Cousin Patty is small, rather white and thin, and she is fifty-five. I

tell you her age, because in a way it explains many things which would

otherwise puzzle you. She was born just before the war. She knew

nothing of the luxury of the days of slavery. She has twisted and

turned and economized all of her life. She has struggled with all the

problems which beset the South in Reconstruction times, and she has

come out if it all, sweet and shrewd, and with a point of view about

women which astonishes me, and which gives us a chance for many

sprightly arguments. Her black hair is untouched with gray, she wears

it parted and in a thick knot high on her head. Her gowns are

invariably of black silk, well cut and well made. She makes them

herself, and gets her patterns from New York! Can you see her now?

Our arguments are usually about women, and their position in the world

to-day. You know I am conservative, clinging much to old ideals, old

fashions, to the beliefs of gentler times--but Cousin Patty in this

backwater of civilization has gone far ahead of me. She believes that

the hope of the South is in its women. "They read more than the men,"

she says, "and they have responded more quickly to the new social

ideals."

But of our arguments more in another letter--this will serve, however,

to introduce you to some of the astonishing mental processes of this

little marooned cousin of mine.

For in a sense she is marooned. Once upon a time when Cotton was king,

and slave labor made all things possible, there was prosperity here,

but now the land is impoverished. So Cousin Patty does not depend upon

the land. She read in some of her magazines of a woman who had made a

fortune in wedding cake. She resolved that what one woman could do

could be done by another. Hence she makes and sells wedding cake, and

while she has not made a fortune she has made a living. She began by

asking friends for orders; she now gets orders from near and far.

So all day there is the good smell of baking in the house, and the

sound of the whisking of eggs. And every day little boxes have to be

filled. Will you smile when I tell you that I like the filling of the

little boxes? And that while we talk o' nights, I busy myself with

this task, while Cousin Patty does things with narrow white ribbon and

bits of artificial orange blossoms, so that the packages which go out

may be as beautiful and bride-y as possible.




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