Alabama	Gertha Couric,	~5
~	Eufaula, Alabama.
~ ~ ~ ~ .~	John Morgan Smith,
	~‚ ~ 1 ‚~~‚ ~ ~	Birmingham ‚ Alabama.


NATHAN BEAUCHAMP ‚ HALF REED. ~ ‚
	.	(Photo)


	I walked up a little pat4bordèredwtth small stones, an atmo~sphere of solitude surrounding me. In the sky, large, white cuniulous clouds like great boils of cotton, floated leisurely northward. Far down the road. a ramshackle buckboard disappeared over a slight hill; directly in front the path ran at twenty yards into the dilapidated steps of a Negro cabin, while an old colored man in a vegetable garden to the left to the cabin broke the stillness with the intermitten~metallic sounds of his spade digging into thirsty soil. I knew at a glance that thi s was Nath~ Beau~hamp.

	“Hello, Uncle Nathan,“ I called.

	“Mornin‘, white folks,“ he answered, as he discontinued his spad~“ ing and raised his hand. in a friendly gesture.

	I walked over to where Uncle Nathan was standing and stopped in the little furrows of brown earth. Already a thick coat of dust had formed on my shoes.

	“Uncle Nathan,“ I said, “I‘d like to have a brief chat with you about slavery days, if you can spare a few minutes from your garden hereV

	“Yassuh, boss,“ he said, punctuating his reply with a spat of tOb&C~O that was soon nothing but a dark mark in the parched ground, “glad to be of any ‘sistance.

	We moved to the shade of a large oak where we sat down together. on a sturdy, home-~made bench.

	“Well, white folks,“ he went on after taking a long turn at the ~~pper hanging on the tree which shades a well. ~I~ll tell you a story of my mammy an‘ pappy. Nathan Beauchamp, my pappy, belonged to Massa