I enjoyed it all! How we
feasted on some of the deer killed "yisteddy," and real corn-pone baked
in a skillet down on the hearth. He was so full of happy recollections
and had a few that were not so happy! He is, in some way, a kinsman of
Pike of Pike's Peak fame, and he came west "jist arter the wah" on some
expedition and "jist stayed." He told me about his home life back in
Yell County, and I feel that I know all the "young uns."

There was George Henry, his only brother; and there were Phoebe and
"Mothie," whose real name is Martha; and poor little Mary Ann, whose
death was described so feelingly that no one could keep back the
tears. Lastly there was little Mandy, the baby and his favorite, but
who, I am afraid, was a selfish little beast since she had to have her
prunellas when all the rest of the "young uns" had to wear shoes that
old Uncle Buck made out of rawhide. But then "her eyes were blue as
morning-glories and her hair was jist like corn-silk, so yaller and
fluffy." Bless his simple, honest heart! His own eyes are blue and
kind, and his poor, thin little shoulders are so round that they almost
meet in front. How he loved to talk of his boyhood days! I can almost
see his father and George Henry as they marched away to the "wah"
together, and the poor little mother's despair as she waited day after
day for some word, that never came.

Poor little Mary Ann was drowned in the bayou, where she was trying to
get water-lilies. She had wanted a white dress all her life and so,
when she was dead, they took down the white cross-bar curtains and
Mother made the little shroud by the light of a tallow dip. But, being
made by hand, it took all the next day, too, so that they buried her by
moonlight down back of the orchard under the big elm where the children
had always had their swing. And they lined and covered her grave with
big, fragrant water-lilies. As they lowered the poor little home-made
coffin into the grave the mockingbirds began to sing and they sang all
that dewy, moonlight night. Then little Mandy's wedding to Judge
Carter's son Jim was described. She wore a "cream-colored poplin with a
red rose throwed up in it," and the lace that was on Grandma's wedding
dress. There were bowers of sweet Southern roses and honeysuckle and
wistaria. Don't you know she was a dainty bride?

At last it came out that he had not heard from home since he left it.
"Don't you ever write?" I asked. "No, I am not an eddicated man