yes on his own plantations, burst into tears. It is disgusting
that any Massachusetts regiment should be mixed up with such savage
treatment, and that the Twenty-Fourth should be is shameful in the
extreme.

_Feb. 20._ To-day all the people were on the Bay "drawing seine" when
I came out of morning school, and as that is a process I have wished
to see I ran down to the beach myself between whiles. Here was a droll
enough scene indeed. They had made one "drawing" and were just casting
the seine again as I walked along for half a mile towards the
drum-hole.[109] The shell-banks, which are exposed at low tide, were
fringed with small children with baskets and bags which they were
filling with oysters and conchs. Rose followed me as guide and
protector, jabbering away in her outlandish fashion to my great
entertainment, and was very much afraid that the oyster-shells, over
which she walked with impunity with bare feet, would cut up my heavy
leather boots. I could go out to the very edge of one of these curious
shell-banks, and the seine was drawn up almost at my feet. The net was
laid on a boat which was hauled out into the water by the men, who
were up to their waists, then dropped along its full length, which is
very great, and gradually hauled in shore again with two or three
bushels of fish in it, and any number of crabs, which the children
pick up very carefully and fling ashore. There were about thirty men,
and you would have thought from the noise and talking that it was a
great fire in the country, with no head to the engine companies and
every man giving orders. They were good-natured as possible, but
sometimes their gibberish sounds as if they were scolding. The boys,
with their pantaloons, or what answer for sich, rolled up to their
knees, were hauling at the rope or picking up the crabs and making
them catch hold of each other till they had a long string of them.
Another mode of proceeding with them--for a crab-bite is a pretty
serious thing--is to hold an oyster-shell out, which they grab, and
then with a quick shake the claw is broken off, and they are harmless.
A large bass having been taken in the haul I witnessed, it was laid at
my feet for my acceptance, and then, the girls following, most of the
boys staying to see the third drawing, I wended my way back to school.

_Feb. 21._ Such steady shop that C. could not get off very early and
sold a barrel of flour before he departed. Shop is a great nuisance,
b