upwards, and when the Count would be absorbed in study the boys would throw torpedoes upon the floor which would quickly arouse him from his studies, but was soon made to believe that it was but an accidental match dropped and trodden upon, though in truth it was pure deviltry on the part of some of the larger boys. An incident fraught with much concern to me in connection with a boy by the name of Benjamin Tucker, who was about my age, but much stouter and had by some means gotten me under a sort of “hack,” and it becoming very annoying I finally concluded that the thing had gone far enough, so one day I lost patience with Benjamin and I just “pitched into” him and gave him a gentle thrashing; he had on a brand-new nine-pence straw hat which I got hold of and tore to smithereens. Well, after this “scrap” I had no further trouble with Master Benjamin Tucker.

Another rather humorous matter which happened about this time at school was about a boy who was called “Phil.” He was the pet and idol of his mother, who took a pair of his father’s old pants and made him a pair from them, but the trouble was that the cloth was not sufficient for the garment, and resulted in their being too small and too tight in the body when his burly form was encased therein, and became as solid as a drumhead, and we had a popular game called hard ball and the mischievous fellows selected him as a special target, and when the ball struck him plumb it rebounded as if it was rubber, but at last he got tired of being made a butt of ridicule and a target in the game, so he complained to his mother and she reported the matter to our teacher, requesting that gentleman that the boys should be made to stop the treatment to her son; the Count, after giving it careful consideration, told his mother that the only remedy that he could suggest was to get her boy a new and a more roomy pair of trousers, and cast the old ones which had caused his annoyance aside. Our old teacher was a good and faithful one, and if his pupils did not profit by his knowledge and training, it surely was not his fault. He possessed of course some objectionable habits, such as when school closed he would get on a “spree” and remain on it until school was assembled for work, when all traces of his riotous living had disappeared.

CHAPTER IV.

My brother, Miles Macon, afterwards commander of the Fayette Artillery, Confederate States Army, joined me at “Woodland” and became a scholar in our school; he was my senior by two years. Our country life there was very pleasant, for on Saturdays we would hunt birds all day, as my brother owned a fine pointer dog named “Roscoe,” and we were hunting on “Spring Garden,” owned by Judge Meredith, it being about seven miles from our place, when the old dog broke down from the infirmities of age and Miles and I carried him home on our shoulders, it being his last appearance in the fields that he had so successfully hunted, for he died soon afterwards.

About this period politics were coming strongly to the front, and I remember when Mr. Chastaine White was nominated by the Democrats for the General Assembly, and William C. Wickham was put up by the Whig party for the same office. My brother, Dr. Macon, was a Whig, and a friend and supporter of Wickham. The Democrat was of course elected, as at that time a Whig stood no show, however superior his qualification for the position might be. Another feature of the times was the muster of the county militia, when the colonel commandant, arrayed in a uniform as gorgeous as that of a field marshal of France, put his men through a few drill evolutions and then disbanded them, after which all hands went willingly up and took a drink, and it was a field day, for Mr. Ellett who then kept “Old Church” Tavern and profited greatly by the crowd’s liberal spending of money.

There were two churches near “Woodland,” the Presbyterian was called “Bethlehem,” a name connected with many good associations; the other was an Episcopal one, and named “Emmanuel,” which name suggests many Christian ideas. As a boy I attended both these churches, and noticed one thing particularly that was that the male attendants, both communicants and non-communicants, gathered on the outside and discussed farming and neighboring topics and conditions generally. I also observed that those living a long distance from the church always dined with some friend near the church, this being, I thought, simply a species of “whacking” which was quite admissible under the circumstances.

The planters, who owned and cultivated large estates on the river, built summer residences on the higher lands of the same, in order to escape the malaria and chills, produced by the miasma arising from the marshes exposed to the sun and night air at low tide during the heated term, which the first killing frost in the fall would dispel and render the river residents healthy and comfortable when they would all return to their estates. I have never in my travels seen a more productive country in the State than the famous low grounds bordering the Pamunkey river, beginning about Hanover Town and continuing down that stream to the celebrated “White House” plantation in New Kent County, which estate originally belonged to General Custis, who was the first husband of Martha Washington (nee Dandridge).

Dr. William Macon, my brother, about this time came into possession of the Mount Prospect plantation in New Kent County, on the Pamunkey River, left to him by our grandfather, Colonel William Hartwell Macon, it being then one of the finest farms on the river; it adjoined the famous White House aforementioned, which latter plantation was inherited and occupied later by General William H. Fitzhugh Lee, son of the famous General Robert E. Lee, of Confederate fame.

The York River railroad passed through a portion of the “Mt. Prospect farm.” A noted feature of the place was its very large and beautiful garden, almost every flower and plant known to Eastern Virginia florists was to be found there, and considerable expense had been made to render it a veritable Garden of Eden; and then, alas! when the great strife began between the North and the South, and our beloved old State became the battleground of the contending hosts of soldiers of both sides, and the Federal army, under General McClellan, advanced up the peninsula from Fort Monroe the farm became the camping ground, and his cavalry was picketed in that lovely spot, amid the almost priceless roses and violets, and needless to add that when those horsemen left it was a pitiable scene of “horrid war’s” desolating effects, as hardly a trace of its former beauty and vision of refinement remained.

A gentleman, Colonel Grandison Crump, taught school near the place, and I was made a scholar of his; it was quite like that of Count Larry’s, except that the Colonel had no girls in his school. He sat is the same kind of armchair, and made and trimmed quill pens in the very same way. He was a most excellent teacher and I fairly buckled down to hard study, and as a consequence learned more than ever before, or indeed afterwards, at school. Our teacher was not a young man, as he was near sixty years of age, and was deeply enamored with a certain beautiful girl living in Charles City County adjoining; a Miss Maria Jerdone was the fortunate one, a most attractive girl, and quite young enough to be his daughter, but which did not prevent the old Colonel from loving her with all the ardor of youth. He was then living in the family of Mr. Braxton Garlick at “Waterloo” plantation, on the Pamunkey, which gentleman was one of the most hospitable men that ever lived, and who joked with the Colonel about his attentions to the young lady, but which did not dampen his ardor towards her, though he did