t, an' hard knocks. The best o' doctrin's am't wuth a d----n
ef ye doan't work on 'em."

"That is true."

We shortly afterward went to the house, and there I passed several hours
in conversation with my new friend and his excellent wife. The lady,
after a while, showed me over the building. It was well-built,
well-arranged, and had many conveniences I did not expect to find in a
back-woods dwelling. She told me its timbers and covering were of
well-seasoned yellow pine--which will last for centuries--and that it
was built by a Yankee carpenter, whom they had "'ported" from
Charleston, paying his fare, and giving him his living, and two dollars
and a half a day. It had cost as near as she "cud reckon, 'bout two
thousan' dollars."

It was five o'clock, when, shaking them warmly by the hand, I bade my
pleasant friends "good-bye," and mounting my horse rode off to the
Colonel's.

[Footnote J: The whiskey was kept in a back room, above ground, because the
dwelling had no cellar. The fluid was kept safely, under lock and key,
and the farmer accounted for that, by saying that his negroes would
steal nothing but whiskey. Few country houses at the South have a
cellar--that apartment deemed so essential by Northern housekeepers. The
intervening space between the ground and the floor is there left open,
to allow of a free circulation of air.]

[Footnote K: No regular dinner-hour is allowed the blacks on most
turpentine plantations. Their food is usually either taken with them to
the woods, or carried there by house servants, at stated times.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BURIAL OF "JULE."

The family were at supper when I returned to the mansion, and, entering
the room, I took my accustomed place at the table. None present seemed
disposed to conversation. The little that was said was spoken in a low,
subdued tone, and no allusion was made to the startling event of the
day. At last the octoroon woman asked me if I had met Mrs. Barnes at the
farmer's.

"Yes," I replied, "and I was greatly pleased with her. She seems one of
those rare women who would lend grace to even the lowest station."

"She _is_ a rare woman; a true, sincere Christian. Every one loves her;
but few know all her worth; only those do who have gone to her in sorrow
and trial, as--" and her voice trembled, and her eyes moistened--"as I
have."

And so that poor, outcast, despised, dishonored woman, scorned and
cast-off by all the world, had found one sy