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Show A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. 5 It was a part of the plan that I was to go into as many of the homes as possible. Among all the families I visited I remember only two or three where there was any approach to neatness and comfort. At one of the most comfortable places, one of Charles Egbert Craddock's mountain homes, we sat down to a dinner of fried chicken, biscuit, corn bread, sweet potatoes and fresh buttermilk. The table was set in an open space between the two parts of the double log house, and a stiff breeze swept over us as we ate, cooling us and the dinner at the same time. At another of the better places we took supper in a windowless room, the only light being that which came through the cracks between the logs. On the first day of our journey my horse cast a shoe, and for fear of its going lame we stopped a little short of our destination at a little house in a valley, and were hospitably received into a family of thirteen members, the eldest child being a widowed daughter with one child, whose husband had recently been shot and killed in a quarrel, and the youngest a babe in its mother's arms. While still trying to get warm at the big fire-place after our chilly ride, we were invited out into the frosty air to partake of the supper, which was spread on a sort of open porch at the back of the house. The large family partook of the meal in detachments, the head of the house and the guests served first, the mother and smaller children coming last. During |
