MY DEAR CHILDREN: - Being at leisure now, after many years of pleasant work in helping your Father to raise a large family of boys and girls, I sit down in this dear old room, with the faces of those I love smiling down upon me from the picture frames on the wall, and the perfume of sweet flowers coming through the lattice door, to recall some recollections of old times in Dixie. First stands out in bold relief the delightful plantation life at Woodlawn. This phase of society is a thing of the past, and I grieve that you will never know the tender tie that existed between mistress and servant. To the credit of the colored people be it said that during the Civil War, when on plantation after plantation the mansions were occupied only by wives and daughters, not a disloyal act or word ever occurred. One of the first things I remember was when a little girl of four, seated on a pillow in front of my father, a pale dark man, riding through the corn fields, watching the cotton and corn unfold, and grow beneath our warm Southern sun. Most of the plantations had names according to the owner. Our plantation, named Woodlawn, consisted of four thousand acres, and was beautifully situated between a river and creek. Our man Tony would row us for hours, winding up and down this beautiful stream and around an island covered with dense foliage, and on which there was plenty of