I believe this story is the first in the anthology to be written in third person pov, but Taylor’s method of indepth character revelation is just as powerful.
The protagonist is a middle-aged woman, Harriet, with a grown son and two daughters and a husband referred to as "Sweetheart." It is similar to the others in that there is a false sense of holding no racial prejudice in that the people of this area of the South in this particular era felt there was a symbiotic relationship between blacks and whites and that that was the proper way of thinking about things.
Taylor demonstrates this concept through the woman’s relationship with her own black servant, Mattie. She will hold and hug and console her, and yet when Mattie dares liken her nephew’s going off to service during the war, Harriet is outraged at the impertinence.
What Taylor also does well with the story plot–and this one had a bit more of a plot than the others–is purposefully leave his character into a kind of limbo with himself. Not all of us change by being forced to face events and our own selves; not all stories need to show the character making a huge turnaround in his thinking. This is, of course, a writing no-no, but it is also the most realistic display of human nature.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology