1 So then she started for the house, leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after.
2 Some of the young men was barefooted, and some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen shirt.
3 I had my mind on the children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump them a little, and find out who I was.
4 The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the children that way.
5 And here comes the white woman running from the house, about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the same way the little niggers was doing.
6 He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n.
7 We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut.
8 He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the most intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the more he got used to it.