Frances asked where everything was, and having ascertained, went to work and soon had a nice, appetizing breakfast for us, as well as for herself and children. After that important meal had been enjoyed, she inquired about the trains on the Georgia Railroad, and asked what time she could go into Atlanta. I told her she could go at nine o'clock, but I preferred that she should stay until twelve o'clock, m.
"Miss Mary, what was in that trunk I saw in the kitchen last night?"
"I scarcely know; odds and ends put there for safekeeping, I suppose."
"May I have the trunk and the odds and ends in it? They can't be much, or they wouldn't be put off there."
"We will go and see." Again I took the kitchen key, and the trunk key as well, and having unlocked both receptacles, I told Frances to turn the contents of the trunks out upon the floor. When she saw them I noticed her disappointment, and I told her to remain there until I called her. I went in the house and got a pair of sheets, a pair of blankets, a quilt, several dresses and underclothing, and many things that she could make useful for her children, and put them together, and then called her and told her to take them and put them in the trunk.
"Look here, Miss Mary, you ain't going to give me all them things, is you?"
"Yes, put them in the trunk and lock it."
A large sack of apples, a gift also, was soon gathered and a boy engaged to carry it and the trunk over to the depot in a wheelbarrow. Promptly at half-past eleven o'clock the trunk and apples, and Frances and her little boys, were on the way to the depot, _en route_ to Atlanta, their future home, and even a synopsis of the subsequent achievements of that woman and her unlettered mother would be suggestive of Munchausen.
HOW THE DECATUR WOMEN KEPT UP THE SABBATH SCHOOL.
A Brief Sketch of the Old Churches and the Union Sunday School--The Resumption of Church Services.
Before the war there were in Decatur but two churches, the Methodist and the Presbyterian; although Baptist and Episcopal services were occasionally held. The churches first mentioned had been organized about 1825. The Presbyterians first worshipped in a log church, and afterwards in a frame building, but in 1846 had erected a substantial brick church. In this building was also taught the Decatur Union Sabbath School, organized in 1831, and for twenty-five years preceding the summer of 1864 it had been superintended by that godly man, Mr. Levi Willard.