December 28th, 1860.—We had a fine Christmas. I cannot see that our black folks ever think of John Brown’s raid and if they do it evidently does not interest them much. We are trying to forget it and perhaps the clouds may pass away.
There is trouble at Live Oak. Miss Lottie Church, from somewhere in New England, came in October to teach Lucy and Horton Branch and Uncle William and Aunt Mary liked her very much, the children did, too. She said it was the easiest work she ever had to do, for the children are small and must not be closely confined and Miss Church had a carriage and horses and a good driver to take them out riding every plesant day. She could take them riding in the country or she could go in town and she laughed and said it was the first time she had ever had a carriage at her commnd. She was pretty and vivacious and she was often asked out in the evenings and there was a way provided for her to go when she wished, for it is in the country and she must have an escort, though she thought that entirely superfluous. Yesterday Mr. R. Barnwell Rhett, the editor of the Charleston Mercury, and Mr. Colcock, both of them from South Carolina and both aunt Mary’s brothers-in-law came on a flying visit to Live Oak. At the dinner table politics naturally was the sole topic of conversation and these gentlemen expressed their views as plainly as the King’s English would allow. Miss Church was furious. She forgot that these gentlemen knew nothing of her political faith nor of the land of her nativity and she burst forth in such a wild tirade of invective and abuse that everybody was astonished—to say the least of it. The carriage in which she had taken so many pleasant rides was ordered to be at the door in time to catch the first train out of Tallahassee and that was the last we knew of Miss Lottie Church. I am so glad we have Southern teachers in this neighborhood. Hattie Lester came home on a visit for Christmas; I am going to miss her dreadfully when she goes.