It had happened in the extremely southern portion of the state, in that part commonly referred to as "Egypt," where he then lived. He recalled the incident as it occurred about twenty years before, for he was just five years of age at the time. His mother's baby boy they called him, because he was the youngest of four boys in a large family of children. It was a day in the autumn. He was sure of this because his older brothers had been hunting; they had caught several rabbits and shot a few partridges. He had been allowed to follow for the first time, and had carried the game.... How distinctly it came back to him now.
He had picked the feathers from the quail, and had held the rabbits while his brothers skinned them. And, later, they had placed the game in cold water from their deep well, and had thereupon placed the pan holding the same upon the roof of the summer kitchen, and that night the frost had come. And when morning was again, the ice cold water had drawn the blood from the meat of the game, and the same was clear and white.
"Now, young man," his mother said to him the following morning, "you will get into clean clothes and stay clean, do you understand?"
"Yes, mama, I understand," he answered. "But, mama, why?" he inquired. Jean Baptiste had always asked such questions and for his doing so his mother had always rebuked him.
"You will ask the questions, my son," she said, raising his child body in her arms and kissing him fondly. "But I don't mind telling you." She stood him on the ground then, and pointed to him with her forefinger. "Because we are going to have company from town. Big people. The preachers. Lots of them, so little boys should be good, and clean, and be scarce when the preachers are around. They are big men with no time, or care, to waste with little boys!"
"And, why, mama, do the preachers have no time for little boys? Were they not little boys once themselves?"
"Now, Jean!" she had admonished thereupon, "you are entirely too inquisitive for a little boy. There will be other company, also. Teachers, and Mrs. Winston, do you understand! So be good." With that she went about her dinner, cooking the rabbits and the quail that he had brought home the day before.