MY BOOK - Part I

Well, if the dear ones who have ministered to me so tenderly and patiently during my affliction -- when perhaps I have been enacting and hard to please -- will linger lovingly over these pages when I am gone remembering only my good qualities, I shall be amply rewarded for all the pain it cost me to write it.

My Book
Part I
Chapter I

From my earliest recollections I have been a "dreamer of dreams and a lover of beauty" and have lived in an ideal world. The forms and shadows about me seemed real living beings instead of the creatures of my imagination. The earth to me was a beautiful poem written by the finger of  God, the mountains were the pillars of His throne, the grand primeval forests His temple and the rushing rivers sang beautiful anthems in His praise.

I do not wonder that the ancient Greeks worshiped the mountains as the abode of the Gods, and propheted [sic] all their dells and vales, and streams with sylphs and nymphs. They were an ideal people and worshiped beauty everywhere, and their ideals so pure and lovely lifted them up on a higher plane of culture and refinement than the nations around them. Even the Romans, their conquerors, bowed to their superior taste and copied their models.

When I was a child we called our mountain land "The Switzerland of America" and surely no lovelier mountain or fairer skies looked down upon a more contented people. We seemed so near to Heaven. Often as I wondered [sic] among the scenes I loved so well, I heard or seemed to hear "the crystal flow of life's bright river." Oh! I could have dreamed my life away in a world so grand and beautiful, but time passed on and I was a woman and had to meet its stern realities and fight its battles. How well I succeeded eternity alone will reveal.

It remained for the tourist to awaken and interest in the beauty of our mountain scenery. The native mountaineer -- though intensely devoted

"A primrose by the river's brirm
As a yellow primrose was to him
And it was nothing more.

Many of them though are splendid types of true noble men and women. Many of their homes, though plain and simple, were patterns of neatness and the gentler virtues found in a dwelling place there. Their language, though rough and uncultured, partook of the wild grandeur of their native mountain, the rush of the torrent, the echo of their granite cliffs, and the roar of the storm. Could we have lifted the veil that hid their inner lives? There would have been much that was lovely and beautiful -- themes for the poet's pen and painter's pencil.

Grey's descriptions of the rude forefathers in his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" always reminded me of the mountain people. "Far from the maddening throngs ignoble ships," they always seemed willing to take their quiet way without troubling about what was taking place in the outside world. They lived and loved and worshipped God according to the dictates of their consciences and were true in their devotion to their country. They were deeply pious, and whenever there was enough of them settled to make a community, you would find a log house, 20 by 25 feet, if they could get logs enough, with a fireplace at one end and pulpit at the other, and the doors opening from the sides. That was the "meeting house" and from within its walls went up the songs of prayer and praise as incense to the throne of God.

I remember one dear old Baptist minister who preached in a log house near my fathers, and my father though of a different persuasion, gave them the land

"The time has fully rolled around,
This meeting must be closed
And we will take the parting hand,
If you are so disposed."

On other occasions he sometimes sang --

"Farewell my dear brethren,
The time is at hand,
That we must be parted from this Sacred hand,
Our revival engagements now call us away,
Our parting is needful and we must obey."

While he was singing the deacon brethren and sisters would gather around him shaking hands with him and mingling their tears with his. Oh! I thought my heart would break with the agony of the parting. It seemed to me the "last sad farewell on the shores of time," but children's hearts are soon comforted.

My parents would invite him to stop and take dinner with them, as their house lay in his route home, I was so glad and happy that he would be shared to us that much longer before he would be launched out into the great unknown. I loved so much to listen to his general pleasant conversation and enjoy the wonderful magnetism of his presence. My mother would always make him a good hot cup of coffee for his dinner (and she could make the best cup
 

Camp meetings were an institution of that day. The people lived so far apart it was hard to get a good congregation then to follow the teachings of the Bible, that we must live in tents and booths art of the time. The men would select some beautiful grove near to one or two good springs of water and build rude tents, and thither once a year, they would repair and hold a camp meeting. They would fill their big schooners - (immense wagons with six or eight horses attached t them, and immense covers over the tops that made them look like little houses on wheels) - with blankets and cooked provisions enough to last a week or so, and have a good time socially and spiritually.

Under a long canopy in the middle of the encampment, the ministers would call the congregation together and preach, sing and pray. Much good was done. The people mingled together and preach, sing and pray. Much good was done. The mingled together socially - ( a thing they could not do easily on account of bad roads and the long distance between settlements) - and hearing the word preached and talking of their spiritual lives, they were strengthened and encouraged. The preachers preached with so much power and enthusiasm, that the mourners bench was usually crowded. The camp meeting seldom closed till the last sinner was converted. It was a glorious time and we, especially the younger members of the family, looked forward to it as to a great jubilee.

There was great excitement at times and religious enthusiasm ran high. Many laughable things were said and done, but for all that, much good was done, more than can ever be known in this world. The ministers, many of them, were plain unlearned men, but they had a work to perform. Their sermons, though not

CHAPTER II

I have written almost entirely about the native mountaineers, a class of people who came to the mountains about the time of the American Revolution. Some of them fled from the Indiana and others were outlawed and sought safety in the mountains. They gradually improved and became better citizens.

I now turn to another class, the aristocracy of the mountains. About the beginning of the century a great many young men, either from novelty or a spirit of adventure, came here bringing their young wives with them. They were usually sons of somebody and had titles such as Colonel, Captain, Major and Esquire, and were generally educated cultivated gentlemen and their wives refined nice gentle women. They bought or entered large boundaries of land, and built comfortable hewed log houses large enough for all their wants, settled their slaves comfortably around them, and as far as the times and circumstances permitted, lived after the style of the Old English country gentlemen. Their homes were the centers of all the domestic virtues and openhanded hospitality, and strangers always found a warm welcome under their roofs. Although they mixed and mingled with the mountaineers on pleasant terms and by their superior education, greatly benefited them. Still there was a difference and each class

The better class tried to improve the country by building better churches and schools, but it was a slow and difficult task. My mother's father, Col. James Lowry, belonged to this class. He came here from South Carolina and built the first brick house in Western North Carolina west of Asheville, and it was at his house I spent many of the happiest hours of my life. He was a man of fine culture and my Grandma was a refined gentle lady. They had a large family of daughters, my aunts who petted me, and a yard full of little negroes to play with me during the summer. Many of their relations and friends from the outside world came and made long visits. Grandpa was a splendid host and entertained them right royally. Grandma was a good housekeeper, and sunshine and joy and good cheer prevailed. It seemed to me it was Heaven or Heaven's border land.

Grandma was rather an invalid for many years before her death, but still she did a great deal of charitable work visiting the sick and needy and administering to their wants. She did not care to walk much on the damp ground, but was good horsewoman. Not unfrequently [sic] a servant would bring a horse to the door and lift her into the saddle without her stepping on the ground, and when she arrived at the houses she visited, they would lift her off the same way and sit her down inside. Then she would talk of their spiritual wants, attend to their temperate wants, and if they were sick give them medicine. Every lady understood medicine to some extent and from necessity practiced in her own family and often among the poor around them. We used to say Grandma went with a "balm of consolation in one hand and a cup of rhubarb in the other."

There was a large connection of Hills who lived in Georgia and were related to Grandpa. They came every summer and visited him and my mother also,

Among Grandpa's slaves was an old woman, "Aunt Pat" as we all called her, who was quite an important character. She was Grandpa's old nurse and had been instrumental in saving his life, and he showed much respect and had her very kindly treated. She went and came as she pleased and had no thought about what she should eat or what she should wear. We did not, any of us white or black, dared to disobey her or if we did she would threaten us with "Mass Jimmy" and that settled the matter at once. We all loved her and she was very kind to us.

Grandpa's father, David Lowry, lived in Georgia in Oglethorp County at the time of the American Revolution. He was killed in a skermish [sic] with the Indians and my great grandmother had to flee for her life across the Oglethorp River to a fort. She took Aunt Pat, who was then a girl and her three little children (Grandpa was the baby) and crossed the river in a canoe. When she reached the opposite bank, the Indians came to the one she had left and fired after her, but the range was too long and they did not hurt her. She and Aunt at scrambled up the bank of the river which was very steep and reached the fort in safety. They remained there till the close of the war and returned home.

Several years after that, Grandma married George Swain and removed to Asheville, N/C.  She was a very pious Christian and used to hold "cottage prayer meetings" in his house with other ladies. Their son, David L. Swain, was Governor of North Carolina for many years, and afterwards President of the University of North Carolina at chapel Hill to the close of his life.  Grandpa was the Governor's Council [sic] from Western North Carolina for many years and also filled many offices of trust in the State.

CHAPTER III

My father's father, James Gudger Esq., also lived in Western North Carolina and I visited at his house often when a child. Grandma had only one daughter and she was married quite young and she nearly always kept some of her grandchildren with her for company. Grandpa Gudger had a large family of boys, my uncles, and they were very kind to me and petted me terribly. Grandma was not very domestic and just left the cooking to the negroes. Sometimes they cooked up things a little messy and I was rather dainty and could not eat it. My uncles would make traps and catch birds for me. Grandpa would have the negroes to dress them and he would boil them in a little skillet he kept in his room to heat water. He would then send me to Aunt Milly, the cook, for some bread and I would eat them. Sometimes he would take in the smoke house and cut off thin slices of ham and say with a twinkle in his eye, "W must not let Millly know we are hacking and spoiling her ham as she want [sic] give us any for breakfast." He would boil them for me an oh, how good it tasted.

At other times he would bring in nice large potatoes and roast them in the fire and send me for butter and salt to eat with them, or he would have me to get slices of bread and butter and take me in the locked room, as he called the storeroom, and give me honey to eat with it. Our dear patient good old Grandpa. How kind he was to me and how I loved him. He always had something nice for me -- walnuts, hickory chestnuts and apples.

My youngest uncle and I were quite chummy and played together a great deal, though he was several years my senior. there was a grandfather's clock in the parlor that had a great fascination for us.  We would watch it for hours. One day my uncle opened the door and touched the hands and one of them broke off. He was very much frightened and asked me not to tell on him. a few days afterwards, one of my other uncles called up and asked if I broke the

There was no "meeting house" near Grandpa's and preaching was held in his parlor. On one occasion he had had his chairs painted and thought they would be dry by meeting day, but they were not as it developed afterwards. The day came and the servants had a huge fire built up in the parlor. The preacher came and took his stand behind a chair and as the room grew very warm, he perspired freely, using his hands and handkerchief to wipe his face. The result was that his face was nearly as black as the chair when he was through preaching. It was quite an amusing spectical [sic] to some of the younger members of the congregation, but was very embarrassing to him. The preacher usually remained for dinner after the meeting and sometimes all night. Grandma nearly always had a turkey for dinner and although she never, on ordinary occasions, took much interest in her cooking she would fuss around considerably and have the dinner brought up, though I have always suspected the house-maid had a greater hand in it than she had.

Grandma always kept two little girls to wait on her, having a bell by her to ring when she needed them. They were my playmates and when she gave me lumps of maple sugar and pieces of ginger bread and candy, I would divide with them. She always went once a year, when nothing prevented, to visit her daughter -- my aunt -- and usually remained one or two months. Sometimes Grandpa went with her if his business did not keep him at home. She always went in her carriage taking with her driver and her maid and kept them with her all the time of

Grandpa was a very intelligent cultured gentleman and was looked up to by those around him. His advise was always good and he was quite a peacemaker -- a character much to be desired. He was often elected to important offices in the state and was one of the numbers who formed the Constitution of North Carolina the we lived under so long.

CHAPTER IV

The houses, of even the better class of citizens, were very plainly furnished, owing to the difficulty of transporting furniture over the rough mountain roads. The ladies made rag carpets and brightened up their homes as much as they could with their own labor, but everybody was contented and happy. The country afforded plenty of game and fish for their tables and the land provided plenty of breadstuffs, milk and butter and also honey, were had for the trouble.

The men usually filled their mountain schooners once a year with such things as they could get sales for in Charleston, South Carolina or Augusta, Georgia and often would take large droves of fat hogs and bring back such things as their families needed. They usually employed some sturdy man or sometimes their sons to go along to do the trading. Many of them kept little stores and sent their schooners several times a year to bring back those articles needed by the people. They sometimes made considerable fortunes that way and were a great help to the country Appearances did not trouble us much. When you are in Rome, if you can, do a Rome does, then you are easy and contented.

CHAPTER V

There were not many musical instruments in the mountains at that period  -- only violins and guitars, etc., such as could be handled easily. some of the wealthiest people about Asheville had pianos, but west of there the first one brought in was at Waynesville in Haywood County. My great grandpa, Col. Robert Love, was the wealthiest and most prominent citizen of that county, and his son, James Love, being a young man of considerable promise, was elected to the Legislature from there. While at Raleigh he courted and married Miss Maria Commons, a young lady of rare accomplishments. When she came with her husband to Waynesville, she brought her piano with her. A few days after her arrival a countryman was standing in the street and hearing a donkey bray in that direction, ran into a house near by exclaiming, "Come quick, I hear Mrs. Love's music box." Another one called to see Mrs. Love one day and seeing a carpet on the floor, tipped round the edges of the room till near enough to reach the hearth, he made a big jump and landed in the center saying to the servant, "I did not want to walk on Mrs. Love's coverlet."

Mrs. Love was a very excellent lady, but she became so interested in the subject of religion that her mind got a little wrong. Everybody loved her and tried to divert her thoughts from a subject that caused her so much unhappiness. My aunt, Mrs. Johnston, who lived in the little village, made a dining one day for her benefit and invited all the ladies and their husbands in the place. Among them was a very prominent lawyer by the name of Francis who weighed over 200 pounds. He came with his wife rather late and was ushered by the servant into the parlor. Just as he went to bow to the ladies, his foot caught in the carpet and he fell full length on the floor. Oh! What a fall it was my countrymen. It seemed like the wacke [sic] of matter and the crush of worlds. Mrs. Love sprang to her feet clapping her hands saying, "Glory to God. Glory to God. Dagon has fallen before the Ark. Dagon has fallen before the Ark." It was quite em-

CHAPTER VI

Slavery never got a strong foothold in the mountains, though a good may wealth men owned considerable numbers of them. There always existed the most pleasant relations between the master and slave. We liked them and they liked us. Indeed the negroes did not have much respect for a man who did not own any.  When they went visiting among their friends, which they did oftentimes, they would tell us -- "That was a nice place to visit. Plenty of kinky heads there." I was never happier than when allowed to go to their cabins and sit beside their blazing log fires and listen to their wonderful stories. Sometimes they were ghost and witch stories and would frighten me so I would be afraid to go back to the "big house" as they called the white people's house.

My old nurse used to tell my sister and me long stories about the beauty and grandeur of Africa, its Kings and Queens, and the big ships that brought them over to America. I don't know where she learned them [the stories] for she was native born, but I suppose the older ones told her. She was a little woman and boasted that she was better blood than the others, for she was a "guinea negro." If we displeased her or were naughty, she would say, "You chillens better behave youselves. I'll go away off to Africa and leave you here crying." That struck a note of terror to our hearts. We expected every moment to see a ship, something in our minds like the mountain schooner, drive up to the door and take her off to Africa and we would never see her again. She had us then and we would have done anything to keep her from going. Dear old nurse, how we loved her.

There was an old white woman who lived near us that Mother often hired to come and sew for her, and often to stay with her family when she went visiting. We always hailed her coming with joy, for she told us long stories about their travels when they moved to the mountains, also about the Indians and then after they got settled here, of the "sugar camps, and how they made the maple sugar and syrup. I suppose that was all these influences that developed in me a taste for story telling. I have always had a penchant for it and used to gather my little sisters and brothers and sometimes the little darkies and tell them wonderful stories, oftentimes the product of my own imagination.

After I was married and had a family, I told my own dear children stories to beguile the tedium of the long winter night, and make them love me and their home. I am still telling stories to my grandchildren. I wonder if I will tell them to my great-grandchildren.

When my dear sister, Leonora Rice, died she gave me her two little boys to take care of and they stayed with me till their father married again and he took them home to live with him. They were about the ages of my two youngest children, and they played the live long day together and at night would get me to tell them stories. The two youngest, Mamie and Jimmie, would sit on the arms of my chair and other two, Maggie and Charlie, in little chairs at my feet. It was after my husbands death and sometimes my heart would ache so badly that I thought it would break, but I did not want to sadden their young lives so I

CHAPTER VII

When my sister and I were old enough, I was six years and she four, our parents sent us to school. The teacher was an old man very much crippled with rheumatism but we liked him very much. He kept a "birch rod" on all occasions and seemed to carry out the idea that its beauty lay in its application, but he never used it on us. We had learned our alphabet at home, but we learned to read at his school. Our route part of the way, lay along the public highway -- The Old State Road -- and we were afraid of everybody we met and especially the mountain schooners. The negroes told us they were full of Indians and British who had come over to make war on the United States, and when we saw or her them coming we took to the woods and hid behind logs or trees till they passed. If we did not see them in time and had to pass them, we did so expecting to be killed every minute. Poor little babies. How we suffered.

One day we saw a cavalcade coming and broke for the woods, but did not get there in time, and saw two or three carriages pass, one an open barouche in which two gentlemen sat. They were coffee colored and had very straight black hair and turned out to be the Siamese Twins, as we afterwards learned, were

They sent to England for two servant girls to marry them as no American girl would do so. They lived fourteen miles apart in order to keep domestic quiet, and in forty-eight hours of each other. Their names were Eng and Chang and they both had large families.

One day Sister and I cried so when we started to school that Mother sent our nurse along part of the way to comfort us. We would never consent for her to turn back and she went to the school house with us. We wanted her to go in and stay with us or let us go back home with her. The teacher came out and used all his arts of persuasion to get us to go in, and when he failed, he started to get the birch rod. That settled us. The idea that he should whip us, we dried our tears and marched in with the dignity of offended queens and tried to still the aching of our poor little hearts though it nearly killed us.

[...............................] school was at a different place and was a free school. We had to go through three farms, cross three creeks on foot logs and one mountain, and go around the head of a large mill pond, the waters of which ran a sawmill. There were three families of us who lived near enough for the children to go together. We usually met at one of the houses which lay on

From her house we all went in a body to the school house and seldom, if ever, had the least unpleasantness amongst us. Sometimes some of the little ones fell into some of the creeks, but the larger ones fished them out and we went on our way rejoicing. If the weather was cool, the boys would make up a log heap fire on the mountain side and we would all take a long rest and get warm.

The text books were the old blue-backed speller and the Testament and arithmetic, for let the mountaineers be as uneducated as they usually were, they all had an eye to loss and gain and generally understood "figgers" well enough to keep their accounts. After I had perfectly and thoroughly digested the old blue-backed speller from where Ann spun flax and the shad swan [?] to the boy who climbed up in the apple tree to steal apples and the maid who spilled her milk (my sister was not quite so well advanced), my mother requested the teacher to put me in geography. Even though he did not know a thing about it, he consented. I also took up artithmetic. We had no primary books then, and Noah Webster, who wrote the blue-back speller. I got along retty well. Mother helped me some and I spelled out all the hard names and skipped the hard places.

When I came to the arithmetic, I was put to ciphering without knowing one of

When I grew older and went to a better school, I saw into the rule and liked it. I always used it in costing  up my accounts. The children studied at the top of their voices and as I was now advanced into the sciences, I was permitted to take my books and studyd out of doors with the rest of the advanced students in order to avoid the noise in doors.

There was a large log at the end of the house that had not been cut up and we  got some old slabs and put them across it and see-sawed up and down all day for want of thought. One day we were laughing and making merry and the teacher hearing us came to the door with his birch rod and looked like a thunder storm. One young lady, rather a wit, said, "Oh, Mr. Trull don't schold [sic] us. Don't you see what we miss as we go up, and hit as we come down?" --- meaning our lessons. He looked at us in a hopeless sort of way, then turned and went into the house.

The next school we went to was to a lady who moved into our neighborhood and was represented as a fine scholar. We got on very well with geography and arithmetic. She wrote a beautiful hand and read well -- rare accomplishments -- but when it came to grammar, she stalled at the second part and did not know what to do with the passive verb but made us tense it with and objective case after it. She did not seem to understand the rule for nouns in

We were now nearing maidenhood, standing with reluctant feet where the brook and rivers meet, and our father sent us to the high school at Asheville to finish our education. It had attained the dignity of a college, but was little better than a high grade school. It was taught by a bright little Yankee who had a splendid college education, and he taught us well and correctly. I went first and my sister afterwards. He laughed at my passive ver with the objective case after it. When I told him how I studied natural phylosophy [sic], he said he wondered I had any sense at all and he would not have studied it that way for five hundred dollars, as he would certainly have expected nothing else but to have been a lunatic when he was done.

I learned nearly all I ever knew at this school and the great regret of my life was going to schools where it was only time wasted, but our parents did the best they could under the circumstances and regrets are useless. I had my benighted mind sufficiently enlightened to be able to help my own dear children with their studies when they went to school and to be able to enjoy reading the many entertaining books that have been brought into the country since then. When I was a child the only books we had outside of the Bible were books of sermons and commentaries on the scriptures and our minds could not grasp them easily.

CHAPTER VIII

When my sister and I were getting to be good sized girls, I was about twelve years old and she ten, our mother thought it time to begin teaching us some of the accomplishments of young ladies and set us to spinning, weaving and a knowledge of housekeeping which were thought to be essential to the education of a young lady to fit her to order her own household when she was married.

Marriage was the only opportunity held up to a young lady. From the time she was out of her pinafore till she entered that blessed state, she heard nothing else. She must learn this and that accomplishment so that she would know how to order her affairs when she got married, and an old maid was looked upon as a very unfortunate person. I had it dinned [sic] into my ears till I sometimes wanted to fly out of myself.

It was not so with the young men. they were encouraged to believe the mountains were too small for them to sprout out  in and were encouraged to go west where they could obtain homes to suit their widest aspirations and fortunes to match. Some of them came back and married wives among their playmates, but oftener than otherwise, some gay Lothario or some gallant young Lochinvar would come riding on his prancing thoroughbred from Virginia, Tennessee or eastern North Carolina and win a mountain lady for his bride. She would, not unfrequently [sic], go home with her husband riding on a horse her father gave her, and with her entire bridal trousseau packed in a carpit [sic] bag swung to the horn of her saddle. Smile not, ye daughters of this age of fashion with your dozen bandboxes and saratoga [sic] trunks. Some of those dear ladies of long ago are your grandmothers and real types they were or all that is good and beautiful. their husbands were known in the gates and rose up and called them blessed. I could cite you to many of them. --- the mothers of the Vances,

Well, my sister and I had to be taught along those lines and our mother gave us a spinning wheel and a pair of cards and sent us to a large room up stairs with the injunction to spin enough yarn to weave a blanket for one of our servants We spun the yarn, and we spun yarns out of our imaginations, and oh, such yarns. they were rich and racy and would have filled a book. I have often wished someone could have been stationed where they could have heard us and copied them. Our scenes were always laid in the wild west. We had heard our friends talk about the great rivers and plains, the prairies with their herds of buffaloes and wild horses,  the roving banks of Indians and the prairie fires till we seemed quite conversant with them.

At one of the schools we had attended was  a boy and girl we hated with a perfect hatred. I suppose if I could have killed them they would have died. We hated the boy because he dared to aspire to be our beau. We looked upon the girl as moral pollution, not worthy to so much as touch the hem of our garments. It was an unjust hatred, but children are children and as we grew older we tried to overcome it.

Well, they were our hereo [sic] and heroine, not because we wished to beautify their lives in any way, but because we wanted to pour out the vials of our wrath upon them. We had them get into the greatest difficulties, to encounter the most hair splitting adventures, to swim rivers, to be chased by Indians, to be surrounded by mad buffaloes, to be overtaken by prairie fires and everything else our imaginations could conjure up, but we never let them get killed and always brought them out by the skin of their teeth. We wanted to preserve them for future use so that we might "heap up coals of fire upon them." Poor foolish children. How wicked it was of us to do so and I hope we were forgiven by our Father in Heaven long ago. We must have been wretched ...

We had an aunt who lived in one of the western counties and she was richer than all the rest of our kinsfolk. She loved to make a neat display of wealth, we thought. She was a thousandaire [sic] as we had no millionaires and came once a year to visit her friends in
Asheville. She invariably stopped at my fathers and made it a short visit. She brought her maid and driver, sometimes a son  or daughter in a carriage, then another with his children and their nurses next, and then servants and outriders with baggage, etc., enough to set us all in a whirl of excitement. We thought she always tried to come when our mother was away visiting for she never apprised  us of her coming, when the servants were all at work and very elaborate preparations for dinner or supper, as the case might be, had to be made.

then if the house was not swept and garnished and our hair not combed and curled to perfection, she saw it all and made us feel it.

We did not enjoy her visits and after she was gone, we would spend whole hours in wishing her all sorts of disagreeable things; the worst of which was that a great riteness  [sic] of people -- such as one as Caesar took with him when he went to visit Cicero -- would come to her house very unexpected and find her without a bite prepared for dinner and all the servants entirely gone -- not excepting her maid to help her dress -- and the house torn upside down, entirely topsy-turvy. We wanted her to suffer all the terror her visit had inspired in us. I think we misjudged her for afterwards when we were older and visited her, she was so kind to us and we felt the general warmth of that love and affection which prevailed in her whole household. We repented of your unjust wishes concerning her and felt differently towards her. She was indeed a most estimable lady and had many noble virtues..

CHAPTER IX

My sister was my constant companion in my childhood. We played together, walked together, shared each others joys and helped to bear each others sorrows. We built sandcastles together and when we saw them fall with a crash, destroying all our youthful hopes, we were not discouraged, but named up others on their ruins.

When we were quite small, our father built a new and more commodius [sic] house in the woods about a half mile from his plantation. He did so that he might be near a good spring of running water, for a well in those days was thought to be a great calamity. His was the first house built in our community with glass windows in it and was thought to be quite palatial. Thither, he brought his household goods and oh, we were so happy.

The woods were so lovely and there we built our playhouses and set up minnie [sic] housekeeping. We made them of moss, brightening them up with bits of glass and broken china and poled in our gardens with goose quills. There we brought our rag and stick dolls, for we had no other and played the live long day. I think a doll such as the children have at the present day would have set us wild, but we were happy in our blissful ignorance.

Oh, the stick horses we had an how we rode them. Sometimes they would prance and caper so we could hardly keep our seats, and at other times would kick up and throw us off. When any ladies visited our mother, we would ride up to the door with a led horse by our side and invite them to visit us, cautioning them to be careful how they rode as our horses might throw them. They would humor our joke and tell us we were neat housekeepers and very nice little girls.

Our oldest brother was younger than we and wanted to play with us as he had no playmates. We loved him very much and did not rebell [sic] though I fear we made him feel it sometime., We did not think it was the proper thing to have

One day in the exuberance of my joy, I picked up a handfull of gravel and threw it up in the air to see it fall again, not knowing my brother was in the way. One pebble fell and struck him on the head, making a small gash which bled profusely. I thought I had killed him and oh, it seemed to me my heart would break. I fell down on the ground in agony and repented of all the sins of my life, and especially that I had never had an unkind thought in my head towards my dear little brother. When I found he would not die, I just gave him everything to make him happy. After that he always had a welcome place in our playhouse. Dear little brother, how kind he has been to me since then, repaying me a hundred-fold for all I ever did for him.

In our rambles we found many relics of the Indians such as arrow heads, pipes, etc., and that led us to inquire into the beautiful names and legends left behind them. We were disgusted to think the pretty Indian names had, many of them, given place to English names not nearly as pretty. There was one beautiful mound and river that in our eyes rivaled the great "Father of Waters" called French Broad instead of the beautiful Indian name Takleostee or racing waters. Then there was the lovely creek running through our father's plantation called Hominy and our lovely valley, that was to us beautiful as a dream, Hominy Valley instead of Connehannee. Another creek where some of our friends lived was called Sugar Creek instead of Cullasagee.

Our father's plantation spread out in broad fertile acres at the foot

Another farm our father owned in a large cove several miles away, where he sent his cattle in the summer and grew apples for our use in the winter. We did not know its Indian name but it was called the Billy Cove, and though we tried to have it changed to some prettier Scotch name, we never could and it is the Billy cove to this day.

As we grew older we extended our rambles and often visited the mountain near home. We gazed with kindling eyes on many a vale and landscape more beautiful than "cool cashmire [Kashmire]" or the fabled vales of "Arabs the blest," and llistened far down the glen to the "Sirens Song," and heard across the mountain tips the "horns of Elfland faintly blowing," and walked by the streams and in the vales "where walked the haunt of Chilhowee."

Mt. Pisgah, our mountain, had for us a wonderful fascination. It was the "Tomb of Moses" and the "Mount of God" where he came down and talked with his children of his love and mercy in the gentle winds and whispering breezes, or of his wrath and anger in the flash of the lightning, the roar of the thunder and the crash of tempest.

When we were grown and visited it with other friends, we found it only

CHAPTER V [?] X

When I was just about grown, I visited my relation in Franklin, Macon county and there just on the eve of a social party given in honor of a young married couple. I got an invitation of course and found everything real pleasant -- nice refreshments and good music -- but they turned it into a ball and danced till the "wee small hours against the twall." All the people in the little town where Methodists and dancing was to them the abomination of abominations -- the very road to perdition.

The next day the minister came around to see the young people for they were all members of his church. Well, such a weeping and wailing and repenting of sins you never saw I was glad I was well out of it, for I did not belong in his jurisdiction. It did seem like the earth would open and swallow them up. I did not dance for I did not know how. Mother did not wish me to learn although my father had been a fine dancer and wished to teach his children. I looked on well pleased and it is a wonder my eyes had not been put out for my sins.

It was at that party I met my cousin, Eugenia Siler, and afterwards Mrs. Johnston and formed for her a lasting attachment. We were nearly of one age and vwed for each other eternal fidelity. We corresponded regularly and wrote long sentimental letters to each other. After our marriages, we wrote at longer intervals but still we write. Dear cousin, she is a noble good woman.

Another cousin I loved very much was Martha Henry* [Martha Henry was John Preston Arthur's mother. Arthur is well-known for his authorship of A History of Western North Carolina]. She was older than

After my marriage my sisters stayed with me a great deal and went to school. They were much company to me and I was glad to have them. One of them always confessed her sins to me and I tried to comfort her. She was very conscientous [sic] and if she did anything she did not afterwards think was right, she was never happy till she told me all about it.

Another sister loved to stay with me better than anyone else. She was engaged to my brother-in-law and was to be married when the Civil War was over. She commenced having hemorrhages of the lungs and we soon saw she had that dreaded of all diseases  -- consumption. I[t]was a dreadful blow and especially to her young lover, and everything that love and affection could do was done, but to no avail.

The last visit she made me, and she knew it was her last, she read just before she started home the last two chapters of Revelations and wept as though her heart would break. She told me they described the home she was soon to enter, but oh, the parting with loved ones was so hard. She did not live long after that and as it was the first death in my father's family, it nearly broke our hearts. Since that time, they have gone one by one till only a small number are left.

My oldest child was a boy, my only son* [Her son was Judge Walter Moore], and he was all the children I had for a long time, except one little baby that died. He was lonely by himself, and I used to read to him and tell him pretty stories to make him satisfied to stay with me. I wanted him to be a good boy and make a good man. I was afraid

My oldest daughter ....... (the last few pages were misplaced).