ully
believing all the while that they were "led ob de LORD."]

CHAPTER IV.

POOR WHITES.

Entering the house, we saw, by the light of a blazing pile of
pine-knots, which roared and crackled on the hearth, that it contained
only a single apartment. In front of the fire-place, which occupied the
better half of one side of this room, the floor was of the bare earth,
littered over with pine chips, dead cinders, live coals, broken pots,
and a lazy spaniel dog. Opposite to this, at the other end of the room,
were two low beds, which looked as if they had been "slept in forever,
and never made up." Against the wall, between the beds and the
fire-place, stood a small pine table, and on it was a large wooden bowl,
from whose mouth protruded the handles of several unwashed pewter
spoons. On the right of the fire was a razeed rocking-chair, evidently
the peculiar property of the mistress of the mansion, and three blocks
of pine log, sawn off smoothly, and made to serve for seats. Over
against these towered a high-backed settle, something like that on which

"sot Huldy all alone,
When Zeke peeked thru the winder;"

and on it, her head resting partly on her arm, partly on the end of the
settle, one small, bare foot pressing the ground, the other, with the
part of the person which is supposed to require stockings, extended in a
horizontal direction--reclined, not Huldy, but her Southern cousin, who,
I will wager, was decidedly the prettier and dirtier of the two. Our
entrance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, for she lay there
as unmoved as a marble statue, her large black eyes riveted on my face,
as if seeing some nondescript animal for the first time. I stood for a
moment transfixed with admiration. In a somewhat extensive observation
of her sex in both hemispheres, I had never witnessed such a form, such
eyes, such faultless features, and such wavy, black, luxuriant hair. A
glance at her dress--a soiled, greasy, grayish linsey-woolsey gown,
apparently her only garment--and a second look at her face, which, on
closer inspection, had precisely the hue of a tallow candle, recalled me
to myself, and allowed me to complete the survey of the premises.

The house was built of unhewn logs, separated by wide interstices,
through which the cold air came, in decidedly fresh if not health-giving
currents, while a large rent in the roof, that let in the rain, gave the
inmates an excellent