Finding that Maria, the old nurse, and some babies were sick, I made a pilgrimage to the quarters, visited the invalids and also Bacchus' school, and told the people I hoped they would go to the Celebration at camp. As I went through the long street, women were washing outside their doors, sitting on their doorsteps sewing or tending babies, while the smaller children were rolling in the dirt. In one of the cabins I accidentally encountered Sarah, the deserted wife, and coming out found Grace, Jack's mother, holding forth in her dignified way upon the subject, condemning her son, quietly but earnestly. She turned to Sarah as she came out and, gesticulating with her hands respectively, said, "I take Becca in dis han' and carry her to punishment, an' Sarah in dis right han' and carry her to Christ." She is a "fine figure of a woman"--I wish I could have drawn her as she stood. She did more work than any one on the plantation on cotton this year. Her husband was coachman and was taken off by the overseer the day after the "gun was fire at Hilton Head." Minda gave me an amusing account of a conversation she heard between Mr. Cockloft, the overseer, and his niece, Miss "Arnie," about the prospect of the Yankees coming here, she telling him, when he was expressing his gratification at the very large crop raised last year, that he did not talk sense,--he was just raising it for the Yankees. And when they had to run off, in the midst of all the crying and dismay, she could not resist telling him she was glad of it, to prove her right. Minda said that she knew more than her uncle because she had been to school, and had "high edicate." They sent Henry to the other end of the island to see if the forts were really taken, and he came back and told them that they had better be off, for all the Yankee ships were "going in procession up to Beaufort, solemn as a funeral." _Dec. 30._ My occupation was interrupted by the arrival of William Hall,[88] bag and baggage. You can think of us as a household of three[89] pursuing our several occupations, of which more hereafter. 1863 _Celebration of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation--The land-sales of 1863, Mr. Philbrick's purchase of plantations--"Shop"--Visit to Camp--Arrest of General Stevenson--Difficulties with army officers--More drafting by Hunter--Encouraging signs among the negroes--"The black draft"--The siege of Charleston--Assault on Fort Wagner--Care of the wounded--Depredations of the soldiers on the plantations--Interest in the former owners of plantations--The "Plantation Commission" an informal civil court--Negro speech and negro ways--Attacks on Mr. Philbrick as a "speculator"--Discouraging signs among the negroes--Plans of the Government for selling land to the negroes--The cotton crop of 1863--The black draft again._