first they were far worse off than befo' because the
Freedman's Bureau an' the carpet-baggers made trouble right an' lef'.
The No'th had a fine chance, but the carpet-baggers were jes' blind to
everythin' excep' the negro, an' the po' white was jes' as shabbily
treated by the No'th as he had be'n by the South. Now that everybody is
seein' that yo' can't make a negro jes' the same as a white man by
givin' him a vote, thar's a chance fo' the po' white. I reckon the
'Cracker' as a 'Cracker' is goin' to be extinct pretty soon, an' the
South is goin' to be proud o' the stock it once despised. Atlanta is the
fastes' growin' city in the South, an' Atlanta is jes' full o' men whose
folks weren't much more'n 'Crackers.' The po' white, in a few years, is
goin' to be only a memory like the backwoodsman o' the time o' Dan'l
Boone."

"That promises well for the South," said Hamilton.

"The boom o' the South is jes' beginnin'," the old man said, "an' if
you're goin' to do census work this next year, yo' jes' watch the
figures an' see whar the old South comes in. It's a pity you're goin'
back to Wash'n'ton to-morrow, as I think yo' ought to see more o' this
country befo' yo' go."

"I'd like to, ever so much, Uncle Eli," the boy answered, as he got up
from the step and started for the big loft where he slept with the
mountaineer's two sons, "but, even if I don't get a chance, I've learned
a lot from you about the folk on the mountains and about the South
generally."

The mountaineer nodded a good-night as the boy disappeared.

"Now thar," he said to his wife, who had been knitting stockings during
the latter part of the conversation, and occasionally interjecting a
word, "thar is a boy that is really achin' to know things. I wish Rube
and Eph were more like him."

"Nothin' but hounds an' vittles worries them," the woman replied
sharply, "but they an't none like city boys, an' I'd ruther have 'em the
way they air than to come pesterin' with questions like Hamilton does
you. I don't set any sort o' stock in it, an' I don't encourage him in
sech nonsense."

The big Kentuckian smiled, and filled his corn-cob leisurely as he
turned the talk to other things.

Early the next morning, Hamilton and the oldest of the two boys started
on their fourteen-mile ride to the station, where the lad was to take an
afternoon train for Washington. They had gone about three miles, when
they came upon Bill Wilsh sitting on the stump of a tree by th