How I have missed mornings on the back porch. It is sunny, and the birds are singing. There are calls and whistles I don't recognize. Migrants must have spent the night in our trees. We've had new birds come through for several weeks now. Over the past couple of weeks, I've heard unfamiliar evening and night chatter, just for a day, maybe two. More than once, I've run in the house to tell The Husband, "Come listen to this bird!" Without fail, whatever it was went silent by the time he made it to the back porch. This past weekend, there was one who did a long whistle that fell in pitch at the end. Sounded almost human. I whistled back, but he/she ignored me.
My newest Civil War diary arrived yesterday. I read a bit of it last night. The writer, an Alabama girl, is 17 and attending school in Washington, DC, with her younger sister, in 1859. She talks about her lessons and her visits and her clothes, stuff any teenage girl would write about. There is mention of sewing, but, so far, zero mention of chores, like laundry or cooking or cleaning. She goes to churches of several denominations to hear the various sermons. (The Catholic services were something of a mystery to her.)
At this same time, not far from where she grew up, my sharecropper ancestors were embroiled in a lawsuit involving some land, some household goods, and a slave. One of them was running a school on his property. I expect that it was very different from the school the girl was attending. I'd love to know who his students were, but I have not found any historical references to this school other than in the lawsuit documents.
I should be working on the files I brought home.
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