August 20th, 1863.—Captain Beall has improved amazingly, he can now speak in a natural voice and is allowed to converse when he feels like it. At first his voice was so weak and it hurt him to speak, so he made signs for his wants. He is very pleasant, the doctors, who come now and again to see him, say his lungs are still in bad shape and he requires just the care and good nursing he is getting here. Father has inserted silver tubes in his right side to draw off the pus, which has collected there. The right lung is not healing as the left one has done and they forbid him to think of going back for months to come. A winter in Florida may make him as sound as ever.
Today Father took him for a short ride in the buggy. He drove Dabney, who is old and steady, so he would not be jolted or jarred. I wish Sister Mart was at home, she could play for him and entertain him. I have taken up the book-keeping again but it is not quite as heavy as it was because the saw-mill is not running. The hands who formerly did the work at the mill are needed in the crops that more provisions may be made.
The people who live in town and have no plantations to draw upon, have a bad time indeed. Father often sends articles of food to his friends in Tallahassee. Judge Baltzell said he had not tasted meat for weeks, so Father promptly sent him a ham, smoked after the most approved North Carolina fashion and it was touching to see how pleased the judge was. He often sends things to Major Beard, too, and none of us ever forget Bishop Rutledge, when something good is on hand. The Bishop eats like a bird, he has so little appetite, and has to be tempted to eat.
