which everybody got
water. Between it and our house was a negro cabin. The little negroes
would rock me. I stood it as long as I could. Then I told Mrs. Blakeley.
She said to get some rocks in my bucket and if they rocked me to heave
back. I was a good shot and they ran. Their mother came to Mrs. Blakeley
to complain, but she told her after hearing her thru that I had stood
all I could and the only reason I hadn't been seriously hurt was because
her children weren't good shots. They never bothered me again.

It was hard after the war. The Federals stayed on for a long time.
Fences were down, houses were burned, stock was gone, but we got along
somehow. When Nora Blakeley was 14 a lady was teaching a subscription
school in the hall across the street--the same hall Mrs. Blakely had
saved from burning. She wanted Nora to teach for her. So, child that she
was, she went over and pretty soon she was teaching up to the fourth
grade. I went over every morning and built a fire for her before she
arrived.

That fall she went over to the University, but the next year she had to
stay out to earn money. She wanted to finish so badly that we decided to
take boarders. They would come to us from way over on the campus. There
were always lots more who wanted to stay than we could take. We bought
silver and dishes just as we could pay for them, and we added to the
house in the summer time. I used to cook their breakfasts and dinners
and pack baskets of lunch for them to take over to the Campus. We had
lots of interesting people with us. One was Jeff Davis--later he was
governor and then senator. He and a Creek Indian boy named Sam Rice were
great friends. There were lots of Indians in school at the University
then. They didn't have so many Indian schools and tribes would make up
money and send a bright boy here.

Ten years after she graduated from the University Nora married Harvey M.
Hudgins. They moved to Hot springs and finally ran a hotel. It burned
the night of Washington's birthday in 1895. It was terrible, we saved
nothing but the night clothes we were in. Next morning it was worse for
we saw small pox flags all over town. Our friends came to our rescue and
gave us clothes and we went with friends out into the country to escape
the epidemic. There were three or four families in one little house. It
was crowded, but we were all friends so it was nice after all.

About ten years before Mr. Hudgins had built a building in Fayette