in the greasy restaurant of the day before. He must have divined my
thoughts, for he went on to say: "I know a woman across town who
takes a few boarders; I think we can go over there and get a good
breakfast." With a feeling of mingled fears and doubts regarding what
the breakfast might be, I waited until he had dressed himself.

When I saw the neat appearance of the cottage we entered, my fears
vanished, and when I saw the woman who kept it, my doubts followed the
same course. Scrupulously clean, in a spotless white apron and colored
head-handkerchief, her round face beaming with motherly kindness, she
was picturesquely beautiful. She impressed me as one broad expanse of
happiness and good nature. In a few minutes she was addressing me as
"chile" and "honey." She made me feel as though I should like to lay
my head on her capacious bosom and go to sleep.

And the breakfast, simple as it was, I could not have had at any
restaurant in Atlanta at any price. There was fried chicken, as it is
fried only in the South, hominy boiled to the consistency where it
could be eaten with a fork, and biscuits so light and flaky that a
fellow with any appetite at all would have no difficulty in disposing
of eight or ten. When I had finished, I felt that I had experienced
the realization of, at least, one of my dreams of Southern life.

During the meal we found out from our hostess, who had two boys in
school, that Atlanta University opened on that very day. I had somehow
mixed my dates. My friend the porter suggested that I go out to the
University at once and offered to walk over and show me the way. We
had to walk because, although the University was not more than
twenty minutes' distance from the center of the city, there were no
street-cars running in that direction. My first sight of the School