I found Mr. G. in a very decided chill on the sofa in front of the parlor fire. I stayed an hour or two, and then, the fever coming on quite severely and affecting his head a good deal, I rode home as fast as possible to signal for Dr. Westcott.[143] I could not get through the cotton-field, however, without being stopped two or three times by applications for "suthin" for this child's boils or that one's sore eyes, all of which I referred to the house, where I afterwards administered to the best of my knowledge--one of my constant occupations. Mr. Soule and C. came back, with no news from Charleston, having found the General and his staff just starting on a visit to the scene of action, but C. had obtained permission to employ the men and made them very happy the next day by telling them so. _Sept. 5._ I have been endeavoring to instill habits of cleanliness into Rose and in many ways have succeeded--she has regular days when she goes home to wash, changes her "linen" twice a week, takes a warm bath every Saturday, and keeps her head and feet in a condition to which they were strangers previously. I can see, too, that it has had a decided effect upon her sisters. One of the important items has been pocket-handkerchiefs, with which I provided her, and she has to keep them in her pocket. For two or three days lately she has forgotten this essential article, and I finally told her that if it was forgotten the next day I should have to send her home for it. I had forgotten all about it, till, the next morning when she came to pour the water into my tub for me, a most inordinate snuffling betrayed the absent wipe. "Rose, where's your pocket-handkerchief? have you forgotten it again?" No answer, but a hiding of the head under her arm like a duck, which often takes place when she is in fault. "Then, Rose, put the coffee on, sweep the parlor, and go home for it." This elicited, "me no gwine home," a pert rejoinder I could not understand, till on calling her to me I saw by her face how excessively green I had been. I reprimanded her with a sober face as she again repeated "me no gwine home," at the same time untwisting the handkerchief from about her waist, but when she had left the room I should have shaken the bed, if that had been my style of laughter. Robert is a great wag in his way, though we do not see so much of his fun, as, having been used to the house in "Secesh time," he is utterly undemonstrative before white people and is only gradually thawing into a little more communicativeness. But we overhear him sometimes talking with the others. A most entertaining but not quite so pleasant exhibition of it (and C. and I could not help laughing at Rose and Hester's good-natured, amusing account) was his riding after the two girls one day when he had been out for the horses, extolling himself and insisting that they should call him "Maussa" or he would ride them down, with his spurs on! Hester gave in, but Rose wouldn't--"him too mannish!"