“O, de white folks needed niggers then mo’n they ever did befo’, an’ they ain’t a colored person what didn’t stick by ’em when all they men-folks were gone an’ de white womens was a-cryin’ an’ a-faintin’ like they did in them days.

“But lemme tell you ’bout Miss Jeanne. She just set in her room an’ cry. A-holdin’ Marster Bob’s pitcher, she set an’ cry, an’ she ain’t come out o’ her room to see ’bout nothin’—house, horses, cotton—nothin’. But de niggers, they ain’t cheat her nor steal from her. An’ come de news dat her brother done got wounded an’ died in Virginia, an’ her cousins got de yaller fever. Then come de news that Marster Robert, Miss Jeanne’s husband, ain’t no mo’! Killed in de battle! An’ I thought Miss Jeanne would like to go crazy. De news say he died like a soldier, brave an’ fightin’. But when she heard it, she went to de drawer an’ got out her weddin’-veil an’ took her flowers in her hands like she were goin’ to de altar to meet de groom. Then she just sink in de flo’ an’ cry till I pick her up an’ hold her like a chile.

“Well, de freedom come, an’ all de niggers scatter like buckshot, goin’ to live in town. An’ de yard niggers say I’s a ole fool! I’s free now—why don’t I come with them? But I say no, I’s gwine stay with Miss Jeanne—an’ I stayed. I ’lowed ain’t nary one o’ them colored folks needed me like Miss Jeanne did, so I ain’t went with ’em.

“An’ de time pass; it pass an’ it pass, an’ de ole house get rusty for lack o’ paint, an’ de things, they ’gin to fall to pieces. An’ Miss Jeanne say: ‘Hager, I ain’t got nobody in de world but you.’ An’ I say: ‘Miss Jeanne, I ain’t got nobody in de world but you neither.’

“And then she’d start talkin’ ’bout her young husband what died so handsome an’ brave, what ain’t even had time that last day fo’ to ’scort her to de church for de weddin’, nor to hold her in his arms ’fore de orders come to leave. An’ we would set on de big high ole porch, with its tall stone pillars, in de evenin’s twilight till de bats start flyin’ overhead an’ de sunset glow done gone, she in her wide white skirts a-billowin’ round her slender waist, an’ me in ma apron an’ cap an’ this here chain she gimme you see on ma neck all de time an’ what’s done wore so thin.

“They was a ole stump of a blasted tree in de yard front o’ de porch ’bout tall as a man, with two black pieces o’ branches raised up like arms in de air. We used to set an’ look at it, an’ Miss Jeanne could see it from her bedroom winder upstairs, an’ sometimes this stump, it look like it were movin’ right up de path like a man.