I puts my nicest flowers in 'em evvy year as
a sort of memorial to the ones that didn't git to fetch their helmets
back home. Yes Mam, I had two stars on my service flag and, while I
hated mighty bad that there had to be war, I wanted my family to do
their part.

"Honey, old Nellie is gittin' a little tired, but jus' you listen to
this: I went to meetin' one night to hear the first 'oman preacher that
ever had held a meetin' in this town. She was meanin' to preach at a
place out on Rock Spring Street, and there was more folks there than
could git inside that little old weather-boarded house. The place was
packed and jammed, but me and Scott managed to git in. When I saw an old
Hardshell Baptist friend of mine in there, I asked her how come she was
at this kind of meetin'. 'Curiosity, my child,' she said, 'jus' plain
old curiosity.' The 'oman got up to preach and, out of pure devilment,
somebody on the outside hollered; 'The house is fallin' down.' Now
Child, I know it ain't right to laugh at preachin's of any sort, but
that was one funny scene. Evvybody was tryin' to git out at one time;
such cryin', prayin', and testifyin' to the Lord I ain't never heard
before. The crowd jus' went plumb crazy with fright. I was pushed down
and trampled over in the rush before Scott could git me out; they mighty
near killed me." The old woman stopped and laughed until the tears
streamed down her face. "You know, Honey," she said, when she could
control her voice sufficiently to resume her story, "Niggers ain't got
no sense at all when they gits scared. When they throwed one gal out of
a window, she called out: 'Thank you, Lord,' for the poor thing thought
the Lord was savin' her from a fallin' buildin'. Poor old Martha
Holbrook,"--The sentence was not finished until Nellie's almost
hysterical giggles had attracted her daughter who came to see if
something was wrong--"Martha Holbrook," Nellie repeated, "was climbin'
backwards out of a window and her clothes got fastened on a nail. She
slipped on down and there she was with her legs kickin' around on the
outside and the rest of her muffled up in her clothes. It looked lak her
clothes was jus' goin' to peel off over her head. It took the menfolks a
long time to git her uncaught and out of that predicament in the window.
Pretty soon the folks began to come to their senses and they found there
wasn't nothin' wrong with the house 'cept that some doors and windows
had been torn out by the cr