and a bitter ransom it was too, I can tell you, singing for a Yankee!
But I gave him a dose of Confederate songs, I promise you. He asked me
to sing the `Star Spangled Banner'; but I told him I would not do it
if he burnt the house down with me in it -- though it was inspired
by my cousin, Armistead. Then he asked me to sing `Home, Sweet Home',
and I did that, and he actually had tears in his eyes -- the hypocrite!
He had very fine eyes, too. I think I did sing it well, though.
I cried a little myself, thinking of the old house being so nearly burnt.
There was a young doctor there, a surgeon, a really nice-looking fellow
for a Yankee; I made him feel ashamed of himself, I tell you.
I told him I had no doubt he had a good mother and sister up at home,
and to think of his coming and warring on poor women. And they really
placed a guard over the house for me while they were there."

This she actually did. With her old empty horse-pistol she cleared the house
of the mob, and then vowed that if they burned the house she would burn up
in it, and finally saved it by singing "Home, Sweet Home", for the colonel.
She could not have done much better even if she had not been an old maid.

I did not see much of her after I grew up. I moved away from the old county.
Most others did the same. It had been desolated by the war,
and got poorer and poorer. With an old maid's usual crankiness
and inability to adapt herself to the order of things,
Cousin Fanny remained behind. She refused to come away; said, I believe,
she had to look after the old place, mammy, and Fash, or some such nonsense.
I think she had some idea that the church would go down, or that
the poor people around would miss her, or something equally unpractical.
Anyhow, she stayed behind, and lived for quite awhile
the last of her connection in the county. Of course all did the best
they could for her, and had she gone to live around with her relatives,