anything I ever saw before, but it was good to see them.

The next group of extracts is again occupied with the everyday events
of plantation life.

FROM W. C. G.

_Nov. 12._ As usual I managed to miss the last mail. Now that the W.'s
and their party have returned, perhaps we may be assisted into greater
punctuality. Fortunately for us they live farther from the human race
by two and a half miles than ourselves, and can't reach it without
passing within half a mile of our house. Politeness usually obliges
them to come up and take our budget. We live on our friends in a great
many ways here. Without attempting any system or intending to set a
wrong world right, we realize all the best fruits of socialistic
communities. If any one has anything good, he is expected to enjoy
only a small piece himself; and most things that are done have a
reference to our united, not to any individual interest. Our own
geographical location is such that we are peculiarly fitted to receive
the benefit of this interchange of good offices,--while we can hardly
reciprocate as we ought to.

FROM C. P. W.

_Nov. 19._ Alden and I were put on Plantation Commission work as soon
as we got here, had a session Wednesday and tried several cases. The
untrustworthiness of these people is more apparent and troublesome
than ever. I feel as if it would not be safe to allow them to gin the
cotton--it seems certain that a great deal of it would be stolen.
Their skill in lying, their great reticence, their habit of shielding
one another (generally by silence), their invariable habit of taking a
rod when you, after much persuasion, have been induced to grant an
inch, their assumed innocence and ignorance of the simplest rules of
_meum_ and _tuum_, joined with amazing impudence in making
claims,--these are the traits which try us continually in our dealings
with them, and sometimes almost make us despair of their
improvement--at least, in the present generation. It is certain that
their freedom has been too easy for them,--they have not had a hard
enough time of it. In many cases they have been "fair spoiled."

FROM H. W.

_Nov. 27._ Rose is a trump. She does all my cooking neater and better
than I have ever had it done--makes bread and biscuit and puddings as
well as I could myself, and until this morning, with our help, of
course, has done the chamber-work too. With those three children I
have got along as well as I could ask. I begin to apprecia