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قراءة كتاب A Girl's Life in Virginia before the War
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Transcriber's note:
Minor spelling inconsistencies, including hyphenated words, have been harmonized.
Any lacking page numbers are those given to pages where page numbers are not shown in the original text.
A GIRL'S LIFE
IN VIRGINIA
BEFORE THE WAR
A GIRL'S LIFE
IN VIRGINIA
BEFORE THE WAR
BY
Letitia M. Burwell
WITH SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
William A. McCullough AND Jules Turcas
Second Edition
New York
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1895, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company.
DEDICATION.
Dedicated to my nieces, who will find in English and American publications such expressions applied to their ancestors as: "cruel slave-owners"; "inhuman wretches"; "southern taskmasters"; "dealers in human souls," etc. From these they will naturally recoil with horror. My own life would have been embittered had I believed myself to be descended from such monsters; and that those who come after us may know the truth, I wish to leave a record of plantation life as it was. The truth may thus be preserved among a few, and merited praise may be awarded to noble men and virtuous women who have passed away.
L. M. B.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE | |
"An evening party" | Frontispiece |
"Carpenters always at work for the comfort of the plantation" | 2 |
"Accompanied by one of these smiling 'indispensables'" | 4 |
"I use to watch for de carriage" | 10 |
"I don't want to be free no mo'" | 12 |
"She always returned in a cart" | 18 |
"Reading and repeating verses to him" | 26 |
"My grandmother would show us the step of the minuet" | 32 |
"There were old gentlemen visitors" | 34 |
"Now, Marster, you done forgot all 'bout dat" | 36 |
"Three women would clean up one chamber" | 42 |
"Lunch by some cool, shady spring" | 66 |
"His mission on earth seemed to be keeping the brightest silver urns" | 78 |
"How dey does grow!" | 86 |
"Where is my mutton?" | 98 |
"Aunt Fanny 'spersed dat crowd'" | 160 |
A GIRL'S LIFE IN VIRGINIA
BEFORE THE WAR
CHAPTER I.
That my birthplace should have been a Virginia plantation, my lot in life cast on a Virginia plantation, my ancestors, for nine generations, owners of Virginia plantations, remain facts mysterious and inexplicable but to Him who determined the bounds of our habitations, and said: "Be still, and know that I am God."
Confined exclusively to a Virginia plantation during my earliest childhood, I believed the world one vast plantation bounded by negro quarters. Rows of white cabins with gardens attached; negro men in the fields; negro women sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving, housekeeping in the cabins; with negro children dancing, romping, singing, jumping, playing around the doors,—these formed the only pictures familiar to my childhood.
The master's residence—as the negroes called it, "the great house"—occupied a central position and was handsome and attractive, the overseer's being a plainer house about a mile from this.
Each cabin had as much pine furniture as the occupants desired, pine and oak being abundant, and carpenters always at work for the comfort of the plantation.
Bread, meat, milk, vegetables, fruit, and fuel were as plentiful as water in the