of his burden or knocking down any trees.

Union, on the railway, is the forlornest of little villages, with
some three hundred inhabitants and a forlorn hotel, kept by an
ex-stage-driver. The village, which lies on the Holston, has no
drinking-water in it nor enterprise enough to bring it in; not a well
nor a spring in its limits; and for drinking-water everybody crosses the
river to a spring on the other side. A considerable part of the labor
of the town is fetching water over the bridge. On a hill overlooking the
village is a big, pretentious brick house, with a tower, the furniture
of which is an object of wonder to those who have seen it. It belonged
to the late Mrs. Stover, daughter of Andrew Johnson. The whole family of
the ex-President have departed this world, but his memory is still green
in this region, where he was almost worshiped--so the people say in
speaking of him.

Forlorn as was the hotel at Union, the landlord's daughters were
beginning to draw the lines in rural refinement. One of them had been at
school in Abingdon. Another, a mature young lady of fifteen, who waited
on the table, in the leisure after supper asked the Friend for a light
for her cigarette, which she had deftly rolled.

"Why do you smoke?"

"So as I shan't get into the habit of dipping. Do you think dipping is
nice?"

The traveler was compelled to say that he did not, though he had seen a
good deal of it wherever he had been.

"All the girls dips round here. But me and my sisters rather smoke than
get in a habit of dipping."

To the observation that Union seemed to be a dull place:

"Well, there's gay times here in the winter--dancing. Like to dance?
Well, I should say! Last winter I went over to Blountsville to a dance
in the court-house; there was a trial between Union and Blountsville for
the best dancing. You bet I brought back the cake and the blue ribbon."

The country was becoming too sophisticated, and the travelers hastened
to the end of their journey. The next morning Bristol, at first over a
hilly country with magnificent oak-trees,--happily not girdled, as these
stately monarchs were often seen along the roads in North Carolina,--and
then up Beaver Creek, a turbid stream, turning some mills. When a closed
woolen factory was pointed out to the Professor (who was still traveling
for Reform), as the result of the agitation in Congress, he said, Yes,
the effect of agitation was evident in all the decayed dams and a