Cross-hatched handwritten letter, page 2
Book 1, Page 72 ·1860–1880
Transcription
A second handwritten sheet in brown ink, written first horizontally and then over-written at right angles in the same hand. Most of the page is cross-hatched; with rotated high-resolution crops, both passes can now be read in substantial part. The page continues the page-071 letter from “The Barrows” to “Dear Mother.”
Horizontal pass (original orientation)
… up to the house … nothing … [illegible] … I have to write …
… so close to North Mulberry … we made [illegible] … we expect to find … [illegible] …
… Steele’s boy unloading the Schooner met Dwight with a mule & cart, when I got to the gate met William Barker on horseback —
… sent the two negroes & a negro boy in another mule[-cart?] [illegible] Porcher’s who consented to [illegible] our house [illegible] …
… took back & bring up the sick in the Ambulance — when near[ed] the child at N.M. all found him[?] the village. He reached here [illegible]
… who reported the Schooner about ½ after 8 & the others all[?] as just come & that the boys are soon after [illegible] …
… been there until 6 o’clock — [illegible] made [illegible] not [Friday/finding?] he had returned — Theodore & Ted apprehended the [storm?] …
… [illegible] got down the road well[?] put [the?] cart and went for the things they ought air in the open B[oat? cart?] …
… took [made?] three loads up but he had [illegible] careful[?] bring the things up [illegible] and as we expect [Theodore?] is convalescing …
… get as much as [illegible] very well — [illegible] take the message to the [Plant?]ation [illegible] effects yet from the river until 8 o’clock — we left [illegible] [Nov?] [illegible] am [in?] [illegible] …
… Theodore, Aunt Hannah [uncertain — possibly “Nannie”], Sea[man?] [illegible] poor little Ellen cutting her last double tooth — has had a [illegible] …
… Ellen, the baby, & Anna & I sat [down/up?] [illegible] to ride out with[?] a [illegible] day — [illegible] He persisted & at last [illegible] very thin [illegible] — she had very high fever then …
[Many words in the horizontal pass are obscured where the perpendicular cross-writing crosses them; the brackets above mark those gaps. The right margin of each line is the cleanest because the cross-writing is sparsest there.]
Cross-writing (perpendicular continuation)
[The letter continues in cross-writing — perpendicular to the original direction. Read with the sheet rotated ninety degrees clockwise:]
Seaman [uncertain] has measles & is doing well — I hope but [illegible — possibly “Hannah”] to stay in town. I think they[?] [illegible]
is getting it today — the baby has improved very much since [illegible] [illegible] [illegible]
[illegible] clothes [illegible] [a long?] a little — he is
always ready for [a/the] laugh or jest [illegible] [illegible]
fatigues like [illegible] [illegible] thank him[?] for [illegible] [illegible] them [together?]
[illegible] [sleep?] [illegible] city[?] [illegible] house & which is arranged for [illegible] [illegible]
have not yet [gotten?] better all [illegible] to time as cook & washer
& I shall do much [illegible] sickness here than this[?] however unwilling [illegible] [to remain?] here for ten
days instead of two nights. I am sorry for it but could not [illegible] [illegible]
[illegible] the cooking and nursing. Aunt Hannah has [illegible] [illegible] a new hand & has half-
furnished house [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] Uncle John [illegible] deem [illegible] [illegible]
inconvenience [illegible] [illegible] the large family — my [illegible] [illegible] but poor [illegible]
they are doing [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] free negroes are
[illegible — “spoiled”?] & a sweet free girl — it makes me nervous & anxious lest the large family
should make their parents [comfortable?] [servants?] [impatient?] — are not that they may [send?] them [illegible]
[illegible] — I have some [illegible] of my own chairs[?] what were at Back River. The amount of
[your?] [illegible] interfered [illegible] [illegible] [illegible] for[?] [Mt.?] Pleasant — your Blankets, Carpets, & Sufficient …
AI Notes
Second sheet of the cross-hatched letter begun on page 071 (from ‘The Barrows’ to ‘Dear Mother’). Both the horizontal pass and the perpendicular cross-writing have now been substantially recovered by reading rotated and tiled crops of the high-resolution scan. The original horizontal pass continues the page-071 arrival narrative: the writer reached North Mulberry by tug-and-schooner, met Dwight with a mule & cart and William Barker on horseback at the gate, used an ambulance to bring the sick child up from the river, and arrived at the village around 6 o’clock. The cross-writing — a continuation of the letter, perpendicular to the horizontal pass — discusses a child (Seaman) with measles doing well, household arrangements at Aunt Hannah’s half-furnished house, free-Negro servants, and stored household effects (blankets, carpets) from Mt. Pleasant and Back River.
Page ends mid-sentence; letter would continue on a further sheet not present here, or at the top margin of this sheet. Names recovered from this page include Dwight, William Barker, Porcher, Uncle John, and a child “Seaman” (uncertain reading) who, like Theodore on page 071, has measles. The cross-writing continues the writer’s account of her arrival at Mulberry: settling household goods that were brought up from storage at Back River and Mt. Pleasant, working with Aunt Hannah’s half-furnished house and her newly hired servants, and contending with a houseful of sick children.