The nearest neighbors to the Arnolds were a family named Bragg, who lived in a cabin some three miles distant, near the road leading to Corinth. The Braggs’ cabin was not a comfortable, convenient home such as the Arnolds had made their own mountain cabin. The doors of the Braggs’ cabin sagged from clumsy leather hinges; the floor of the rough porch was broken here and there, so that anyone entering the house had to be careful where he stepped. Mr. Bragg announced each day that he was “gwine ter try mighty hard to find time to fix that po’ch, an’ mend up the roof.” But days, weeks, and months went by and no repairs were made, although Mr. Bragg spent long hours on the porch, tilted back against the house in an old chair, smoking, and, as he would promptly explain to any visitor, “tryin’ to rest up.”   

     Indoors Mrs. Bragg swept and scoured, mended the poor garments of her family, and22 tried her best to make the rough place pleasant for her children. Mollie Bragg, the youngest of the family, was a little girl about the age of Berenice Arnold, but not as tall or strongly built as Berry. Mollie’s eyes were a pale blue, her hair, which hung straight about her thin little face, was a pale yellow, and her arms and legs were so thin that Berry sometimes wondered that they did not break as Mollie ran down the rough mountain paths, or valiantly followed Berry in climbing a tall tree to peer into the nest of a robin or yellowhammer. Mollie’s elder sister had left home, the year the Arnolds came to Tennessee, to live with an aunt in Nashville, and the only son, a lad of sixteen, had run away to join the army of the Confederacy, so that in January, 1862, Mollie was the only child at home.   

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     Although the Arnold and Bragg cabins were three miles apart, hardly a day passed that Mollie and Berry did not see each other. Mollie would often set out early in the morning and appear at the Arnolds’     door before they had finished breakfast, to be eagerly welcomed by Berry, and urged to a seat at the round breakfast table near the big window that overlooked the23 ravine by Mrs. Arnold, and helped to the well-cooked porridge, followed by crisp bacon and toast, and often a dish of stewed fruit, all of which the little visitor evidently enjoyed.   

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     To Mollie the Arnolds’ cabin seemed the finest place in the world. Although it had only five rooms, and the family had their meals in     

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