She emptied the blackberries into a mutilated plate, brought from the cupboard a handful of toasted acorns, on which she poured boiling water, then set the concoction aside to steep.
"Now, Miss Susan Jemima," said Virgie, addressing her vis-a-vis with the hospitable courtesy due to so great a lady, "we are goin' to have some breakfas'." She paused, in a shade of doubt, then smiled a faint apology: "It isn't very _much_ of a breakfas', darlin', but we'll make believe it's waffles an' chicken an'-- an' hot rolls an' batter-bread an'-- an' everything." She rose to her little bare feet, holding her wisp of a skirt aside, and made a sweeping bow.

"Allow me, Miss Jemima, to make you a mos' delicious cup of coffee." And, while the little hostess prepared the meal, a man looked out from the partly open door behind her, with big dark eyes, which were like her own, yet blurred by a mist of pity and of love.
"Susan," said the hostess presently, "it's ready now, and we'll say grace; so don't you talk an' annoy your mother." The tiny brown head was bowed.

The tiny brown hands, with their berry-stained fingers, were placed on the table's edge; but Miss Susan Jemima sat bolt upright, though listening, it seemed, to the words of reverence falling from a mother-baby's lips: "Lord, make us thankful for the blackberries an' the aco'n coffee an'-- an' all our blessin's; but please, sir, sen' us somethin' that tastes jus' a little better--if you don't mind.

Amen!" And the man, who leaned against the door and watched, had also bowed his head.

A pain was in his throat--and in his heart--a pain that gripped him, till two great tears rolled down his war-worn cheek and were lost in his straggling beard.
"Virgie!" he whispered hoarsely.