CHICORA WOOD
_March, 1869._
I am holding on to every moment of my full happy life, for this is to be
our last year in Charleston. Mamma has applied for her dower, and when
it is assigned her, we will move into the country, as Charlie is to
graduate this spring at the college, and Jinty’s education is complete,
and Mamma prefers the country where Charlie can make a living by
planting rice. Every one is happy over it but me; I cannot bear the
thought of giving up my full life; but I try not to think about it until
it comes, but to enjoy the present without alloy. Anyway we would have
to give up this beautiful house for the creditors of the estate want to
sell it.
I have so many delightful friends; one specially who has actually taught
me to love poetry, by his persistence in reading it to me. I do believe
I have always liked it in my heart, for among my most cherished books
from the time I was fourteen are Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales given me by
my first hero Cousin Johnston Pettigrew, and a little fat leather-bound
copy of Homer’s Iliad, I never moved without these two. Then I liked
Evangeline, and Hiawatha, but I never could get up any enthusiasm for
The Lady of the Lake, so I had got into the habit of saying with a
certain pride that I did not like poetry.
_April._ Every Friday evening Mr. Sass comes and we read Italian
together, which is delightful. I have studied a little alone, and when I
was about thirteen, to every one’s great amusement, I used to take an
hour’s lesson in the afternoon, once a week, from M. Pose. I have always
loved languages and Italian is especially beautiful, and in singing it
is such a help to know it. Now we are reading Goldoni’s plays, and the
Italian is so simple, it is very easy to read, very different from the
Jerusalem, which we read first. My mind is so eager for knowledge, it is
positively uncanny, it springs forward so to meet things, I fear me it
is more than usually true of me that “Knowledge comes but wisdom
lingers.”
I need ballast so much, if I had only had a man’s education. A good
course of mathematics under a severe master would help me greatly, and I
need help.
The only form of amusement that the young men could afford was boating,
and soon after we began the school, Charlie sent to the plantation and
got Brother to send down to him one of the rowboats. Rainbow, the pride
of the plantation, had been lent to the Confederate Government, for use
on the fortifications and we never got her back, but Brother sent the
next best and it was a fine rowboat. Charlie named it the Countess, and
he and his friends had great pleasure in her; Tom Frost, Arthur Mazyck,
William Jervey, James Lesesne and himself were the crew, and they
invited their girl friends to the most delightful moonlight rows. They
went on long fishing trips on Saturdays and all their holidays, coming
back happy but their faces pealing from sunburn. The exercise kept them
in good health and spirits.
_May, 1869._ Things are moving on rapidly. When Mamma applied for her
dower, she said she would take a sixth of the real estate in fee simple,
instead of a third for life only; she has received information that the
creditors appointed a board of Appraisers, to value the property and
decide, and after careful valuation they have decided that the
plantation, Chicora Wood, where she has always lived will constitute a
sixth of the land in value, and have awarded her that. It is too
delightful! and she is so happy, and we are all so happy, for the idea
of giving up Chicora was dreadful, and we feared they would think it too
valuable for a sixth. It has all to be repaired as the house is all torn
to pieces, but Mamma has been so wonderful that she has invested more
than a thousand dollars every year of the school, and she has begged
Brother to engage carpenters and begin the restoration of the house and
out-buildings at once, so that it will be ready for us next winter. I
only wish my heart was not so heavy about going.
The packing up of all our belongings was a tremendous business, but in
this as in everything else Charley was most efficient, and he did it
with a good heart, as it was the greatest happiness to him that we were
moving back to Chicora, and that he was going to plant the place. Jinty
was also perfectly happy, the thought of being able to live on horseback
once more filled her with joy. I, only, was downhearted; to me human
nature had become more interesting than plain nature, and people more
fascinating than plants. So I determined to apply for a place as
music-teacher in the town of Union, S. C., which had been held by a very
charming friend of mine who played beautifully, Caro Ravenel. The family
did not approve of my doing this as mamma thought I needed rest;
anyway, we were to go to the pineland for the summer and I would not
have to leave for Union until the autumn.
I remember well the last Sunday we were to be in Charleston; during the
service I was so moved that I had to put down my heavy veil to conceal
my tears!
Just at this time a most wonderful thing happened: mamma got a letter
from our cousin, John Earl Allston, of Brooklyn, N. Y., saying:
“MY DEAR COUSIN:
“I have placed to your credit in the Bank of Charleston the sum of
$5,000, which I hope will be useful to you.
“You need feel no sense of obligation in receiving it, for it is
not one-half of what my Cousin Robert, your husband, did for me and
mine in the past. When my mother’s house was to be sold over her
head, he bought it in and gave it to her, and many other things he
did for us, and it is a great pleasure to me to be able to do this
for his widow and family.”
Of course, this was as great a blessing as it was a surprise. It so
happened that my mother had, in looking over some old papers recently,
come upon a letter to my father, with a memorandum on the back in papa’s
handwriting: “Application from John E. Allston, for an increase in the
amount of allowance made to his brother Washington, as his health is
much worse, and the expenses heavier; have directed that it be in future
$500, instead of $300, as heretofore.” But she knew nothing about the
purchase of the home.
It was too wonderful that this great good luck and mercy should come to
us just at this moment, when it would enable mamma to buy things
necessary to the beginning of the planting; for she not only had to
repair the house at Chicora, but she would have to buy in her own horses
and cows and oxen (which last are absolutely necessary to ploughing the
rice-lands, as their cloven hoofs do not sink in the boggy land, in
which a horse would go down hopelessly); also ploughs and harrows and
wagons and carriages, all had to be paid for; so dear, unknown Cousin
John had chosen the psychic moment to appear as _deus ex machina_.
Afterward Cousin John visited mamma at Chicora Wood, and we came to know
and love him. He told with the most beautiful simplicity of the long and
terrible struggle he had to make a living; like many an Allston he
lacked entirely the commercial instinct, and it was much easier for him
to spend money than to make it; but he had managed to have a home in
Brooklyn, and support his wife and one daughter in very moderate
comfort, until this adored only child reached the age of sixteen; then
she grew pale and thin, without life, or spirit, or appetite, and terror
seized the parents; the doctor called in said: “She must travel; this
city air is killing her. Take her away at once to the mountains, and you
may save her.” He had prescribed what to him seemed simple, but to the
distracted father, who was straining every nerve just to provide daily
food, it was utterly out of reach!
John Earl Allston had a very rich uncle, his mother’s brother, but once
in the past, being in distress for money, he had written to ask a loan
from him, not a large sum, and promising to pay by a certain date, when
his income should come next. He not only did not receive the loan, but
the refusal was almost insulting, to the effect that he, the uncle, had
worked for his money, and he strongly advised his nephew to do the same,
and not try to borrow. So Cousin John knew there was no use to apply to
him again, and there was no one else; the war was going on, and so my
father was not accessible, and he had just to watch his darling fade
away and die. Then his wife was so agonized over the misery of seeing
death creep nearer and nearer and finally take her lovely child, that
her health gave way. The doctor when called made the same prescription:
“The only way to save her is to give her change of air and scene.” As
before, this was impossible, and she soon was laid beside her child.
About a year after Cousin John was left desolate and alone, the uncle
died, and he was notified that he had inherited a fortune! It was most
terrible to him. All that money, one hundredth part of which could have
saved his beloved wife and daughter, to spend on himself alone!
It was truly dust and ashes, and intensified his sorrow. Then, when he
found himself getting bitter and unlike himself, he called a halt.
“Cousin,” he said, “I made up my mind to spend my time in giving away my
money while I was alive, and have at least the enjoyment of making
people happy by a little timely present, and you don’t know how their
letters have helped me, for I find so many to whom a few thousand
dollars are as great a boon and relief as a few hundred would have been
to me in my poverty. I did not know how much happiness I was going to
get out of it.”
I think this is a good place to stop, for all of us were happy in the
thought that my dear mother’s laborious life as the head of a large
school was to end so happily, and that she would be able to rest and
have time for the reading she so loved, and return to the country life
which had become second nature to her, though conditions were so greatly
changed, and she would certainly not have to complain of too many
servants. I hope I have drawn her portrait and that of my father clearly
enough for their children’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren to
form some idea of their characters. It is with that hope and desire I
have drawn this imperfect sketch, and I will be perfectly repaid for my
efforts if I succeed in interesting them in the past.