And we had company! Certainly we seemed to have demonstrated the truth of the adage, “Ole Virginny never tire.” We had company, and we had company to eat with us, and enjoyed it.
Sometimes our guests were boys from camp who dropped in and took stewed apples or boiled peas, as the case might be. If we were particularly fortunate we offered a cup of tea sweetened with sugar. The soldier who dropped in always got a part--and the best part--of what we had. If things were scant we had smiles to make up for the lack of our larder, and to hide its bareness.
How we were pinched that winter! how often we were hungry! and how anxious and miserable we were! And yet what fun we had! The boys laughed at our crowded room and we laughed with them. After we bought our wood it was Robert E. Lee’s adjutant who first observed the ends sticking out from under the bed; he was heartily amused and greatly impressed with the versatility of our resources.
“I confidently expect to come here some day and find a pig tied to the leg of the bed, and a brood or two of poultry utilizing waste space,” said Colonel Taylor.
He wasn’t so far out of the way, for we _did_ get hold of a lean chicken once some way or other, and we tied it to the foot of the bed, and tried to fatten it with boiled peas.
We devised many small ways for making a little money. We knit gloves and socks and sold them, and Miss Beth Sampson had some old pieces of ante-bellum silk that she made into neckties and sold for what she could get. For the rest, when we had no money, we went without those things which it took money to buy. With money a bit of meat now and then, a taste of sorghum, and even the rare luxury of a cup of tea sweetened with sugar, was possible. Without money, we had to depend upon the bags of peas, dried apples, or rice.
“If I ever keep house,” said Miss Mary one day when we were getting supper ready, “there are three things which shall never come into it, rice, dried apples, and peas.”
Mother was at the bureau slicing bread, Delia McArthur was setting the table, I was getting butter out of the firkin and making it into prints, and Miss Mary with gloves on--whenever she had anything to do she always put gloves on--was peeling and slicing tomatoes.