omy feelings that had
oppressed me: "come, I must see that wife of yours, and get a glimpse of
how you live?"

"Sartin, stranger; come in; I'll give ye th' tallest dinner my 'oman can
scare up, an' she's sum pumkins in th' cookin' line;" and he led the way
to the farm-house.

As I turned to follow, I slipped a half-dollar into the hand of the
darky who was holding my horse, and asked him to put her again into the
stable.

"I'll do dat, sar, but I karn't take dis; masaa doant 'low it nohow;" he
replied, tendering me back the money.

"Barnes, your negroes have strange ways; I never met one before who'd
refuse money."

"Wal, stranger, 'taint hosspetality to take money on yer friends, and
Bill gets all he wants from me."

I took the silver and gave it to the first darky I met, who happened to
be an old centenarian belonging to the Colonel. As I tossed it to him,
he grinned out: "Ah, massa, I'll git sum 'backer wid dis; 'pears like I
hadn't nary a chaw in forty yar." With more than one leg in the grave
the old negro had not lost his appetite for the weed--in fact, that and
whiskey are the only "luxuries" ever known to the plantation black.

As we went nearer, I took a closer survey of the farm-house. It was, as
I have said, a low, unpainted wooden building, located in the middle of
a ten acre lot. It was approached by a straight walk, paved with a
mixture of sand and tar, similar to that which the reader may have seen
in the Champs Elysees. I do not know whether my back-woods friend, or
the Parisian pavior, was the first inventor of this composition, but I
am satisfied the corn-cracker had not stolen it from the stone-cracker.
The walk was lined with fruit-bearing shrubs, and directly in front of
the house, were two small flower-beds.

The dwelling itself, though of a dingy brown wood-color, was neat and
inviting. It may have been forty feet square on the ground, and was only
a story and a half high, but a projecting roof, and a front
dormer-window, relieved it from the appearance of disproportion. Its
gable ends were surmounted by two enormous brick chimneys, carried up on
the outside, in the fashion of the South, and its high, broad windows
were ornamented with Venetian blinds. Its front door opened directly
into the "living-room," and at the threshold we met its mistress.

As the image of that lady has still a warm place in a pleasant corner of
my memory, I will describe her. She was about thirty years of age,