“Lawd child, we’s allers slippin’ out twixt de lines atter night er carryin’ on wid dem Yankees. We trade ’em terbaccer fur coffee en sugar, en play cyards, en talk twell mos’ day sometime. I slip out fust in er patch er woods twix’ de lines, en make my banjer talk. En den yere dey come! De Yankees fum one way en our boys de yudder. I make out lak I doan see ’em tall, des playin’ ter myself. Den I make dat banjer moan en cry en talk about de folks way down in Dixie. De boys creep up closer en closer twell dey right at my elbow en I see ’em cryin’, some un ’em--den I gin’er a juk! en way she go pluckety plunck! en dey gin ter dance and laugh! Sometime dey cuss me lak dey mad en lam me on de back. When dey hit me hard den I know dey ready ter gimme all dey got.” “But how did you get this banjo, Nelse?” “Yankee gin’er ter me one night ter try’er, en when he hear me des fairly pull de insides outen ’er, he ’low dat hit ’ed be er sin ter ebber sep’rate us. Say he nebber know what ’uz in er banjer.” Nelse rose to go. “Now, honey, doan you cry no mo, en I make you dat rabbit box sho, en erlong ’bout Chris’mas I gwine larn you how ter shoot.” “Will you let me hold the gun?” the boy eagerly asked. “I des sho you how ter poke yo gun in de crack er de fence en whisper ter de trigger. Den look out birds en rabbits!” The boy’s face was one great smile. It was late in September before his mother was strong enough to venture out of the house--six terrible months from the day she was stricken. What an age it seemed to a sensitive boy’s soul. To him the days were weeks, the weeks months, the months, long weary years. It seemed to him he had lived a life-time, died, and was born again the day he saw her first walking on the soft grass that grew under the big trees at the back of the house. He was gently holding her by the hand. “Now, Mama dear, sit here on this seat--you mustn’t get in the sun.” “But, Charlie, I want to see the flowers on the front lawn.” “No, no, Mama, the sun is shinin’ awful on that side of the house!” A great fear caught the boy’s heart. The lawn had grown up a mass of weeds and grass during the long hot summer and he was afraid his mother would cry when she saw the ruin of those flowers she loved so well. How impossible for his child’s mind to foresee the gathering black hurricane of tragedy and ruin soon to burst over that lawn! Skillfully and firmly he kept her on the seat in the rear where she could not see the lawn. He said everything he could think of to please her. She would smile and kiss him in her old sweet way until his heart was full to bursting. “Do you remember, Mama, how many times when you were so sick I used to slip up close and kiss your mouth and eyes?” “I often dreamed you were kissing me.” “I thought you would know. I’ll soon be a man. I’m going to be rich, and build a great house and you are going to live in it with me, and I am to take care of you as long as you live.”