The onions he had, secured were to us more delicious than wine upon the lees.

They seemed to find their way into every fiber of our bodies, and invigorate every organ.

The collard stalks he had snatched up, in the expectation of finding in them something resembling the nutritious "heart" that we remembered as children, seeking and, finding in the stalks of cabbage.

But we were disappointed.

The stalks were as dry and rotten as the bones of Southern, society.