vited to "take out and help" myself to
fried chicken and wheat biscuit, "meat" and corn pone, string-beans and
berries. At first I used to be a little alarmed at the approach of
bedtime in the one lone bedroom, but embarrassment was very deftly
avoided. First, all the children nodded and slept, and were stowed
away in one great pile of goose feathers; next, the mother and the
father discreetly slipped away to the kitchen while I went to bed;
then, blowing out the dim light, they retired in the dark. In the
morning all were up and away before I thought of awaking. Across the
road, where fat Reuben lived, they all went outdoors while the teacher
retired, because they did not boast the luxury of a kitchen.

I liked to stay with the Dowells, for they had four rooms and plenty of
good country fare. Uncle Bird had a small, rough farm, all woods and
hills, miles from the big road; but he was full of tales,--he preached
now and then,--and with his children, berries, horses, and wheat he was
happy and prosperous. Often, to keep the peace, I must go where life
was less lovely; for instance, 'Tildy's mother was incorrigibly dirty,
Reuben's larder was limited seriously, and herds of untamed insects
wandered over the Eddingses' beds. Best of all I loved to go to
Josie's, and sit on the porch, eating peaches, while the mother bustled
and talked: how Josie had bought the sewing-machine; how Josie worked
at service in winter, but that four dollars a month was "mighty little"
wages; how Josie longed to go away to school, but that it "looked like"
they never could get far enough ahead to let her; how the crops failed
and the well was yet unfinished; and, finally, how "mean" some of the
white folks were.

For two summers I lived in this little world; it was dull and humdrum.
The girls looked at the hill in wistful longing, and the boys fretted
and haunted Alexandria. Alexandria was "town,"--a straggling, lazy
village of houses, churches, and shops, and an aristocracy of Toms,
Dicks, and Captains. Cuddled on the hill to the north was the village
of the colored folks, who lived in three- or four-room unpainted
cottages, some neat and homelike, and some dirty. The dwellings were
scattered rather aimlessly, but they centred about the twin temples of
the hamlet, the Methodist, and the Hard-Shell Baptist churches. These,
in turn, leaned gingerly on a sad-colored schoolhouse. Hither my
little world wended its crooked way on Sunday t