"Sister!" how solemn the blue eyes looked, how dignified the boyish figure. "Sister!" - with increasing emphasis - "I have no respect for a girl who is eleven years old and doesn't know how to cook. If you will go into the house I will get breakfast and take it into the dining room." Frantic with delight, but maintaining due outward composure, "Well," I answered, "suppose we make a bargain? If you will cook every time mother gets sick I will tell you one of Dickens' stories or one of Sir Walter Scott's novels as regularly as the nights roll around." "All right! I'll do it!" was the ready assent; - and the compact was sealed. It was never broken.

        As the days went by and mother's health failed to improve, and my work failed correspondingly to grow lighter, the younger boys were pressed into service by similar agreements. My second brother was to wash the dishes and help with outdoor labor. The youngest was to do the sweeping as far as his stature and strength permitted. This condition of domestic engineering continued until the time came for me to go away to school. Every night after our lessons were learned for the next day, we gathered around the hearth in mother's room and I told the boys the promised stories; going into smallest details; dwelling on peculiarities of characters, painting minutely their environment, waxing humorous or pathetic according to the situation; all the while watching closely the faces of my auditors. There they would sit for hours, my little brothers, listening intently to every word that was uttered; at times clapping their chubby hands with intense enjoyment, or

doubling up their small bodies in convulsive laughter, or holding their lips together with fore-finger and thumb to prevent too boisterous an explosion of hilarity; at other times allowing the great tears to roll down their cheeks, or with bowed heads sobbing aloud. My precious little comrades! They constituted my first audience, and it was the most sympathetic and inspiring that has ever greeted me in all the after years.

        One day the announcement was made that a baby had been born in our home, who was to be our brother. The feeling of indignation that swelled into my inmost being surpasses description. Rallying the three boys in the dining-room a caucus was held. Our ages were respectively eleven, nine, seven and five years. I was self-elected chairman on the momentous occasion. "Boys," my voice came trembling with growing wrath, "a child has been born into our family. He will have to be supported. We are disgraced. We were too poor to have any more children. It was just as much as we could do to get along with us four. We must do something to show how angry we are about this baby's coming to add to our troubles." Forthwith we piled all the chairs together in a towering heap and knocked them down by two's and three's, breaking several, and making an awful din. After the fury of the tempest had subsided we met in council again and took a solemn vow never to look at the intruder until we were forced, by unhappy circumstances, to do so; and we never did until we learned that mother was about to die.

        A week later Fannie, one of our ex-slaves, came to the rear gallery and said: "Baby!" - all of our ante-bellum

negroes called me "Baby," as I was the last infant born in the family before the war closed. "Baby, Mistis is pow'ful bad off an' yo pa, he say 'go fo' de doctor!' " I waited for no further command, nor took time to search for my sun-bonnet, which was usually sewed on by mother to preserve my complexion, and as regularly cut off by some negro woman at my urgent solicitation, but ran rapidly up the hill to Vernon for the neighboring physician. On my return, the boys and I formed a procession and marched into mother's room with shamed faces and bursting hearts. We were all nearly grown, however, before we forgave the baby for being born.

        The comradeship begun at the hearthstone with my three brothers continued. They were ever my most devoted friends and enthusiastic allies. The oldest always came to my assistance in domestic matters and even after he had become a man and entered into business he would give out the meals for me on his visits home, if mother was ill. He would keep my breakfast warm if I did not care to arise when the others did, saying always tenderly, after a gentle tap on my door, "Do you want to sleep this morning, sister? Very well, I will attend to everything." We four shared every hardship and rejoiced together in every happiness. In summer we went wading and fishing; the boys chivalrously taking off their jackets for me to wipe my feet on, and baiting my hooks. When we were older we went hunting. They carried my gun but I did my own shooting. Their unselfish acts were returned by me in the intimidation of rowdy boys at school whenever domineering

the little fellows was attempted. In all the association of our lives my three companions were always loving and generous to me, never harshly criticizing any action, however absurd, or the causes I espoused later on, whether or not they were in accord with the spirit of them. The affinity between my second brother and myself was most pronounced. We read Shakspeare together, had long walks and confidential talks, discussing books and life and laying great plans for the future. We were both ambitious for the widest culture, and as the chances narrowed, shutting out every hope of a liberal education we became more closely united in spirit through our common sorrow. Mother taught my brothers that as they had but one sister they should render to her the highest homage, - and they did, most loyally. By degrees every species of rough work of which they could relieve me was taken from my hands. If an article was wanted at the table a boy arose to get it. If a sacrifice was to be endured - an old garment longer worn - a choice bit of food surrendered, - the boys undertook the renunciation. Father set them the example in his exquisite courtesy. His considerateness for woman never failed him. How sweet that old home-life was! - the manly gentleness of my brothers, the royal graciousness of my father, the tender devotion of my mother!

        A law was passed by the legislature of Mississippi in 1846 establishing a system of public schools. Almost nothing was accomplished, however, up to 1861, then, of course, the Confederacy absorbed every other question. In the South generally the attention of the

people was beginning to be drawn toward public education just before the opening of the civil war; but, during the black days of reconstruction there was little inclination to encourage a system of education that would have to be supported for colored as well as white children, the taxes for the purpose being paid by the latter almost entirely. Especially, while the whites were being threatened by the government at Washington with co-education of the races.

        The Republican convention of 1868 made provisions for the revival of the system of free schools which went into operation in 1870.

        The nearly tax-crushed people objected to an educational law made by a legislature composed of ex-slaves, few of whom could read, and of carpet-baggers and scalawags, - and administered by an alien, non-tax-paying governor and superintendent of education. With such a revival it is marvelous that the free school found any tolerance in Southern life.

        Public schools were a costly luxury in those days. The whites paid the expenses of public instruction and, as much as possible, educated their own children in private schools. If a public school teacher had but one pupil he drew his full salary as punctually as if there were a hundred in attendance.

        Among my first teachers was a young woman whom mother boarded in order to give me instruction. Her time was divided between reading Byron and drilling me in the multiplication table in vast disproportion. Afterward my public school life began. The patrons of the Vernon school selected a teacher for a certain

term, and thought, of course, that the Board of Education, although composed of men of a different political party, would have regard to their opinion and appoint their choice. Instead a strange lady from Maine was given the place. Every parent felt grossly insulted by such a high-handed measure, and refused to send their children to school. Father said he stopped me on principle.

        I was growing up like a weed, and heard nothing discussed but Republicans. Conjectures began to form in my brain as to what sort of creatures they could be. I heard them called "black," but one day a Northern man, who was said to be a Republican, passed sufficiently near for me to discern that he was as fair as the proverbial lily and shaped like an Apollo. Gradually my cranium cast out its terrifying myths, and reached an adjustment so far as that Republicans looked like other men, but should never be spoken to, and must be shunned like the small-pox.

        For a whole term the new teacher went to the schoolhouse, stayed the number of hours required by law, and drew a salary of $75 at the end of each month. She had only one pupil; he was her nephew. The following year the political storm had abated; the Democrats were regaining power. Patrons could now elect the teachers of their schools. The quiet dignity, and superior attainments of the Northern lady had made their impress. Fair play was not neglected when the Southern men's turn came; the patrons who had rebelled and seceded when coërcion was afoot, now selected this same teacher for the next session.

        That was the beginning of a bright era for me. As soon as Mrs. Fenderson was met, with her pure, sweet face, and gracious, elegant bearing, my heart was laid at her feet. We became close friends. On rainy days when there would be no pupils at the school-house, but the small nephew and me, my beloved teacher would take us home with her to "hear our lessons." She lived on a plantation not far from ours, with a widowed sister, Mrs. Woodman, whose husband, a colonel in the Federal army, had died soon after coming to Mississippi. They were beautiful women, and so pathetic in their loneliness. It was touching to see how yearningly they reached out after me, only a child, treating me as courteously and as lovingly as if I were a distinguished guest of grown-up proportions. They would talk about their far-away New England home, describing the customs of the people, so unlike the Southerners; show me pictures of noted persons and places; read to me from magazines and attractive books and feed me on delicious "buns" and "cookies," names unknown on a Mississippi menu. I began to think there was no spot in all the world so alluring as the dwelling of these friends, nor any human beings as lovely. My first wide outlook upon humanity was gained through them, and they brought to my vigilant soul the awakening of my first inspirations.

        Our delightful intercourse and mutual devotion continued without a break until two years later, when Mrs. Fenderson fell a victim to the dread malarial fever. When her tired body was laid away in its last resting place it was in a land of strangers, for unto the end she

had lived in unbroken isolation. All the light seemed to die out of life for me. To this day I mourn her loss and revere her memory, with deepest gratitude and with a love unspeakable; but, with Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, "I believe that there is no away; that no love, no life goes ever from us; it goes as He went that it may come again, deeper and closer and surer; and be with us always, even unto the end of the world."

CHAPTER IV

THE YOUNG LADIES' ACADEMY

                        There! little girl; don't cry!
                        They have broken your heart, I know;
                        And the rainbow gleams
                        Of your youthful dreams
                        Are things of the long ago;
                        But heaven holds all for which you sigh,
                        There! little girl; don't cry! - JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

        SOON after the close of the war, nearly every old family moved away from the Vernon neighborhood except father's and that of one of his brothers. Three or four worthy, agreeable ones took their places, but the majority of the new-comers were poor, unlettered people, with strong class prejudices and an intense jealousy of the planter-caste. The splendid ante-bellum homes were rented to these and to negroes. Our social circle had pitifully narrowed down. We were literally shut in from the world with nothing to relieve the pressure but books. I read, read, read, - English and American poets, standard fiction, travels, histories, biographies and philosophies. So, in the midst of poverty and desolation, my mind was being fed with the very manna of intellectual life. Reading was done with pencil in hand

and note book and dictionary conveniently near. The habit proved invaluable.

        Father was struggling heroically with adversity. His first venture at bread winning was in the insurance business; but the returns were paltry enough to make him discard it for the rejected profession of his youth. He studied law, and secured a license to practice in the Magistrates' courts. His clients were poor and troubled and father's missionary spirit so large that the gains from the legal calling were as meagre as from the insurance business; and, after a few years it was abandoned. Agencies for several plantations later fell into his hands and eventually he returned to his planting interests.

        The boys soon became old enough to work in the field. Never having been trained as plowmen, their first efforts were crude, developing the most ludicrously crooked rows of corn and cotton. Father was disgusted with the result of their attempts, and, in desperation, took hold of the plow, one spring morning, to teach them precision. "I am ashamed that the outcome of your work is so wretched, after living on a plantation all your lives. Let me show you how to manage a plow!" he exclaimed, grasping the implement with stern determination. It was heavier than he thought - he had never touched one before, and, never after, it is well to add - and the mouth of the mule tougher than he dreamed. Away went the plow! up and down, right and left, here and there; demolishing the serpentine rows and scattering clods and confusion broadcast. The boys were convulsed with laughter, which, however,

they wisely concealed. Father kept on trying to conquer the mule and the plow until exhaustion came. Throwing down the lines, he said, very bravely, "Now, boys, you see how it ought to be done. Never let me hear of your failing again!" and walked away with assumed stateliness to hide his crestfallen condition: back to his den and his law books. Dear father! he was born for happier abodes than a Mississippi plantation. The post-bellum world was too much for him. He was not alone in his position. Thousands of ex-slave-holders throughout the South were grappling vainly with conditions that "try men's souls."

        My father's youngest brother, "uncle Kinch," as he was familiarly known to us and to the world, had moved from Vernon to Canton; the latter a beautiful town, the county seat of Madison. Here he and his wife, "aunt Henrietta," kept open house in the charming home where they had established themselves. They were both happy-hearted, fond of bright company, devoted to music and blessed with a handsome competency. My aunt had inherited a goodly portion from her father's estate in Louisiana, just after the war, when the cotton planters of Mississippi were enduring terrible financial depression. Uncle Kinch had lost a leg at Cold-Harbor, in the Confederate service, but this misfortune did not imbitter his spirit nor check the flow of his brilliant wit that had descended to him from a long line of Irish ancestry. His captivating jokes and hail-fellow-well-met air attracted the young people in a wide relationship; his home became headquarters for every one in search of a royal time. He had no children: one of his

adopted daughters was married, the other a young lady in society: but his numerous nieces and nephews were taken into his affections, all called "honey" and treated with lavish cordiality. When I reached the age of thirteen, my public school course was finished. At this turning point of the way, uncle Kinch invited me to make his house my home and attend the Young Ladies' Academy for as long as father would be able to bear the expense of tuition fees. The hospitality was gladly accepted. In a few days, my little trunk was packed. I had been making my own clothes for four years, so did not go away hopelessly ignorant of how to take care of myself. Good-byes were said to mother and the boys, and early one September morning father and I climbed into the buggy - the carriage had long since been disposed of - with my baggage securely settled at our feet and, started on the long journey of twenty miles through the country to Canton. There was at that time no nearer railway station. Those lonely, lengthy drives, which were so often enjoyed with father, stand out prominently in my life's history. It was in these hours that we had sweet communion and laid the foundations of an enduring friendship. He talked to me unreservedly of the most sacred things in his experience, and philosophized upon human existence, upon science, religion, politics, interspersing his remarks with kindly advice and tender sentiment. Father had the happy faculty of calling out the best that was in one, and in turn fascinating his companion with the seemingly limitless resources of his well-stored mind and broad Christianity. He had always been a companion to his

children, drawing us closer year after year, entertaining us with incidents from the lives of great men and women and of obscure though beautiful characters whom he had known or of whom he had heard, thus inciting us to high aspirations; best of all, holding up before us daily, though unconsciously, the "white flower of a blameless life."

        In later years it was a source of intense gratification to me to know that my father was devoid of a suggestion of sectional animosity. He had the highest regard for the true-hearted people of the North and a cordial admiration for their sterling worth and wonderful accomplishments. The civil war left him with a profound respect for the valor of his opponents. He told of their heroism with enthusiasm. After the battle of Leesburg, his company, with three others, was ordered to conduct the prisoners captured to Centerville, Virginia. They left Leesburg at twelve o'clock at night. It was comparatively warm at the start, but by daybreak it had become severely cold. Some time during the following morning, father noticed among the captives a mere youth - not more than sixteen years old - who was without shoes or socks. On inspection it was found that he was nude with the exception of an army overcoat. Upon being questioned, he stated that when the Confederates drove the Union army from the field back to the Potomac, he had pulled his clothes off and jumped into the river with many others to swim to an island where the Federal troops had landed, and where he hoped still to find some of his comrades. "When we got into the river," he said, "the Confederates opened

fire, and to keep from being shot, I returned to the Virginia shore. When I looked around for my clothes they were gone." That bare-foot boy, covered only with an old army overcoat, had marched for hours uncomplainingly over the stony roads of Virginia in a temperature at freezing point, while others in the ranks, well-clad, were complaining heavily. Father made an effort to secure some clothing for the young Federal hero, but failing, had him put into a wagon and carried the remainder of the way.

        Along with his unprejudiced regard for the Northern people, father cherished an ardent love for the land of his birth and was eloquent over the courage, patriotism and pathetic endurance of the Southern soldiers. Among the numerous instances, illustrative of their unselfish attachment to the cause for which they were willing to lay down their lives, he told, with especial pride, of a noble exhibition of loyalty on the part of a young officer from his own state. While on the Peninsula, near Richmond, Lieutenant Brown, son of ex-Governor A. G. Brown, of Mississippi, the latter at the time a senator in the Confederate Congress, was detailed by the colonel of his regiment to go to Richmond on business for the army. He went to father, who was lieutenant colonel, and asked him to secure his release as the 18th Mississippi was expected every day to enter into an engagement and he did not want the news sent home that he was not in the battle. The young lieutenant could have executed his commission and had a gay time at the Confederate capital, avoiding all the dangers of

war, but he preferred to face death in his country's service rather than have his devotion questioned.

        Going to Canton with father was not my first separation from home. My aunt and uncle had received many visits from me since my childhood, so it was not hard to go. Besides, I was hungry to be in a school of a high grade, and was willing to suffer to accomplish it. Professor Magruder, a very scholarly man and able teacher, was Principal of the Academy. Associated with him as assistants were two cultivated women. My examinations were safely passed and admission was given to the Freshman class. A solemn mental resolution was taken to make the best of my opportunities. All the force of my intellectual and physical being was brought to bear upon my studies with an energy that knew no stint nor relaxation. Midnight found me at my books, and it was a rare occurrrence for me to go upon the play-ground at recess. Every morning I arose with the sun, wrote a diary of the preceding day and looked again over my lessons.

        On Saturdays essays were prepared for the following Friday afternoons. I began to dream dreams of graduation; afterwards of going North to a Woman's College, and later to Germany for further culture in certain branches. Alas! for my fine schemes; destined to premature destruction! After being at the Academy for only two years, father was compelled to take me home because he was unable longer to pay the monthly tuition of five dollars. My humiliation was the most crushing, and my disappointment the keenest, cruelest,

that can come to me in this life. I could not cry. The fountains of tears were dried up by the deadly eastwind of despair that was sweeping over me. It would have been folly to rail at my unhappy fate; it would only have exhausted my vitality. It would have been sinful to upbraid father; he would have given me millions if he had possessed so much; he did not have an extra dollar, and was probably suffering much more than I. Besides, the boys were growing rapidly, and the oldest must be given at least one year at the University, and every possible economy must be practiced to accomplish that object.

        I had never heard of a woman working to pay her way through school. Numerous instances of men acquiring an education by hard labor had been related to me, but never of a woman. All the women who were known to me personally, or through books, or tradition, had their bills paid by male relatives, and made fancy work, and visited, and danced, and played on the piano, or did something else equally feminine and equally conventional, and all were equally dependent and equally contented, - at any rate, asked no questions. Industrial institutes and colleges where poor girls could work their way through were not in existence, and the doors of the State University, where tuition was free, were then open only to boys. There was nothing in Mississippi for young women except high-priced boarding schools and "female" academies. It is humiliating to women for colleges, academies and boarding schools established for their education to be called "female." There is no sex in institutions of learning. The word

"woman" is strong and dignified and suggests courteous consideration. "Female" is weak and almost insulting. It stands now as the exponent of the inferior position of women as early conceptions of the nature and province of women are illustrated in the sculpture and painting of the old masters.

        There is a statue in the great cathedral at Pisa representing the temptation of Eve where the serpent has the head of a woman; and upon the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at Rome, in Michael Angelo's marvelous production, the devil is painted with a woman's body down to the waist while the remainder of his satanic majesty is in the form of a reptile.

        If the thought of working to continue my education had entered my brain, which it did not, it would have been throttled at its inception, for my family would have considered it an eternal disgrace for me to have worked publicly. It is true that for four years I had been in a pitiless tread-mill, but it was at home; the world did not know of it; and money, that degrading substance, had not been received for my labor. Household drudgery and public work were very different questions. The former was natural and unavoidable; the latter was monstrous and impossible. I was fairly bound to the rock of hopelessness by the cankered chains of a false conventionality, and sacrificed for lack of a precedent.

        Of all unhappy sights, the most pitiable is that of a human life, rich in possibilities and strong with divine yearnings for better things than it has known, atrophying in the prison house of blind and palsied custom; -

because there is no one in the passing throng brave and great enough to break the bars and "let the oppressed go free," - into the larger liberty where God meant that all His creatures should live and grow and shine.

CHAPTER V

STORMS OF THE SOUL

        We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it. - PHILLIPS BROOKS.

        My early and invincible love of reading, I would not exchange for the treasures of India. - GIBBON.

        SINCE the close of the civil war as complete a change had taken place in the South as followed the revolution in France of the latter part of the eighteenth century. Under the new régime which began with the liberation of over 4,000,000 slaves the upper and the middle classes have become amalgamated by the action of the elements of circumstance.

        Many of the old families, boasting a long line of descent from blue-blooded and distinguished ancestors, soon were the most sorely pressed financially. Thousands of middle-aged - and younger - men had come home from the last battle-field maimed by wounds or weakened in health by privations. When they entered the gloom of lost fortunes, added to the sorrows of a lost cause, they quickly sank under the triple weight. Hundreds of them were followed to the grave by communities that sorely felt the need of their ripe judgment, their accustomed leadership. The stress of poverty,

the paralysis of indolence and the want of purpose benumbed the energies and stultified the pride of other descendants of the old slave-holders, many of whom bore the pitiless stamp of incapacity to wrest success out of new conditions.

        The middle classes were equal to the emergency. Adjustment is easier than readjustment. Trained to activities they sprang rapidly to the front, becoming possessors of wealth and leaders in church and state. The inevitable in social life has developed. Marriage into the higher class followed as a matter of course with the middle, for the one wanted prestige and the other money. The distinctions of half a century ago have gradually lost their outlines. The "strenuous life" of the day now engrosses the mind of the Southerner more than the ancient "family tree."

        Next to the destruction of caste, the most radical change that has followed in the wake of the surrender of the Confederate armies is that young Southern men and women have learned that work is honorable. Idleness has grown to be a shame. No boy and girl can now hope to realize their highest destiny except through hard, earnest toil of hands or brain. The unsafe and unnatural code of the manorial leisure of other days vanished with slavery. This transition of sentiment, however, has been the slow growth of years. The blossoming "of the tree" whose "leaves" are "for the healing of the Nations" had scarcely begun when my feet stood on the threshold of eager life, - wrestling in strong agony with hopeless but unconquerable purposes.

        One of the most unfortunate conditions in all the

world is a state of aimlessness. It saps the springs of power and dulls the finest soul. It drags down and destroys. I was only fifteen. What was my future to be? Never to go to the Academy again? Never to attend a Northern college? Never to cross the sea? What was there for me to do? How could the days be filled so as to keep down the heart-break? Those were the questions that were never stilled. If my life had to be spent on the plantation, and if living meant no more for me than it meant for the women about me, what was the use of reading, of trying to cultivate my mind when it would have the effect of making me more miserable and of widening the intellectual gulf that already stretched between most of the neighbors and myself? What a terrible thing life seemed! And how every impulse of my being hated it with an immeasurable hatred! In those days I died ten thousand deaths. I died to God and to humanity.

        From the hour of leaving school in Canton a deadness settled upon my soul. "The door was shut." The night closed in. That was the beginning of an unbelief that haunted me for ten dreary agonizing years. My natural tendency to questioning had been intensified by the environments of my childhood; but the spirit of inquiry had not led me further than the human side. The orthodox version of Creator and creation was accepted as credulously as the air that was breathed or the perfume of flowers. It was only the grindings of poverty, the raspings of the jagged edges of every-day existence and the perpetual witnessing of misery in the world about me that caused me first to ask: What is

life? Up to the age of fifteen my soul had hoped and prayed and listened for the voice of God. I believed in Him, and waited - not patiently but imperatively, - but - I believed and waited. In the great storm that engulfed me at that time my faith let go its moorings, and I found myself drifting, without a gleam of light, out upon the waste of midnight waters known as skepticism. As the darkness deepened and thoughts heavy with increasing doubts surged through my brain like a lava-tide, my soul demanded verification for my convictions.

        There was no one in the home with whom conversation on such a subject would have been particularly satisfying, so, in desperation a search was made through the library for some book that would answer my queries; but nothing was found touching infidelity except the materialism of certain philosophers. These works were devoured until my mind became saturated with their ideas. I grew to despise Christianity and sneered at every profession of trust in a Supreme Being. Church members were observed critically and every sin and inconsistency which was discovered in them brought out that degree of derision and contempt to which only youth, ignorance and prejudice are equal. Mother had a habit of devoting several hours each morning to study of the Bible. On seeing her surrounded by rows of commentaries and bending over the Scriptures, comparing passages or memorizing texts, I felt my heart hardening, and was conscious of an increased aversion to religion. Our home was headquarters for all Methodist ministers who passed that way,

to mother's intense delight and my intense disgust. It was a rule of mine to avoid them whenever possible. My voluntary entrance into the church dated from my twelfth year, during a great revival. Now, when the scene occurred to me I laughed at myself for having yielded to so much emotion, and requested that my name be removed from the church books.

        Our home was headquarters not only for Methodist preachers but as well for Democratic politicians. Every candidate for office in the county found his way there, to mother's infinite chagrin and the unbounded delight of father and me. Mother often declined to appear at the table, so I would preside and afterward go into the parlor and talk with the visitors for hours on the situation of public affairs. The aspirants were of all descriptions - from the sleek, town-bred lawyer, "out" for the Senate, to the thin, country granger, who yearned to be a constable. They afforded me ample opportunity to learn the methods of political campaigns and to study the motives and natures of men. Often requests were made by the different candidates for my support in a canvass; but there were others who had little regard for a woman's assistance.

        One summer when the roads were kept dusty by the continuous goings to and fro of the anxious office-seekers, one of these interesting subjects dined at our house. He was a most forlorn specimen, with heavy, drooping eyes, straggling moustache and languid movements. His clothes, from the disconsolate set of his collar down to his edge-frayed trousers, draggling over his well-worn boots, gave evidence of a long, hard race on the

war path. My sympathies were so aroused that as soon as dinner was over I followed him to the front gallery and, in a burst of condolence, said impulsively: "Mr. F., it is my intention to throw the whole weight of my influence to have you elected!" Looking at me in a sleepily - quizzical fashion, he replied in a droning tone: "It had never occurred to me to ask the assistance of ladies in a political campaign. I supposed they were too busy in other matters to be interested in anything so weighty."

        Then he proceeded to tell this joke: There was a great convention of women held somewhere, and a certain local society sent its delegate. When the representative returned a meeting was called that the ladies might hear her report. When this was finished she remarked that questions were "in order." A slim little woman, with a weazen face peering out from a flaring poke-bonnet, arose in the rear of the room, and in a thin, high key called out: "Sister, what sort of hats did the women wear?" Then my hopeful candidate, turning towards me more fully, with a glimmer of something in his eyes which he would have called humor, said: "It was my impression that all ladies thought more about hats and such things than politics."

        It is needless to say the facetious gentleman, with the well-worn apparel and Don Quixote air, lost my support suddenly and completely.

        As the days went by they found me more and more deeply immersed in reading. Father bought me translations of the Greek, Latin and Italian poets. An old physician, quite a literateur, who had recently come into

the neighborhood, loaned me valuable books that we did not own. He put me under special obligations by sending Allison's "Essays" and Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws." From other sources some of the works of Ruskin, Carlyle and Herbert Spencer came to me and found an honored place among my treasures. Although applying myself sedulously to books, I was being consumed with a feverish restlessness. My wretchedness went beyond the power of words to express. A deep-rooted desire to do something definite was always present; but every undertaking that suggested itself seemed walled off by insurmountable barriers.

        Finally I concluded to study law under father, but when my intention was announced to him he discouraged it utterly, arguing that if there were in my possession the legal lore of Blackstone and the ability of a Portia it would not guarantee me the opportunity of practicing in the South. No woman had ever attempted such an absurdity, and any effort on my part, in that line, would subject me to ridicule and ostracism. After this fatal ending to my aspirations, I again sought refuge in books. With no definite object ahead and with not the faintest rim of a crescent of hope above my dull horizon.

        . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

        It was the summer of 1878. That terrible scourge, known as yellow-fever, crept relentlessly over the South. For the period of time that it lasted its deadly ravages exceeded the destruction of the civil war. Thousands stood shuddering in "The Valley of the Shadow." Death, grim and awful, stalked through the

land knowing no surfeit. It was the blackness of despair. The acme of desolation. Pitiless quarantines were instituted; families were separated by a short dividing line never to be reunited. Others fled in terror from their homes in towns, seeking refuge in tents and cabins; while those who could, went to distant states. Food supplies failed. Hunger, gaunt and hollow-eyed, stole in at the open doors. Men, women and little children moved about listlessly, abandoning all work, looking hopelessly into each other's eyes, wondering, with a speechless fear, who would go out first from among them to return no more. Friends did not visit nor church bells ring. All was silent as the tomb - waiting, waiting, waiting. In the cities, the roll of the death-cart broke the stillness of the streets as it passed swiftly from house to house, collecting the bodies and carrying them to the cemeteries. There was the thud of spades in the earth, driven by men digging grave after grave, but all else was silent - waiting, waiting, waiting. A white woman and her two little children died near us and were buried by a negro man. He dug the graves and, unaided, lowered the bodies into the earth. The husband dared not leave the bedside of the other sufferers in the afflicted family. A physician stopped one morning at the gate to give father a list of fresh victims. In four days the young doctor was dead. A family of ten persons, friends of ours, living near Vicksburg, were all stricken at one time. Nobody dared go near the house but the Italian nurses who had been sent out from the city. As death followed death the plantation bell would be tolled to notify those who acted

as undertakers that another grave must be dug. For the sake of those still living the dead were lowered in sheets from the windows, to avoid the slow, ominous tramp of feet through the hall. All were gone but two - the father and a young widowed daughter. A swarthy Dago sat watching the latter, while the blood settled in her hands and neck. The bell began to toll. "What is that for?" she asked. "To have your grave made ready, lady," was the answer.

        Late in the autumn the pall lifted. The quarantines were raised. The refugees returned to their deserted homes. The voice of traffic was heard. Life waked up with startled, saddened eyes from her long, deep sleep. It was the middle of November. Some said that Mrs. Woodman, our Northern friend, was very ill. Mother and I walked over the fields to see her. The dying sun streamed across the faded grass and lay in long, glinting lines upon the distant woods that had many days since laid aside their summer vesture. The tall rows of golden-rod and yellow coreopsis that fringed the winding path swayed noiselessly in the passing breeze. The houses of the little village, scattered here and there in a lonely way, had a pathetic mournfulness. Away to the east a glimpse could be caught of the headstones that marked the quiet resting place of our dead. The surrounding country, with its gentle undulations, was wrapped in unbroken solitude. A peculiar sadness brooded over all. There is an inexplicable heart-break in those early days of a Southern winter; - changing sunshine, shifting shadows and still air full of a mystic haze.

                        "A Spirit broods amid the grass:
                        Vague outlines of the Everlasting Thought
                        Lie in the melting shadows as they pass;
                        The touch of an Eternal Presence thrills
                        The fringes of the sunsets and the hills."

        I was peculiarly susceptible to it all at that time, for my soul was full of its vague unrest, its ever present inquiry into life's meaning to me, overshadowed by a grieving unbelief of a Divine Providence.

        Soon we were standing in Mrs. Woodman's sick room. As I bent over the bed to greet her, she threw her arms about my neck and, drawing my face close down to her lips, she whispered, "Dear child, I have been so lonely. When I get well you will come to stay a whole week with me, won't you? Ah! if I ever get well!" She sighed and closed her eyes. In an hour she was unconscious. About sunset a happy smile broke over her face and sitting up suddenly she clasped her hands over her heart and cried out joyously, "Here are letters from home! letters from home! Oh! I am so glad, so glad!" I did not know then the meaning of that cry; but now that it is given me to see clearly and not "through a glass, darkly," a realization comes that the "letters from home" brought the blessed call from her Lord, "Arise, let us go hence" where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying," - neither suffering nor loneliness, - where the "many mansions" are - in the "city which hath foundations whose maker and builder is God." The next day the tender, beautiful friend of my childhood was dead, - from yellow fever.

CHAPTER VI

A NEGRO SERMON

                        Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
                        What you can do, or dream you can, begin it! - GOETHE.

        THE following January, I went to Canton to visit my uncle's family. While there an unusually cheap excursion to New Orleans was offered by the railway. I had never been to a city and had all of a girl's eagerness to see one; especially our flowery, fascinating, dear, dreamy Crescent City. In a letter to mother the fact was mentioned that a number of my friends were going to take advantage of the low-rate trip, and expressed the wish that such a joy were possible for me. In a few days father came to Canton, and handed me a package and a crumpled note. On opening the latter I read:

        "DEAR SISTER: Mamma tells me that you want to go to New Orleans. I send you $15.00 - part of the money that came from the bale of cotton I raised last year.

"Your Affectionate Brother."

        My loyal sympathizer in house-keeping sorrows thus opened the way for me to go. So, unexpectedly and gratefully, I made one of a party consisting of a gentleman

and his wife and two young ladies besides myself. After being comfortably located at a hotel we entered upon the usual sight-seeing. As we went from point to point, to the amazement of my chaperones nothing astonished me. All things were surveyed without a ripple of excitement or surprise. I had read of or heard "the sights" of New Orleans discussed until my imagination was familiar with them. The French market with its delicious coffee and chocolate; the picturesque bend of the great river beating upon its breast the huge ships from foreign waters; Canal street with its wonderful breadth, Clay's statue and everywhere beautiful women; Jackson Park, and its equestrian bronze of the old general who "fout the Britishers;" the street-cars, the opera-houses, the handsome residences were as thrice-told-tales to me.

        My love of adventure and spirit of enterprise led me to separate myself from my party, while visiting the mint, and to go in search of some relatives in a distant part of the city. The most explicit directions were given, the right car was boarded and the desired street reached, but at a point far beyond the number wanted. While nervously going backward and forward scanning doors, footsteps behind were heard coming with a persistence that made me know I was followed. In a flash the remembrance came into my mind of all that had been told me of country girls being gagged, chloroformed and murdered on their first visits to cities. A scream was in my throat when the man reached my side. Instead of a ruffian, a courteous voice said: "May I take the liberty of helping you find the

number you are evidently in search of? I too am a stranger in the city and am experiencing some of its difficulties." It is said that dogs and children are fine judges of character. Many women also do not outgrow this elemental power. Without an instant's hesitation his aid was accepted. In a few moments the right house was reached and the gentleman had presented his card, bowed and walked rapidly away. I read "J- W- B-, Attorney-at-law, Philadelphia, Pa." This incident set two thoughts germinating in my brain: The interdependence of human beings, and, That humanity will bear trusting; it responds according to the faith put in it. Wider experience has convinced me of this more and more largely.

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        Since gaining their freedom, the negro women's natural love of dress has developed inordinately. It is one of their strongest predispositions - rivaled only by their religious emotions. Those about us bought brilliant-hued stuffs and had them made with most bizarre effects, - a favorite being bright yellow calico trimmed with blue. Red was at a discount as it made them think of "hell-fire," they said. They were ignorant of sewing except of the plainest, coarsest order, so they paid to have their "Sunday-go-to- meetin' " dresses made. My desire for employment was so great, and there being no other opening, though it nearly crushed me, I swallowed my pride and asked the negroes to bring their sewing to me. They did it cheerfully. Day after day they came bearing their precious bundles, and,

finding their way into mother's room, which was the scene of all our labors, would drop them on the floor and stand until negotiations were concluded. None sat in our presence. There has always been a very nice adjustment of this point between the families of ex-slave-holders and negroes; the latter have a fine sense of when to accept or refuse an offered chair. It would be useless to explain it. "Oue must be born to it" to understand, as is said in South Carolina about cooking rice properly.

        The old servants usually began with "Mistis, how old I is?" When told they would invariably give vent to their surprise by an ejaculation beginning in a long, high-keyed crescendo and ending in a diminuendo as abrupt as it was full of softest musical rhythm. "Lor', mistis, yo' say I is! Marster, he done put it down in de book fo' de surrender, but I sho fergits it."

        The age of the negro always seems a puzzle to him, and judging by his face alone, is a problem impossible of solution, for he may by sixty-five or eighty-five, twenty or thirty. In old slave days the master kept an accurate record of their ages. How many generations of caretaking for themselves will be needed to register the true flight of time on their cheerful, unreflecting faces as it is recorded in white features, not by years but by the thought and responsibility and the spiritual force of the life?

        The younger women introduced their business with, "Miss Belle, I done brung yo' a dress fer to make fer me. I has all de needfuls excusin' uv de fread. Ef yo'

will gin me dat, I'll bring yo' some aigs nex' time I come." In sewing for the negroes mother did the cutting and fitting and all of the hand work; I did the stitching, bending over the machine week after week, until my back ached and my eyes grew dim from the awful strain. These dresses were often ruffled to the waist and otherwise elaborately trimmed, for which we charged only fifty or seventy-five cents. By this means we helped to "make both ends meet."

        One of the most popular places for the exhibition of al this gaudy apparel was the church, especially during protracted meetings. These are still the chief diversion, beginning as soon as crops are "laid by," in July, and continuing until the cotton picking season opens in September. The services, always at night, are indefinitely extended until near daybreak. In dimly lighted, meagrely furnished frame buildings vast crowds gather. In the pulpit with the preacher is the precentor - not known by that name - some brother of noted devotional gift who begins the service by "lining out" a hymn, his voice intoning and dimly suggesting the tune with which the congregation follows, - one of those wild, weird negro airs, half chant and dirge, so full of demi-semi-quavers that only the improvisator-soul can divine it, yet, so full of strange, sweet melody and pathos, rendered in their marvelously tuneful voices, it is no wonder a suppresssed emotion begins to communicate itself through the audience. Fiery prayers increase the spiritual temperature. These are full of pathos and frequently close with: "Please, Sir, Lord Jesus, do dis

here thing what yo' pore ole servant ax yo' fer." Ejaculations, groans and a measured tapping of heels on the bare floor becomes general.

        Snatches of song and more prayers prepare the way for the sermon. Words cannot picture the fervor of it, the facial expression, the wild, funereal cadences of voice.

        One that I heard during March, 1899, in one of the earliest settled and most cultured parts of Mississippi, was preached by a typical African, very black, much white in his prominent eye, long under jaw and the inside of his hands a light cream color. A favorite gesture was to hold the palms out, towards the audience. He wore a clerical black suit, but around his neck, just under the coat collar, a flaming red scarf appeared, the ends hanging over his waistcoat. The occasion was the funeral of a respectable colored man, Felix Jackson, who had died on the plantation which I was then visiting, and whose body was in front of the pulpit.

        The preacher began by saying, "I doan' fool my time 'way much er preachin' funeral sermons. I'se got sumphin' better to do in dis here worl'. I'se in er sing'ler persishun here ter day. Yo' all is Baptis' an' I is Methodis'; but I think I can prove dat my doctrin' is de correc' one. I done studied all de ologies wid dat eend in view. I been studied geology, an' zoology, an' sociology, an' ethnyology, an' Christianology. I'se read Demosthenes, an' Cicero, an' Plato, an' Moses, an' Josephus an' Jehosaphat an' all de udder translaters er de Bible. But all dat ain' here ner dar; it doan' 'mount ter nothin' in der presence er yer daid an' when yer