would do this for no one else. He knew her voice, and would obey it,
and bound to her call with the alacrity of a child. His pleasure at her
coming to mount him, when saddled for a ride, was so marked as to
excite astonishment. He would carefully place himself for her
convenience, and stand quiet after she was in the saddle until her
riding-skirt was adjusted and her foot well in the stirrup, and then
she would only say, "Now, Tom!" when he would arch his neck and move
off with a playful bound, and curvet about the grounds until she would
lay her hand upon his mane, and, gently patting his neck, say, "There,
Tom!" Then the play was over, and he went gallantly forward, obediently
and kindly as a reasoning being.

The young reader will excuse this garrulity of age: it is its
privilege; and I am writing my recollections of bygone years, and none
are more pleasant than those which recall to me this great woman--the
delightful hours spent in her society at the hospitable home of her
family. She still lives, an aged woman, respected by all, and honored
in the great merits of her children. Like Tom, they were affectionately
trained; and like Tom, they were dutiful in their conduct, and live to
perpetuate her intelligence and the noble attributes of her glorious
heart. Should these lines ever meet her eye, she will remember the
writer, and recall the delightful rides and happy hours spent together
a long time ago. We are both in the winter of life, time's uses are
almost ended, and all that is blissful now are the memories of the
past. Dear Fannie, close the book and your eyes, turn back to fifty
years ago, and to the memories common to us both, give the heart one
brief moment to these, and, as now I do, drop a tear to them.

The population in the four river counties, at the time of which I
write, was much more dense than of any other portion of the State:
still there were numerous settlements in different parts of the State
quite populous. That upon Pearl River, of these, perhaps, was most
populous; but those eastern settlements were constituted of a different
people: most of them were from the poorer districts of Georgia and the
Carolinas. True to the instincts of the people from whom they were
descended, they sought as nearly as possible just such a country as
that from which they came, and were really refugees from a growing
civilization consequent upon a denser population and its necessities.
They were not agriculturist