ever working, and
trying to buy the seventy-five acres of hill and dale where he lived;
but people said that he would surely fail, and the "white folks would
get it all." His wife was a magnificent Amazon, with saffron face and
shining hair, uncorseted and barefooted, and the children were strong
and beautiful. They lived in a one-and-a-half-room cabin in the hollow
of the farm, near the spring. The front room was full of great fat white
beds, scrupulously neat; and there were bad chromos on the walls, and
a tired centre-table. In the tiny back kitchen I was often invited to
"take out and help" myself to fried chicken and wheat biscuit, "meat"
and corn pone, string beans and berries. At first I used to be a
little alarmed at the approach of bed-time in the one lone bedroom, but
embarrassment was very deftly avoided. First, all the children nodded
and slept, and were stowed away in one great pile of goose feathers;
next, the mother and the father discreetly slipped away to the kitchen
while I went to bed; then, blowing out the dim light, they retired
in the dark. In the morning all were up and away before I thought of
awaking. Across the road, where fat Reuben lived, they all went outdoors
while the teacher retired, because they did not boast the luxury of a
kitchen.

I liked to stay with the Dowells, for they had four rooms and plenty
of good country fare. Uncle Bird had a small, rough farm, all woods and
hills, miles from the big road; but he was full of tales,--he preached
now and then,--and with his children, berries, horses, and wheat he was
happy and prosperous. Often, to keep the peace, I must go where life
was less lovely; for instance, 'Tildy's mother was incorrigibly dirty,
Reuben's larder was limited seriously, and herds of untamed bedbugs
wandered over the Eddingses' beds. Best of all I loved to go to Josie's,
and sit on the porch, eating peaches, while the mother bustled and
talked: how Josie had bought the sewing-machine; how Josie worked at
service in winter, but that four dollars a month was "mighty little"
wages; how Josie longed to go away to school, but that it "looked like"
they never could get far enough ahead to let her; how the crops failed
and the well was yet unfinished; and, finally, how "mean" some of the
white folks were.

For two summers I lived in this little world; it was dull and humdrum.
The girls looked at the hill in wistful longing, and the boys fretted,
and haunted Alexandria. Alex