“(Saturday morning.)
“We are both better. Josiah’s fever is off, but he is very
weak.”
That the wife should begin the love-full epistle, “My dear Mr. Smith,”
and sign it, “your own Judy,” seems the queerer to modern readers when
it is considered that her husband was also her cousin, and had married
her niece as his first wife. Few wives called their lords by their
Christian names a hundred years back, and the custom is not yet fully
established in the Southern States.
The few letters written by my grandfather that have been preserved
until now show him to have been a man of sincere piety, sterling sense,
and affectionate disposition. One herewith given betrays what a wealth
of tenderness was poured out upon his fairy-like wife. It likewise
offers a fair sketch of the life of a well-to-do Virginia planter of
that date.
His wife was visiting her Montrose relatives.
“OLNEY, _March 30th, 1814._
“With inexpressible pleasure I received yours by Mr. Mosby.
I rejoice that the expected event with our dear sister has
turned out favorably, and that you, my dear, are enjoying
better health.
“I hope that you will not be uneasy about my lonely
situation. Every one must know that it cannot be agreeable,
but when I consider that you may be benefited by it, and
even that your health may be restored (which we have reason
to hope for), what would I not forego to secure so great a
blessing!
“I have kept close at home, except when I went to meeting
on Sabbath, and to town to-day to hear from you. During the
day I have been busy, and at night have enjoyed the company
of good books until ten or eleven o’clock, then gone to bed
and slept tolerably well. I eat at the usual times, and have
as good health as usual. Thus situated, I will try to be as
comfortable as I can until God shall be pleased to bring us
together again.
“Some of our black people are still sick. Amy is much
better, and speaks plainly. Rose is but poorly, yet no
worse. Nanny is in appearance no better. Becky has been
really sick, but seems comfortable this evening. The doctor
has ordered medicine which will, I hope, restore her to
health. Oba was a little while in the garden on Monday, but
has been closely housed ever since. His cough is very bad,
and I suppose him unable to labor.
“I wish to come for you as soon as possible, and I would,
if I could, rejoin you to-morrow. The election would not
keep me, but I have business I wish to attend to this week,
and also to attend the meeting of the Bible Society at the
Capitol on Tuesday. I hope to see you on Wednesday. I wish
you to be prepared to come home with me soon after that.
With regard to Betsy, I don’t expect she will be ready to
come home with us, and, if she could, I dread riding an
ill-gaited horse thirty miles. Mr. Mosby’s carriage is to go
to Lynchburg in a few days, and he talks of returning home
by way of Prince Edward, and bringing the two Betsies home.
The carriage will be empty. I shall persuade him to be in
earnest about it.
“Now, my dear, I must conclude with committing you to the
care of our Heavenly Father. May He keep you from every
evil! Give my love to the dear family you are with. May you
be a comfort to them, and an instrument in the hands of God
to do them good! Kiss my little ones for me, and tell them I
love them!
“Your own affectionate,
“WM. S. SMITH.”
The matter-of-fact manner in which the writer hints at the ride of
thirty miles upon the ill-gaited horse he would have to bestride
if the women, babies, and maid filled the family chariot, and his
intention of making Mr. Mosby “earnest” in the scheme of despatching
his empty carriage to Lynchburg—a distance of one hundred and forty
miles—returning by way of Prince Edward, eighty miles from Olney—to
fetch “the two Betsies” home, was a perfectly natural proceeding in the
eyes of him who wrote and of her who read. There was not so much as a
stage-coach route between the two towns. Heavy as were the carriages
that swung and creaked through the red mud-holes and corduroy roads
that did duty for thoroughfares all over the State, they were on the go
continually, except when the mud-holes became bottomless and the red
clay as sticky as putty. Then men and women went on horseback, unless
the women were too old for the saddle. The men never were.
It was, likewise, an everyday matter with our planter that five of his
“black people” should be down “sick” at one time. The race had then, as
they have to our day, a penchant for disease. Every plantation had a
hospital ward that was never empty.
A letter penned three years earlier than that we have just read:
“We are going on bravely with our subscription for building
a meeting-house. Yesterday was the first of my turning out
with subscription-paper. I got 162 dollars subscribed, with
a promise of more. We have now about 1800 dollars on our
subscription-list, which sum increases at least 100 dollars
a day. I hope, with a little help that we have reason to
expect from New York, we shall soon be able to begin the
work, which may the Lord prosper in our hands!”
The “meeting-house,” when constructed, was popularly known as the
“Pineapple Church,” from the conical ornament topping the steeple.
As Richmond grew westward and climbed up Shockoe Hill, the First
Presbyterian Church was swept up with the congregation to another site.
The deserted building was bought by the Episcopalians, and christened
“Christ Church.” As long as it stood it was known by the “old-timers”
as the “Old Pineapple.”
The daughters of Captain Sterling’s first wife were Mary and Elizabeth
(the “Betsy” of his letters). She married Rev. Thomas Lumpkin, whom
she met on one of her visits to Prince Edward County, where her aunt,
Mrs. James Morton, lived in the vicinity of Hampden Sidney College. Her
husband lived but seven months from the wedding-day, and she returned
to Olney and the fostering care of her father and the second mother,
who was ever her fast and tender friend. There, in the house where she
was born, she laid in her stepmother’s arms a baby-girl, born four
months later. The posthumous child became the beloved “Cousin Mary” of
these memoirs. She had been the petted darling of the homestead five
years when her mother married again, and another clergyman, whom I
shall call “Mr. Carus.” He was a Connecticut man who had been a tutor
in the Olney household before he took orders. For reasons which will
appear by-and-by, I prefer to disguise his name. Others in his native
New England bear it, although he left no descendants.
From my mother I had the particulars of the death-scene in that
first-floor “chamber” in the homestead, when, on a sultry August
day (1820), “the longest, saddest day I have ever known”—said the
daughter—the dainty, delicate creature who was soul and heart to the
home passed away from earth.
My mother has told me how the scent of white jessamine flowed into the
room where grief was hushed to hearken for the failing breath.
Dr. Rice’s niece leaned over the pillow in which the girl of fourteen
smothered her sobs in clinging to the small hand so strangely cold.
“She does not breathe!” the weeper heard the friend whisper. And in a
moment more, “Her heart does not beat!”
I have dwelt at length upon the character and life of my maternal
grandmother because of my solemn conviction that I inherit what humble
talent is mine from her. I cannot recall the time when everything
connected with her did not possess for me a sweet and weird charm; when
the fancy that this _petite_ woman, with a heart and soul too great for
her physique, was my guardian angel, did not stay my soul and renew my
courage in all good emprises.
Her profiled portrait hangs before me as I write. The features are
finely chiselled and high-bred; the expression is sweet. She wears a
close cap with a lace border (she was but fifty-three at death!), and a
crimped frill stands up about a slender neck.
My fantasy may be a figment of the imagination. I cherish it with a
tenacity that tells me it is more. That my mother shared it was proved
by her legacy to me of all the books and other relics of her mother
she possessed at the time of her own decease, and the richer legacy of
tales of that mother’s life and words, her deeds of mercy and love,
which cannot but make me a better woman.
The mortal remains of my patron saint lie in the old family
burying-ground. War, in its rudest shape, swept over the ancestral
acres for two years. Trees, centuries old, were cut down; ruffian
soldiery camped upon and tramped over desolated fields; outbuildings
were destroyed, and the cosey home stripped of porches and wings,
leaving it a pitiful shell. Captain Sterling had fought at Germantown
and Monmouth, leading his Henrico troopers in the train of Washington
and Gates. And Northern cannon and Southern musketry jarred his bones
after their rest of half a century in the country graveyard!
Yet—and this I like to think of—the periwinkle that opens its blue eyes
in the early springtime, and the long-stemmed narcissus, waving its
golden censers above the tangled grasses, spring from the roots _her_
dear hands buried there one hundred years ago.