house, but she did sewing, and there were a great many ladies coming
to our cottage. If I was around they would generally call me, and ask
me my name and age and tell my mother what a pretty boy I was. Some of
them would pat me on the head and kiss me.

My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have
another woman helping her. I think she must have derived a fair income
from her work. I know, too, that at least once each month she received
a letter; I used to watch for the postman, get the letter, and run
to her with it; whether she was busy or not, she would take it and
instantly thrust it into her bosom. I never saw her read one of these
letters. I knew later that they contained money and what was to
her more than money. As busy as she generally was, she found time,
however, to teach me my letters and figures and how to spell a number
of easy words. Always on Sunday evenings she opened the little square
piano and picked out hymns. I can recall now that whenever she
played hymns from the book her _tempo_ was always decidedly _largo_.
Sometimes on other evenings, when she was not sewing, she would play
simple accompaniments to some old Southern songs which she sang. In
these songs she was freer, because she played them by ear. Those
evenings on which she opened the little piano were the happiest hours
of my childhood. Whenever she started toward the instrument, I used to
follow her with all the interest and irrepressible joy that a pampered
pet dog shows when a package is opened in which he knows there is a
sweet bit for him. I used to stand by her side and often interrupt and
annoy her by chiming in with strange harmonies which I found on either
the high keys of the treble or the low keys of the bass. I remember
that I had a particular fondness for the black keys. Always on such
evenings, when the music was over, my mother would sit with me in her
arms, often for a very long time. She would hold me close, softly