I woke up and found out she done left.

She sat there for more than three hours, as sheet after sheet became covered with her open-handed writing.

You see, she sees herself as a starlet; I see her as a sturdy, healthy but decidedly homely kid.

[…] the friends of the country and of the equal rights of all men, the friends of enfranchising the black man and of weaponing his hand for defense; the friends of taking the governments of these rebel States out of the hands of their rebel possessors, […]