The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines

man with white hair and white whiskers. Sitting behind a table full of papers.
    “Yes, private?” he said, raising his head. Then he saw me—and he almost jumped out of that chair. “What in the world? Who sent you here?” he asked.
    The other soldier came in and said: “I’ll get her out of here, colonel, sir. Get out of here, you,” he said to me.
    “No, let her speak,” the colonel said.
    “I thought you was Mr. Brown,” I said.
    “I’m Colonel Brown,” he said.
    “You ain’t the right one,” I said. “The other one was young and he was running Secesh. He gived me my name.”
    “Where you from, child?” the colonel asked.
    “Master Bryant plantation,” I said.
    The colonel turned round in his chair and looked at a big map on the wall. All the time he was looking at the map he was going, “Hummmm, hummmm, hummmm.” I pulled the door quietly and went out. I picked up my bundle and told Ned come on.
    When we came up to the river we turned toward the sun. We was going so far this way, then we was go’n turn North again. If I had knowed anything about traveling we could ’a’ headed North from where we had spent the night, but being so young and ignorant I thought I had to start back where I had come from the day before.
    Soon as we lost sight of town we took to the bushes. You couldn’t ever tell who you was go’n meet ’long the road, and we was too far from town to holler for help. We walked, we walked, we walked. The Yankees and Secesh had battled here, too. You could see how the Yankees had burned everything in sight. The ground was still black. The trees looked like black posts, no leaves, no moss, no limbs. When thesun got straight up in the sky we found a shady place in a ditch and sat down. I was so tired I felt like sitting there all day, but I knowed I had to keep going. Once I stopped moving that was go’n be the end for me and Ned. I looked at him sitting there and I asked him if he was all right. He nodded his head.
    “Well, let’s go some more,” I said.
    Late that evening I spotted a house setting cross the field. It wasn’t in the direction we was going—it was in the West—but I wanted to know if we was headed right. We started for the house. Even before I reached the yard I could see poor white trash lived there. A little garden side the house, an old dress on the clothesline, a little scrawny woodpile in the back yard. A dog tied with a chain started barking at us when we came up to the gate. A woman in overalls looked out the door. She was poor and skinny, and she looked mean as she was poor.
    “You can tell me if this the way to Ohio?” I asked her.
    She looked at me, but she didn’t say a thing.
    “Please ma’am,” I said.
    “You don’t get away from my gate, I’m go’n let that dog point the way to Ohio,” she said. “Get away from my gate.”
    “I just want know if I’m headed right,” I said.
    “I don’t know nothing ’bout no Ohio,” she said. “And if you don’t move from there like I done already told you I’m go’n turn that dog loose.”
    “We leaving,” I said. “Can you tell me if y’all got a spring round here? Me and this little boy awful thirsty.”
    “You don’t see no spring, do you?” she said.
    “No ma’am.”
    She didn’t say another word, she just stood in the door looking at us. I told Ned come on. She didn’t say a thing till we got to the end of the fence, then she told us to stop. When I looked back toward the house I couldn’t see her. But a few minutes later I saw hercoming back with a cup of water. We met her at the gate. When I reached for the cup she pulled it back.
    “You think I’m go’n let you put your black mouth on this cup?” she said. “Hold out your hands.”
    I cupped my hands together. The water was warm. I reckoned she had got it out a bucket or a tub setting in the sun. Ned didn’t know how to hold his hands together, and I had to cup my hands again so he could drink. Long as we was