Blackstone drew recruits until there was just one woman-servant remaining with the Merediths. Why she stayed was a mystery, but as she was "the only pebble on the beach," everything was done to make home attractive. One day she asked permission (why, could not be imagined) to go visiting. She did not return. Shortly, Captain Meredith was haled before the Freedmen's Bureau at Black's and White's to answer the charge of thrashing Viny. Marched into court, he took a chair. "Get up," said the Bureau Agent, "and give the lady a seat." He rose, and Viny dropped into it. She was shamefaced and brazen by turns; finally, burst into tears and begged "Mars Tawm's" pardon, saying she had brought the charge because she had "no 'scuse for leavin'" and had to invent one; "nevver knowed Mars Tawm was gwi be brung in cote 'bout it." The early stirrings of the social equality problem were curious. Adventurous Aunt Susan tried the experiment of "eatin' wid white folks." She was bursting to tell us about it, yet loath to reveal her degradation--"White folks dat'll eat wid me ain't fitten fuh me to eat wid," being the negro position. "But dese folks was rale quality, Miss," Susan said when murder was out. "I kinder skittish when dee fus' ax me to set down wid 'em. I couldn' eat na'er mouthful wid white folks a-lookin' at me an' a rale nice white gal handin' vittles. An' presen'ly, mum, ef I didn' see dat white gal settin' in de kitchen eatin' her vittles by herse'f. Rale nice white gal! I say, 'Huccum you didn' eat wid tur white folks?' She say, 'I de servant.'" Mrs. Betts, of Halifax (Va.), was in her kitchen, her cook, who was in her debt, having failed to put in an appearance. The cook's husband approached the verandah and requested a dollar. "Where is Jane?" he was asked. "Why hasn't she been here to do her work?" "She are keepin' parlour." "What is that?" "Settin' up in de house hol'in' her han's. De Civilise Bill done been fulfill an' niggers an' white folks jes alike now." Coloured applicant for menial position would say to the door-opener: "Tell dat white 'oman in dar a cullud lady out here want to hire." "De cullud lady" was capricious. My sister in Atlanta engaged one for every day in one month, in fact, engaged more than that average, engaged every one applying, hoping if ten promised to come in time to get breakfast, one might appear. With two hundred black trial justices, South Carolina had more than her share of funny happenings, as of tragic. A gentleman who had to appear before some tribunal, wrote us: "Whom do you suppose I found in the seat of law? Pete, my erstwhile stable-boy. He does not know A from Z, had not the faintest idea of what was to be done. 'Mars Charles,' he said, 'you jes fix 'tup, please, suh. You jes write down whut you think orter be wroted, an' I'll put my mark anywhar you tell me.'"