#3 Note: In this portion of her letters, Mrs. Hine mentions "Auntie Collins." Ms. Collins had been scalped as a child by Indians, but survived the attack. She was somewhat of a celebrity and is mentioned in several early accounts. In a letter to Edward J. Harden of Savannah, dated May 7, 1859, Dr. W. C. Daniell stated "About 1837 ... I stopped to dinner at the house of a Mrs. Collins, in Emanuel or Bulloch county, who had been scalped in one of these Indian forays late in the last century. She was a tall, stately woman, upwards of eighty years old, and wore a handkerchief on her head to conceal the loss which she had sustained from the scalping-knife of an Indian warrior." The letter from Daniell is printed in Edward J. Harden's Life of George M. Troup, pages 189-92. This out-of-door life must be very pleasant through the long, hot summers. They can always command a breeze if any air is stirring, either at the front or back of the house, or in the broad passage way. One of the stage stands at which we stopped was kept by an old lady called "Auntie Collins." She always has her head tied up with a handkerchief, and over that wears a man's broad-brimmed straw hat, out of doors and in, at the table and everywhere.... She is utterly bald-headed, having been scalped by the Indians when a child. Her house goes by the name of the "Pewter Platter House." She has an immense pewter platter which extends almost from side to side of her table, and when she has many to feed she puts her fish, flesh, and fowl all on that one dish. A gentleman told me yesterday that he had eaten there when she had fried fish, ham and eggs, venison, chicken, partridges, sausages and roast pork all on that huge pewter dish. But we did not see it the night we stopped there, probably because there were no guests but ourselves, but she gave us a most royal supper and breakfast, and would have put us up lunch enough for a week if we would have suffered it. This stage road which we came passes, they say, through as poor a section of country as there is in the state, hence the meagre settlements and the class of people who, as a general thing, reside here. Those who are too poor to buy productive land can get a home here for almost nothing. They come here, perhaps, with one horse and a cart and all of their earthly possessions in it, and if they will go to work as some of them do, they soon find themselves, in a measure, comfortable, according to their ideas of comfort. This propitious climate is everything to a farmer who is poor. He is not obliged to intermit his labors when winter comes, but can keep at work out of doors all the time, with exceptional days of course. He can keep his family warm in an open house, can clear new ground, split rails for fencing, and get his grounds in good shape for culture ere the season comes to plant. It is a matter of unceasing surprise to me how many home comforts these people who are so remote from any market or mart of trade can make for themselves. One house particularly, which was a marvel of neatness, too--occupied by a young couple who had been married but a few years--had scarcely anything about it which was not the work of their two pairs of hands. The house was simply one large room. He had got the logs out himself, and hewed them square to make it more sightly. His neighbors had helped him to raise it. He rived out the shingles to cover it and put them on himself, and built his own chimney of sticks, plastered with mud. There were two bedsteads in the room of his own make, the mattresses made of straw from their own wheat, while the beds had evidently been supplied with feathers from a large flock of geese which were ranging about the premises, and the ticks and the sheets and the spreads were all manifestly the work of the wife. He had made his own table also. There was not a chair in the house, but a number of three-legged stools--some with legs long enough to use at the table in eating, and others made with shorter legs--a long, low settle, which would seat four or five, which was a most comfortable seat, and made evidently from the half of a hollow log, which had been manipulated until in shape it resembled, the whole length of it, the seat of a Boston rocker and had had friction applied to it until it was very smooth. This was mounted on four legs. The doors to the house were upright planks nailed together by battons, and their fastenings wooden latches whittled out by hand, which worked with a string. The window shutters were made the same as the doors, and closed with a string, which was tied on to a nail driven in the shutter and wound around a nail driven in the house. Their household vessels for holding milk, lard, salt, and various other things were gourds. The clothing of both the man and his wife and their little baby was evidently spun and woven by the woman herself. Her spinning wheel stood there in the corner of the room, and the loom just outside of the house, with a shelter built over it. The man said he had dug his own well. The bucket he used in it was a cypress knob, hollowed out. A string of plaited bear's grass (a native growth) served as a handle. It was tied to a pole which, being fastened at the other end on a tall upright rest, formed what they called a "sweep." It was a perfect novelty to me. The flexible pole to which the bucket was attached was bent down over the well to sink the bucket, and it would rise itself full of water. At the well, mounted on logs, was a long trough, deeply dug out from a huge tree, in two sections--one end to serve as a wash tub, the other to water the stock in. Both had auger holes in the bottom to let the water off when necessary, stopped up with corn-cobs for corks. The only thing we saw on the whole premises which had been bought at a store were some simple table ware and a few cooking utensils, and these probably had been hauled many a mile. Against one side of the room were long shelves, resting on huge wooden pegs driven into the logs, which were piled with bedding and clothing, showing the work of thrifty hands. These shelves served the purpose of wardrobe and bureau and closet, of which the house was guiltless. The family, consisting of Mr. Fleming, his wife, and their little one (not yet two years old) looked the picture of contentment and happiness. Everything about them was neat and in sparkling order. Evidently they do not eat the bread of idleness. So many times since leaving them I have thought of them and their simple life, which rivals that of Robinson Crusoe, and thought that more than anyone I ever saw they led an independent life. Their table was bountifully supplied with meat and fowls and garden vegetables, all of their own raising.... -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 46009 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message