[Diary] March 19.
Our people are in such trouble about the draft. They trouble for their friends — Jenny for her old Dagus; young Moll for Hacklas. I wrote saying that Celia was a cripple and needed her husband Tom’s care. To-day nearly all the young men from our place went to Beaufort to offer to enlist. To-night Lucy came sobbing and crying past the house, Syke, her brother, crying with her, because her husband Tommy has gone. Rina says the men make too much fuss about going to enlist, and their wives too great cry after them, for folks who have been used to being sold away from all friends. “Dey used to catch we up like fowls and sell we when dey wanted a little money for spend.” Now that the masters have gone she says the people gather close to their parents — using parents as the French do “parents,” meaning relatives.
