parts of the old city. I presume in New York it might be called slumming,
but every old crawfish ditch and dirty alley was dear to me. Even the old
French cemeteries down Basin Street were full of tender memories. When we
went home from such tramps, and Elise told, in her graphic way, of the
tumbledown appearance of whole streets that mother was so enthusiastic
over, our genial host, Phine’s husband, would say, “Why don’t you go up
St. Charles Avenue? We fixed that up fine to show to visitors.” But St.
Charles Avenue had no sweet memories for me, it had not existed in my
day. We saw St. Charles Avenues every day, at home. We had no old French
cemeteries, the inscription on almost every tomb calling forth memories
of dear, departed Creole friends.
The old cathedral and its environs had to have several visits. I had to
show my little girl (oh, how reminiscent I was, to be sure!) the very
shop whose windows I used to look into, at the beads, corals, shells,
etc., from Southern seas. And, my dear, the very man with gold earrings
was there, shuffling around with strings of rough coral beads, and conch
shells, that very man (so it seemed)—and he was not a day older—that was
doing that very thing seventy years ago, when I had to tip-toe to get a
good view of that entrancing interior.
In the narrow street by the cathedral we purchased rosaries for our
Catholic maids at home. We walked up and down the narrow way, looking
for a tiny shop where I had bought, years and years ago, materials and a
book of instruction for the making of paper flowers. Roses and jasmines
and pinks and honeysuckles were hung in lavish profusion all about my
plantation home, and they lent quite a festive charm on wintry, rainy
days, when there was not a blooming plant to be had. I was reveling so
far into the sweet past that I was almost surprised that the hustling
little French woman (of sixty years ago) was not there, behind her stack
of paper goods, like the man with the gold earrings, but she wasn’t, and
the very shop was gone, too.
[Illustration: _Eliza Ripley_]
We sat, to rest, on benches in the old Place d’Armes. I looked at
those Pontalba buildings, that faded, dilapidated, ramshackle row, and
remembered how fine and imposing it was, in my day, and how I had wished
that father would take one of those elegant houses, where we would be so
near the French market, and the shop of beads and shells, and monkeys and
parrots.
We strolled up Royal Street, and the little girl saw the house in which
the Boufords lived, sixty years ago. The saucy child ventured to remark
she always had thought I visited nice people, but they must have lived in
shabby houses. I did not notice her comment, but proceeded to point to
the balcony where I stood to see a Mardi Gras procession, a frolicsome
lot of the festive beaux of the period, and to catch the bonbons and
confetti they threw at us from the landeaus and gaily decked wagons. It
was long after the Mardi Gras of the thirties, and long, long before the
Mardi Gras of to-day, a kind of interregnum, that the young fashionable
men were turning into a festival. I recall Mrs. Slocomb’s disgust when
Cuthbert fell ill of pneumonia, after his exposure that day. Cuthbert
Slocomb was chubby and blond, and with bare neck and short sleeves, tied
up with baby blue ribbon, a baby cap similarly decorated, he made a very
good counterfeit baby, seated, too, in a high chair, with a rattle to
play with. The “mamma” had long black ringlets and wore a fashionable
bonnet. I have forgotten, if in fact I ever knew, what youth represented
the mamma. There were no masks, but the disguises with paint, powder and
wigs were sufficient to make them unrecognizable. If Cuthbert Slocomb had
not been ill, I probably would not have known the “baby.”
[Illustration: A NEW ORLEANS CEMETERY.]
During that visit I went to the cemetery Decoration Day. Mind you, I have
seen about forty Decoration days, North—but this one in my own Southland,
among my own beloved dead, has been the only Decoration Day I have ever
seen in a cemetery. (I wish my feelings were not quite so strong.) Phine
and I stood beside the tomb that contains the dust of Gen. Albert Sidney
Johnston, a man I had known well, a contemporary and valued friend of
my father’s, a man whose children and grandchildren were dear to me.
We saw the solemn procession file in, and halt a little beyond us. The
band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and hundreds of voices joined in
the musical prayer. I could not sing, I never could, but I could weep,
and my eyes were not the only moist ones in the assembly. Such a throng
of sober, sad people there was, such a lot of veterans, many in shabby,
weather-stained gray, that bore evidence of hard service....
Phine had kept track of the people from whom I had been so long separated
that age had obliterated means by which I could recognize them. As a
veteran, in the shabby old gray (I felt like taking everyone such by the
hand), approached, Phine caught my arm and whispered “Douglas West,” and
at the same moment his eye met mine with a flash of recognition. I had
not seen Douglas for over thirty years. And weren’t we glad to meet? on
that ground, too, so sacred to both of us. And didn’t we meet and meet
and talk and talk, many times thereafter, in Phine’s dear little parlor
on Carondelet Street? Indeed, we did.
Later on, Phine whispered, “You knew that man, I’ll tell you who he is
after he passes us.” A quite tottering, wrinkled, old man passed. I
gave him a good stare, shook my head. I did not know, nor think I ever
had known him. It was A. B. Cammack—who would have believed it? He was
a bachelor in 1850, the time when I thought a man of thirty was an old
man. We happened to be fellow passengers on that fashionable A No. 1
steamboat, _Belle Key_. I was a frisky young miss, and Mr. Cammack was,
as I say, an old bachelor. He did not know, nor want to know anybody on
the boat, but it happened he was introduced to our small party, at the
moment of sailing, so we had a reluctant sort of bowing acquaintance for
the first day or so. _Broderie Anglaise_ was all the rage. Any woman who
had time for _frivolité_, as the Creoles called tatting, was busy working
eyelets on linen. Of course I had _Broderie_, too. Mr. Cammack gradually
thawed, and brought a book to read to me while my fingers flew over the
fascinating eyelets. The book, I distinctly remember, was “Aunt Patsy’s
Scrap Bag,” a medley of silly nonsensical stuff, written by a woman so
long dead and so stupid while she lived that nobody even hears of her
now, but Mr. Cammack was immensely entertaining and witty, and we roared
over that volume, and his comments thereon. I have often dwelt on that
steamboat episode, but I doubt if it ever gave him a moment’s thought. I
really think if it had been like my meeting with Douglas West we might
have had quite a bit of fun, living again that week on the _Belle Key_. A
hearty laugh, such as we had together, so many years before, might have
smoothed some of the wrinkles from his careworn face, and a few crow’s
feet out of mine. But he never knew, possibly would not have cared if he
had known, that we almost touched hands in the crowd on that Decoration
Day.
On and on we strolled, past a grand monument to the memory of Dr.
Choppin, whom I knew so well, and loved too, girl fashion, when he
was twenty, and who sailed away, boy fashion, to complete his medical
education in Paris. Maybe if we had met, in the flesh, on that Decoration
Day, it might have been _a la Cammack_. We never did meet, after that
memorable sailing away, but he has a tender niche in my heart even yet,
and I was pleased to see some loving hand had decorated that sacred
spot....
Phine and I strolled about after the ceremonies were completed. She had
a toy broom and a toy watering pot in the keeper’s cottage, and was
reluctant to leave before she had straightened and freshened the bouquets
we had placed on the tombs of the dead she loved, and swept away the
dust, and watered the little grass border again.
A year ago she herself fell asleep and was laid to rest in the lovely
cemetery, and with her death the last close tie was broken that bound me
to New Orleans.
Eliza Moore, tenth of the twelve children of Richard Henry and Betsey
Holmes Chinn, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on the first day of
February, 1832.
Three years later Judge Chinn moved his family to New Orleans, where he
continued the practice of law until his death in ’47.
On August 24, 1852, Eliza Chinn and James Alexander McHatton were married
in Lexington, and for ten years thereafter they lived at Arlington
plantation on the Mississippi, a few miles below Baton Rouge, leaving
hastily in ’62, upon the appearance of Federal gunboats at their levee.
During the remainder of the war they lived almost continuously in army
ambulances, convoying cotton from Louisiana across Texas to Mexico.
In February, 1865, they went to Cuba, and lived there until the death of
Mr. McHatton, owning and operating, with mixed negro and coolie labor, a
large sugar plantation—“Desengaño.”
After her return to the United States Mrs. McHatton was married to
Dwight Ripley, July 9, 1873, and the remainder of her life was passed in
the North. In 1887 Mrs. Ripley published “From Flag to Flag”—a narrative
of her war-time and Cuban experiences, now out of print.
The reminiscences which make up the present volume have been written at
intervals during the last three or four years. The final arrangements
for their publication were sanctioned by her the day before she passed
away—on July 13, 1912, in the eighty-first year of her age.
E. R. N.
UNLIKE ANY OTHER BOOK.
A Virginia Girl in the Civil War.
Being the Authentic Experiences of a Confederate Major’s Wife who
followed her Husband into Camp at the Outbreak of the War. Dined and
Supped with General J. E. B. Stuart, ran the Blockade to Baltimore, and
was in Richmond when it was Evacuated. Collected and edited by MYRTA
LOCKETT AVARY. 12mo. Cloth, $1.25 net; postage additional.
“The people described are gentlefolk to the back-bone, and
the reader must be a hard-hearted cynic if he does not fall
in love with the ingenuous and delightful girl who tells the
story.”—_New York Sun._
“The narrative is one that both interests and charms. The
beginning of the end of the long and desperate struggle is
unusually well told, and how the survivors lived during the
last days of the fading Confederacy forms a vivid picture of
those distressful times.”—_Baltimore Herald._
“The style of the narrative is attractively informal and
chatty. Its pathos is that of simplicity. It throws upon a
cruel period of our national career a side-light, bringing out
tender and softening interests too little visible in the pages
of formal history.”—_New York World._
“This is a tale that will appeal to every Southern man and
woman, and can not fail to be of interest to every reader. It
is as fresh and vivacious, even in dealing with dark days, as
the young soul that underwent the hardships of a most cruel
war.”—_Louisville Courier-Journal._
“The narrative is not formal, is often fragmentary, and is
always warmly human.... There are scenes among the dead and
wounded, but as one winks back a tear the next page presents a
negro commanded to mount a strange mule in midstream, at the
injustice of which he strongly protests.”—_New York Telegram._
“Taken at this time, when the years have buried all resentment,
dulled all sorrows, and brought new generations to the scenes,
a work of this kind can not fail of value just as it can
not fail in interest. Official history moves with too great
strides to permit of the smaller, more intimate events; fiction
lacks the realistic, powerful appeal of actuality; such works
as this must be depended upon to fill in the unoccupied
interstices, to show us just what were the lives of those
who were in this conflict or who lived in the midst of it
without being able actively to participate in it. And of this
type ‘A Virginia Girl in the Civil War’ is a truly admirable
example.”—_Philadelphia Record._
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
THE GREATEST LIVING ACTRESS.
Memories of My Life.
By SARAH BERNHARDT. Profusely illustrated. 8vo. Ornamental cloth, $4.00
net; postage 30 cents additional.
The most famous of living actresses, Sarah Bernhardt has lived life
to the full as a builder and manager of theatres, author, painter and
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of My Life” with her own hand, and with her own inimitable verve.
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“It is the work of a genius which feels and sees with
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a bright and varied panorama of life as it has been given to
few authors to portray.”—_Cleveland Plain Dealer._
“Out of an overflowing reservoir of reminiscence the author
pours out a flood of anecdote and of dramatic story, and she
always gives the idea that she is only skimming the surface
and that other treasures lie always below.”—_San Francisco
Argonaut._
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and is related with a vivacity that is engaging.”—_Toledo
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“The eventful life lived by Madame Bernhardt both on and off
the stage is told with great charm. Not only has the greatest
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D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.