LOCH ADÈLE
Soon after we returned to Crowley Hill she determined to go to the North
Carolina farms and see the people, so as to reassure them as to her
taking care of them fully.
We started very early in the morning, Daddy Aleck driving, with baskets
packed with lunch for the day and provisions to cook, for we expected to
stay three or four days. The drive of thirty miles was charming until it
got too hot, and we stopped under a tree by a spring, took out the
horses and tied them in the shade and had our lunch, and rested until it
became a little cooler. Loch Adèle, as we girls had named the farm, was
a very pretty place with a mill and large pond, which we dignified into
a loch, much to papa’s amusement. A pretty rolling country, and the Pee
Dee River, called the Yadkin as soon as it passed the line from South to
North Carolina, ran a small rocky stream about a mile from the rambling
farmhouse. Flats had brought supplies in large quantities up the river
from Chicora, and most of the Charleston furniture had been brought by
rail to Cheraw, fifteen miles away, and hauled out to this place, so
that the house was thoroughly furnished, pictures hanging on the walls,
because it seemed better than to keep them packed. The two lovely
bas-reliefs of Thorwaldsen’s, “Night” and “Morning,” looked especially
beautiful hanging on the white walls of the drawing-room, and the whole
place was homelike and delightful with our Charleston belongings. And
the poor negroes were so glad to see us and to realize that “Miss” was
going to look after them and to the best of her ability take “Maussa’s”
place. They wanted to hear all about papa’s illness and death and the
funeral, and who had been honored by taking special place in it. Mamma
was interviewed by each one separately, and had to repeat all the
details over and over. She was very patient, to my great surprise, and,
I think, to the people’s, too, for she had never been as willing to
listen to their long rigmaroles as papa had been. But now she listened
to all and consoled them and wept with them over their mutual loss.
Altogether the visit did us both good.
Old Daddy Hamedy, who was head man on the place, had been a first-class
carpenter and still was, but when there was needed some one to take
supervision of the farm and people up there, papa chose him on account
of his character and intelligence. Papa had engaged a white man, a Mr.
Yates, who lived some miles away, to give an eye to the place from time
to time and write him how things went on, and Hamedy was to apply to Mr.
Yates if anything went wrong. He was originally from the North, but he
had bought a farm near the little town of Morven some years before, and
lived here ever since. Mamma sent to ask Mr. Yates to come and see her,
and he came. He was a very smart man, but impressed me most unpleasantly
as unreliable and unscrupulous, as I watched him talking to mamma. He
evidently felt that, papa being gone, his time had come, and was quite
sure he could manage my mother easily. He was most flattering in his
admiration, which was not surprising, for my mother was beautiful in her
plain black frock and widow’s cap.
In trying to make easy conversation as he sat and talked to us, he
asked: “Miss Allston, do you smoke?”
In some surprise my mother answered: “No, I have never smoked.”
“Well, well,” he said. “You wouldn’t find another lady of your age in
this country that didn’t smoke.”
This nearly upset my gravity, for the idea of my mother’s smoking was
too much for me, and I went out down to the mill-pond. Into this lake my
father had had rolled many hogsheads packed securely with bottles of old
Madeira wine, as being the best chance of saving them from the Yankees.
They were certainly not safe at Chicora Wood, only about twenty miles
from the mouth of Winyah Bay, when gunboats could run up from the sea so
easily. So the wine was packed and shipped by his flats in charge of
faithful men. I remember when the flats were going, on one occasion,
papa wanted to send up a very beautiful marble group of “The Prodigal
Son,” which was always in the drawing-room at Chicora, and he called in
Joe Washington, who was to take charge of the flat, to look at it, and
told him that he would have it carefully packed by the carpenter, and he
wanted him to be specially careful of it; whereupon Joe said:
“Please, sir, don’t have it pack. I’ll tek good kere of it, but please
lef it so en I kin look at it en enjoy it. I’ll neber let nuthin’ hut
it.”
So papa acceded and did not have it packed, and on that open flat, amid
barrels and boxes and propelled by oars and poles, only a little shed at
one end under which the eight hands could take shelter in case of rain,
“The Prodigal Son” and the happy father made their journey of 300 miles
in perfect safety. And I may say here the group was brought back when
the war was over, and now rests in the old place in the drawing-room at
Chicora Wood. How it escaped Sherman I do not know; some one must have
hid it in the woods.