But anyway, as I say, I sot out most imegiatly after breakfast. I left Maggie pretty as a pink, a takin’ care of the children with Genieve’s help. And my Josiah a settin’, jest a settin’ down, and nothin’ else. But I didn’t care if he growed to the chair, I felt that I must use my lims, must walk off somewhere and move round, and I had it in my mind where I wuz a goin’. I knew there wuz a little settlement of colored folks not fur from Belle Fanchon by the name of Eden Centre. Good land, what a name! But I spoze that they wuz so tickled after the War, when they spozed they wuz free, and had got huddled down in a little settlement of their own, that they thought it would be a good deal like Paradise to ’em. So they named it Eden Centre. As if to say, this hain’t the outskirts and suburbs of Paradise—not at all. It is the very centre of felicity, the very heart of the garden of happiness, Eden Centre. Wall, I thought I’d set out and walk that way. So I wended my way onwards at a pretty good jog with my faithful umberell spread abroad over my head to keep the too ardent rays of the sun away from my foretop and my new bunnet. Part of the way the road led through a thicket of fragrant pines, and anon, or oftener, would come out into a clearin’ where there would be a house a standin’ back in the midst of some cultivated fields, and anon I would see a orange grove, more or less prosperous-lookin’. Jest a little way out of Eden Centre I come to the remains of a large buildin’ burned down, so nothin’ but some shapeless ruins and one tall black chimbly remained, dumbly pintin’ upwards towards the sky; and owin’ to a bend in it, it wuz shaped some like a big black interrogation mark, a risin’ upwards aginst the background of the clear blue sky. It looked curius. And jest as I wuz a standin’ still in my tracks, a ponderin’ over the meanin’ of it, and a leanin’ on the rough fence that run along by the roadside, a old darkey come along with a mule hitched onto a rickety buggy with a rope. And I akosted him, and asked him what wuz the meanin’ of that big black chimbly a standin’ up in that curius way. He seemed awful ready to stop and talk. It wuz the hot weather, I spoze. And the mule had called for sights of labor to get him along, I could see that—and he sez: “De Cadimy used to stand dar.” Sez I, “The school-house for the colored people?” “Yes,” sez he. “How did it come to be burned down?” sez I. “De white folks buhnt it down,” sez he calmly. “What for?” sez I. “’Cause dey didn’t want it dere,” sez he. “Dat’s what I spoze wuz de influential reason.” And then he went on and told me the hull story, and mebby I’d better tell it a little faster than he did. It took place some years before, but he had lived right there in Eden Centre, and wuz knowin’ to the hull thing.