Sarah Jane

<div> Ev'rybody's poor aren't they Billy?</div><div> All the nicest people are he replied.</div><div> Billy was a war baby. He had a message from General Lee congratulating him on being born and was quite wise. I was only a since-the-war baby.</div><div> I climbed on a cricket table and looked at myself in the mahogany-framed glass hanging over Gran'munny's dimity dressing table. I decided a girl with a shingled head was utterly hopelessly ugly and I wondered why God hadn't made me a boy. What place would there be in the world for an ugly girl?</div><div> <br/></div><div> As a child who grew to womanhood in the years following the war of Aggression on my Southern countrymen I think I am the one most qualified to write this book. I have told only one woman's experience however I have been well known in my time as a writer of Virginia history and its people. I cannot say I am an authority on your heritage and neighbor's but I can say that I am on mine.</div><div> -Mary Newton Stanard</div>