g warmth from the other.

We cooked supper and breakfast over the coals--chickens broiled for our
evening meal, ham and eggs for the morning. We gave the dog the bones
and the crusts. I took bread with me, for Cousin Patty warned me that
I must not depend upon my squire for food. Cooking among these people
is a lost art. Cousin Patty believes that the regeneration of the poor
whites of the South will be accomplished through the women. "When they
learn to cook," she says, "the men won't need whiskey. When the
whiskey goes, they'll respect the law."

A mile before we reached the end of our journey, we were met by the
children of my schooner-squire. Five of them--two boys, two girls, and
a baby in the arms of the oldest girl. They all had the gentle quiet
and ease of the father--but they were unkempt little creatures,
uncombed, unwashed, in sad-colored clothes. That's the difference
between the negro and the white man of this region. The negro is
cheerful, debonair, he sings, he dances, and he wears all the colors of
the rainbow. An old black woman who carries home my wash wore the
other day a purple petticoat with a scarlet skirt looped above it, an
old green sweater, and, tied over her head, a pink wool shawl. Against
the neutral background of sandy hill she was a delight to the eye. The
whites on the other hand seem like little animals, who have taken on
the color of the landscape that they may be hidden.

But to go back to my sad children. It seemed to me that in them I was
seeing the South with new eyes, perhaps because I have been away just
long enough to get the proper perspective. And my life has been, you
see, lived in the Southern cities, where one touches rarely the
primitive.

The older boys are, perhaps, ten and twelve, blue-eyed and tow-headed.
I saw few signs of affection or intelligence. They did not kiss their
father when he came, except the small girl, who ran to him and was
hugged; the others seemed to practice a sort of incipient stoicism, as
if they were too old, too settled, for demonstration.

The mother, as we entered, was like her children. None of them has the
initiative or the energy of the man. They are subdued by the
changeless conditions of their environment; his one adventure of the
week keeps him alert and alive.

It is a desolate country, charred pines sticking up straight from white
sand. It might be made beautiful if for every tree that they tapped
for turpentine