THIS IS THE PICTURE OF MY GIRLHOOD HOME IN CASS COUNTY, MO.
UNDER THE TREES OF THIS DEAR OLD PLACE I LISTENED
TO THE SWEET STORY OF MY LOVE OF A MAN MURDERED BY DRINK.
"WHEN THOU HAST LOVED ONE LIVING MAN, THEN MAYEST THOU LOOK
UPON THE DEAD."}


After being on the road six weeks, we stopped in Grayson County,
Texas, and bought a farm. As we started from Missouri one of the
colored women took sick with typhoid fever. This spread so that ten
of the family, white, and black, were down at one time. As soon as we
could travel, my father left the colored people south, and took his family
back to Missouri. That winter south was a great blessing to me, for I
recovered from a disease that had made me an invalid for five years--
consumption of the bowels. Poor health had keep me out of school a
great deal. My father at one time sent me to Mrs. Tillery's boarding
school in Independence, Mo., but I was not in the recitation room more
than half of the time.

After I recovered my health in Texas, it was my delight to ride on
horseback with a girl friend. The southern boys were preparing to go to
war. Many a sewing did we attend, where the mothers had spun and
woven the gray cloth that they were now working up so sorrowfully for
their sons to be buried in, far away from home. They thought their cause
was right. There were many good masters. And again there were bad
ones. Whiskey is always a cruel tyrant and is a worse evil than chattel
slavery. We were often stopped on our trip by southern troops, in the
Territory and Texas, and then again by northerners. We passed over the
Pea Ridge battle ground shortly after the battle. Oh! the horrors of war.
We often stopped at houses where the wounded were. We let them have