MAMMA’S SCHOOL
_Dec. 1st, 1865._
Preparations for the school are going on apace. We have moved into our
house and it is too beautiful. I had forgotten how lovely it was.
Fortunately, the beautiful paper in the second floor, the two drawing
rooms and Mamma’s room, has not been at all injured. The school is to
open Jan. 1st and, strange to say, Mamma is receiving letters from all
over the State asking terms etc. I thought there would be no
applications, every one being so ruined by the War, but Mamma’s name and
personality make people anxious to give their daughters the benefit of
her influence; and, I suppose, the people in the cotton country are not
so completely ruined and without money as we rice planters of the low
country are. Be it as it may, the limit Mamma put of ten boarding pupils
is nearly reached already. My cousin, Marianna Porcher, will be the head
teacher of French and Literature; she is wonderfully clever; I will have
the younger girls, and I certainly will have my hands full, for there
are a great many applications for the entry of day-scholars of the
younger set. Mamma will teach all the classes of History, for which she
is admirably fitted. Prof. Gibbes from the Charleston College will teach
Mathematics and Latin to the advanced scholars; but I want Mlle. Le
Prince, who is a first class French teacher, engaged to live in the
house as well as teach. There is no way of learning French equal to
speaking it. But Mamma very truly says we must go slowly, and be sure we
are making, before we expand. I am frightened to death. I know girls and
have been to Boarding School and Mamma’s plan of no rules except those
of an ordinary well-ordered, well-conducted home, seems to me perfectly
impracticable; but, having once said that, I do not dare argue the
matter. I am amazed to see how clever Mamma is. She wanted to send C. to
College in Virginia, his constitution has been much injured by the heavy
marching and privation endured in the Army at 16. Carrying that heavy
knapsack on those killing, long marches without food has given him a
stoop and a weary look in his beautiful hazel eyes; but it was
impossible for her to borrow the $200.00 necessary to send him. She
thought the change of climate from this relaxing low country air would
do him good, and enable him to build up; but, as she could not get the
money, she has placed him at the Charleston College, and I am truly
thankful to have him at home. Only, restless, Cassandra-like, I see a
problem ahead; he is so very good-looking!
_March 21st, 1866._ Here we are, almost at the end of our first three
months of school, and it has been and is a grand success! I have not had
time to write a line here because every second of my time is occupied,
and oh, I am so happy! In the first place, I find I can teach! And I
love it! I have a class of thirteen girls ranging from twelve to
fifteen, and, if you please, I teach them everything! except history
which Mamma teaches. They are most of them very bright, delightful
girls, and mind my least word, even look. Only once have I had any
trouble. I kept a girl in for an hour after school because she had not
pretended to study her lesson that day, and the next day I had a note
from her Mother to say that she was shocked at her daughter being
singled out for punishment, and requesting that it should not happen
again. I returned a note saying that I also requested earnestly that it
should not happen again, that M. come to her class without having
studied her lesson; should it happen a second time, the punishment would
have to be much more severe. I had no reply to that, but M., who is very
bright tho’ very spoiled, thought wisest to study in future. A Mother,
who had taught in her youth and who knew of this passage at arms, wrote
me a note of sympathy, saying, “A teacher must be prepared to swallow
buckets full of adders.” This was so very strong and so beyond my
experience, that I did not answer it, and thus far I can truly say I
have not swallowed a single mosquito even.
I have a little time today and I want to put down what I do every day, I
really have not added it up even in my mind. First of all, I trim and
fill all the lamps, twenty in all, for we have no light but kerosene in
the house; the fixtures are all there, but gas is so expensive; then I
practise a half hour before going into school at nine; school lasts
until two; there is no general recess, each class going into the garden
for their recess at a different time; then I give one or two music
lessons every day, that takes more out of me than anything. Once a week,
Mr. Hambruch gives me a lesson, from pure goodness and love of music;
for, of course, I could not afford it. He taught me for years when I was
young, and when he offered to give me a spare hour he had, I was too
glad. Yesterday I went to him almost crying, and told him how badly I
felt at taking money for girls who were not learning any thing. He
laughed and answered, “Oh, Miss A., you must not mind that. We music
teachers, if we only taught the ones that learn, we would starve.”
That was a great surprise and consolation to me, for he is the very best
music teacher in Charleston, and I was so proud of his saying, “We music
teachers.” Of course I only charge a quarter of what he charges for
lessons and people have so little money that I have a good many pupils,
as Mr. H. was so good as to give me a certificate as to my capacity to
teach. I make every stitch of clothing that I wear, and that takes up
every spare moment; add to all this that I go into society, and enjoy
myself fiercely.
We have ten delightful girls as boarding pupils, from all over the
State. They are preternaturally well behaved, and Mamma’s plan of its
being really a home, with no rules, is succeeding perfectly. My dear,
pretty little sister is a kind of lead horse in the team, and as she
walks straight the rest follow. But they really are exceptionally nice
ladylike girls who treat Mamma like a queen.
C. is the greatest help to Mamma, and, so far, has kept his eyes to
himself. He is a wonder. He does all the marketing on his way to
College! And that is no small thing. Beef is 50 c. a pound and mutton in
proportion. C. sits at the foot of the table and carves and helps one
dish of meat while Mamma carves the other. He is as solemn and well
behaved as a judge, and though the girls adore him, it is in secret, so
all goes well.
The “Young Ladies,” contrary to all my ideas, are allowed to receive
visitors Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, when J. and I also have
visitors, and Mamma sits in the room, sometimes talking with us,
sometimes reading; but the evenings are very gay and pleasant, and, I am
forced to admit, have no demoralizing effect. On the contrary, their
manners and deportment have visibly improved.
Mamma looks perfectly lovely, as she sits reading in her plain black
frock and widow’s cap. She is a little over fifty, but her hair is brown
and curly and her complexion as smooth and unwrinkled as a girl’s, only
she is very white and seldom has a colour, as she used to do. She is a
great reader and one of my friends, who has a good library and also
reviews the new books, and so gets them, brings her some book of great
interest every time he comes to make me a visit, and they talk a great
deal together. Sometimes I get quite jealous, for I do not read deep
books. I mean I would not care to if I had time. I never have time to
read at all.
* * * * *
I must explain here how the great and unexpected pleasure of going into
society came to me. I had quite given up all hope of that joy, for once
when I asked mamma about my going out sometimes, she seemed quite
shocked, as though it were an absolute impossibility, so I never said
anything more about it. But after the school was well started, the son
of my father’s friend, Nicholas Williams (the same whose family had been
so wonderfully good and generous to us, lending us Crowley Hill as a
home for the whole war, and lavishing the products of their farm and
garden upon us), brought his two beautiful daughters, one barely
fifteen, the other seventeen; and Mrs. Williams asked my mother to
receive them for French, literature, and history only, and expressed the
wish that they should go into society, as much as practicable, as their
time would not be fully occupied by their studies. My mother consented,
and these delightful girls came, Serena a queenly brunette and Mary a
madonna-faced blonde, but it was not wise to trust too much to that
demure expression. When the first invitations came to a ball for us all,
mamma came to me and said: “Bessie, you will have to go and chaperon the
girls, for after the work of the day I am quite unequal to going out and
sitting up half the night.”
I tried not to show my delight too plainly, but answered quietly, that I
would do my best in the new rôle of chaperon. We went to the ball, and I
was very proud of my beauties, and their lovely clothes. The acting
chaperon was very small, very thin, and dressed in a frock she had made
herself in between times, a little over twenty, and nobody thought that
she would be able to manage the responsibilities, for the girls were
great belles from the first moment, but there never was the least
difficulty or friction; they were well-bred, well-trained girls,
accustomed to recognize and yield to authority; which was for the moment
represented in the person of their very small, very plain chaperon. I
soon grew very fond of them. They called me “Miss Allston” most
carefully. Altogether the going into society with them was just the last
thing necessary to fill my cup of happiness to the brim. My every
faculty was in full use, and the going out and dancing, instead of
being a fatigue, took away all sense of fatigue; I myself have no doubt
but that rhythmic motion to music is one of the most restful things in
the world. I feel quite sure that in the end this will be recognized by
the medical profession as the best cure for nervous diseases.