to be a little alarmed at the approach of bedtime in the
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 out-doors 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, lay
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 centered 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 to meet other worlds, and gossip,
and wonder, and make the weekly sacrifice with frenzied priest at the
altar of the "old-time religion." Then the soft m