thing, but, Honey, when I
put my foot on that top step such a feelin' come over me as I had never
had before in all my life. My body trembled 'til I had to hold tight to
the stair-rail to keep from fallin', and I felt the hair risin' up all
over my head. While it seemed like hours before I was able to move, it
was really only a very few seconds. I went down those stairs in a hurry
and, from that night to this day, I have never hunted ghosts no more and
I don't aim to do it again, never.

"I've been here a long time, Honey. When them first street lights was
put up and lit, Athens was still mostly woods. Them old street lights
would be funny to you now, but they was great things to us then, even if
they wasn't nothin' but little lanterns what burned plain old lamp-oil
hung out on posts. The Old Town Hall was standin' then right in the
middle of Market (Washington) Street, between Lumpkin and Pulaski
Streets. The lowest floor was the jail, and part of the ground floor was
the old market place. Upstairs was the big hall where they held court,
and that was where they had so many fine shows. Whenever any white folks
had a big speech to make they went to that big old room upstairs in Town
Hall and spoke it to the crowd.

"You is too young to remember them first streetcars what was pulled by
little bitsy Texas mules with bells around their necks. Hearing them
bells was sweet music to us when they meant we was goin' to git a ride
on them streetcars. Some folks was too precise to say 'streetcars'; they
said 'horsecars', but them horsecars was pulled through the streets by
mules, so what's the diffunce? Sometimes them little mules would mire up
so deep in the mud they would have to be pulled out, and sometimes, when
they was feelin' sassy and good, they would jus' up and run away with
them streetcars. Them little critters could git the worst tangled up in
them lines." Here Nellie laughed heartily. "Sometimes they would even
try to climb inside the cars. It was lots of fun ridin' them cars, for
you never did know what was goin' to happen before you got back home,
but I never heard of no real bad streetcar accidents here."

Nellie now began jumping erratically from one subject to another. "Did
you notice my pretty flowers and ferns on the front porch?" she asked.
"I jus' know you didn't guess what I made them two hangin' baskets out
of. Them's the helmets that my son and my son-in-law wore when they was
fightin' in the World War.