_Nov. 7._ Everybody has been at work this week digging their winter
crop of sweet potatoes, planted with slips in July. They bear famously
on all three of my plantations, yielding in some cases two hundred
bushels per acre. You know I told every man to plant for his own
family separately, so that each one takes the potatoes home to his own
yard and buries them, for winter use. They dig a hole about four or
five feet in diameter and one foot deep, in which they pack the
potatoes and pile them up above ground in a conical heap about four
feet high. So when done they look like a sort of overgrown muskrat's
nest, or small wigwam.[71] Large families have in some cases seven or
eight of these conical heaps in their back yards.
The mellowing effect of the potato harvest upon the hearts of the
people is manifest. Yesterday was a rainy day and the women kept
straggling up here in squads all day. Each one brought a basket of
potatoes on her head, from a peck to half a bushel, as a present to
me. Uncle Sam and Joe are making a cone of them in the yard. Many of
the children bring ground-nuts, of which I now have half a bushel.
They have raised a good crop of them this year, and we amuse ourselves
evenings by roasting them in the ashes of our open fire and munching
them at leisure. I endeavor to acknowledge all these good-will
offerings in kind, by making deposits of sugar or coffee in the
baskets after emptying the nuts.
We live in the dining-room now, that being the only room without
broken glass, and even there I can't get the thermometer above 60°
with all the fire I can build.