Written from the Sea islands of South Carolina.
[Diary] November 17.
Aunt Bess gets into such gales of mirth and laughs so heartily whenever she thinks or talks of the flight of the masters after the “Gunshoot at Bay Point.” She tells how she, being lame, could not run to the woods as the others did when Dr. Pope came back, so she had to go out into the cornfield and lie down between the rows, taking little Leah with her, as she was such a baby she could not walk far. The child had a cough, and Aunt Bess was in mortal terror for fear that would betray their hiding-place. She says she almost smothered Leah, and dosed her at night with ashes tea, and the little thing would almost die with suppressed cough before she would give up. It was a hard struggle for the little thing between terror and cough. I dare say she will never forget it, small as she was.
Tina, of Palawana, was telling us to-day how her master’s family were just sitting down to dinner in their far-off, lonely island, when the news came that everybody was flying. They sprang up, left the silver on the table, the dinner untasted, packed a few clothes for the children, and were gone, never to come back.
