“These people here are just naturally curious, sugar. Don’t you get put out at ’em. I knows the proper city manners. If old man Lee above here should drink himself to death with whiskey, or old mammy Smith down below should burn up in her house, you city folks ’ud just inquire, polite-like, the next time you met one of the family, ‘I heard you-all met with an accident, I’m so sorry. I hope you-all is doing well now.’ But we hasn’t city manners down here. Nothing much happens except the hoeing of the corn and the picking of the cotton; and when a little girl with soft eyes and a pretty dress and sweet ways comes among us, we’s just naturally curious. We wants to see her and learn all about it.” Hazel laughed, but she still criticized the visitors. “They weren’t pretty or well-dressed and they made mistakes the teacher corrects us for at school. Were they first families?” Granny looked mystified. [Illustration: She still picked her cotton in the autumn and planted it in the spring] “Charity, you know I’ve told you about Charity, said all the nice white people in the South were first families. She said there were lots of them in Virginia but she guessed there weren’t any in Alabama.” Granny answered more gravely than before, “There’s first families everywhere, child, but its like the Scriptures, some of them as thinks they’re first will be last; and the last, as thinks they’re no account, will be first. By their fruits you shall know them; by their charity and kindness. And it’s soon, dearie, for you to be judging them by their fruits.” If Hazel had little to busy herself with, she saw that Granny was rarely idle. The old woman never hurried, and was ready to stop and speak to the passing neighbor, but when the day was done she had accomplished a great deal. She still picked her cotton in the autumn and planted it in the spring; but now she was busy about her house, her laundry, her poultry, her spinning-wheel and loom. For she was one of the very few old people left who spun and wove, and travelers from many parts of the country had bits of her handiwork. Hazel watched her spinning with wide eyes. One day she asked timidly if she might learn. “I’s right glad to teach you, honey,” was the answer. “The children about here thinks they’s above learning to spin.” “I don’t,” said Hazel, and took her place at the wheel. And now the days grew less long and were full of pleasant anticipation. In the morning, before breakfast, she hunted eggs. After breakfast was over, she put her room in order and helped Granny with the dishes, and then she turned to her spinning. She soon became expert at twisting the thread, and grew so interested that Granny sometimes had to send her away to play. Before dinner, she went among the pines and practised gymnastic exercises that she had learned at school. She was a conscientious little body; and having come South to get well, did all that she knew to bring about the desired result.