t she could hardly carry. The trunks go
like smoke, so do the firkins and other domestic wares.

From H. W.

_Dec. 1._ Uncle Nat, who has carried the plantation keys for forty
years, giving out all the allowance for people and creatures, and has
done no field work for that length of time, has had an acre and a half
of cotton this year, and has raised the largest proportion, six
hundred pounds seed-cotton per acre, of any one on the place. He lives
at Pine Grove with his wife, but plants here for old association's
sake, and the other day, when C. made the last cotton payment, he gave
Nat's money to his sister, Nancy. The next morning Nat was up here
early and took his hat off to the ground to C. "Came to thank you for
what you send me yesterday, Sar--much obliged to you, Sar (with
another flourish and scrape). I well sat-is-_fy_, and jest as long as
the Lord give me life and dese ole arms can do _so_ (imitating the
motion of hoeing), I work cotton for you, Sar!"

FROM E. S. P.

_Dec. 5._ Our cotton crop is about all in, though some people are
still in the field gleaning. They glean very carefully now, and don't
allow a single pod to escape them. I have about one hundred gins now
in running order, and expect to have fifty more, all going in another
week.

FROM H. W.

_Dec. 10._ I rode down to see the work. It was a busy scene--a whipper
on each arbor with a child atop to fill the machine, which is used to
lash the dirt out of the cotton before ginning and make it easier to
gin; then the gins were all at work--the women were sorting--the men
packing--potato-vines were being brought in to be weighed, carts and
oxen carrying seed--altogether such a busy piece of work as one does
not often see here.

FROM E. S. P.

_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