Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
But then two weeks from now the yellow fever will break out; mother has the greatest horror of it, and we have never had it; dying is not much in the present state of our affairs, but the survivor will suffer even more than we do now. If we stay, how shall we live? I have seventeen hundred dollars in Confederate notes now in my "running-bag," and three or four in silver.
I ran up after my riding-skirt, which I was surprised to find behind a trunk, and rolled up in it was my running-bag, with all my treasures! I was very much provoked at my carelessness; indeed, I cannot imagine how it got there, for it was the first thing I thought of.
The excitement is intense; mother is securing a few of father's most valuable papers; Lilly running around after the children, and waiting for Charlie who cannot be found; Miriam, after securing all things needful, has gone downstairs to wait the issue; and I, dressed for instant flight, with my running-bag tied to my waist, and knapsack, bonnet, veil, etc., on the bed, occupy my last few moments at home in this profitable way.
I saved the most useless of articles with the greatest zeal, and probably left the most serviceable ones. One single dress did my running-bag contain a white linen cambric with a tiny pink flower the one I wore when I told Hal good-bye for the last time. The others I left. When I got down with my knapsack, mother, Phillie, and Mrs. Walters were AT RANDALLSON'S LANDING, August 11th.
Then we had a dozen songs on the guitar, gay, sad, and sentimental; then he gave me a sprig of jessamine as a keepsake, and I ripped open my celebrated "running-bag" to get a real for true silver five cents a perfect curiosity in these days which I gave him in exchange, and which he promised to wear on his watch-chain.
Here were our three matrons, prophesying that the house would be burnt, the Yankees upon us, and all murdered in ten minutes, flying down the Guerrilla Lane, and leaving us to encounter the horrors they foretold, alone. It was a splendid gallop in the bright moonlight, over the fields, only it was made uncomfortable by the jerking of my running-bag, until I happily thought of turning it before.
Besides the inevitable running-bag, tied to my waist, on this stifling night I had my sunbonnet, veil, comb, toothbrush, cabas filled with dozens of small articles, and dagger to carry; and then my heart failed me when I thought of my guitar, so I caught it up in the case; and remembering father's heavy inkstand, I seized that, too, with two fans.
I bethought me of my "running-bag" which I had used on a former case, and in a moment my few precious articles were secured under my hoops, and with a sunbonnet on, I stood ready for anything. The firing still continued; they must have fired half a dozen times before we could coax mother off. What awful screams! I had hoped never to hear them again, after Harry died.
Instantly I remembered my running-bag, and flew upstairs to get it, escaping just in time from the scene which followed on the gallery which was afterwards most humorously described to me. Walters, trying to scale the carriage, was pulled out by Uncle Will, who shouted to his plunging horses first, then to the other unreasoning creatures, "Woa, there! 'Tain't safe! Take to the fields!
"Picayune Butler's coming, coming" has upset my nervous system. He interrupted me in the middle of my arithmetic; and I have not the energy to resume my studies. I shall try what effect an hour's practice will have on my spirits, and will see that I have a pair of clean stockings in my stampede sack, and that the fastenings of my "running-bag" are safe.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking