So in the following pages you will read the sequel to my childhood life in the Sunny South.

Right after the war when my mother had got settled in her hut, with her little brood hovered around her, from which she had been so long absent, we had nothing to eat, and nothing to sleep on save some old pieces of horse-blankets and hay that the soldiers gave her.  The first day in the hut was a rainy day; and as night drew near it grew more fierce, and we children had gathered some little fagots to make a fire by the time mother came home, with something for us to eat, such as she had gathered through the day.  It was only corn meal and pease and ham-bone and skins which she had for our supper.  She had started a little fire, and said, “Some of you close that door,” for it was cold.  She swung the pot over the fire and filled it with the pease and ham-bone and skins.  Then she seated her little brood around the fire on the pieces of blanket, where we watched with all our eyes, our hearts filled with desire, looking to see what she would do next.  She took down an old broken earthen bowl, and tossed into it the little meal she had brought, stirring it up with water, making a hoe cake.  She said, “One of you draw that griddle out here,” and she placed it on the few little coals.  Perhaps this griddle you have never seen, or one like it.  I will describe it to you.  This griddle was a round piece of iron, quite thick, having three legs.  It might have been made in a blacksmith’s shop, for I have never seen one like it before or since.  It was placed upon the coals, and with an old iron spoon she put on this griddle half of the corn meal she had mixed up.  She said, “I will put a tin plate over this, and put it away for your breakfast.”  We five children were eagerly watching the pot boiling, with the pease and ham-bone.  The rain was pattering on the roof of the hut.  All at once there came a knock at the door.  My mother answered the knock.  When she opened the door, there stood a white woman and three little children, all dripping with the rain.  My mother said, “In the name of the Lord, where are you going on such a night, with these children?” The woman said, “Auntie, I am travelling.  Will you please let me stop here to-night, out of the rain, with my children?” My mother said, “Yes, honey.  I ain’t got much, but what I have got I will share with you.”  “God bless you!” They all came in.  We children looked in wonder at what had come.  But my mother scattered her own little brood and made a place for the forlorn wanderers.  She said, “Wait, honey, let me turn over that hoe cake.”  Then the two women fell to talking, each telling a tale of woe.  After a time, my mother called out, “Here, you, Louise, or some one of you, put some fagots under the pot, so these pease can get done.”  We couldn’t put them under fast enough, first one and then another of us children, the mothers still talking.  Soon my mother said, “Draw that hoe cake one side, I guess it is done.”