Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 41.djvu/19

 Rh oversight of the household, and in numerous instances she had all the method without any of the servility of the young Greek wife of whom, as related by Xenophon in his Economics, Ischomachus tells Socrates. To this heavy burden was added the oversight of the quarters of the servants, for among themselves our fathers did not call them slaves. The work about the quarters and for the vegetables and flowers was directed by the mistress; the many problems arising in the lives of the servants were investigated and solved; the sick were watched, and often by her gentle hands personally tended. How she bore her burdens was a mystery even to those who were in daily contact with her. This home-keeping woman whose 'Voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman," in taste refined and in manner mild, was affable and of gracious bearing. Her presence brought an atmosphere that neither coarseness nor vulgarity could breathe. She was a God-fearing woman, she was never a skeptic. Within the wide range of her gentle visitation every needy soul was a recipient of her charity. To the troubled she was the ever ready counselor. Beside the couch of the dying, especially of the lowliest, she told the story of the Saviour's love, and with her tender prayers she smoothed the way for the departing spirit.

Who can tell of her unstinted devotion in that time of the South's great trial? The world knows something of the courage of our men, their patience on the march and their valor in the field; it was but a dull reflection of the courage of our women waiting in the home, quiet and undaunted under the spreading cloud of coming woe. Assuming the burden of the management of the plantation as if their lives were not already loaded with responsibilities, counting as a joy the self-denial that could be helpful to the loved ones who ever stood near the death that crouched in the camp and was ravenous in the field, in the crude hospital sometimes on the very verge of battle angels of mercy to the poor boys of both armies who in agony often longed for the death that seemed to come with slow and cruel steps, from their sorrow-haunted eyes the tears fell on the bloodless face of their beloved dead who had but now gone