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and starting to run after me, I did run. Then so the last time I looked back he had stopped but anyway, I went on to Mrs. Carvers who lived half of a mile from our place and she wasn't home so I ran on to Mrs. Kennedy's and she was also gone, that wasn't very far from Mrs. Carvers, so then Mr. Kennedy's mother and father only lived a short distance from there so I ran on to their house and they were the three families. So in a few minutes here came my daddy with Dandy traveling for all he was worth. He was really frightened good as he said Pearl had never left the place before when he was gone. So Mrs. Kennedy told him after this when he had to go some where to bring me down to Mrs. Carvers or her house. He never did leave me by myself again. We had a real large oak tree pretty close to the back porch in the back yard and it had some branches that hung over the back gallery and when the wind was blowing the branches or limbs (which ever) would scrape on the shingles and make a noise so when I'd be there by myself I'd forget about the limbs making that racket, so I'd light the lantern and go upstairs and go way down that long room. It must have been seventy feet long because it was the length of the house on the bedrooms side and they were enormous bedrooms. And then I'd go through another door into the attic where it was as dark as cats fighting. And I'd go all the way back over the kitchen part then I'd realize what it was. From the looks of that oak tree it must have been two hundred years old. The old home sat up on a hill and you'd go down by the spring and on a little farther where there was a branch that ran on a half a mile past the spring. We had three real large fishing holes (ponds) where I've caught many a mess of perch and catfish. Then on the other side of that branch was a long hill shaped like a corn or sweet potato row and it was a half a mile long with lots of trees and on the farthest end was a large Magnolia and a Chinquapin tree. The chinquapin is like a chestnut, real good eating. That's where we used to have our picnics and then after the food and all was cleaned away the girls would play ball. I meant to say the girls and boys. Brother Jerome broke one girls nose playing baseball. Her name was Mabel Berthason. He really did hate that. Sister Olla who I spoke of leaving this old world when she was only twenty eight. When she had her own horse and double surrey, she would go up home quite often to see my daddy and stepmother and lots of times she'd take her sister-in-law (May Koch) and two or three other girls with her to spend the day. I used to love to see her come because she always brought a load of all kinds of fruit to us. Rasmus, her oldest son was about
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