be frozen, and often there would be snow.
My feet would crack and bleed freely, but when I reached home Mother
would have a tub full of hot water ready to plunge me into and thaw me
out. Although this caused my feet and legs to swell, it usually got me
into shape for school the next day.

I remember once, when I had helped "lay by" the crops at home and was
ready to enter the little one-month school, it was decided that I could
not go, because I had no hat. My mother told me that if I could catch a
'coon and cure the skin, she would make me a cap out of that material.
That night I went far into the forest with my hounds, and finally
located a 'coon. The 'coon was a mighty fighter, and when he had driven
off all my dogs I saw that the only chance for me to get a cap was to
whip the 'coon myself, so together with the dogs I went at him, and
finally we conquered him. The next week I went to school wearing my new
'coon-skin cap.

Exertions of this kind, from time to time, strengthened my will and my
body, and prepared me for more trying tests which were to come later.

As I grew older it became more and more difficult for me to go to
school. When cotton first began to open,--early in the fall,--it brought
a higher price than at any other time of the year. At this time the
landlord wanted us all to stop school and pick cotton. But Mother wanted
me to remain in school, so, when the landlord came to the quarters early
in the morning to stir up the cotton pickers, she used to outgeneral him
by hiding me behind the skillets, ovens, and pots, throwing some old
rags over me until he was gone. Then she would slip me off to school
through the back way. I can see her now with her hands upon my
shoulder, shoving me along through the woods and underbrush, in a
roundabout way, keeping me all the time out of sight of the great
plantation until we reached the point, a mile away from home, where we
came to the public road. There my mother would bid me good-bye,
whereupon she would return to the plantation and try to make up to the
landlord for the work of us both in the field as cotton pickers.

THE BRAVE SON

ALSTON W. BURLEIGH

A little boy, lost in his childish play,
Mid the deep'ning shades of the fading day,
Fancied the warrior he would be;
He scattered his foes with his wooden sword
And put to flight a mighty horde--
Ere he crept to his daddy's knee.

A soldier crawled o'er the death-str