"There was a big garden, not tended for years, not a fruit tree, and the four acres outside the fenced-in garden one mass of brush. My next neighbor was a farmer from the North, come South for his health and getting it, and he took an interest from the beginning; he ploughed my land for me, and agreed to go over it with the cultivator when it was necessary, but I must first manage to rake up and burn up all the weeds and sticks, etc. The children helped me and we made a spree of it. I bought a cow of him, a good one, and, as one of my hens had begun to set on a box of nails, decided she should have eggs. He had some fine, pure-blooded Plymouth Rocks, and mine were Wyandottes, just as good and no fear as to crossing breeds, and so I started in. What I was after was broilers, and if broilers wouldn't support us, why there was something else that I felt sure would, and that was chicken pies. You smile, but let me tell you they weren't everyday chicken pies. Our old Dilly on my father's plantation was a champion chicken-pie maker, in demand for every wedding and general church entertainment, and she taught me just how, swearing me to secrecy long as she lived. So I watched her many times, realizing, at last, that it meant using the very choicest material straight through. No old hens simmered all day long to make them tender. On the contrary, she demanded the choicest broilers, and she made, not exactly puff paste but the most delicate order of pastry to put them in. To season to a turn and with no variation, and to have the gravy smooth and rich, these were her secrets, and I learned them so thoroughly that after once sampling them there was no further trouble as to orders. I sent little individual pies to every hotel and restaurant in the city I had left. I had bought a good cow, as I said, and soon bought another, to have plenty of cream, for that was one important item in the pies, and as the work got too much for me alone I presently had a girl to help, and at last another, all of us doing steady hard work, but liking it. I raised the chickens, you see, though I often hated to have them killed, and by this time we had small fruits, and all that grows in a well-kept garden. The children helped as well as went to school and were rosy, healthy creatures, my comfort and joy, and they always have been. I never have cleared over five hundred a year, but what more do I need? I make ten cents clear on each individual chicken pie and fifteen on the larger ones. Specials I make as large as people want them, but I prefer the little ones. Three sizes are made every day, and some families, who go away for the summer, have their chicken pies expressed to them each week and won't do without them. Some people fuss and say they are too rich. Others want me to charge less and say, if I would use lard instead of butter in the pastry, I could sell cheaper. But I answer that it is my business never to fall below the standard.