the
mule-cart with all my traps, and Chester following me. The children
all asked about school at once, and as I was waiting I drew words for
them to spell in the sand to see how much they remembered.

FROM C. P. W.

_Dec. 14._ I am glad H. came, for Mr. Philbrick has decided that he
cannot attend to his plantations and his cotton-agency at the same
time, and needs some one to take his place here. He thinks of buying
the place in the spring, when the lands are sold (Feb. 1), and I have
agreed to work it for him part of the time. So that, as some one must
take Mr. Philbrick's place, and as the people had better have me than
a stranger, and as I had better become acquainted with them at once,
if I am to have charge of them in the spring, I have decided to take
the places off his hands, stay here with H., and let my own
plantations go to as good a person as I can find. H. is most welcome
and much needed here; I am thankful to have her here, if only for the
children's sakes. The only difficulty is that she may be devoured on
her first visit to Pine Grove.

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