"What are you going to do with the cotton?"

"Sell it."

"What are you going to do with the money you get for it?"

One boy answered in advance of the rest,--

"Put it in my pocket, Sir."

"That won't do. What's better than that?"

"Buy clothes, Sir."

"What else will you buy?"

"Shoes, Sir."

"What else are you going to do with your money?"

There was some hesitation at this point. Then the question was put,--

"What are you going to do Sundays?"

"Going to meeting."

"What are you going to do there?"

"Going to sing."

"What else?"

"Hear the parson."

"Who's going to pay him?"

One boy said,--"Government pays him"; but the rest answered,--

"We's pays him."

"Well, when you grow up, you'll probably get married, as other people
do, and you'll have your little children; now, what will you do with
them?"

There was a titter at this question; but the general response came,--

"Send 'em to school, Sir."

"Well, who'll pay the teacher?"

"We's pays him."

One who listens to such answers can hardly think that there is any
natural incapacity in these children to acquire with maturity of years
the ideas and habits of good citizens.

The children are cheerful, and, in most of the schools, well-behaved,
except that it is not easy to keep them from whispering and talking.
They are joyous, and you can see the boys after school playing the
soldier, with corn-stalks for guns. The memory is very susceptible in
them,--too much so, perhaps, as it is ahead of the reasoning faculty.

The labor of the season has interrupted attendance on the schools, the
parents being desirous of having the children aid them in planting and
cultivating their crops, and it not being thought best to allow the
teaching to interfere in any way with industrious habits.

A few freedmen, who had picked up an imperfect knowledge of reading,
have assisted our teachers, though a want of proper training materially
detracts from their usefulness in this respect. Ned and Uncle Cyrus have
already been mentioned. The latter, a man of earnest piety, has died
since my visit. Anthony kept four schools on Hilton Head Island last
summer and autumn, being paid at first by the superintendents, and
afterwards by the negroes themselves; but in November he enlisted in the
negro regiment. Hettie was another of these. She assisted Barnard at
Edisto last spring, continued to teach after the Edisto people were
brought to St. Helena village, a