to this day the pain
caused by the strong, rank soap's getting into my eyes.

Back from the house a vegetable garden ran, perhaps seventy-five
or one hundred feet; but to my childish fancy it was an endless
territory. I can still recall the thrill of joy, excitement, and
wonder it gave me to go on an exploring expedition through it, to find
the blackberries, both ripe and green, that grew along the edge of the
fence.

I remember with what pleasure I used to arrive at, and stand before, a
little enclosure in which stood a patient cow chewing her cud, how I
would occasionally offer her through the bars a piece of my bread and
molasses, and how I would jerk back my hand in half fright if she made
any motion to accept my offer.

I have a dim recollection of several people who moved in and about
this little house, but I have a distinct mental image of only two:
one, my mother; and the other, a tall man with a small, dark mustache.
I remember that his shoes or boots were always shiny, and that he wore
a gold chain and a great gold watch with which he was always willing
to let me play. My admiration was almost equally divided between the
watch and chain and the shoes. He used to come to the house evenings,
perhaps two or three times a week; and it became my appointed duty
whenever he came to bring him a pair of slippers and to put the shiny
shoes in a particular corner; he often gave me in return for this
service a bright coin, which my mother taught me to promptly drop in
a little tin bank. I remember distinctly the last time this tall man
came to the little house in Georgia; that evening before I went to
bed he took me up in his arms and squeezed me very tightly; my mother
stood behind his chair wiping tears from her eyes. I remember how I
sat upon his knee and watched him laboriously drill a hole through a
ten-dollar gold piece, and then tie the coin around my neck with a
string. I have worn that gold piece around my neck the greater part of
my life, and still possess it, but more than once I have wished that
some other way had been found of attaching it to me besides putting a
hole through it.

On the day after the coin was put around my neck my mother and I
started on what seemed to me an endless journey. I knelt on the seat
and watched through the train window the corn and cotton fields pass
swiftly by until I fell asleep. When I fully awoke, we were being
driven through the streets of a large city--Savannah. I sat