She still picked her cotton in the autumn and planted it in the spring
“Charity, you know I’ve told you about Charity, said all the nice white people in the South were first families. She said there were lots of them in Virginia but she guessed there weren’t any in Alabama.”
Granny answered more gravely than before, “There’s first families everywhere, child, but its like the Scriptures, some of them as thinks they’re first will be last; and the last, as thinks they’re no account, will be first. By their fruits you shall know them; by their charity and kindness. And it’s soon, dearie, for you to be judging them by their fruits.”
If Hazel had little to busy herself with, she saw that Granny was rarely idle. The old woman never hurried, and was ready to stop and speak to the passing neighbor, but when the day was done she had accomplished a great deal. She still picked her cotton in the autumn and planted it in the spring; but now she was busy about her house, her laundry, her poultry, her spinning-wheel and loom. For she was one of the very few old people left who spun and wove, and travelers from many parts of the country had bits of her handiwork. Hazel watched her spinning with wide eyes. One day she asked timidly if she might learn.
“I’s right glad to teach you, honey,” was the answer. “The children about here thinks they’s above learning to spin.”
“I don’t,” said Hazel, and took her place at the wheel.
And now the days grew less long and were full of pleasant anticipation. In the morning, before breakfast, she hunted eggs. After breakfast was over, she put her room in order and helped Granny with the dishes, and then she turned to her spinning. She soon became expert at twisting the thread, and grew so interested that Granny sometimes had to send her away to play. Before dinner, she went among the pines and practised gymnastic exercises that she had learned at school. She was a conscientious little body; and having come South to get well, did all that she knew to bring about the desired result.
“If I am to get home,” she would argue to herself, “I must grow stronger every day;” and swinging wide her arms, she would take deep breaths of the delicious air.
In the afternoon she would write to her mother, and later she and Granny would often take a walk across the bare fields, occasionally stopping at a neighbor’s cottage. Hazel would look shyly at the barefooted, barelegged little black children, but she could not think of anything to say to them, and they in their turn only stared.
When dusk came she would watch the turkeys as they went to roost in the trees. One tree seemed almost full of these strange birds, half wild, half domesticated. In the evening Granny and she would sit before the open fire and tell one another stories. Hazel loved to recite poetry, and Granny never tired of the “Village Blacksmith” and “The little Shadow that goes in and out with me.” Hazel had an odd assortment of poems, among them Whittier’s “Slave Ship” which she recited with great feeling. “Those were dark days,” Granny would say, and then perhaps, to Hazel’s unending delight, would sing, “Let my people go,” or “Oh, freedom over me!” The strange music in the quiet house by the open fire, stirred the child’s heart. Then, when she was safe in bed, Granny would stand near the candle and would make funny figures upon the wall—Brer Rabbit and his numerous family. And with a laugh and a good-night, Hazel would turn over and fall asleep.