was
fully solved. An irate old lady called upon Dr. McAllister, holding at
the end of a string a fine, large chicken, and vociferously
proclaiming her wrongs. "I _knowed_ I'd ketch 'em: I _knowed_ it. Jes'
look a-here," and she drew up the chicken, opened its mouth, and
showed the butt of a fish-hook it had swallowed. Upon further
examination, it was found that the hook had been baited with a kernel
of corn. "I've been noticin' a powerful disturbance among my fowls,
an' every onct in while one of 'em would go over the fence like
litenin' and I couldn't see what went with it. This mornin' I jes' sot
down under the fence an' watched, and the fust thing I seed was a line
flyin' over the fence right peert, an' as soon as it struck the ground
the chickens all went for it, an' this yer fool chicken up and
swallered it. Now, I'm a lone woman, an' my chickens an' my
truck-patch is my livin', and _I ain't gwine to stan' no sich!_" The
convalescents, attracted by the shrill, angry voice, gathered around.
Their innocent surprise, and the wonder with which they examined the
baited fish-hook and _sympathized with the old lady_, almost upset the
gravity of the "sturgeons," as the old body called the doctors.

There was one dry-goods store still kept open in Newnan, but few
ladies had the inclination or the means to go shopping. The cotton
lying idle all over the South was then to a certain extent utilized.
Everything the men wore was dyed and woven at home: pants were either
butternut, blue, or light purple, occasionally light yellow; shirts,
coarse, but snowy white, or what would now be called _cream_.
Everybody knitted socks. Ladies, negro women, girls, and even little
boys, learned to knit. Each tried to get ahead as to number and
quality. Ladies' stockings were also knitted of all grades from stout
and thick to gossamer or open-work, etc. Homespun dresses were proudly
worn, and it became a matter of constant experiment and great pride to
improve the quality and vary colors. Warp and woof were finely spun,
and beautiful combinations of colors ventured upon, although older
heads eschewed them, and in consequence complacently wore their clean,
smoothly-ironed gray, "pepper-and-salt," or brown homespuns long after
the gayer ones had been faded by sun or water and had to be "dipped."
Hats and bonnets of all sorts and sizes were made of straw or
palmetto, and trimmed with the same. Most of them bore cockades of
bright red and white (t