But they had no church to attend, and never had any meetings
among themselves. Indeed there were no pious ones among them.
The men took the day for sport; the women washed and ironed,
sewed and cooked, and did various necessary chores for themselves
and children, for which they were allowed no other opportunity;
and spent the rest of the day in rude singing, dancing,
and boisterous merriment.

Tidy could not live as the rest did. She could not forget the instructions
and habits of the past. She preferred to sit up later on Saturday
evening to do the work which others did on Sunday, and when that
day came, she never entered into their coarse gayety and mirth.
She had no heart for it, and did not care though she was reviled
and scoffed at for her particular, pious ways.

One Sunday afternoon, weary with the noise and rioting at the quarters,
homesick and sad, she wandered away from her hovel, and strolling
down the path which led to the cotton-field, she kept on through
bush and brake and wood until she reached the bank of the river.
Here, where the great Mississippi, the Father of Waters, seemed to
have broken his way through tangled and interminable forests,
she stood and looked out upon the broad stream. It lay like a vast
mirror reflecting the sunlight, its surface only now and then disturbed
by a passing boat or prowling king-fisher. Up and down the bank,
with folded arms and pensive countenance, the toil-worn, weary girl walked,
her soul in unison with the solitude and silence of the place.
Recollections of the past, which continually haunted her,
but which she had of late striven with all her might to banish
from her mind, now rushed like a mighty tide over her. She could
not help thinking of the pleasant Sabbath days in old Virginia,