WENT FORTY-FIVE MILES THAT DAY.
Mind you, I did not say I walked it; when I was dead sure nobody saw me, I ran. I saw very few people that day. The Home Guards had done their work well, as the burned houses indicated on every side.
Late that afternoon I was told that I was approaching another village, but I need not go by the village if I did not wish to; I could turn to the left and cross the creek lower down, and both roads led to Greenville. I had no business in the town, so I took the left hand. Just before night I came to a deep, narrow, ugly looking little stream that had no bridge across it. Nobody had been fording it. I looked in vain for a log on which to cross. I didn't want to go up the stream, for that would carry me up into the town. I found a pole, that probably nothing but a squirrel had ever crossed on, but I ventured to straddle it, and then I inched myself across. A kodak could have gotten a picture worth while then. Getting on the other side, I went up to the most desolate looking home I had ever seen. Not a sign of life, except now and then the cackle of a chicken flying to the roost. I knocked at the front door but no response coming, like a tramp, I went around to the kitchen. There was an old lady, standing before a great, old-fashioned fire place cooking supper. It seemed to me I never smelt the frying of bacon that was so delicious in my life. I said: "I am traveling and am very tired; I want to stay all night with you, please ma'am." She invited me in saying: "Sit down by the fire here; when my son comes, maybe he will let you stay. I don't know whether he will or not, he is mighty curios." The kitchen had a dirt floor. She put corn bread and fried meat on the table and invited me to put my stool up to the table and eat, which I was not slow to do. Just as I began eating,