Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/299

Rh be left alone during the day or night. His old servants took care of him at night for weeks, coming in turn to sleep on the floor by the side of his bed when their day's work was over. Some whom he had thought ill of, and had sent off the plantation, came now and nursed him. On Sundays they came in large numbers to visit him. He was extremely gratified by these spontaneous attentions. Books and letters from his children and friends filled up the days.

In the prime of his busy life he had quite given up reading everything but newspapers, but after he no longer had the cares of a plantation he turned to books with almost the love of a bookworm. History was his preference, and he went through the excellent and rather large collection in his library. Some of them he read many times. After they were exhausted he grew omnivorous in his tastes, and read every book that came in his way, frequently reading from morning till night, and, unless his eyes were too tired, until late at night. His wonderful power of adapting himself to changed circumstances and surroundings was in no way more conspicuously shown than in this turning to books for entertainment when he was over sixty years of age.

", 22d December, 1880.

",—I am confined to the house almost entirely, walking out in the yard two to three times in a week, which I can just do by the help of a cane, and very slowly at that. But this is a great improvement on confinement to one's bed, or the incapacity to walk at all. These sores on my feet have proved more obstinate than either Dr. West or Tom anticipated, although they both knew that a burn by mustard was the worst of all. They are tantalizing to the last degree, assuming a convalescent form for a week or two and then falling back to their old tricks."

", 16th September, 1881.

. . . "We have had a lively time here, with the biggest crowd that was ever in the house. In addition