Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors and misprints have been corrected. Blank pages have been deleted. Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_ Text in Small Capitals has been replaced by regular uppercase text. "Jayhawkers" is defined in a footnote in page 53 of the original book, although it appears for the first time in page 11. For clarity, the footnote has been consequently moved. * * * * * HOW BEAUTY WAS SAVED [Illustration] How Beauty Was Saved _And Other Memories of the Sixties_ BY MRS. JAMES MADISON WASHINGTON (_Mrs. A. A. Washington_) NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1907 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY _To SOUTHERN GIRLS_ CONTENTS HOW BEAUTY WAS SAVED 9 THE TELLTALE GLOVES 23 THE MAGIC SIGN 31 A LABOR OF LOVE 39 THE "JAYHAWKERS" 51 MEMORIES OF SLAVE DAYS 59 A NARROW ESCAPE 67 _Green and golden memories Of the thrilling time When hearts and hands were true as steel In our sunny Southern clime._ _A. A. W._ HOW BEAUTY WAS SAVED HOW BEAUTY WAS SAVED In the summer of 1862, in the Bayou Manchac country near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there was a modest little schoolhouse called the "Dove's Nest." To that school came two young girls to complete a course of study begun in Baton Rouge before the Federals captured that city. The country was visited quite often by bands of Confederates, "Jayhawkers,"[1] and Federals; the slaves on the vast sugar plantations were in a demoralized condition from being so near the enemy's lines; yet the girls braved all these dangers, and rode on horseback (both on the same horse) three miles through forest and field to attend school. They had no fear, for both could shoot a pistol, and always carried a loaded one, and a small Spanish dirk for self-protection. All the valuable horses on the plantation having been given to the Confederate army, only two were left for family use, an old one, not of much service, and a young beautiful bay, the individual property of one of the girls.