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2
And oft I used to win The Cherokees to climb the sill,
The gossip loving bee,
To come so near that he would pause And buzz a word to me.
She was greeted by the singing of the birds and the sight of the Cherokee rose, then the bee, her first imagined words of welcome. It was a new day and a new life. Picture the nine year old girl walking to the kitchen table to the smell of a sumptuous breakfast, the smile of her uncle Leonard and the caring attention of her aunt Jane. Moses Cook and his wife were probably there also to welcome the child. She was the center of attention and I expect she presented her self with the appropriate decorum..
Leonard operated a trading post and post office and tended the toll bridge across the creek as well as the slaves that planted and harvested the crops. It was a busy place with travelers passing through and locals coming to buy supplies and pick up their mail. The Kimball?s also offered rooms and meals to travelers. I expect that Eliza?s duties were to tend the store and toll bridge, but when she was free, she roamed the piney woods. Her imagination was unleashed, for the first time, on the wonders of nature. She beheld the pristine environment surrounding her, much different than the sumptuous mansion and busy streets and poor neighborhoods of Gainsville. The slaves working in the fields, the moss hung trees, the old gray bridge crossing the bubbling amber stream. It was all hers to befriend and explore. Much of Eliza?s poetry reflects the animals, birds, and flora. Her duties gave her responsibility and a sense of worth she never had before and the influence of adults who treated her with the respect due a budding female during those times, where a godsend compared to her tyrant brothers and the busy household leaving her to play in the ashes of the fireplace or to roam the streets of Gainville with roudy boys and girls.
She seemed to change to an enchanted princess, using her newly possessed charms to manipulate the adults around her. That personality is reflected in Myself:
My teacher was a dear old man,
Who took me on his knee,
And better far than vexing books,
He held a kiss from me.?
That was and still is a curious phrase. She kissed her teacher? But looking at it from Eliza?s innocent eyes, it might have meant that she had wrapped her teacher around her little finger, who put aside the vexing books for a kiss and taught her things that interested Eliza, maybe about nature and folklore. That type of candidness was carried with her in her later life and she was not afraid to express it. Or, perhaps, in the poem, she was talking about God and was expressing her gratitude. She did have a deep faith to accompany her wild nature.
With access to the mail, Eliza had the opportunity to read newspapers and magazines where she developed her love for poetry and fashion. When she wrote her first poem is not known, but I expect it was shortly after moving to Picayune. It was probably crude and as she progressed she probably stuffed them away somewhere and they were thrown