Happy Easter when Uncle Ben Visits

Uncle Ben holding Ben Hoyt and Fannie Jane

Uncle Ben's family came to visit for Easter. They met us at the Methodist Church in time for services. Daddy says he doesn't know which is harder, coming down the mountain from Uncle Ben's without running away down the side of the mountain, or going up the mountain when the model-T runs hot and somebody has to run down to a spring with a bucket to get water.

We dyed eggs: grape juice in a little water for purple, onion skins for orange, beets for red, red cabbage leaves for blue and turmeric for yellow; and a teaspoon of vinegar for what Mama called 'mordant.' We simmered the eggs in each pot of water dye until the egs were hard boiled. We wrote our names on an egg with a candle and we wrote the little ones' names, too. Where we wrote in wax left our names in white on a dyed egg.
For dinner we had ham and fresh green peas from the garden and new potatoes that we scratched from under the vines and of course, boiled eggs to eat after we hid them for the little ones to find. Mama made a pound cake to eat with whipped cream, and peaches we canned last summer.

Uncle Ben said he thought his namesake, Ben Hoyt, was a fine baby.