_Dec. 10._ We were surprised by a green carryall coming down the road
drawn by some army horses, hay-fed and round. The passengers were a
Mr. Paige, a correspondent of the _Tribune_, and his friend, a Mr.
Baldwin from Cleveland. I had met them in one of my trips between
Hilton Head and Beaufort, and after answering several questions asked
them to come and see me, but I didn't think they would take the pains.
Mr. Paige asked questions enough to pump me dry while here, but I
don't believe he will be much the wiser, for he asked some three or
four times over. I took them down to the praise house in the evening
and, Uncle Sam being ill of "fever and pain in head," I helped with
the hymns and read a chapter from the Bible. Old Aaron and George
prayed, Doll's Will told off a hymn from memory, and George repeated
one, as I think, from his own brain, putting in all the couplets he
could remember, and hunting over his brain for each one while they
were singing the last. My visitors were very much interested, and were
chiefly pleased with the earnestness and simplicity of their worship,
remarking that they were fortunate in not being bothered with
doctrine. I am afraid they didn't get much of an idea of our schools,
for the only girl they asked to spell happened to be Caroline, whom
they met in the street. She is only half-witted, you know, and didn't
do her teachers much credit. I should like to see what Mr. Paige has
to say about our doings in the _Tribune_. I asked him not to mention
the name of this plantation, for I didn't want to call the attention
of the Coffin family upon us any more than I could help. He asked me
for the names of any superintendents and teachers here, but I told him
they didn't care to be brought before the public.
I was curious to know how much cotton could be got from a certain
amount of seed. I ginned just five pounds of cotton and had thirteen
pounds of seed left, being over a peck, for it weighs forty-four
pounds to the bushel. The people were very much amused to see me gin
so long, and wondered that I had the strength for it. You know they
consider us rather effeminate in regard to strength, but I did not
find it nearly so hard work as I supposed. It is not half as hard as
mowing.
_Dec. 13._ Mr. Wells had his cotton about half ginned when there came
a posse of men from the First South Carolina Regiment, without a white
officer, to hunt after deserters on his plantation. They met the men
they wanted and shot them all three in broad daylight; one is badly
wounded and may not recover, but the others probably will. After
shooting one man they were going away to leave him, and Mr. Wells went
and took care of him and sent him to the hospital.
_Dec. 17._ The people were all at work ginning cotton, and the new
mechanic Nero, whom we found at the White place, was putting the
engine in order. This engine serves as a moral stimulus to keep the
people at work at their hand-gins, for they want to gin all the
cotton by hand, and I tell them if they don't get it done by the
middle of January I shall gin it by steam. The result will probably be
that there will be little left for the steam-engine to do. But it will
do no harm to put it in order and then I can grind corn with it next
summer. The weight of all my cotton is now 287,790 pounds[150] in
seed. The samples which I sent to Liverpool were appraised there as
worth forty-eight to fifty pence, which, if exchange remains as high
as at present, would make our crop worth $100,000 in Liverpool. This
is as much as I had ever estimated I should realize from it.