Uncle William was in despair at the low ebb of patriotism out here. “West of the Savannah River,” said he, “it is property first, life next, honor last.” He gave me an excellent pair of shoes. What a gift! For more than a year I have had none but some dreadful things Armstead makes for me, and they hurt my feet so. These do not fit, but that is nothing; they are large enough and do not pinch anywhere. I have absolutely a respectable pair of shoes!! Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket, as Custis Lee says, to win in the fight. General Lee and Mr. Davis want the negroes put into the army. Mr. Chesnut and Major Venable discussed the subject one night, but would they fight on our side or desert to the enemy? They don’t go to the enemy, because they are comfortable as they are, and expect to be free anyway. When we were children our nurses used to give us tea out in the open air on little pine tables scrubbed as clean as milk-pails. Sometimes, as Dick would pass us, with his slow and consequential step, we would call out, “Do, Dick, come and wait on us.” “No, little missies, I never wait on pine tables. Wait till you get big enough to put your legs under your pa’s mahogany.” I taught him to read as soon as I could read myself, perched on his knife-board. He won’t look at me now; but looks over my head, scenting freedom in the air. He was always very ambitious. I do not think he ever troubled himself much about books. But then, as my father said, Dick, standing in front of his sideboard, has heard all subjects in earth or heaven discussed, and by the best heads in our world. He is proud, too, in his way. Hetty, his wife, complained that the other men servants looked finer in their livery. “Nonsense, old woman, a butler never demeans himself to wear livery. He is always in plain clothes.” Somewhere he had picked that up. He is the first negro in whom I have felt a change. Others go about in their black masks, not a ripple or an emotion showing, and yet on all other subjects except the war they are the most excitable of all races. Now Dick might make a very respectable Egyptian Sphinx, so inscrutably silent is he. He did deign to inquire about General Richard Anderson. “He was my young master once,” said he. “I always will like him better than anybody else.”