She soon made acquaintances next door. The soldiers or their servants gave her what she asked for. She stuffed herself with what they gave her, and that night she had a fit and died, as she had said in jest she would, poor little soul! That afternoon there was a funeral from the house, and all day there were burials going on in Hollywood. Early on the morning of the third, when Miss Mary Pagett threw open her blinds, she beheld the gallery under her window lined with sleeping Yankees. When Delia McArthur and I went out for a walk we came upon Federal soldiers asleep on the sidewalks and everywhere there was a place for weary men to drop down and rest. In all this time of horror I don’t think anything was much harder than making up our minds to “draw rations from the Yankees.” We said we _would_ not do it--we _could_ not do it! But as hunger gained upon us and starvation stared us in the face Mrs. Sampson rose up in her might! “I’ll take anything I can get out of the Yankees!” she exclaimed. “They haven’t had any delicacy of feeling in taking everything we’ve got! I’m going for rations!” So Mrs. Sampson nerved herself up to the point where she took quite a pleasure and pride in her mission. But not so with the rest of us. It was a bitter pill, hard, hard to swallow. Mother, to whose lot some species of martyrdom was always falling, elected to go with Mrs. Sampson. So forth sallied these old Virginia matrons to “draw rations from the Yankees.” However, once on our way to humiliation we began to console ourselves with thoughts of the loaves and fishes. We would have enough to eat--sugar and tea and other delights! Presently mother and Mrs. Sampson returned, each with a dried codfish! There was disappointment and there was laughter. As each stately matron came marching in, holding her codfish at arm’s length before her, Delia McArthur and I fell into each other’s arms laughing. Besides the codfish, they had each a piece of fat, strong bacon about the size of a handkerchief folded once, and perhaps an inch thick. Now, we had had no meat for a great while, and we were completely worn out with dried apples and peas, so we immediately set about cooking our bacon. Having such a great dainty and rare luxury, we felt ourselves in a position to invite company to dinner. Mrs. Sampson invited half of the household to dine with her, and we invited the other half. Soon there was a great sputtering and a delicious smell issuing from the Sampsons’ apartments and from ours.