From H. W.
Dec. 16. Had the children sent for to school. They brought eggs, and were pleased enough to begin school again.
Dec. 18. Told the children yesterday that I wanted them to bring me some corn “shucks,” as they call them, which are all left on the stalks in the fields. Mr. Philbrick thought I could get enough to stuff a bed with. I thought so too when the children all appeared with sheets and bags full on their heads, some containing two or three bushels!
Dec. 20. C. managed to get the piano downstairs this morning before he went off. I went with him in the double sulky as far as the cotton-house and then made an expedition to the quarters, where I shook hands with every man and woman to be seen, inspected every new baby (there have been a dozen born since I went away), visited Bacchus in his school, was kindly greeted, though the people hardly knew me and I don’t know their names at all, was told that I looked “more hearty” than when I went away, and returned with two dozen eggs and the morning school at my heels.
Two dozen eggs at fifty cents a dozen was no mean proof of affection!
Dec. 21. We started for church. C. rode his largest horse and preceded or followed me in the double sulky, an unpainted box with a seat in it, of Mr. Philbrick’s manufacture and quite “tasty” for these parts, on a single pair of wheels; and though it is on springs the exercise is not slight which one gets in driving over these sandy, uneven roads.