troublesome slave whom he was 
 anxious to sell. The trader agreed to the pur- 
 chase. Dade, after warning him to clap the 
 handcuffs on warily, as the man was dangerous, 
 mounted his horse and rode for his life. Keith 
 spent several months in looking for him, with the 
 determination to kill him on sight. 
 
 The same rollicking spirits which prompted 
 people to play practical jokes found expression 
 in homeric feasting. Eating contests were fre- 
 quent and tales of prodigious gastronomic feats 
 were told. 
 
 Lawyers who had business in the Circuit Court 
 would ride together to the different towns to try 
 their cases. They would plan to arrive at certain 
 
Practical Jokes and Old Time Remedies 118 
 
 taverns for certain meals, the landlord being ap- 
 prised beforehand of their coming. Dumfries 
 was the place where they usually spent the night, 
 breakfasting there next morning. A man who 
 enjoyed a great local reputation as a gargantuan 
 feaster, hearing that the lawyers were expected, 
 rode in advance to Dumfries, ordered breakfast 
 and continued to eat until he had consumed the 
 entire meal that had been prepared for seven or 
 eight guests. 
 
 When he went to pay his score, the landlord 
 objected. "I cannot let you have such a meal as 
 you have just eaten for the usual price; you have 
 devoured the breakfast provided for nearly a 
 dozen men." 
 
 "That makes no difference," rephed the man; 
 "the last time I was here I had only a cup of tea 
 and a bit of toast, but you told me the price was 
 the same whether I ate little or much." 
 
 On another occasion, when the lawyers were to 
 dine in Leesburg, he slipped into the dining-room 
 first, locked the door, and ate up everything on 
 the table. 
 
 In Alexandria, when the schooners would come 
 in laden with oysters, men would pay a quarter 
 for permission to eat as many of them as they 
 wanted. In an unlucky moment this permission 
 
114 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 was granted to our prodigious eater. After 
 devouring so many that the shells were heaped 
 around him almost as high as his head, the ow ner 
 of the cargo was obliged to pay him a dollar to 
 leave off. 
 
 My father had a great number of these eating 
 stories. Many of them I have forgotten, but this 
 one I chance to remember: 
 
 He had been dining one evening with a party 
 of gentlemen who spent the rest of the night 
 jalaying cards. Towards morning one of them, 
 feeling rather exhausted, rang the bell and 
 ordered the waiter to bring him two soft boiled 
 eggs. 
 
 "All," exclaimed another, looking up from his 
 game, "that's a good idea. Bring me two dozen 
 soft boiled eggs." 
 
 The waiter brought them, and the gentleman — 
 (prepare to shudder, ye who chip your eggs 
 daintily and sip them from the shell) — broke 
 them into a celery glass and drank them down at 
 a gulp. 
 
 My father, in his light-hearted young man- 
 hood, made a bet with a friend that he could sip 
 a magnausemis (a compound of intolerable bit- 
 terness) and eat a slice of bread with it without 
 making a wry face. He won his bet, but he lost 
 
Practical Jokes and Old Time Remedies 115 
 
 — a great deal, and he could never be induced to 
 repeat this experiment. 
 
 The magnauseous, be it known to the disciples 
 of Hahnemann, was concocted of Glauber salts 
 and jalap; a tumblerful was the required dose. 
 So indescribably horrible was it that my little 
 brother, when they tried to force him to take it, 
 bit a piece out of the glass. 
 
 Next to the maganuseous in efficacy was the 
 "bolus," a huge pill which had to be disguised 
 in guava jelly before it could be swallowed. 
 
 Bleeding, cupping and blistering were reme- 
 dies of even greater barbarity. Cupping was of 
 two kinds, the wet and the dry. Wet cups were 
 little glasses whose rims were furnished with 
 lancets. 
 
 Dry cupping was administered with any dry 
 cups from which the air had been exhausted by 
 burning in them a bit of paper wet in alcohol. 
 
 Blisters made with an ointment concocted of 
 Spanish flies, in my opinion did a great deal more 
 harm than good. Leeches were used wherever 
 there was inflammation. These loathsome crea- 
 tures were imported, and kept in little boxes of 
 wet clay. Once when my father had gout in his 
 head, leeches were applied to his temple. At first 
 they were small and thin, but after sucking the 
 
116 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 blood until they fell off with repletion, they had 
 become as long and thick as your finger. They 
 were thrown into salt water where they disgorged 
 themselves to be ready for a second trial. In this 
 they were never so efficient. 
 
 The earliest form in which quinine appeared 
 was Peruvian Bark. Soaked in wine it made a 
 tonic of inconceivable bitterness, though most 
 efficacious in chills and fever. Pure quinine, 
 when we first knew it, was a glittering white 
 feathery stuff. Our old country doctor, who 
 always brought his medicines in his saddle-bags, 
 inclined to no capsules or sugar-coated pills. In- 
 stead, he would call for a chunk of cold corn 
 bread, cut a thin slice of it, heap it high with the 
 powder, then cut it into strips and roll it into 
 huge pills. To swallow these pills was a deadly 
 tour de force, but then you'd die if you didn't, so 
 there you were! Before the introduction of qui- 
 nine no remedy for malaria, the scourge of the 
 South, was known except calomel. This was 
 administered in such heroic quantities as to pro- 
 duce disastrous effects upon the system. A drop 
 of water taken after calomel was supposed to 
 entail certain death. The patient would be put 
 to bed in a room from which every breath of air 
 was excluded, covered with blankets and left to 
 die or get well as nature should decide. 
 
Practical Jokes and Old Time Remedies 117 
 
 I have always admired the daring of a plucky 
 young cousin of mine who, burning up with 
 fever, begged for a glass of water. Of course 
 it was refused. She feigned a desire for sleep 
 and begged her kind nurses to leave her. She 
 waited until she felt sure the house was absolutely 
 quiet, then stole from her bed and crawled to the 
 hall where stood a brass-bound bucket of ice water 
 with a cocoanut dipper. With the certainty of 
 death as a consequence of her action, she dragged 
 herself up by a chair and drank from the dipper 
 again and again. She plunged hands and arms 
 into the icy fluid and laved her face and neck 
 with it. Then she crept back to bed and fell into 
 a deep sleep. When the doctor came in he pro- 
 nounced the fever broken, but never until years 
 had passed did she dare to confess how she had 
 broken it. 
 
 In my father's boyhood anaesthesia was un- 
 known and the barbarous surgery of the time 
 entailed frightful tortures. The patient had to 
 be tied down upon a table with strong cords while 
 the operation was performed. 
 
 My Uncle James at fourteen fell from a cherry 
 tree and broke his arm. It must be taken off! 
 His mother knew him to be a boy of high spirit 
 and great courage but she was hardly prepared 
 
118 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 for his announcement that he would not consent 
 to be tied during the amputation. 
 
 "I give you my word of honor," he said, "that 
 I will keep perfectly still" ; and he showed such 
 intense feeling on the subject that they let him 
 have his way. He was as good as his word and 
 went through the terrible operation without mov- 
 ing a muscle. That he died in consequence makes 
 the story of his useless fortitude all the more 
 pitiful. We can so much more easily spare the 
 poltroon than the hero. 
 
 The simple magic of herbs and spells had con- 
 siderable vogue among the negroes, and certain 
 charms and incantations, such as wishing away 
 styes or selling them at the cross-roads, were 
 acknowledged even by the better class. I myself 
 can give personal testimony to the curative 
 agency of one miraculous worker, the madstone. 
 When my Uncle William was a little boy a dog 
 bit him. Certain of rabies in the animal, his 
 parents took him a day's journey as fast as their 
 horses could travel to the stone. It was of coarse, 
 porous quality, small in size and oval in shape. 
 It fastened itself to the wound and remained 
 sticking tight for about an hour, when it fell off 
 of its own accord, leaving a vivid green stain. 
 
 Whether the madstone has lost its wonderful 
 properties with years or is still competing with 
 the Pasteur Institute I cannot say. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 War Times 
 
 IT has often been remarked as noteworthy that 
 the huge plantations of the South should have 
 been so easily governed when the slaves so 
 greatly outnumbered their masters. The only 
 uprising in Virginia that ever I heard of was 
 called "The Southampton Insurrection." It was 
 led by a negro named Nat Turner, familiarly 
 known as "Captain Nat." The insurrection ex- 
 tended to several counties before the leader was 
 captured and executed. The planters felt great 
 alarm and organizing themselves into companies, 
 went out night after night patrolling the country 
 in defense of their homes. My mother, who that 
 winter visited with her two little boys and their 
 nurse at the home of one of her sisters, has often 
 described to me the long evenings that the two 
 women spent together, starting and trembling 
 when a leaf fell or a twig crackled on the gravel 
 walk. This happened in 1831, but there had been 
 more fearsome happenings years before in 1812, 
 when my grandmother Lee and her household 
 watched from the upper windows of Coton the 
 flames of the burning Capitol fired by the British. 
 
120 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Coton being only twenty miles from Washing- 
 ton, was in the heart of the enemy's country. The 
 invaders ravaged the country, leaving desolation 
 behind them. My grandmother was living alone 
 with her young daughters, there being no white 
 man on the place, and it is not surprising that, 
 brave and self-reliant woman as she was, she lived 
 in a state of nervous terror. One morning a ser- 
 vant rushed in to tell her that the news had just 
 come of the British marching up the turnpike. 
 Simimoning all her courage and presence of 
 mind, she called her household together, ordered 
 every door and window to be fastened, and pre- 
 pared to make such defense as was possible. 
 Time went by but the British did not appear. 
 At last a long way off was heard the tramp of 
 feet, the clank of sabres, and all the terrif^dng 
 sounds that herald the approach of troops. When 
 the suspense had become unbearable, my grand- 
 mother ventured to lift the corner of a curtain 
 and peep out. Judge of her delight when she 
 saw the yard and the road beyond swarming with 
 soldiers, not in the scarlet of the British but the 
 blue of the American army! She rushed to the 
 door to welcome them. They had been defeated 
 at Bladensburg and were in full retreat; but 
 they had time to stop for the hot corncakes and 
 
War Times 121 
 
 the steaming mugs of coffee which the colored 
 cooks dispensed. The officers — lucky fellows! — 
 breakfasted on fried chicken and batter bread 
 and honey, served on the old Canton china. 
 
 But the war of 1812 was opera bouffe com- 
 pared to that other conflict which drenched the 
 fair soil of Virginia with blood. The family 
 estate lay in the heart of "Mosby's Confederacy." 
 Back and forth, up and down, that border chief- 
 tain harried the enemy. No one on the plantation 
 ever knew when a visit from the boys in grey or 
 the boys in blue might be expected, and both were 
 greatly dreaded ; for if by any chance one party 
 left anything, the other arrived quickly to appro- 
 priate it. Then it was that the tenant-folk learned 
 how to drive the horses and cattle quickly to 
 hiding places in the depth of the swamp ; then it 
 was that the good wife had a hole cut in the log 
 wall of her house between kitchen and living- 
 room, through which aperture, concealed by an 
 innocent calico curtain, she convoyed many a ham 
 or fowl or pat of fresh butter to a place where the 
 marauders were unlikely to find it. 
 
 When a certain gallant officer took command 
 of the Union armies just before the Second Battle 
 of Manassas, he issued orders couched in the fol- 
 lowing grandiloquent phraseology. "Headquar- 
 
122 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 ters in the saddle. Defeat and dishonor lurk in 
 the rear." 
 
 He was, as we all know, absolutely defeated 
 and was obliged to make a sudden departure, 
 leaving his camp outfit and dress uniform to fall 
 into the hands of the enemy. The news of the 
 battle was received in Richmond the next morn- 
 ing, and in The JEocaminer, a paper edited by John 
 Daniel, appeared a cocky editorial which after 
 lusty crowing ended with the following comment, 
 a trifle coarse but undeniably witty: 
 
 "In the light of recent events it seems rather 
 absurd that an officer who could not tell his head 
 quarters from his hind quarters should think that 
 he could fight General Lee." 
 
 I have often heard my husband relate an anec- 
 dote of Mosby which occurred in Leesburg the 
 summer after the war. The IN^orthern soldiers, 
 quartered everywhere, were naturally interested 
 in a Confederate uniform and may be pardoned 
 an unusual interest if it chanced to be worn by 
 Colonel Mosby. That gallant chieftain continued 
 to wear the grey long after hostilities ceased for 
 the excellent reason that he had nothing else to 
 wear. Coming into Leesburg one day on 
 peaceable business, he was very much annoyed to 
 find himself followed everywhere by a posse of 
 
War Times 123 
 
 Northern soldiers. He entered a barber-shop 
 finally in which my husband was having his hair 
 cut. Mosby took his place in the chair and the 
 barber proceeded to shave him, when suddenly 
 the door opened to receive two blue uniforms. 
 The guerrilla chieftain sprang up, his face cov- 
 ered with lather, his eyes blazing. Shaking his 
 fist, he shouted, "If you don't get out of here and 
 stop following me about, I'll massacre e every d'd 
 Yankee in town." Whereupon the two soldiers 
 who had come to arrest him, turned meekly and 
 took their departure. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 Slavery as I Knew It 
 
 LIFE as I have been trying to describe it 
 seemed to the onlooker a condition of ideal 
 happiness: a smiling land, trees loaded 
 with fruit, rivers stocked with fish and woods with 
 game, devoted service from willing slaves, lovely 
 girls, gallant yomig men, fine old Southern gen- 
 tlemen, piety, courtesy, honor. And yet under it 
 all sounded the hollow rumble that must have been 
 heard from time to time in Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii. It was always there, that nameless 
 anxiety. 
 
 I have had occasion many times in these pages 
 to mention my little black Mammy. I cannot 
 imagine what my childhood would have been 
 without her ; I loved her dearly — almost as much 
 as Mammy loved her husband. Daddy Peter, who 
 came every week to spend Sunday with her and 
 always brought me a present. Sometimes it was 
 a pocketful of nuts, sometimes a red apple or a 
 colored egg, and once it was a little mug with the 
 name "Jane" in blue letters. True, my name 
 wasn't Jane, but what did that matter? I couldn't 
 read and neither could he and there was besides 
 
126 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 a little mystery about the name of Jane that made 
 me value my treasure all the more. 
 
 How well I remember as a little child that 
 summer at Bedford Springs in Pennsylvania! 
 Mammy had gone to do some washing at a cabin 
 in the mountains with whose inmates she had made 
 acquaintance, and she did not come back. My 
 mother walked the floor, unable to control her 
 agitation; my father said over and over again, 
 "We have seen the last of her," while I hid my 
 face in my pillow and cried. How we rejoiced 
 the next morning when she entered the room as 
 usual! She explained that being tired with her 
 work and the long walk she had lain down to rest 
 and had slept till daybreak. 
 
 After I married, my children came in for a 
 share of the devotion she had always lavished on 
 me. When they went to see her as they never 
 failed to do, their coming was the occasion of 
 great rejoicing. Throwing up her arms she 
 would call to her neighbors, "Oh, come see my 
 chillun!" and while the black folk crowded round 
 to wonder and admire she would bestir herself to 
 find presents for her visitors. When our house 
 on the plantation burned down and we were in 
 temporary stress for the comforts and luxuries 
 to which we had been accustomed, she arrived 
 
Slavery as I Knew It 127 
 
 promptly in a borrowed cart with a ham, a pound 
 cake, a pair of fowls, and a jar of preserves. It 
 was not uncommon in those days when one 
 glanced down the road to see Uncle Charles, her 
 husband, plodding towards us with a pillow-case 
 upon his shoulders full of her famous ginger 
 cookies. 
 
 When the Civil War broke out my husband 
 and I returned to the South and took a house in 
 Richmond. Mammy, however, objected to living 
 in Richmond because negroes there were obliged 
 to show passes when they went out after dark. 
 She went back to Leesburg, married for the third 
 time, but refused in her loyalty to Daddy Peter, 
 to take her new husband's name, and lived in a 
 little cabin, supporting herself by doing washing 
 and by taking boarders. One of her boarders was 
 an insignificant little woman named Victoria, 
 whom she called "Sister Fick," and another, a 
 person so remarkable as to deserve almost to be 
 called a personage, "Sister Peggy!" 
 
 Sister Peggy was a hundred years old and was 
 said to have come from Africa. She had been 
 immensely tall in her youth, with long straight 
 hair that reached to her knees. When I knew her 
 she was bent almost double with age and her pale 
 vellow hands were as chill as if she had had ice 
 
128 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 instead of blood in her veins. She was the objec- 
 tive point of rehgious feehng in the community 
 and there were few Sunday afternoons when some 
 member of the Episcopal Church to which she 
 belonged did not come to read the Bible to her. 
 
 Mammy, with all her intelligence and the ad- 
 vantage of living her life long on intimate terms 
 with educated people, still had a streak in her of 
 African savagery. She v/as a devout believer in 
 "Conjure." She kept a horseshoe nailed above 
 her door and habitually slept with an open pen- 
 knife under her pillow. When sick she thought 
 herself bewitched, attributing her malady to the 
 evil influence of an enemy. Once I found her 
 scraping a silver dollar and asked her w^hat she 
 was doing. She replied that she had a terrible 
 aching in her bones; she had "sholy" been con- 
 jured, and had been advised to take silver to break 
 the spell. After I gave her quinine the aching 
 disappeared. She told me she had often heard 
 the wings of the witches waving above her head 
 at night. 
 
 Mammy was a devoted member of the Epis- 
 copal Church, always going up alone, a quaint 
 figure in a bonnet and silk-velvet mantle which 
 had been my mother's, to take the Communion 
 after the white folks had been served. As her 
 
Slavery as I Knew It 129 
 
 husband, Uncle Charles, a small black man who 
 looked very much like a monkey, grew older, he 
 yielded to her importunity and consented to join 
 the Church she loved, but feeling timid about pre- 
 senting himself for Confirmation alone, induced 
 the Baptist minister, a man of his own color, to 
 go up with him. The bishop having pronounced 
 the impressive words directed the postulants to 
 kneel, whereupon the Baptist minister in his 
 confusion knelt with Uncle Charles and was con- 
 firmed also. The incident created some amuse- 
 ment in the congregation but I never heard that 
 it did the reverend gentleman any harm. 
 
 The privilege allowed to colored cooks of 
 taking boarders at their own expense in the kitch- 
 ens of their masters was one of the many pecuhar 
 customs incidental to slavery. It is needless to 
 say that this custom became fruitful of abuses. 
 After the death of JMammy Lucy, a valuable ser- 
 vant in my husband's family, my sister-in-law 
 found a barrel of batter cakes behind the good 
 woman's bed, and seventeen padlocks which had 
 disappeared one after another from the coal- 
 house door. 
 
 This petty thievery on the part of the servants 
 went on continually. The masters knew it but 
 winked at it, well understanding how the slaves, 
 
130 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 considering themselves chattels, thought they had 
 a right to anything belonging to their masters. 
 
 If one's possessions were not taken outright 
 they were borrowed for special occasions. I 
 learned, too late to prevent it, that my husband's 
 watch chain had been worn to a negro picnic, and 
 discovered, fortunately in time, that the bed pre- 
 pared for a sick boarder was made up with one 
 of my best tablecloths. 
 
 The colored folk in my sister-in-law's house- 
 hold were considered members of the family. The 
 older people were addressed as "Uncle" and 
 "Amit," and their sons and daughters by a logical 
 process were called "Cousin" by their master's 
 children. 
 
 Here is a letter addressed to his former mistress 
 by one of her slaves. Mammy Lily's grandson. 
 It is dated March 13, 1882, and breathes the devo- 
 tion of the old-time negro together with the 
 pathos which characterized the later generation 
 when confronted with conditions they were un- 
 fitted to meet. 
 
 Mrs. Brent, 
 Dear Madam, 
 
 I received Your very welcome letter and 
 I assure you Madam I was more than glad to 
 hear from you. But I was extremely sorry to 
 
Slavery as I Knew It 131 
 
 hear that you had been so very sick — but I hope 
 by this time you have entirely Recovered and are 
 enjoying the Blessing of the Lord. I thank you 
 very kindly for sending my Age. It is something 
 very rare with us poor Col. People to know our 
 Age. I am Proud to know mine. Dear Miss 
 Cannie I off en sit and think of the Old Family 
 Place and think of the happy hours I have spent 
 there. I off en think of the Footsteps I have fol- 
 lowed across the Fields of evenings to Hollywood 
 Seminary when you would sit upon the Hill 
 whilst I would go to fetch the Water to Put on 
 the sod of the Grave of one whom you Dearly 
 loved. It is a great consolation to me that we will 
 all see each other some day in a Better World. I 
 Will now close hoping to hear from you again 
 soon. 
 
 I remain your humble servant, 
 
 My cousin WiUiam Brent was an intimate 
 friend of Charles Subtle, the owner of Tony 
 Burns, the runaway negro, whose case is f amihar 
 to every student of American history. 
 
 Mr. Suttle asked my cousin to go with him to 
 Boston to prove the identity of Burns, who had 
 been apprehended there under the Fugitive Slave 
 Law and incarcerated pending the arrival of his 
 
132 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 master. As soon as they entered the prison where 
 he was confined, Tony exclaimed: 
 
 "Howdy, :Marse Charles! Howdy, Marse Wil- 
 ham!", thus setthng for good the question of 
 identity. But the troubles of the young Vir- 
 ginians were by no means over. Returning to 
 their rooms they found the streets so packed with 
 an excited throng that they had difficulty in 
 reaching their hotel. All afternoon it was 
 surrounded and threats of lynching were not 
 infrequently heard. The Southern students at 
 Harvard, as soon as they learned of the danger 
 of their compatriots, marched thither in a body, 
 offered to stand by them and did stay with them 
 at the hotel until their departure. When they 
 finally left Boston, carrying Tony Burns with 
 them, it was under military escort. 
 
 To offset this story, which was undoubtedly 
 one of the exciting causes of the Civil War, let 
 me relate an incident which happened about the 
 same time and came also under my immediate 
 knowledge. 
 
 Some seven or eight years before the war. 
 Mammy went with us to a water cure in North- 
 ampton, Massachusetts. As negroes were not 
 allowed to travel in the same cars with white 
 people, we were obliged to make her wear gloves 
 
Slavery as I Knew It 133 
 
 and a thick veil on the journey and to promise not 
 to speak a word on any provocation. Once 
 arrived in Massachusetts, she was at hberty to 
 follow her own devices, but by this time her devo- 
 tion had been tried and we had no fear of her 
 leaving us. 
 
 While we were in Northampton my father, 
 being summoned to Milwaukee on business, was 
 taken very ill there, ^iy mother and I went to 
 him immediately, leaving Mammy in charge of 
 our cottage at the water cure. As my father's 
 illness terminated fatally, we decided to return at 
 once to Virginia instead of going back to New 
 England. We had scarcely reached home when 
 my mother became so desperately ill that several 
 weeks elapsed before I could make arrangements 
 for Mammy's journey, although she had written 
 two or three letters urging me to send her the 
 money to come home. 
 
 The evening of her arrival she told me some of 
 her experiences. 
 
 "Miss Sally," she said, "I was gwine to wo'k 
 my way home if you hadn't sent me the money, 
 but I had a heap of offers to stay. You know 
 Mr. Wendell PhilHps, don't you honey? Well, 
 after you and Mistis went away he sent for me 
 and advised me not to go back to Virginia. I told 
 
134 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 him that JNIarster was dead and that I loved you 
 an' JNIistis an' wanted to go back an' live with you. 
 He didn't say much to that but he went on talkin' 
 about my bein' free in Massachusetts and tellin' 
 me the good places he could git me in the North 
 if I would stay. I was workin' then for Mrs. 
 Hammond, the lady you boa'ded with, honey, and 
 he asked me after a while if I didn't like her. 
 'Yes,' I sez, 'I like her pretty well, but Mr. 
 Phillips,' I sez, 'there's one thing about Mrs. 
 Hammond that I don't like very well and if my 
 Marster and Mistis had knowed it they never 
 would a' stayed in her house in dis world.' " 
 
 "'Why, Matilda,' he sez, 'you astonish me! 
 What is it?'" 
 
 "Sez I, 'Mr. Phillips, does you know that Mrs. 
 Hammond is an ahoUtionist?' '' 
 
 "Well, honey, he t'rowed back his head and 
 laughed fit to kill hisself ." 
 
 From the time that I was old enough to think 
 for myself I had grave misgivings that slavery 
 was wrong. Mammy was the only slave my par- 
 ents owned and after my mother's death, as soon 
 as I came of age, I set her free and paid her wages 
 as my maid. After my marriage she went to 
 New York with me and was the nurse of my elder 
 children. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 Piety 
 
 ''My Dear Cannie, 
 
 I WAS much gratified yesterday to get your 
 letter and to learn that you sometimes think 
 of your oldest friends now resident on this 
 terrestrial globe. When we used to hear your dear 
 grandma and Aunt JNIoncure talking about 'old 
 times,' we were made to believe it was a pity we 
 did not live in those glorious days too. Now, my 
 dear old girl, we have found out that the charm 
 lay in their being young. You let your own years 
 leak out when you refer to the 'jolly times we used 
 to have at Woodford and Windsor Forest.' Do 
 you remember how we lodged together in the 
 trundle bed and I would have to crawl out in the 
 cold to punch Letty and make her wake up to 
 turn the loaf bread? I shall never forget the 
 breakfasts with the chapter from the Bible and 
 the verses of Watt's hymns, the golden pat of 
 delicious butter adorned with nasturtiums, the 
 biscuits beat by the hour by Mammy Lily, the 
 thick cream, the best egg bread ever made ! 
 
 "Then I would go with you on the morning 
 rounds to feed the fowls. What lots of Muscovy 
 
136 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 ducks, puddle-ducks, turkeys and geese there 
 were! What would induce you to nail a gosling 
 to the laundry floor and cram him with dough 
 until he choked as Mammy Lily used to do?" 
 (Pate de foie gras was evidently not unknown 
 to ante-bellum epicures.) "Then the swing! 
 Cannie, I have often thought it a merciful provi- 
 dence that we were not killed in that swing. Per- 
 pendicular we sailed, heedless of danger. Then, 
 how we rested on the sofa on the back porch where 
 the little peewee built her nest. Did I ever steal 
 a kiss in those days? If I did, I never told. All 
 I have got to say in my old age, is that he is a sorry 
 boy who wouldn't kiss a pretty girl if he got a 
 chance and a mean dog if he told. We used to 
 have heaps of fun then. Good Lord, it was fifty 
 odd years ago. Old times, 'my child, my honey,' 
 as Mammy Lily used to say when she w^ould 
 almost squeeze my 'innerds' out of me. 
 
 "Cannie, weren't those steps back of your 
 Uncle John's room the coldest you ever sat upon ? 
 I have known your pious Avmt Caroline to send 
 you there to get your catechism. Doesn't it seem 
 funny to you now that you were so crazy about 
 going to camp-meeting? You always kept me 
 well advised whenever there was to be one. Why 
 didn't you 'jine' the Methodists? You used to go 
 
Piety 137 
 
 to hear Enoch Jamison preach the propitiation of 
 sins and the great doctrines of Wesley and then 
 you renegaded and made a coaHtion with the 
 'Piscopahans. You are a 'readjuster.' " 
 
 There are few of these old letters that do not 
 contain a reference to religion. Many of them 
 express a fervor of devotion that we seem to have 
 lost the secret of nowadays. Were they really at 
 heart so much more pious than we, or did the ser- 
 mon take the place of the newspaper, the review, 
 even the romance? The parents rejoice when 
 their sons and daughters join the Church as do 
 we when ours start on a trip to Europe ; and just 
 before signing themselves, "Your Ob't Serv't," 
 they invariably consign their correspondent to the 
 care and protection of heaven. 
 
 Here is a letter from a kinsman that would be 
 hard to match nowadays. Having embarked on 
 that perilous undertaking, a boys' school, he 
 writes, 
 
 "The zealous prayers and faithful labors of the 
 excellent Christian gentleman conducting the 
 teachers' department, I am persuaded will not be 
 as 'water spilt on the ground which cannot be 
 gathered up.' " He continues, "I think Cabell 
 is growing serious on the subject of religion. 
 Johnson, you know, has joined the Church and 
 
138 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 Leigh may be moved by a combined movement 
 of us all 
 
 "In the meantime may God bless and preserve 
 you, prays your friend in the bonds of our com- 
 mon Christianity." .... 
 
 My Grandmother Lee writes: "I had a delight- 
 ful time in my recent visit to Middleburgh, heard 
 seven sermons." 
 
 Poor lady, it is well that she had the consola- 
 tions of religion in her age for in her youth her 
 strong, sincere spirit was sorely tried. The Epis- 
 copal clergymen sent over from England to the 
 Westmoreland parish to which Sabine Hall 
 belonged, were younger sons of wealthy families 
 provided for with livings irrespective of their 
 fitness for the sacred calling. Parson Gibbon, the 
 incumbent during my grandmother's childhood, 
 was addicted to fox-hunting, cards and the bottle. 
 Often he would get home after an all-night's 
 carouse barely in time to slip into his surplice 
 before taking his place in the chancel. Parson 
 Weems in his hfe of Washington describes the 
 same condition of the Church in colonial Virginia, 
 and relates the incident, often quoted, of the 
 curate who drawing a handkerchief out of his 
 pocket during the services scattered a pack of 
 cards over the floor. 
 
Pietij 139 
 
 Although a mere child at the time, my grand- 
 mother was thoughtful enough to feel a decided 
 disapproval of these "goings on," and refused to 
 join a Church which permitted such laxity in the 
 clergy. Not until Bishop Meade, strong, stern 
 and resolute, had corrected the abuses and driven 
 the money-changers out of the temple, would she 
 connect herself with the Church in which she had 
 been baptised. Of Bishop Meade's splendid work 
 of reform the church in Virginia today — fervent 
 in piety, untainted with worldliness or ritual — is 
 a fitting monument. But does not George Eliot 
 say, "Even JMilton looking for his likeness in a 
 spoon cannot escape the facial angle of a bump- 
 kin"? Bishop Meade in old age grew irascible, 
 and his failings came to make more impression on 
 the laity than his high character and fine achieve- 
 ment. One day during the Council a young lady 
 in Richmond being asked: "Isn't Bishop Meade 
 putting up with you?" replied, "No, we are put- 
 ting up with him." 
 
 Family prayers at which attendance by children 
 and slaves was obligatory were the universal cus- 
 tom, and who can wonder if the little folk some- 
 times found them irksome? 
 
 My little cousin Otway Mason used to ride to 
 school a considerable distance on horseback behind 
 a man-servant. One morning his attendant 
 
140 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 observed that he sighed deeply several times as if 
 oppressed with some heavy trouble. 
 
 "Marse Otway," he enquired, "what mak' you 
 keep on sighing dat way lak you was gwine to be 
 converted?" 
 
 "Oh, Aaron," replied the boy, "I am so tired of 
 hearing about Moses and that other disciple run- 
 ning to the Sepulchre!" 
 
 Negroes and poor white folks alike found 
 intense satisfaction in revivals. After being "con- 
 victed of sin" they spent a long interval in "seek- 
 ing," a period in which they scarcely spoke or 
 smiled. Then suddenly they emerged from this 
 Slough of Despond into a state of radiant happi- 
 ness. One night after attendance upon camp- 
 meeting our overseer's daughter bounded into the 
 room with the joyful shout — 
 
 "I'm saved and sanctified up to date!" 
 
 One Sunday morning my Aunt Fanny, as she 
 was going down to breakfast, was arrested by the 
 spectacle of Sally, my nurse, executing a fantastic 
 jMs seul, before the long mirror. "Well, Sally," 
 she exclaimed, "I am astonished, after all your 
 professions of religion, to see you dancing before 
 the looking glass on Sunday morning." 
 
 "Why, la, Miss Fanny," said the girl reproach- 
 fullv, "I wasn't a dancin', I was a praisin' de 
 Lord." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Talent, Knoayn and Unknown 
 
 WHEN I hear people talk of Mary Garden 
 and Schumann-Heink, I sometimes won- 
 der how they compare with the stars of 
 an earlier day. I heard Patti when she was only 
 eight years old. She was a small, slender child 
 with extraordinarily black eyes and hair. Ole 
 Bull, who traveled in the same troupe, said of her 
 that when he heard her sing, he thought she was 
 an angel, but that when he saw her in one of her 
 violent paroxysms of temper, he knew that she 
 was a devil. 
 
 Again when she was eighteen I heard her. Her 
 voice had grown with her stature and her whole 
 body seemed to vibrate with the volume of sound 
 that issued from her small throat. She was 
 dressed in yellow silk, and with her sleek little 
 black head and very petite figure, reminded one 
 of a canary bird. 
 
 Jenny Lind sang in Philadelphia in the winter 
 of '50-'51, and I went with a party of friends to 
 one of her concerts. I remember especially the 
 famous little run with which she always made her 
 entree upon the stage, and the bird-song which 
 
142 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 her audience always demanded — a translation of 
 Voglein, It begins — 
 
 "Birdling^ why sing in the forest wild? 
 Say why^ say why — " 
 
 I wonder if anyone ever sings it now. 
 
 Everybody knows that when Jenny Lind 
 landed at Castle Garden, young men took her 
 horses out of the carriage and drew her up Broad- 
 way themselves; but does everybody know that 
 the people in "the provinces" who had the taste 
 and the means to go a long distance to hear her, 
 became ever afterwards a sort of aristocracy 
 humorously designated "The Jenny Linders"? 
 
 An anecdote is told of her that I venture to 
 repeat because I believe it to be unfamiliar. A 
 lady who was obliged to spend some time in a little 
 town in Switzerland interested herself in the local 
 church. She found the architecture good but the 
 music execrable. Her efforts to improve the choir 
 becoming known, a middle-aged woman called 
 upon her to offer her services in leading the sing- 
 ing. When asked for her credentials she modestly 
 proffered a card on which was engraved the name, 
 Jenny Lind Goldschmidt. 
 
 The same winter that I heard her sing in Phila- 
 delphia, I made the acquaintance (though he 
 never knew it) of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian 
 
Talent, Known and Unknown 14B 
 
 patriot who had come to America to enlist sympa- 
 thy and collect funds for his cause. With his 
 suite he boarded the train on which I was 
 journeying to Washington, he also going thither 
 to deliver before Congress that famous speech 
 remarkable among other things for its perfect 
 English. . He had learned our language during 
 his imprisonment in Austria, having no books 
 except a Bible and a dictionary. 
 
 Some years later I heard Thackeray lecture on 
 Steele, Addison, and Congreve. He was very 
 tall, with bright blue eyes and a brilliant com- 
 plexion. As for his personal magnetism, one 
 could hardly exaggerate it. 
 
 I was too young to hear Dickens read on his 
 first visit to America, but even as a child I shared 
 the general indignation excited by his American 
 Notes. In them he gives an injurious account 
 of a journey through the mountains of Virginia, 
 in "Stage Number One," with its negro driver. 
 This incident inspired my Uncle Landon to write 
 the following stanzas: 
 
 1 
 
 "I hear, Massa Boz, of dat po' }3iece of fun 
 You write for de British 'bout Stage Number One, 
 An' I think I must try and be writin' note too 
 'Case I was de driber dat day dat dribe you. 
 
144 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 "I heard you was comin'^ great hubbub it cause 
 'Bout de great Massa Pickwick, de great Massa Boz, 
 But when fust in m}^ presence you come, Sir, to stand 
 I see in a minute you're a mighty small man. 
 
 "I'm told that you say dat we keep de bad road 
 And fling on de passenger water and mud. 
 But de dirt dat you fling on us all in your note 
 Is more dan we 'sposed such a fellow could tote. 
 
 4 
 "At the staff" of my whip you must have a fling. 
 You say it was tied with a piece of twine string; 
 Dat's true, an' I'll give you one word to the wise — 
 It was broke on the back of a vender of lies." 
 
 One of the curious memories of my childhood 
 outlasting more important things, is of the exhi- 
 bition of Miss Hunniwell, a singular little crea- 
 ture who performed wonderful feats with her 
 toes. She was a dwarf or a hunchback, and was 
 born without arms. With her toes, which were 
 beautifully ma7iiciired and covered with rings, 
 she could sew, write and cut out from tissue-paper 
 marvellous figures of trees, birds, flowers, etc. 
 These were afterwards distributed among the 
 spectators as souvenirs. 
 
 The winter that I became engaged, I went to 
 see the Aztec Children, said to have been found 
 
Talent, Known and Unknown 145 
 
 in niches in the ruins of an Aztec temple. They 
 were dwarfs and might have been brother and 
 sister. They had black, curling hair and black 
 eyes, their features having an Egyptian cast. 
 They were exhibited upon a raised platform and 
 seemed to be able to communicate with one 
 another in a strange language that no one in the 
 audience could understand. 
 
 About the same time the pictures from the 
 Dusseldorf gallery were brought to this country. 
 Being the first really great pictures to be 
 exhibited in America, they created a tremendous 
 sensation. It was quite the thing in fashionable 
 circles to discuss and appraise them. I never 
 knew the lady who remarked that she "couldn't 
 think how Mr. Dusseldorf found time to do them 
 all so nicety," but an acquaintance of mine, a 
 woman rather fond of displaying her f amiharity 
 with the fine arts, did really roll up her eyes and 
 say to me, "Dusseldorf's a fine artist, Sallie." 
 And I could but agree. 
 
 The same season that I saw Kossuth, Lola 
 Montez was touring the large cities with her play, 
 Lola Montez of Bavaria. Her beauty was more 
 remarkable than her dancing, which formed a con- 
 spicuous part of the performance; nevertheless 
 she created a furore wherever she appeared. 
 
146 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 although her previous career as mistress of the 
 artist-King% I^ouis I of Bavaria, caused her to be 
 looked at askance by the unco guid, who were a 
 deal more scrupulous than they are now. 
 
 In these early days the difficulties in the way 
 of fitting oneself for a musical career were almost 
 insuperable. The logic of the case was simple: 
 if you had no money you couldn't go abroad to 
 study, and if j^ou couldn't go abroad, you couldn't 
 become a great musician. My father had a neigh- 
 bor and friend named Hedgman, who was a fair 
 violinist. Mr. Hedgman, the father of a large 
 family of children who were growing up with no 
 "advantages," was "land poor." Peter, the eldest 
 son, began, at an early age, to play upon his 
 father's fiddle, devoting himself to it to the exclu- 
 sion of every duty. At last his father lost patience 
 and forbade him under penalty of a good whip- 
 ping ever to touch the instrument again. Some 
 weeks afterwards when riding through the woods 
 Mr. Hedgman heard a familiar tune played in a 
 very singular w^ay. Following the sound he 
 presently discovered Peter. The youth was sit- 
 ting on a stump, performing upon a fiddle of his 
 own construction, made of a large gourd strung 
 with some bits of catgut. A more human and 
 humorous person would have been touched by this, 
 
Talent, Known and Unknown 147 
 
 but not so Peter's father. He flew into a passion, 
 trounced his son roundly and told him to take his 
 fiddle and go to the Devil with it. 
 
 When Peter had grown to manhood, hearing 
 that a celebrated European violinist was to play 
 in Philadelphia, he made up his mind to hear him 
 if he were obliged to go thither on foot. The 
 difficulties were great, but Peter overcame them. 
 My father descried him in the fashionable audi- 
 ence, a marked figure with shock head and rustic 
 air. At the close of the performance, he sought 
 the young man to ask if he would hke to meet 
 the great musician. Of course, Peter was enrap- 
 tured. My father introduced him to the virtuoso 
 and described the long and arduous journey the 
 boy had taken to hear the performance. The 
 violinist listened courteously, then turned to 
 Peter. In a few moments the two were deeply 
 engaged in conversation. Suddenly the musician 
 exclaimed, "I will play that for you again," and 
 seizing his violin executed a composition already 
 given that evening. Peter's face was pale with 
 rapture too deep for words. 
 
 "Now, you shall play for me," he said, and 
 handed over the instrument with a smile. Peter, 
 trembling with fright, begged to be excused, but 
 the master was insistent. My father added his 
 
148 Old Virginia Days and IV ays 
 
 entreaties, and at last the country boy timidly 
 drew the bow across the strings. The familiar 
 touch gave him confidence, the quality of the 
 instrument and its response under his touch 
 astonished him, and as he played he forgot 
 the presence in which he stood, forgot his 
 ignorance, his limitations, remembered only to 
 pour forth his soul in the music. The mood 
 passed, the bow dropped from his fingers and he 
 sank exhausted in his chair. Then the master 
 came to him with tears streaming down his cheeks 
 and clasping his hands, exclaimed — 
 
 "You tell me you are entirely untaught in 
 music. I have devoted my life to it under the 
 best teachers, but if I should try for a hundred 
 vears I could never plav as you have done." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 Manners upon the Road 
 
 THE little talk that we had about stage- 
 coaches a chapter or so ago reminds me of 
 an experience of my father's which illus- 
 trates the lawlessness of the time and the perils 
 of the road. The coach in which he was traveling 
 stopped at a little mountain inn. Here were two 
 ladies, a mother and daughter, the former of 
 whom had been hurt in a road accident several 
 days before. The daughter made an appeal to 
 the passengers for aid, saying that her mother 
 was growing worse and she did not know what to 
 do for her. 
 
 "Why not put her in our coach and carry her 
 to the next town where she could see a physician?" 
 suggested some one. 
 
 "That is what I should like to do," replied the 
 girl, "but the driver refuses to take her." 
 "Refuses to take her ! Why ?" 
 "He says he won't be bothered with her." 
 "Just get her ready to start when we do," said 
 my father, "and I'll see whether he'll take her or 
 not." 
 
 When the time for departure arrived, two of 
 the gentlemen carried the invalid in their arms to 
 
150 Old Fir^'inid l)(i//s and lfV///.v 
 
 the conch. The (h'i\c'r, who had hcin (h-iiikin^*, 
 looked roniui I'roin the hox. 
 
 "Take her l).'iek lo (he house/' he said, '\she 
 aiiTl a ^oiiT in this slat^-e coach." 
 
 ''Why uotr 
 
 "Hecause I woiTl he l)()lhere(l wilh a d d sick 
 woman/' he re i)he(l. 
 
 "I'his kady is ^^"oiiii^' ^villi us," said luy I'alhei', 
 and Ihe passenj^ers echoed hini. 
 
 The driver Ihrew down the I'cins. 
 
 '''I'hen you can drixe youiselx es," he sai(L 'Tor 
 I ain't a i»'oin' a stcj)." 
 
 \Vhereuj)on my Calhei- (h'cw a pistol IVom his 
 pocket (nohody traveled without a weapon in 
 those (hiys) and ap|)i()aclie(l the brute. 
 
 "Pick u|) the i-eins this instatit mu\ (\v'i\r lliis 
 coach, or Til hioxv youi* brains out, " lie sai(L 
 
 "III drive it to Hell!" 
 
 "\'()u'll drixc /just as I tell you to, ' I'ejoined 
 the cham|)ion as he swun*^- himsell' u|) io the 
 driving- box, and for lil'teen miles he never 
 removed his j)istol from the man's ear. 
 
 Some thirty years latei-, when 1 was a youn^' 
 oirl, road conditions had greatly improved, 
 atthou.L»h there were still onive abuses. Kjxcej)t- 
 in^' the saddle-liorse, the sta.i;'c -coach was the only 
 means of travcHng thr()u«^li the mountains of 
 
Marmern ujxm the I load 1.51 
 
 Virginia. Jt would accomrriodate nine inside: 
 passengers arjd several on the outside. Jn the 
 height of the season it was usually erowded. 
 
 1 had occasion to journey from the Salt Sul- 
 phur Springs in Southwestern Virginia to the 
 Warm Springs, when it chanced that a man wIjo 
 had heen drinking heavily for several days was 
 one of the passengers. At every little post-house 
 that he passed he would get out and drink more 
 whiskey until his face was like fire, and he could 
 rjr>t hold himself upright. He sat opposite tr> me 
 and next to "Mammy," whom J was taking along 
 as my maid. Kvery now and then he would lurch 
 against her, fallirjg almr>st on her shoulder and 
 she would whimper to mje: 
 
 "Miss Sally, tliis gentleman is lying almost in 
 my lap." 
 
 "Push him off!" I would rejjly fiercely. "Give 
 him a good knock and make him behave himself." 
 
 I could nf>t induce my cousin, who was our 
 escort, to take any measures of redress, hut sev- 
 eral other gerjtlemen, seeirjg how greatly we wi^m 
 annoyed, proposed to the driver to have the man 
 ride outside. I'his, however, in his intoxicated 
 condition was out of the question. 
 
 We stopped for supper and bed at a little inn, 
 famous for its heat biscuit and fried chicken, anrl 
 
152 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 here I fondly hoped that my fellow passenger 
 would sleep off his "jag," but the next morning 
 he took his place inside drunker than ever. The 
 weather was intolerably hot, even early in the 
 morning, and the prospect of a whole day with 
 this man in such disgusting condition sitting 
 opposite filled me with dismay. I ventured to 
 protest that he was in no condition to ride in a 
 conveyance with ladies, but the driver contended 
 that since he had paid his fare, there was no rea- 
 sonable excuse for leaving him behind. 
 
 As the day advanced he grew, if possible, 
 worse hour by hour. Towards noon I saw an 
 empty stage-coach approaching on its way back 
 to the Salt Sulphur Springs, having discharged 
 its load of passengers ; I also saw my opportunity. 
 At a small stream that crossed the road both 
 drivers stopped to water their horses, and there 
 was an exchange of civilities. Ostensibly for the 
 purpose of taking a little stroll, I walked a short 
 distance away and seated myself upon a fallen 
 log. When the horses had drunk their fill and all 
 was ready for starting my cousin called to me to 
 come and take my place. I paid no attention, so 
 he came to me to say that they w^ere about to start 
 and I must come at once. Raising my voice so as 
 to be heard by every one, I replied that I would 
 
Manners upon the Road 153 
 
 not return to the coach until that drunken man 
 was taken out of it. By this time several other 
 remonstrants had joined the group. What was 
 to be done? they asked; the man had paid his 
 fare, he could not be left on the road. 
 
 "No," I replied, "but he can be put in that 
 empty stage and sent back to the last post-house 
 where he came from." This suggestion met with 
 approval and was acted upon at once. The 
 drunken man was transferred to the empty stage 
 and a negro boy put in with him to keep him from 
 banging himself to pieces. 
 
 In course of time the story got told with more 
 or less exaggeration, one of the additions being 
 that as he drove off he put his head out of the 
 window and called back — 
 
 "I reckon that lady must belong to the F. F. 
 V.'s, doesn't she?" 
 
 The sail or row-boat was the only alternative 
 of the stage-coach in my father's day. On one 
 occasion, with his guardian, George Mason, he 
 made the trip by water from Acquia Creek to 
 Washington. The weather was severe and the 
 men were out all night. Unable to sleep in con- 
 sequence of being chilled to the bone, George 
 Mason rummaged among the cargo and discov- 
 ered a bag of wool. Into it he thrust his benumbed 
 
154 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 feet and not long afterwards a grateful warmth 
 suffusing his veins he fell into a delightful slum- 
 ber. My father, perishing with cold and utterl}^ 
 miserable, bore the spectacle of this felicity as 
 long as he was able, then he gently slipped the 
 bag of wool off of Mason's feet, drew it over his 
 own and lost no time in gliding into the Land of 
 Nod. Hours after Mason awoke with an uncom- 
 fortable sensation of cold and swore lustily at the 
 sleeper who had tricked him. 
 
 When railroads were first established the trains 
 were imperfectly equipped and met with frequent 
 misadventures. A friend of mine who had made 
 the initial trip from Fredericksburg to Richmond 
 told me that the fuel gave out and the passengers 
 had to get out and pick up sticks sufficient to keep 
 the engine going. 
 
 In this connection I take the liberty to quote 
 an anecdote which was published a short time ago 
 in Everybody's, because it concerns Mr. Peter 
 Daniels, a thirty-second cousin and old acquain- 
 tance once of my own. 
 
 At a meeting of the stocldiolders of the Rich- 
 mond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, a 
 proposition was brought up to reduce the fare 
 from seventeen to eleven cents a mile. At this 
 
Manners upon the Road 155 
 
 Mr. Peter Daniels, one of the directors, sprang 
 to his feet. 
 
 "Reduce the fare to eleven cents a mile!" he 
 exclaimed. "Why, my God, gentlemen, if you 
 do that you'll have all the rag-tag and bobtail in 
 Virginia riding on the cars." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Tournament 
 
 THE first momentous social event of my 
 childhood was the wedding of Nellie 
 Selden to my distant relation, Augustine 
 Washington of Mount Vernon, a great nephew 
 of that distinguished statesman who is still spoken 
 of in certain Virginia families as "Cousin 
 George." NeUie Selden's father married en sec- 
 ond noces, Eliza Lee of Belmont; thus we were 
 connections as well as intimate friends. The 
 Seldens lived at the fine estate of Exeter, about 
 a mile from Leesburg. Nellie, an only child, was 
 her father's heiress. The announcement of her 
 engagement to Augustine Washington was 
 received with general approval, as was also the 
 news of the immense preparations to be made for 
 the wedding. Wines, game, fruit and confec- 
 tionery w^ere ordered from Philadelphia. The 
 supper was served on long tables decorated with 
 pyramids of iced cakes and with baskets of 
 nougat filled with colored flowers made of sugar. 
 Bonbons in quaint and curious shapes set us 
 youngsters nearly crazy. Mr. Selden filched one 
 for me which was in the form of a fish and I kept 
 
158 Od Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 it long among my chief treasures. One of the 
 loveHest dishes was made of blanc-mange 
 moulded in eggshells and set in nests of jelly 
 rendered more realistic by strips of orange peel 
 cut thin to represent straw. Hams, saddles of 
 mutton, fowls and oysters were served from a 
 separate table and washed down with imported 
 wines. Bridesmaids and groomsmen came from 
 Washington and Philadelphia. One little maid 
 of nine from Leesburg, in a new frock, received 
 enough notice to turn her head. 
 
 The next thrilling event of my childhood was 
 the tournament. This entertainment was designed 
 to perpetuate the jousts of chivalry. They held 
 it in a wide, level field around three sides of which 
 were ranged, row above row as in a circus, seats 
 for the spectators. A large tent for the use of 
 the knights stood at one end of the field, also a 
 shed roofed with boughs, where the sleek horses 
 awaited their riders. At the opposite end was 
 the judge's stand flanked by an elevated seat for 
 a grinning row of negro musicians. Three pairs 
 of stout posts were erected along the course about 
 fifty feet apart, and between each pair was sus- 
 pended a ring several inches in diameter wrapped 
 with gay ribbons. The test of skill, sole object 
 of the tournament, was while riding at full speed, 
 
The Tournavient 159 
 
 to take the rings one after the other upon the 
 point of the lance three times in succession, and 
 the reward of the successful knight was the per- 
 mission to crown his lady Queen of Love and 
 Beauty at the Tournament Ball in the evening. 
 All being in readiness, the trumpeter blew a 
 ringing blast and the knights rode into the lists. 
 All wore masques and fancy dress to symbolize 
 something in history or fiction. I remember that 
 the Knight of Ivanhoe came first in what was 
 intended to represent a coat of mail; next, on a 
 black horse came the Knight of the Lone Star, 
 a silver star on his sable breast; the Knight of 
 Waverly in white and blue; the Knight of the 
 Old Dominion in green and gold ; the Knight of 
 Mephistopheles in black and scarlet, with horns, 
 and a tail that provoked wild merriment; the 
 Knight of the Potomac on a red-roan steed. 
 Many more there were which have gone from my 
 memory. As each contestant entered the lists, 
 the herald proclaimed him in ringing tones. 
 Strange to say, I have forgotten the designation 
 of the young gentleman who had promised to ride 
 for me. He was really very much in love with 
 one of the grown young ladies, but was con- 
 siderate enough to ask my mother if she thought 
 I would be hurt should he give the crown to her 
 in the event of his winning it. 
 
160 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 To take the rings on the lance, while riding at 
 a gallop, was indeed a difficult feat and one that 
 required horsemanship of the highest order. On 
 this day, when the iirst knight carried off two, 
 the musicians sounded strenuous applause. The 
 rings being replaced, the next contestant cantered 
 forward, lance in position, but alas ! he missed all 
 three and the horns and fiddles had to do their 
 utmost to cover his failure. So it went on until 
 one gallant rider carried off all three at once. 
 When he had performed the same feat twice 
 more, he was proclaimed the victor of the day. 
 
 At the close of the tournament the knights 
 drew up a semi-circle in front of the judge's 
 stand and were addressed by the orator of the day 
 in fervid rhetoric. After praising them warmly 
 for their prowess and their devotion to the service 
 of beauty, he distributed in the order of merit, 
 crowns of roses for the Queen and her Maids of 
 Honor. The knights received the trophies upon 
 their lances and rode away to proffer them, on 
 bended knee to the girls they respectively liked 
 best. Then the air rang with "Money Musk" and 
 "Old Dan Tucker" played with ravishing skill 
 by the smiling musicians. 
 
 The tournament ball came off that night in the 
 long dining-room of the Leesburg Inn. The 
 
The Tournament 161 
 
 floor was waxed to a perilous slipperiness and the 
 fireplace banked with flowers. With positive 
 instructions not to accept any invitation to dance, 
 I was nevertheless allowed to look on. I well 
 recall my wistful admiration of the Queen of 
 Love and Beauty, a small, fair creature, with 
 flaxen curls, who wore her blushing honors in a 
 bewildered way as if quite overwhelmed by them. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 I HAVE endeavored to set down in the fore- 
 going pages as clearly as possible the 
 impressions of my childhood and the stories 
 that came to me from older people. Looking 
 back upon those early years I seem to have been 
 ideally happy. I believed, and still believe, that 
 no place in the world is superior to Virginia, and 
 that her "old families" are the equals of the high- 
 est nobility of other countries. It never occurred 
 to me that their manners and customs could be 
 questioned or that their tranquil oligarchy could 
 be overthrown. 
 
 As I grew up I came into the lovely heritage 
 of old Virginia womanhood. The young men of 
 my set had been reared in the fine manners of our 
 class. To them a pretty girl was a queen of her 
 own right, to spare whose dainty feet every one 
 of them was a Raleigh ready to spread his cloak. 
 
 Little preparation for life was mine when, 
 several years before the Civil War, I married and 
 went to live in New York, but before the first gun 
 had been fired we returned to Richmond to cast 
 in our lot with our own people. Then it was I 
 
164 Old Virginia Days and Ways 
 
 made acquaintance with the primal facts of sick- 
 ness and death, of poverty, privation and bereave- 
 ment of which before I had only read in books. 
 The terrible story of those four years has been 
 told again and again and by people who took a 
 more active part in them than I. 
 
 To me it was given, while my husband lay in 
 the trenches with the militia company that 
 guarded the city, to stay at home with my little 
 children, eating my heart out with anxiety, and 
 listening with horrid apprehensions to the can- 
 nonnading which drew nearer day by day, won- 
 dering what shot would leave me a widow, to 
 work and starve and suffer; to turn my old 
 dresses inside out and upside down; to make for 
 my children cloth shoes to which the shoemaker 
 would affix clumsy soles ; to braid straw hats, and 
 to gaze with wondering, incredulous eyes at a 
 fashion-book smuggled by a blockade runner into 
 the beleagured town. 
 
 How, after four years of sequestration, we 
 women folk looked to those Northern troops 
 gravely marching through the conquered city, 
 I believe no caricatm^ist has set down, but how 
 they looked to us is sharply graven in my memory. 
 Not the troops, I mean, but the officers in citizens' 
 clothes, and the women who accompanied them! 
 Of course, bitterness and hatred found expression 
 
Conclusion 165 
 
 in ridicule. An acquaintance of mine, very clever 
 with his pencil, drew a sketch of a "Yankee" 
 dude, exaggerating every peculiarity of his cos- 
 tume. A Northern officer joined the group who 
 were looking at it on a street corner, and 
 exclaimed genially, 
 
 "Ha, very good, very good indeed! I must 
 get you to take me off." Whereupon the artist 
 with scornful lip rejoined, 
 
 "I think. Sir, you'd better take yourself off." 
 
 Dear me, dear me, those old days when the 
 past was swept away and the future lay before 
 us all uncharted! It was lucky we could laugh 
 now and then and answer our conquerors with a 
 jibe instead of a sob. 
 
 I have lived now for nearly eighty years and 
 during that period the world has gone through 
 astounding social and industrial changes. Most 
 of the essentials of modern life have come into 
 use since then. I would not go back and face 
 existence without them, yet I cannot help feeling 
 that they have helped to destroy the richness and 
 variety of life and that they make impossible 
 such an atmosphere as I have tried to recreate in 
 these pages; therefore I question whether our 
 descendants will be able to bequeath to theirs any 
 such glamour as invests, for an old woman, those 
 days of the long ago that she so lovingly 
 remembers. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 442 765 8 t