"We come
for see you!"

As I drove up to the house [at Coffin's] the yard really looked
attractive, as it has some grass in it, though I had not thought the
house so. But a day's work has made a vast change, and to-night it
looks quite habitable. It was built in good style originally, but it
is very old, and has been so abused by the negroes in the first
place, and then from having had soldiers living in it for so many
months, it is very shabby. It must have been handsomely furnished, to
judge from the relics, for they are nothing more--rosewood tables,
sideboards and washstands with marble tops, drawers and doors broken
in and half gone, sofas that must have been of the best, nothing left
but the frame; no one can conceive of the destruction who has not seen
it. The rooms are twelve feet high, and the lower story is more than
that from the ground. The air is delicious, and we shall find the
blinds which are on the second story a luxury. I have my own little
bed, bureau, marble-top washstand, _three_ chairs and a large
wardrobe, to say nothing of a piano, in my chamber, which is I should
think eighteen feet square.

FROM W. C. G.

_May 30._ Schools are getting on pretty well, I suppose,--slowly, of
course. A few are really bright,--a few really dull; the larger
part--like the same proportion of white children--could creep, walk,
or trot, according to the regularity with which they are driven, and
the time devoted to their books. While we have been living at Pine
Grove, there have been five schools daily, teaching about one hundred
and forty scholars.

FROM H. W.

_May 30._ We have moved just in time, I guess, for the weather will
grow warmer now. Between eight and eleven is the warmest part of the
day; after that the sea-breeze is sure to come up.

_May 31._ There is a line cut through the trees all across the
islands so that they can see the light-house from Beaufort. I asked
Tom who cut it, as I rode over the other day, and he said, "Yankee cut
it." "Since the Fort was taken?" "Long time ago." "The old Masters cut
it, then?" "No, Secesh neber cut down trees, make nigger do it; poor
white men cut 'em." I finally came to the conclusion that it must have
been done by the Coast Survey. I daresay they think we are all "poor
white." Mary, a mulatto here, told Mr. G. his clothes would be fifty
cents per dozen for washing; that she used to have seventy-five cents
in Charleston, "for real gentle folks!"

_Sunday