"He called up to her and said: 'Mrs. Govan, I suppose my sword is gone?'
"'What sword, General?' she asked him.
"'The sword that was presented to me by the army. I left it in my wife's
closet.'
"Mrs. Govan was thunderstruck.
"'I didn't know it was there,' she said. 'Oh! I should have been tempted
to send it to General Van Dorn if I had known that it was there!'
"The next morning, as a reward to us for not having known that his sword
was there, the general gave us a protection paper explicitly forbidding
soldiers to enter the house."
Of course the Govans, like all other citizens of invaded districts in
the South, buried their family plate before the "Yankees" came.
Shortly after this had been accomplished--as they thought, secretly--the
Govans were preparing to entertain friends at dinner when a negro boy
who helped about the dining-room remarked innocently, in the presence of
Mrs. Govan and several of her servants:
"Missus ain't gwine to have no fine table to-night, caze all de silvuh's
done buried in de strawbe'y patch."
He had seen the old gardener "planting" the plate.
Thereafter it was quietly decided in the family that the negroes had
better know nothing about the location of buried treasure. That night,
therefore, some gentlemen went out to the strawberry patch, disinterred
the silver, carried it to Colonel Walter's place, and there buried it
under the front walk.
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