There is a type of white Southerner who respects certain Negro individuals. One of these that I met on the tour was a Mr. Charles Somers, who owned the theater we played in Richmond, Virginia. He saw that I had none of the humility of most Negro people living in the South, and respected me for it. When he saw that I drew business he offered us several weeks at three little theaters he had in North Carolina. One of these was in the Hills' home town. While we were playing there we stayed at their aunt's house. This was the first time I ran into real Southern living. It was a warm and comfortable place, but they were always eating grits. They ate a lot of rice, also, in that house and grew their own greens and raised chickens and hogs. They ate their big meal at noon and kept eating all of the time. I found this a very happy state of affairs. But the large quantities of food I ate and the round-the-clock system of eating caused me to become bloated and stuffed. One day I got so sick I had to stay in bed all day. In the early evening a relative of the Hills toted--that's the word they use down there, toted--me to the theater in his little old car. I fainted in my dressing quarters. When I came to I was lying on two chairs and an ironing board. The manager came back and said, "Ethel, I don't know what to do. I went on the stage and told the people out there that you were sick, but they said they would wait until you got better. They want to hear you sing so much they refuse to take their money back." This was my introduction to the show-must-go-on tradition. But what performer could be indifferent to admirers willing to sit on hard seats all night just for the chance to see her? I couldn't stand up. So they kept the curtain down and carried me out on the stage. They sat me down in a chair, and I sang "St. Louis Blues" and two other songs. I was dizzy and almost fainted again before I got through. But I was all right the next day. << less