The finest grade of tea raised here is known as “Shelter Tea,” and is sold only at the gardens, the price being five dollars per pound.  It is a tea of the Assam species grown under shelters of wire mesh and pine straw.  This type of tea is known in Japan, where it originated, as “sugar tea,” because, owing to the fact that it is grown in the shade, the sap of the bush, which is of starchy quality, is turned chemically into sugar, giving the leaf an exceedingly delicate flavor.

From the superintendent in charge of the gardens I learned something of the bare facts of the tea growing industry.  I had always been under the impression that the name “pekoe” referred to a certain type of tea, but he told me that the word is Chinese for “eyelash,” and came to be used because the tip leaves of tea bushes, when rolled and dried, resemble eyelashes.  These leaves—­“pekoe tips”—­make the most choice tea.  The second leaves make the tea called “orange pekoe,” while the third leaves produce a grade of tea called simply “pekoe.”  In China it is customary to send three groups of children, successively, to pick the leaves, the first group picking only the tips, the second group the second leaves, and the third group the plain pekoe leaves.  At the Pinehurst Tea Gardens the picking is done by colored children, ranging from eight to fifteen years of age.  All the leaves are picked together and are later separated by machinery.

Summerville itself seems a lovely lazy town.  It is the kind of place to which I should like to retire in the winter if I had a book to write.  One could be very comfortable, and there would be no radical distractions—­unless one chanced to see the Most Beautiful Girl in the World, who has been known to spend winters at that place.

On the way from Charleston to Summerville, if you go by motor, you pass The Oaks, an estate with a new colonial house standing where an ancient mansion used to stand.  A long avenue bordered by enormous live-oaks, leading to this house, gives the place its name, and affords a truly noble approach.  Here, in Revolutionary times, Marion, “the Swamp Fox,” used to camp.

Not far distant from the old gate at The Oaks is Goose Creek Church—­the most interesting church I have ever seen.  The Parish of St. James, Goose Creek, was established by act of the Assembly, November 30, 1706, and the present church, a brick building of crudely simple architecture, was built about 1713.  The interior of the church, though in good condition, is the oldest looking thing, I think, in the United States.  The memorial tablets in the walls, with their foreign names and antique lettering, the curious old box pews, the odd little gallery at the back, the tall pulpit, with its winding stair, above all the Royal Arms of Great Britain done in relief on the chancel wall and brilliantly colored—­all these make Goose Creek Church more like some little Norman church in England, than like anything one might reasonably expect to find on this side of the world.