acks are much attached to him. A small
rebellion broke out among them, five years ago, when I displaced him,
and put Joe into the pulpit. I compromised the difficulty by agreeing
that Jack should lead in prayer every Sunday morning. They think he has
a gift that way, and _you_ would conclude the day of Pentecost had come,
if you should hear him when he is about half-seas-over.'

'Then he does pray better for a little whiskey?'

'Yes, a mug of 'black jack' helps him amazingly--it gives him the real
power.'

After a two hours' circuit of the plantation, we halted in the vicinity
of the distilleries, which stood huddled together on the bank of the
little stream of which I have spoken. There were three of them, each of
thirty barrels' capacity--an enormous size--and they were neatly set in
brick, and enclosed in a substantial framed structure, which was
weatherboarded and coated with paint of a dark brown color. Near the
only one then in operation were several large heaps of flake turpentine,
three or four hundred barrels of rosin, and a vast quantity of the same
material scattered loosely about and mixed with broken staves, worn-out
strainers, and the _debris_ of the rosin bins. Pointing to the confused
mass, I said to my host:

'I've half a mind to turn missionary. I feel a sort of call to preach to
you Southern heathen.'

'I wish you would,' he rejoined, laughing; 'you'd give me a chance to
laugh at your sermons, as you have laughed at mine.'

'No, you wouldn't laugh. I'd make you _feel_ way down in your pocket.
I'd have but one sermon and one text, and that would be: 'Gather up the
fragments, that nothing be lost.' You Southern nabobs do nothing but
waste--you waste enough in one day to feed the whole North for a week.
It's a sin--the unpardonable sin--for you know better.'

'Well, it _is_ wrong, but how can we help it? We can't make the negroes
anything but what they are--shiftless and careless of everything but
their own ease.'

'I don't know about that. I think such a man as Joe ought to be able to
manage them.'

'Joe! Well, he can't. He's all drive, and negroes are human beings; they
should be treated kindly.'

We had approached the front of the still, and were fastening our horses
to the trunk of a tree, when we heard loud voices issuing from the other
side of the enclosure.

'Her'm what I owes you--now pack off ter onst, and don't neber show your
face on dis plantation no more,' said a voice, which I