The couple were bride and groom and this was the bride's first view of her future home, Pleasant Grove. The groom had little time to familiarize his new wife with his ancestral acres as he was a Confederate soldier and the honeymoon must end when his furlough ended, which was soon. When the bridegroom went back to join Lee's dwindling forces, the bride took up her new duties as mistress of Pleasant Grove. She was alone except for the servants. How many stayed on after the war started, tradition does not say. Amanda was well versed in the art of housekeeping, thanks to the rigid early training of her mother. There was plenty to do. The groom was an orphan and an only child and he had been living in solitary freedom for some time before the war. She was too busy at first to be lonely. The central passage, paneled to chair rail height and plastered above, was as dark as night when all the doors were closed. If she opened the heavy front door she could look out and see the little porch with its built-in benches on each side that looked something like short church pews. The yard was enclosed with a horizontal plank fence and the gateposts had small acorns to match the larger ones on the Outer Gate. They were always called the Outer and Inner Gates. The rooms of the house, like the fields, were named. Besides the doors to the parlor and dining-room which opened from the passage, there was a small door which opened to reveal a narrow twisted stairway which led up to the Big Room and the Little Room. The shed addition on the rear was two steps lower than the main house. There Amanda found the Chamber Room, the Middle Room and the Back Room. All walls were of white-washed plaster and the floors and woodwork were of heart pine. (The house was built of heart pine and put together with hand-made nails. The cornhouse was fastened together with wooden pegs.) Amanda had fun exploring the old house and bringing it back to life once more. One day she was dusting the clock on the dining-room mantel when she discovered that it hid the opening to a secret metal box built in the chimney. A hiding place for valuables! A lot of good that did her. Confederate notes were of little value and the tobacco which she used in place of money couldn't be hidden there. Amanda finally chose the Chamber Room as her bedroom, because it was usually full of sunlight, had a cozy fireplace and a view of the creek and garden. At the back of the house there was a combination garden of flowers, herbs, vegetables and fruit trees, laid out in the English manner. A walk down the center led to the Creek. Trees grew on both sides of the Creek and Amanda's view ended where the Creek disappeared around a point. She wondered what was on the other side and if the water was deep enough for a Yankee gunboat.