_Saturday, May 3._ Directly after breakfast I mounted the pony,
followed by Tom to open the gates. In this way we proceeded to Fripp
Point, the plantation which belongs to this one. Just before we
reached the Point, Tom started my horse, and before I knew it I was on
the ground from the saddle's having turned under me. The horse behaved
perfectly well, and I mounted and rode on towards the quarters (there
is no white people's house here), where I could see St. Helena Village
across the creek--a Deserted Village of a dozen or more mansions with
their house-servants' cabins behind them, and two churches in a large
pine wood, free from underbrush, where there are only one mulatto
woman and her two children, belonging to this place, the sole
occupants.[28] The village is directly on the creek on a bluff like
that on which Beaufort is situated, about eight feet high, and is the
place where the white people used to spend the summers for health and
society--those who did not go North to travel, or to Beaufort. This
Fripp family had a house in each place, besides this one at Pine
Grove. As he [Tom] walked alongside the horse, I questioned him about
the old family, and found that it consisted of William Fripp and his
wife Harriet, their four sons and a daughter. The old man they all
speak of with respect as a "good marn." Mass' Washington they
represent as not liking the war,[29] and papers have been found which
prove this true. Mass' Clan's was a doctor and very kind, and lived at
the village--"bes' young massa we hab." Mass' Eden lived alone on this
place, and was from all accounts a very bad man. With only one meal a
day, he lived on whiskey, and, beyond his own control most of the
time, he used to "lick wus 'an fire." The tree in the yard to which
they were tied, their feet a foot or more from the ground, while he
used the raw cowhide himself, has the nails in it now which prevented
the rope from slipping--Flora showed it to me from my window. They do
not talk much unless we question them, when they tell freely. As I
opened shop this afternoon, old Alick, head-carpenter and a most
respectable man, opened the cupboard door in the entry, but when he
saw our dishes shut it with an apology, saving that it was an old
acquaintance and he wanted to see what it was used for now. "I get
sixty lash for makin' dat two year Christmas, and hab to work all
Christmas day beside." Well, Alick, those days are over for you now.
"Tank de Lord, missus, tank de Lord."
By afternoon my hip was swollen and painful. I did not go downstairs
again that night; but hearing them laugh at the dinner-table over some
experience of Mr. G.'s, found it was this. He had been telling them
[his pupils] that it was necessary that they should be punctual, study
hard, and behave well in order to have a good school, and talking to
them Saturday night about the fresh week that was coming, in which
they must try hard, asked what three things were necessary for a good
school. A question which was received in profound silence, for it is
almost impossible to make them put that and that together, till one
boy about nineteen rose and said very solemnly, "Father, Son and Holy
Ghost!"