APRIL 8th.—Bright and warm—really a fine spring day. It is the day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, and all the offices are closed. May God put it into the hearts of the extortioners to relent, and abolish, for a season, the insatiable greed for gain! I paid $25 for a half cord of wood to-day, new currency. I fear a nation of extortioners are unworthy of independence, and that we must be chastened and purified before success will be vouchsafed us.
What enormous appetites we have now, and how little illness, since food has become so high in price! I cannot afford to have more than an ounce of meat daily for each member of my family of six; and to day Custis’s parrot, which has accompanied the family in all their flights, and, it seems, will never die, stole the cook’s ounce of fat meat and gobbled it up before it could be taken from him. He is permitted to set at one corner of the table, and has lately acquired fondness for meat. The old cat goes staggering about from debility, although Fannie often gives him her share. We see neither rats nor mice about the premises now. This is famine. Even the pigeons watch the crusts in the hands of the children, and follow them in the yard. And, still, there are no beggars.
The plum-tree in my neighbor’s garden is in blossom to-day, and I see a few blossoms on our cherry-trees. I have set out some 130 early York cabbage-plants—very small; and to-day planted lima and snap beans. I hope we shall have no more cold weather, for garden seed, if those planted failed to come up, would cost more than the crops in ordinary times.