To the left of our house was the garden.  I have read of the old-fashioned garden; the gardens written about and the gardens sung about, but I have never seen a garden that could surpass the garden of my old home.  Just inside the pickets were bunches of bear grass.  Then, there was the purple flag, that bordered the walks; the thyme, coriander, calamus and sweet Mary; the jasmine climbing over the picket fence; the syringa and bridal wreath; roses black, red, yellow and pink; and many other kinds of roses and shrubs.  There, too, were strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and currants; damson and greengages, and apricots, that grew on vines.  I could take some time in describing this beautiful spot.

At the side of the garden was the family burying ground, where the gravestones were laid flat on masonry, bringing them about three feet from the ground.  These stones were large, flat slabs of marble, and I used to climb up on top and sit or lie down, and trace the letters or figures with my fingers.  I visited this graveyard in 1903.  The eight graves were there in a good state of preservation, with not a slab broken, although my grandfather was buried there, ninety years ago.  My father had a stone wall built around these graves for protection, when he left Kentucky.  I am glad that family graveyards have given place to public cemeteries, for this place has changed hands many times and this graveyard is not pleasant for the strangers who live there.  We who are interested in these sacred mounds, feel like we intrude, to have the homes of our dead with strangers.

{illust. caption = my old home where I was born in Garrard county, Kentucky.  The old grave yard near by, and my GRANDFATHER’s grave.}

The memories of this Kentucky home date from the time I was three years old.  This seems remarkable, but my mother said this incident occurred when I was three years old, and I remember it distinctly.  I was standing in the back yard, near the porch.  Mr. Brown, the overseer, was in the door of my half-brother Richard’s room, with my brother’s gun in his hands.  At the end of the porch was a small room, called the “saddle room.”  A pane of glass was out of the window and a hen flew out, cackling.  Aunt Judy, the colored woman, went in to get the egg, and walked in front of Mr. Brown, who raised the gun and said:  “Judy, I am going to shoot you,” not thinking the gun was loaded.  It went off, and aunt Judy fell.  Mr. Brown began to wring his hands and cry in great agony.  I screamed and kept running around a small tree near by.  This was Sunday morning.  Runners were sent for the doctor, and for my parents, who were at church.  Aunt Judy got well, but had one eye out; we could always feel the shot in her forehead.  She was one of the best servants, and a dear good friend to me.  She used to bring two of her children