pon the farm.
Their currency was silver coin, Spanish milled, and extremely limited
in quantity. The little trade carried on was principally by barter, and
social intercourse was confined almost exclusively to the Sabbath. The
roads were rough and uneven, consisting almost entirely of a way
sufficiently wide for an ox-cart to pass, cut through the forest, where
the stumps and stones remained; and in soft or muddy places, the bodies
of small trees or split rails were placed side by side, so as to form a
sort of bridge or causeway, so rough as to test and not unfrequently to
destroy the wheels of the rude vehicles of the country. These obtained
and to this day receive the sobriquet of Georgia railroads or corduroy
turnpikes.

Very few of these immigrants were independent of labor; and most of
them devoted six days of the week to the cultivation of a small farm
and its improvement. Children learned early to assist in this labor,
and those who were sent to school, almost universally employed the
Saturday of each week in farm-work.

Man's social nature induces aggregation into communities, which
stimulates an ambition to excel in every undertaking. From this
emulation grows excellence and progress in every laudable enterprise.
These small communities, as they grew from accessions coming into the
country, began to build rude places for public worship, which were
primitive log-cabins, and served as well the purposes of a
school-house. Here the adult population assembled on the Sabbath, and
the children during the week. This intercourse, together with the
dependence of every one at times for neighborly assistance, was greatly
promotive of harmony and mutual confidence. Close and familiar
acquaintance revealed to all the peculiar character of every one--the
virtuous and the vicious, the energetic or the indolent, the noble and
the ignoble--and all very soon came to be appreciated according to
their merit.

Rude sports constituted the amusements of the young--wrestling,
leaping, and hunting; and he who was most expert at these was the
neighborhood's pride: he rode from church with the prettiest girl, and
was sure to be welcomed by her parents when he came; and to be selected
by such an one was to become the neighborhood's belle. At log-rollings,
quiltings, and Saturday-night frolics, he was the first and the most
admired.

The girls, too, were not without distinction--she who could spin the
greatest number of cuts of cotton