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THE 
 
 Farm and the Fireside: 
 
 SKETCHES OF DOMESTIC LIFE 
 IN WAR AND IN PEACE. 
 
 AVRITTKN AND PUBLISHED FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT 
 
 OF THE GOOD PEOPLE AT HOME, AND 
 
 DEDICATED ESPECIALLY TO 
 
 MOTHERS AND CHILDREN. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHAS. H. SNIITM 
 
 (BILL ARP.) 
 
 JAN 221892 
 
 
 ATLANTA, GEORGIA : 
 The Constitution Publishing Company, 
 

 Copyright applied for 
 
 By The Constitution Publishing Company, 
 
 Atlanta, Georgia. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Georgia Cracker and the Gander Pijling 9 
 
 The Original *'BillArp" 18 
 
 Big John 27 
 
 The Roman Runagee 31 
 
 His Late Trials and Adventures 37 
 
 Bill Arp Addresses Artemus Ward 43 
 
 The Falling Leaves 46 
 
 Adventures on the Farm 52 
 
 Smoking the Pipe of Peace 58 
 
 The Sounds on the Front Piazza 63 
 
 Mr. Arp Feels His Inadequacy 67 
 
 A Feast in a Sycamore Grove 70 
 
 Trials and Tribulations • 74 
 
 Love Affairs 78 
 
 Tells of His Wife's Birthday 82 
 
 Mrs. Arp Goes Off on a Visit 85 
 
 The Voice of Spring 90 
 
 The Love of Money 96 
 
 Cobe Talks a Little 99 
 
 The Ups and Downs of Farming 103 
 
 The Family Preparing to Receive City Cousins •__- 108 
 
 Bad Luck in the Family 112 
 
 The Struggle for Money 117 
 
 On a Strain . 126 
 
 New Years Time 130 
 
 Old Things are Passing Away 134 
 
 The Country 138 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 But Once a Year 142" 
 
 Grandfather's Days 150 
 
 Making Sausage ^- 157 
 
 The Old Trunk ,--- 162 
 
 The Georgia Colonel 166 
 
 On the Old Times — Alexa#ler Stephens, etc 169 
 
 Sticking to the Old 174 
 
 A Prose Poem on Spring 178 
 
 Uncle Bart 181 
 
 Christmas on the Farm 188 
 
 Democratic Principles 187 
 
 Politics 191 
 
 Harvest Time 194 
 
 The Old and the New 197 
 
 The Old School Days 211 
 
 Old School Days 216 
 
 Roasting Ears and the Midnight Dance 221 
 
 Open House 224 
 
 The Old Tavern 228 
 
 The Old Time Darkeys 232 
 
 Owls, Snakes and Whang-Doodles 238 
 
 The Autumn Leaves 242 
 
 Uncle Tom Barker 246 
 
 Bill Arp^on Josh Billings 252 
 
 The Code Duello 255 
 
 Billy in' the Low Grounds 260 
 
 William Gets Left 263 
 
 Pleasures of Hope and Memory 267 
 
 Arp's Reminiscences of Fifty Years 271 
 
 William and His Wife Visit the City 277 
 
 The Buzzard Lope 281 
 
 Up Among the Stars 285- 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 Oh! These Women 289 
 
 The Mischievous Little Ones 298 
 
 Thoughts on Spring and Love 297 
 
 Bill Arp Plays Ring Master 301 
 
 Doctors Turned Loose 305 
 
 On Hailstones, etc 309 
 
 Runaway Negroes, Ghosts and Old-Time Darkeys 313 
 
 The Candy Pulling 318 
 
 Family Reform 322 
 
 Music 327 
 
 The Sorrel Hair 333 
 
THE FARM AND THE FIRESIDE, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Georgia Cracker and the Gander Pulling. 
 
 Not to go back in history further than my own time and recollec- 
 tions, let me venture upon some unoccupied territory and tell how 
 Cherokee Georgia became the home of that much-maligned and mis- 
 understood individual known as the Georgia cracker. I have lived 
 long in his region, and am close akin to him. 
 
 There is really but little difference between the Georgia cracker and 
 the Alabama or Tennessee cracker. They all have, or had, the same 
 origin, and until the Appalachian range was opened up to the rest of 
 mankind by railroads and the school-house, these crackers had ways 
 and usages, and a language peculiarly their own. 
 
 It will be remembered that until 1835 the Cherokee Indians owned 
 and occupied this region of Georgia — the portion lying west of the 
 Chattahoochee and north of the Tallapoosa rivers. They were the 
 most peaceable and civilized of all the tribes, but they were not sub- 
 ject to Georgia laws, and had many conflicts and disturbances with 
 their white nabors. It seemed to be manifest destiny that they should 
 go. "Go west, red man," was the white man's fiat. They went at 
 the point of the bayonet, and all their beautiful country was suddenly 
 opened to the ingress of whomsoever might come. Georgia had it 
 surveyed and divided into lots of 40 and 160 acres, and then made 
 a lottery and gave every man and widow and orphan child a chance 
 in the drawing. But the cracker didn't wait for the drawing. The 
 rude, untamed and restless people from the mountain borders of Geor- 
 gia and the Carolinas flocked hither to pursue their wild and fascinat- 
 ing occupation of hunting and fishing for a livelihood. They came 
 separately, but soon assimilated and shared a common interest. There 
 
10 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 are such spirits in every community. There are some right here now 
 who would rather go up to Cohutta mountains on a bear hunt than to 
 go to New York or Paris for pleasure. I almost would myself, and I 
 recall the earnest cravings of my youth to go west and find a wilder- 
 ness, and with my companions live in a hut and kill deer and turkeys, 
 and sometimes a bear and a panther. 
 
 But for my town raising and old field school education I, too, would 
 have made a very respectable cracker. This was the class of young 
 men and middle-aged that first settled among these historic hills and 
 valleys and climbed these mountains and fished in these streams. By 
 and by the fortunate owners of these lands received their certificates 
 and many of them came from all parts of the State to look up their 
 lots and see how much gold or how much bottom land there was upon 
 them, but gold was the principal attraction. The Indians had found 
 gold and washed it out of the creeks and branches and traded it in 
 small parcels to the white man, and it was believed that every stream 
 was lined with golden sand. This proved an illusion, and so the 
 squatters were not disturbed, or else they bought their titles for a song 
 and then sang ''sweet home" of their own. They built their cabins 
 and cleared their lands and raised their scrub cattle, and with their 
 old-fashioned rifles kept the family in game. Many of these settlers 
 could read and write, but in their day there was but little to read. 
 No newspapers, and but few books were found by the hunter's fireside. 
 Their children grew up the same way, but what they lacked in culture 
 they supplied in rough experiences and hair-breadth escapes and fire- 
 side talk and in the sports that were either improvised or inherited. 
 Pony races gander pullings, shooting matches, coon hunting and 
 quiltings had more attractions than books. How they got to using 
 such twisted language as you'uns and we'uns and inguns and mout and 
 gwine and all sich is not known, nor was such talk universal. When 
 such idioms began in a family they descended and spread out among 
 the kindred, but it was not contagious. I know one family now of 
 very extensive connections who have a folk-lore of their own, and it 
 can be traced back to the old ancestor who died half a century ago. 
 But these corruptions of language are by no means peculiar to the 
 cracker, for the English cockneys and the genuine yankee have an 
 idiom quite as eccentric, though they do not realize it and would not 
 admit it. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 11 
 
 The Georgia cracker was a merry-hearted, unconcerned, independ- 
 ent creature, and all he asked was to be let alone by the laws and the 
 outside world. 
 
 The justice court of his beat was quite enough limitation for him. 
 He had far more respect for the old spectacled 'squire than for the 
 highest court in the nation. From this home-made tribunal he never 
 appealed until the young lawyers began to figure m it, and seduced 
 him into the mysteries of the law and the wonderful performances of 
 the writ of "sasherary." Nevertheless, they looked upon lawyers as 
 suspects and parasites, and their descendants have the same opinion 
 still. The old 'squire was specially "foment" them, and looked upon 
 the sasherary as an insult to his judicial capacity. Sometimes he 
 would let two young limbs of the law argue a case before him for half 
 an hour, and then quietly remark, "Gentlemen, I judgmenticated this 
 case last night at home," and would proceed with his docket. That 
 old 'squire and the preacher were quite enough to pilot these people 
 through life and across the dark river. 
 
 A few years after they had settled down as the successors to the 
 Indians a class of more substantial citizens began to look in upon this^s 
 beautiful country. They purchased the valley lands and the river 
 bottoms, and soon the forests began to fall before the ax of the pio- 
 neers. Some of them brought slaves with them and erected sawmills 
 and framed houses with glass windows to live in, and the school mas- 
 ter came along, but the crackers were in the majority and lived along 
 in the same old primitive way. ^As late as 1847 they had gander 
 pullings, and one that I witnessed that summer lasted for two hours, 
 and the original Bill Arp was the victor. I could have seen more of 
 them, .but I did not care to, just for the same reason that a kind- 
 hearted man does not wish to see but one hanging. 
 
 One Saturday morning when we arrived at Blue Gizzard court- 
 ground, the clans had gathered in unusual force. As preliminary to 
 the more important contest that was soon to come off, some of the 
 boys were shooting at a small piec6 of white paper that was pinned to 
 a distant tree. Some were gathered around the spring. Some were 
 trying old Mother Tutten's fresh cider and ginger cakes that she 
 offered from the hindgate of her little wagon, and some were sampling 
 the corn whiskey that was kept in a j*ug in the little log courthouse 
 hard by. We soon perceived the central and most attractive spot to 
 
12 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 be a small tree with a limb forking about ten feet from its base. A 
 long, slender, springy pole was resting in the fork with the large end 
 pressed to the ground and fastened with stobs crossed on either side 
 and driven firmly in the clay. This incline raised the long end of the 
 pole quite high in the air, and to that end was looped a plow line, 
 and to the lower end of the line another loop was slipped over the 
 crimson feet of a venerable gander and left him swinging, head down- 
 wards, just high enough for a horseman to reach it easily as he rode 
 underneath. The doomed bird gave an occasional squawk, and, with 
 wings half open and neck half bent, looked with inquisitive alarm 
 upon the proceedings. The feathers had been stripped from its neck 
 and a thick coat of grease put on instead. The undergrowth had 
 been removed and a running path for the horsemen carefully cleared 
 of all obstructions. The tournament began at 11 o'clock. Twenty 
 sovereigns, mounted on their plow nags, ranged themselves at one end 
 of the path and awaited the call of their names by the old 'squire, 
 who had them written on a fly-leaf in the back of his docket. No 
 man was allowed to ride until he had planked up a dollar. The old 
 'squire had contributed the gander just out of good will to the boys, 
 he said, and he was nominated as treasurer and umpire and carried 
 the bag, and on his decision the whole sum was to be awarded the vic- 
 tor. He had adjourned his court for two hours to see the fun and 
 keep down any disturbance of the peace. Eight " whippers" were 
 mustered in, four on each side of the running course. They were all 
 armed with good long switches or hickorys, and their willing duty 
 was to see to it that no man's nag moved towards the gander with less 
 alacrity than a gallop. " Now, boys," said he, "not a lope that would 
 keep a nag a-lopin' half an hour in the shade of a tree, but a right 
 lively gallop, and if the critter slows up any, you must peartin him 
 up a little — especially as he's a-nighin' towards the gander." 
 
 The boys were true sovereigns. They were not knights. They 
 were arrayed in their home-made pants and home-made shirts 
 and home-knit galluses. Their shoes were made at the tanners and 
 their hats at the hatter's. Coats and vests were not in their 
 regalia. All the naborhood were their spectators, including many 
 women, some with infants at the breast and some with sons in the 
 tournament. 
 
 The gathering people exchanged salutations and smiles and gave the 
 
The Farm and The Fireside.. 13 
 
 family news and gradually drew near the place where the anserian 
 struggle was impending. 
 
 The old squire had participated in some old-fashioned musters in 
 his day, and so, when everything was ready he stood on a log and, 
 raising his right hand, exclaimed: ^'Tention company! In the pro- 
 ceedings that we are about to proceed with it are expected that every 
 man will conduct his behavior accordin* to what's far and honest — no 
 man are to take any disadvantage of ary other man nor of the gan- 
 der. Thar he are hangin' without a friend. Tote fair boys, tote fair; 
 and put him out of misery as quick as you ken, in reason. Jack 
 Pullum — three paces to the front — now ready — aim — charge." 
 
 As Jack stuck his heels in his pony's flank the crowd shouted: 
 "Charge 'em Jack! Charge 'em!" But Jack's critter wasent used to 
 charging. He rebelled at the go and the ''whippers in" had to come 
 to his support. He dashed in and out of the path wildly, but finally 
 took the bit in his teeth and started down the line on a desperate run 
 for freedom amid the shouts and cheers of the multitude. He steered 
 well until he suddenly eyed the great white bird just ahead of him: 
 He stopped as if on the brink of a precipice, but Jack went on. That 
 capped the climax of tumultuous hilarity. The like of that was 
 what they came for. Jack caught on his hands and feet, and was 
 soon remounted and took another start, and his nag behaved better, 
 but still did not come in reach of the gander, and Jack lost his 
 chance until the second grand round. "We'uns hain't got no geese 
 at our house," said he, "and my animal never seed one afore as I 
 knows on." 
 
 "Samuel Swillin, to the front," called the 'squire. "Ready, aim, 
 charge." Sam's critter was more tractable and Sam got a fair grab, 
 but the grease was too slick for him, and as he slipped his hold the 
 poor bird swang to and fro and flapped his wings and squawked loud 
 and long at the terrible squeeze and the more terrible elongation of 
 his oesophagus. Sam was congratulated on his effort. He wiped his 
 fingers on a pine top, and said: "Yes I'll be dadburued if I wouldent 
 have got him, but the dingd thing was so allfired slickery. I was in 
 hopes that Jack Pullum would have got the fust grab and sleeked 
 offen some of it." 
 
 "Eube Underwood — to the front — ready — aim — charge." Rube 
 had a big mouth, and was freckled faced and red headed, and rode a 
 
14 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 flee-bitten gray that had been taught to dance and prance around and 
 go sideways — "jest to show smart," as the boys said — and it took the 
 animal sometime to be convinced that dancing and prancing wasn't in 
 order at this particular time. A walloping lick just as he neared the 
 goal caused him to make a fearful leap right under the bird, and as Rube 
 had to use both hands to hold his seat, the gander's head collided 
 square in Rube's face and some swore got in his mouth and "effen he 
 had jest shet it he would have had the prize." He retired in good 
 order and awaited his second turn. One by one the riders came as 
 they were called. One after another got some of the grease and wiped 
 it on their horses' manes, but the muscles of the gander were old and 
 tough, and every one of the twenty had gone his round and failed, when 
 the squire called a halt and ordered another greasing. It was evident, 
 however, that some damage had been done the bird, for his wings hung 
 droopy and his voice was failing him. There was a laceration of 
 sinews going on, and but for the fresh greasing the sport would have 
 soon ended. **'Tention, company," said the 'squire. **The proceed- 
 inses will now take a little recess. Boys, you can light and look at 
 your saddles, and ef you want water you can go to the spring and git 
 it, but don't wait long, for my old gander are hangin' there without a 
 friend and sufierin'." 
 
 The tournament was soon resumed. Bill Arp was the tenth man 
 of the second round. He was the tenth of the first, and many pre- 
 dicted then that he would break that gander's neck or the plow line or 
 the pole, for his grip was like a vise and his agility notorious, but 
 somehow the gander ducked at the critical moment and Bill grabbed 
 his head instead of his neck and made a miscarriage. 
 
 As Bill's turn came again the crowd ejaculated : ''Now, watch him 
 boys." ''Can't he ride, though?" ''See how he sots on his critter." 
 "Blamed if he ain't tarred to his nag." "Look at his eye." "No 
 whippers for him." "He's a gwine to carry that gander's head a half 
 a mile before he stops." "Farewell, goose, I'll preach your funeral." 
 "Good-bye gander." 
 
 And sure enough. Bill got the right grip this time and in a trice 
 had given the neck a double and something had to break as the pole 
 and the line swiftly followed his motion. For a moment it seemed 
 uncertain what would break or what had broken for the strained ten- 
 dons popped like a whip as Bill's nag went on at full speed. For a 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 15 
 
 little while the quivering, headless body swung backwards and for- 
 wards and was then at rest. Then came the shouts and wild hurrah. 
 Bill was game and so was his critter, and as they came round to the 
 front the crowd gathered round to see the gander's head that he held 
 high in his hand — the warm blood trickling from the arteries. After 
 the jubilee was over Bill invited the nineteen and the 'squire to old 
 Mother Tutten's wagon, and having purchased her stock of cakes and 
 cider and the jug in the courthouse he " gin 'em all a treat." There 
 was not a fuss nor a fight in all the '* proceedinses." In a few min- 
 utes thereafter the voice of the bailiff was heard crying " Oh yes, oh 
 yes — the honorable court of the 825th deestrict are now met kordin' 
 to adjournment. God save the state and the honorable court." "^ 
 
 These rough, rude people were the original Georgia crackers. They 
 constituted a large proportion of the population of Cherokee half a 
 century ago. They were generally poor, but they enjoyed life more 
 than they did money. They were sociable and they were kind. 
 When one of their number was sick they nursed him — when he died 
 they dug a grave and buried him, and that was the end of the chap- 
 ter. There was no tombstone, no epitaph, no obituary. Their class 
 is fast disappearing from our midst. Civilization has encroached upon 
 them, and now their children and their children's children have assim- 
 ilated with a higher grade of humanity. 
 
 It was among these untutored people that I cast my professional 
 fortunes about 42 years ago. I had been studying law about two 
 months and was admitted on the sly on promise of future diligence — 
 or rather upon the idea that if anybody was fool enough to employ 
 me it was nobody else's business. Another young man of my age was 
 admitted at the same time and he knew less of law if possible than I 
 did. I remember that the first case we had was up in Shake-rag 
 district where two nabors had fallen out because one had accused the 
 other of stealing his hog. And so he sued him m justices court for 
 thirty dollars worth of slander. My Brother Alexander was employed 
 for the plaintiff and I for the defendant. 1 dident know that a jus- 
 tice court had no jurisdiction over a slander case. My Brother Alex- 
 ander dident know it. The jury dident know it. I rather suspect 
 that the old 'squire knew it but he wasent the man to limit his own con- 
 sequence and so we rolled up our sleeves and waded in. My Brother 
 Alexander made a very fine speech for his maiden effort. He talked 
 
16 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 eloquently to that jury about the value of a man's character — how 
 dear it was to him and his wife and his children and how it should be 
 transmitted down the line from generation to generation pure and 
 untarnished by the foul breath of slander. And he closed his speech 
 with an extract from Shakespeare, wherein he said "He who steals my 
 purse steals trash, but he who filches from me my good name takes 
 that which does not enrich him but makes me poor indeed." 
 
 I was very much alarmed and very much impressed with his elo- 
 quence, and so I concluded that my very best chance was to ridicule 
 the whole business and laugh it out of court if I could, and I told 
 that jury in conclusion that it was impossible for my client to slander 
 anybody for he had no character of his own to begin with, and 
 nobody would believe anything he said whether he was on oath or off 
 oath. 
 
 The old 'squire charged the jury to weigh all the evidence and to 
 agree on a verdik if they could, and if they couldn't then they mout 
 split the difference and compromise. The jury retired to a log near 
 by and cussed and discussed the matter and joked and carried on 
 powerful, and in about half an hour came back with this verdik, 
 "We, the jury, find for the plaintiff two dollars and a half, onless the 
 defendant will take back what he said.'* 
 
 Well, I didn't exactly know whether I had gained the case or lost 
 it, but I took my client out doors and advised him to take it back 
 and save the cost. He finally consented to do this, but said he had 
 hearn that they was gwine to make him sign a lie-bill and he'd be 
 dingnation dadburned if he would do it. So we returned to the seat 
 of war and I stated to his honor that my client had concluded to 
 accept the suggestion of the jury and would take back what he said. 
 The old 'squire congratulated us on our disposition to peace and har- 
 mony, and just then my client stretched forth his hand and said: 
 "But 'squire, if I take back what I said, I want it understood that he 
 must bring my hog back." 
 
 The next question that came up was who should pay the cost. I 
 contended that my client had complied with the verdict of the jury 
 and was not bound for the costs. My Bro. Alexander contended that 
 he complied a little too late ; that he had to be sued to make him com- 
 ply, and therefore he was bound for the costs. The old 'squire seemed 
 muddled over the question, and finally said that he would leave it to 
 
The Fakm and The Fireside. 17 
 
 the jury. So they retired to the log again, and in about five minutes 
 came back with this verdict: "We, the jury, find that the lawyers 
 shall pay the cost." 
 
 Well, I thought it was all right — and I think so yet. I planked up 
 my dollar, and my Bro* Alexander paid his and we mounted our 
 horses and rode home covered with dust and glory — and glory was all 
 we ever received from our clients. 
 
18 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Original "Bill Arp." 
 
 Some time in the spring of 1861, when our Southern boys were 
 hunting for a fight, and felt like they could whip all creation, Mr. 
 Lincoln issued a proclamation ordering us all to disperse and retire 
 within 30 days, and to quit cavorting around in a hostile and bellige- 
 rent manner. 
 
 I remember writing an answer to it as though I was a good Union 
 man and a law-abiding citizen, and was walling to disperse, if I could, 
 but it was almost impossible, for the boys were mighty hot, and the 
 way we made up our military companies was to send a man down the 
 lines with a bucket of water and sprinkle the boys as he came to 'em, 
 and if a feller sizzed like hot iron in a slack trough, we took him, and 
 if he didn't sizz, we dident take him; but still, nevertheless, notwith- 
 standing, and so forth, if we could possibly disperse in 30 days we 
 would do so, but I thought he had better give us a little more time, 
 for I had been out in old field by myself and tried to disperse myself 
 and couldent do it. 
 
 I thought the letter was right smart, and decently sarcastic, and so I 
 read it to Dr. Miller and Judge Underwood, and they seemed to think 
 it was right smart, too. About that time I looked around and saw 
 Bill Arp standing at the door with his mouth open and a merry glisten 
 in his eye. As he came forward, says he to me: "Squire, are you 
 gwine to print that?" 
 
 "I reckon I will. Bill," said I. "What name are you gwine to put 
 to it?" said he. "I don't know yet," said I; " I havent thought 
 about a name." Then he brightened up and said: "Well, 'Squire, 
 I wish you would put mine, for them's my sentiments; " and I promised 
 him that I would. 
 
 So I did not rob Bill Arp of his good name, but took it on request, 
 and now, at this late day, when the moss has covered his grave, I will 
 record some pleasant memories of a man whose notoriety was not 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 19 
 
 ■exteDsive, but who filled up a gap that was open, and who brightened 
 up the flight of many an hour in the good old times, say from 30 to 
 40 years ago. 
 
 He was a small, sinewy man, weighing about 130 pounds, as active 
 as a cat, and always presenting a bright and cheerful face. He had 
 an amiable disposition, a generous heart, and was as brave a man as 
 nature ever makes. 
 
 He was an humble man and unlettered in books; never went to 
 school but a month or two in his life, and could neither read nor write; 
 but still he had more than his share of common sense; more than his 
 share of good mother wit, and was always welcome when he came 
 about. 
 
 Lawyers and doctors and editors, .and such gentlemen of leisure 
 who used to, in the olden time, sit around and chat and have a good 
 time, always said, "come in Bill, and take a seat;" and Bill seemed 
 grateful for the compliment, and with a conscious humility squatted 
 on about half the chair and waited for questions. The bearing of the 
 man was one of reverence for his superiors and thankfulness for their 
 notice. 
 
 Bill Arp was a contented man — contented with his humble lot. 
 He never grumbled or complained at anything; he had desires and 
 ambition, but it did not trouble him. He kept a feriy for a wealthy 
 gentleman, who lived a few miles above town, on the Etowah river, 
 and he cultivated a small portion of his land ; but the ferry was not 
 of much consequence, and when Bill could slip off to town and hear 
 the lawyers talk, he would turn over the boat and the poles to his 
 wife or his children, and go. I have known him to take a back seat 
 in the court house for a day at a time, and with a face all greedy for 
 entertainment, listen to the learned speeches of the lawyers and charge 
 of the court, and go home happy, and be able to tell to his admiring 
 family what had transpired. He had the greatest reverence for 
 Colonel Johnston, his landlord, and always said that he would about 
 as leave belong to him as to be free; "for," said he, "Mrs. Johnston 
 throws away enough old clothes and second-hand vittels to support my 
 children, and they are always nigh enough to pick 'em up." 
 
 Bill Arp lived in Chulio district; we had eleven districts in the 
 county, and they had all such names as Pop-skull, and Blue-gizzard, 
 and AVolf-skin, and Shake-rag, and Wild-cat, and Possum-trot, but 
 
20 The Fakm and The Fireside. 
 
 Bill lived and reigned in Chulio. Every district had its best man ia 
 those days, and Bill was the best man in Chulio. He could out-run, 
 out-jump, out-swim, out-rastle, out-ride, out-shoot anybody, and was so- 
 far ahead that everybody else had given it up, and Bill reigned 
 supreme. He put on no airs about this, and his nabors were all 
 his friends. 
 
 But there was another district adjoining, and it had its best man, 
 too. One Ben McGinnis ruled the boys of that beat, and after awhile 
 it began to be whispered around that Ben wasn't satisfied with his 
 limited territory, but would like to have a small tackle with Bill Arp. 
 Ben was a pretentious man. He weighed about 165 pounds, and 
 was considered a regular bruiser. When Ben hit a man he meant- 
 business, and his adversary was. hurt— badly hurt, and Ben was glad 
 of it. But when Bill Arp hit a man he was sorry for him, and if he 
 knocked him down, he would rather help him up and brush the dirt 
 off his clothes than swell around in triumph. Fighting was not very 
 common with either. The quicker a man whips a fight the less of it 
 he has to do, and both Ben and Bill had settled their standing most 
 effectually. Bill was satisfied with his honors, but Ben was not, for 
 there was many a Ransy Sniffle who lived along the line between the 
 districts, and carried news from the one to the other, and made up the 
 coloring, and soon it was narrated around that Ben and Bill had to 
 meet and settle it. 
 
 The court-grounds of that day consisted of a little log shanty and a 
 shelf. The shanty had a dirt floor and a puncheon seat, and a slab 
 fbr the 'Squire's docket, and the shelf was outside for the whiskey. 
 
 The whiskey w^as kept in a gallon jug, and that held just about 
 enough for the day's business. Most every body took a dram in those 
 days, but very few took too much, unless, indeed, a dram was too 
 much. It was very uncommon to see a man drunk at a country court- 
 ground. Pistols were unknown, and bowie-knives and brass-knuckles 
 and sling-shots and all other devices that gave one man an artful 
 advantage over another. 
 
 When Colonel Johnston, who was Bill Arp's landlord, and Major 
 Ayer and myself got to Chulio, Bill Arp was there, and was pleas- 
 antly howdying with his nabors, when suddenly we discovered Ben 
 McGinnis arriving upon the ground. He hitched his horse to a swing- 
 ing limb and dismounted and began trampoosing around, and every 
 

 t-1 \ ^> 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 23 
 
 little crowd he got to, he would leau forward in an insolent manner 
 and say, ''Anybody here got anything agin Ben McGinnis? Ef they 
 have, I golly, I'll give 'em five dollars to hit that ; I golly, I dare any- 
 body to hit that," and he would point to his forehead with an air of 
 insolent defiance. 
 
 Bill Arp was standing by us and I thought he looked a little more 
 serious than I ever had seen him. Frank Ayer says to him, "Bill, I 
 see that Ben is coming around here to pick a fight with you, and I 
 want to say that you have got no cause of quarrel with him, and if he 
 comes, do you just let him come and go, that's all." Col. Johnston 
 says, ''Bill, he is too big for you, and your own beat knows you, and 
 and you havn't done anything against Ben, and so I advise you to let 
 him pass ; do you hear me ?" 
 
 By this time Bill's nervous system was all in a quiver. His face 
 had an air of rigid determination, and he replied humbly, but firmly, 
 "Col. Johnston, I love you, and I respect you, too; but if Ben 
 McGinnis comes up here outen his beat, and into ray beat, and me not 
 having done nothing agin him, and he dares me to hit him, I'm going 
 to hit him, if it is the last lick I ever strike. I'm no phist puppy dog, 
 sir, that he should come out of his deestrict to bully me." 
 
 I've seen Bill Arp in battle, and he was a hero. I've seen him when 
 shot and shell rained around him, and he was cool and calm, and the 
 same old smile was upon his featurrs, but I never saw him as intensely 
 excited as he was that moment when Ben McGinnis approached us, 
 and, addressing himself to Bill Arp, said, "I golly, I dare anybody 
 to hit that." 
 
 As Ben straightened up, Bill let fly with his hard, bony fist right 
 in his left eye, and followed it up wath another so quick that the two 
 blows seemed as one. I don't know how it was, and never will know ; 
 but in less than a second. Bill had him down and was on him, and his 
 fists and his elbows and his knees seemed all at work. He afterwards 
 said that his knees worked on Ben's bread basket, which he knew was 
 his weakest part. Ben hollered " enough" in due time, which was con- 
 sidered honorable to do when a feller had enough, and Bill helped 
 him up and brushed the dirt off* his clothes, and said, " Now% Ben, is 
 it all over betwixt us, is you and me all right ? " And Ben said, " It's 
 all right 'twixt you and me. Bill ; and you are much of a gentleman." 
 
24 The Fakm and The Fireside. 
 
 Bill invited all hands up to the shelf, and they took a drink, and he 
 and Ben were friends. 
 
 This is enough of Bill Arp — the original, the simon pure. He was 
 a good soldier in war. He was the wit and the wag of the camp- 
 fires, and made many a homesick youth laugh away his melancholy. 
 He was a good citizen in peace. When told that his son was killed he 
 looked no surprise, but simply said: "Major, did he die all right?" 
 When assured that he did, Bill wiped away a falling tear and said, "I 
 only wanted to tell his mother." 
 
 You may talk about heroes and heroines; I have seen all sorts, and 
 so has most everybody who was in the war, but I never saw a more 
 devoted heroine than Bill Arp's wife. She was a very humble 
 woman, very, and she loved her husband with a love that was passing 
 strange. I have seen that woman in town, three miles from her 
 home, hunting around by night for her husband, going from one 
 saloon to another, and in her kind, loving voice inquiring "is Wil- 
 liam here?" Blessings on that poor woman; I have almost cried for 
 her many a time. Poor William, how she loved him. How tenderly 
 would she take him, when she found him, and lead him home, and 
 bathe his head and put him to bed. She always looked pleased and 
 thankful when apked about him, and would say, "he is a good little 
 man, but you know he has his failmgs." She loved Bill and he loved 
 her; he was weak and she was strong. There are some such women 
 now, I reckon. I know there are some such men. 
 
Big John Laments the War. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Big John." 
 
 " Big John" was one of the earliest settlers of Rome, and one of 
 her most notable men. For several years he was known by his proper 
 name of John Underwood, but when another John Underwood moved 
 there, the old settler had to be identified by his superior size, and 
 gradually lost his surname, and was know^n far and near as "Big 
 John." The new comer was a man of large frame, weighing about 
 225 pounds, but Big John pulled down the scales at a hundred pounds 
 more. He had shorter arms and shorter legs, but his circumference 
 was correspondingly immense. He was notable for his humor and 
 his good humor. The best town jokes came from his jolly, fertile 
 fancy, and his comments on men and things were always original, and 
 as terse and vigorous as ever came from the brain of Dr. Johnson. 
 He was a diamond in the rough. He had lived a pioneer among the 
 Indians of Cherokee, and it was said fell m love with an Indian maid, 
 the daughter of old Tustenuggee, a limited chief, and never married 
 because he could not marry her. But if his disappointment preyed 
 upon his heart, it did not prey long upon the region that enclosed it, 
 for he continued to expand his proportions. He was a good talker 
 and an earnest laugher — whether he laughed and grew fat, or grew 
 fat and laughed, the doctors could not tell which was cause and which 
 was effect, and it is still in doubt, but I have heard wise men affirm 
 that laughing was the fat man's safety-valve, that if he did not laugh 
 and shake and vibrate frequently, he would grow fatter and fatter, 
 until his epidermic cuticle could not contain his oleaginous cor- 
 porosity. 
 
 Big John had no patience with the war, and wdien he looked upon 
 the boys strutting around in uniform, and fixing up their canteens and 
 haversacks, he seemed as much astonished as disgusted. He sat in his 
 big chair on the sidewalk, and would remark, "I don't see any fun in 
 the like of that. Somebody is going to be hurt, and fighting don't 
 
28 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 prove anything. Some of our best people in this town are kin to 
 thera fellers up North, and I don't see any sense in tearing up families 
 by a fight." He rarely looked serious or solemn, but the impending 
 strife seemed to settle him. *' Boys," said he, "I hope to God this 
 thing will be fixed up without a fight, for fighting is a mighty bad 
 business, and I never knowed it to do any good." 
 
 Big John had had a little war experience — that is, he had volun- 
 teered in a company to assist in the forcible removal of the Cherokees 
 to the far west in 1835. It was said that he was no beligerent then, 
 but wanted to see the maiden that he loved a safe transit, and so he 
 escorted the old chief and his clan as far as Tuscumbia, and then broke 
 down and returned to Ross Landing on the Tennessee river. He was too 
 heavy to march, and when he arrived at the Landing, a prisoner was 
 put in his charge for safe keeping. Ross Landing is Chattanooga now, 
 and John Ross lived there, and was one of the chiefs of the Chero- 
 kees. The prisoner was his guest, and his name was John Howard 
 Payne. He was suspected of trying to instigate the Cherokees to 
 revolt and fight, and not leave their beautiful forest homes on the 
 Tennessee and Coosa and Oostanaula and the Etowah and Connasauga 
 rivers. He brought Payne back as far as New Echota, or New Town, as 
 it was called, an Indian settlement on the Coosa wattee, a few miles east 
 of Calhoun, as now known. There he kept the author of *' Home, 
 Sweet Home " under guard, or on his parol of honor, for three weeks, 
 and night after night slept with him in his tent, and listened to his 
 music upon the violin, and heard him sing his own sad songs until 
 orders came for his discharge, and Payne was sent under escort to 
 Washington. • 
 
 Many a time have I heard Big John recite his sad adventures. *'It 
 was a most distressive business," said he. "Them Injuns was heart- 
 broken; I always knowd an Injun loved his hunting-ground and his 
 rivers, but I never knowd how much they loved 'em before. You 
 know they killed Ridge for consentin' to the treaty. They killed him 
 on the first day's march and they wouldent bury him. We soldiers 
 had to stop and dig a grave and put him away. John Ross and John 
 Ridge were the sons of two Scotchmen, who came over here when they 
 were young men and mixed up with these tribes and got their good 
 will. These two boys were splendid looking men, tall and handsome, 
 with long auburn hair, and they were active and strong, and could 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 29 
 
 shoot a bow equal to the best bowman of the tribe, and they beat 'em 
 all to pieces on the croes-bow. They married the daughters of the old 
 chiefs, and when the old chiefs died they just fell into line and suc- 
 ceeded to the old chiefs' places, and the tribes liked 'em mighty well, 
 for they were good men and made good chiefs. Well, you see Ross 
 dident like the treaty. He said it wasent fair and that the price of the 
 territory was too low, and the fact is he dident want to go at all. There 
 are the ruins of his old home now over there in DeSoto, close to Rome, 
 and I tell you he was a king. His word was the law of the Injun 
 nations, and h.e had their love and their respect. His half-breed chil- 
 dren were the purtiest things I ever saw in my life. Well, Ridge 
 lived up the Oostanaula river about a mile, and he was a good man, too. 
 Ross and Ridge always consulted about everything for the good of the 
 tribes, but Ridge was a more milder man than Ross, and was more 
 easily persuaded to sign the treaty that gave the lands to the State and 
 to take other lands away out to the Mississippi. 
 
 "Well, it took us a month to get 'em all together and begin the 
 march to the Mississippi, and they wouldn't march then. The women 
 would go out of line and set down in the woods and go to grieving, 
 and you may believe it or not, but I'll tell you what is a fact, we 
 started with 14,000, and 4,000 of 'em died before we got to Tuscum- 
 bia. They died on the side of the road; they died of broken hearts; 
 they died of starvation, for they w^ouldn't eat a thing; they just died 
 all along the way. We didn't make more than five miles a day on the 
 march, and my company didn't do much but dig graves and bury 
 Injuns all the way to Tuscumbia. They died of grief and broken 
 hearts, and no mistake. An Indian's heart is tender, and his love is 
 strong; it's his nature. I'd rather risk an Injun for a true friend than 
 a white man. He is the best friend in the world, and the worst 
 enemy. He has got more gratitude and more revenge in him than 
 "anybody." 
 
 Big John's special comfort was a circus. He never missed one, and 
 it was a good part of the show to see him laugh and shake and spread 
 his magnificent face. 
 
 He took no pleasure in the quarrels of mankind, and never backed 
 a man in a fight ; but when two dogs locked teeth, or two bulls locked 
 horns, or two game chickens locked spurs, he always liked to be about. 
 " It is their nature to fight," said he, " and let 'em fight." He took 
 
30 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 delight in watching dogs and commenting on their sense and disposi- 
 tions. He compared them to the men about town, and drew some 
 humorous analogies. "There is Jimmy Jones," said he, ''who 
 ripped and splurged around because Georgia wouldn't secede in a min- 
 ute and a half, and he swore he was going over to South Carolina to 
 fight ; and when Georgia did secede shore enough, he didn't join the 
 army at all, and always had some cussed excuse, and when conscrip- 
 tion came along, he got on a detail to make potash, con-ding him, and 
 when that played out he got him a couple ot track dogs and got 
 detailed to catch runaway prisoners. Just so I've seen dogs run up 
 and down the palings like they was dying to get to one another, and 
 so one day I picked up my dog by the nap of the neck and dropped 
 him over on the outside. I never knowed he could jump that fence 
 before, but he bounced back like an Indian rubber ball, and the 
 other dog streaked it down the sidewalk like the dickens was after 
 him. Dogs are like folks, and folks are like dogs, and a heap of 'em 
 want the palings between. Jack Bogin used to strut round and whip 
 the boys in his beat, and kick 'em around, because he knew he could do 
 it, for he had the most muscle ; but he couldn't look a brave man in 
 the eye, muscle or no muscle, and I've seen him shut up quick when 
 he met one. A man has got to be right to be brave, and I had 
 rather see a bully get a licking than to eat sugar." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Roman Runagee. 
 
 Atlanta, Ga., May 22, 1864. 
 
 Mr. Editor: "Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," as some- 
 body said, I am seeking a log in some vast wilderness, a lonely roost 
 in some Okeefenokee swamp, where the foul invaders cannot travel 
 nor their pontoon bridges float. If Mr. Shakespeare were correct 
 when he wrote that ''sweet are the juices of adversity," then it is 
 reasonable to suppose that me and my folks, and many others, must 
 have some sweetening to spare. When a man is aroused in the dead 
 of night, and smells the approach of the foul invader; when he feels 
 constrained to change his base and become a runagee from his home, 
 leaving behind him all those ususary things, which hold body and soul 
 together ; when he looks, perhaps the last time, upon his lovely home 
 Nshere he has been for many delightful years raising children and 
 chickens, strawberries and peas, lye soap and onions, and all such 
 luxuries of this sublunary life; when he imagines every unusual 
 sound to be the crack of his earthly doom; when from such influences 
 he begins a dignified retreat, but soon is constrained to leave the dig- 
 nity behind, and get away without regard to the order of his going — 
 if there is any sweet juice in the like of that, I haven't been able to 
 see it. No, Mr. Editor, such scenes never happened in Bill Shak- 
 speare's day, or he wouldn't have written that line. 
 
 I don't know that the lovely inhabitants of your beautiful city need 
 any forewarnings, to make 'em avoid the breakers upon which our 
 vessel was wrecked; but for fear they should sonie day shake their 
 gory locks at me, I will make public a brief allusion to some of the 
 painful circumstances which lately occurred in the eternal city. 
 
 Not many days ago the everlasting Yankees (may they live always 
 when the devil gets 'em,) made a valiant assault upon the city of the 
 hills — the eternal city, where for a hundred years the Indian rivers 
 have been blending their waters peacefully together — where the 
 Cherokee children built their flutter mills, and toyed with frogs and 
 
32 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 tadpoles whilst these majestic streams were but little spring branches 
 babbling along their sandy beds. For three days and nights our 
 valiant troops had beat back the foul invader, and saved* our pullets 
 from their devouring jaws. For three days and nights we bade 
 farewell to every fear, luxuriating upon the triumph of our arms, 
 and the sweet juices of our strawberries and cream. For three days 
 and nights fresh troops from the South poured into our streets with 
 shouts that made the welkin ring, and the turkey bumps rise all over 
 the flesh of our people. We felt that Rome was safe — secure against 
 the assault ot the world, the flesh and the devil, which last individual 
 is supposed to be that horde of foul invaders who are seeking to flank 
 us out of both bread and existence. 
 
 But alas for human hopes! Man that is born of woman (and there 
 is no other sort that I know of) has but a few days that is not full of 
 trouble. Although the troops did shout ; although their brass band 
 music swelled upon the gale ; although the turkey bumps rose as the 
 welkin rung ; although the commanding general assured us that Rome 
 was to be held at every hazard, and that on to-morrow the big battle was 
 to be fought, and the foul invaders hurled all howling and bleeding 
 to the shores of the Ohio, yet it transpired somehow that on Tuesday 
 night the military evacuation of our city was peremptorily ordered. 
 No note of warning — no whisper of alarm — no hint of the morrow 
 came from the muzzled lips of him who had lifted our hopes so high. 
 Calmly and coolly we smoked our killikinick, and surveyed the 
 embarkation of troops, construing it to be some grand manoeuvre of 
 military strategy. About ten o'clock we retired to rest, to dream of 
 to-morrow's victory. Sleep soon overpowered us like the fog that 
 covered the earth, but nary bright dream had come, nary vision of free- 
 dom and glory. On the contrary, our rest was uneasy — straw^berries 
 and cream seemed to be holding secession meetings w^ithin our corporate 
 limits, when suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, a friend aroused us 
 from our slumber and put a new phase upon the "situation." General 
 Johnston was retreating, and the foul invaders were to pollute our 
 sacred soil the next morning. Then came the tug ot war. With hot 
 and feverish haste we started out in search of transportation, but nary 
 transport could be had. Time-honored friendship, past favors shown, 
 everlasting gratitude, numerous small and lovely children. Confederate 
 currency, new issues, bank bills, black bottles, and all influences 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 33 
 
 were urged and used to secure a corner in a car but nary corner — too 
 late — too late — the pressure for time was fearful and tremendous — 
 the steady clock moved on — no Joshua about to lengthen out the 
 night, no rolling stock, no steer, no mule. With reluctant and hasty 
 steps, we prepared to make good our exit by that overland line which 
 railroads do not control, nor A. Q. Ms impress. 
 
 With our 'families and a little clothing, we crossed the Etowah bridge 
 about the break of day on Wednesday, the 17th of May, 1864, 
 exactly a year and two weeks from the time when General Forrest 
 marched in triumph through our streets. By and by the bright rays 
 of the morning sun dispersed the heavy fog, which like a pall of 
 death had overspread all nature. Then were exhibited to our afflicted 
 gaze a highway crowded with wagons and teams, cattle and hogs, 
 niggers and dogs, women and children, all moving in disheveled haste 
 to parts unknown. Mules were braying, cattle were lowing, hogs 
 were squealing, sheep w^ere blating, children were crying, wagoners 
 were cursing, whips were popping, and horses stalling, but still the 
 grand caravan moved on. Everybody was continually looking 
 behind, and driving before — everybody wanted to know everything, 
 and nobody knew anything. Ten thousand wild rumors filled the cir- 
 cumambient air. The everlasting cavalry was there, and as they dashed 
 to and fro, gave false alarms of the enemy being in hot pursuit. 
 
 About this most critical juncture of affairs, some philanthropic 
 friend passed by with the welcome news that the bridge was burnt, 
 and the danger all over. Then ceased the panic ; then came the peace- 
 ful calm of heroes after the strife of war is over — then exclaimed 
 Frank Ralls, my demoralized friend, "Thank the good Lord for that. 
 Bill, let's return thanks and stop and rest — boys let me get out and lie 
 down. I'm as humble as a dead nigger — I tell you the truth — I sung 
 the long metre doxology as I crossed the Etowah bridge, and I expected 
 to be a dead man in fifteen minutes. Be thankful, fellows, let's all 
 be thankful — the bridge is burnt, and the river is three miles deep. 
 Good sakes, do you reckon those Yankees can swim ? Get up, boys 
 — let's drive ahead and keep moving — I tell you there's no accounting 
 for anything with blue clothes on these days — ding'd if I ain't afraid 
 of a blue-tailed fly." 
 
 With a most distressing flow of language, he continued his rhapsody 
 of random remarks. 
 
34 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 Then there was that trurap of good fellows, Big John — as clever as 
 he is fat, and as fat as old Falstaff — with inde/aiigable diligence he had 
 secured, as a last resort, a one-horse steer spring w^agon, with a low, 
 flat body sitting on two rickety springs. Being mounted thereon, he 
 was urging a more speedy locomotion by laying on to the carcass of 
 the poor old steer with a thrash-pole ten feet long. Having stopped 
 at a house, he procured a two-inch auger, and boring a hole through 
 the dashboard, pulled the steer's tail through and tied up the end in a 
 knot. *' My running gear is weak," said he, ''but I don't intend to 
 be stuck in the mud. If the body holds good, and the steer don't 
 pull out his tail, why, Bill, I am safe." "My friend," said I, "will 
 you please to inform me what port you are bound for, and when you 
 expect to reach it?" "No port at all, Bill," said he, "I am going 
 dead strait to the big Stone Mountain. I am going to get on the top 
 and roll rocks down upon all mankind. I now forewarn every living 
 thing not to come there until this everlasting foolishness is over." He 
 was then but three miles from town, and had been traveling the live- 
 long night. Ah, my big friend, thought I, when wilt thou arrive at 
 thy journey's end ? In the language of Patrick Henry, wdll it be the 
 next week or the next year? Oh, that I could write a poem, I would 
 embalm thy honest face in epic verse. But I was in a right smart 
 hurry myself, and only had time to drop his memory a passing rhyme. 
 
 Farewell, Big John, Farewell ! 
 
 'Twas painful to my heart 
 •To see thy chances of escape. 
 Was that old steer and cart. 
 
 Methinks I see thee now, 
 
 "With axletrees all brojve, 
 And wheels with nary hub at all. 
 
 And hubs with nary spoke. 
 
 But though the mud is deep, 
 
 Thy wits will never fail; 
 That faithful steer will pull thee out. 
 
 If he don't pull out his tail. 
 
 Mr. Editor, under such variegated scenes we reported progress, 
 and in course of time arrived under the shadow of thy city's wings, 
 abounding in gratitude and joy. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 37 
 
 With sweet and patient sadness, the tender hearts of our wives and 
 <daughters beat mournfully as we moved along. Often, alas, how often 
 was the tear seen swimming in the eye, and the lips quivering with 
 emotion, as memory lingered around deserted homes, and thoughts 
 dwelt upon past enjoyments and future desolation. We plucked the 
 wild flowers as we passed, sang songs of merriment, exchanged our wit 
 with children — smothering, by every means, the sorrow of our fate. 
 These things, together with the comic events that occurred by the way, 
 were the safety-valves that saved the poor heart from bursting. But 
 for these our heads would have been fountains and our hearts a river 
 of tears. Oh, if some kind friend would set our retreat to music, it 
 would be greatly appreciated indeed. It should be a plaintiff tune, 
 interspersed with occasional comic notes, and frequent fuges scattered 
 promiscuously along. 
 
 Our retreat was conducted in excellent good order, after the bridge 
 was burnt. If there was any straggling at all, they straggled ahead. 
 It would have delighted General Johnston to have seen the alacrity of 
 our movements. 
 
 But I must close this melancholy narrative, and hasten to subscribe 
 myself Your runagee. Bill Arp. 
 
 P. S. — Tip is still faithful unto the end. He says the old turkey 
 we left behind has been setting for fourteen weeks, and the fowl 
 invaders are welcome to her. Furthermore, that he threw a dead cat 
 into the well, and they are welcome to that. B. A. 
 
 HIS LATE TRIALS AND ADVENTURES. 
 
 Some frog-eating Frenchman has written a book, and called it 
 *' Lee's Miserables," or some other such name, which I suppose con- 
 tains the misfortunes of poor refugees in the wake of the Virginny 
 army. General Hood had also got a few miserables in the suburbs of 
 his fighting-ground, and if any man given to romance would like a fit 
 subject for a weeping narrative, we are now ready to furnish the 
 mournful material. 
 
 As the Yankees remarked at Bull Run, " these are the times that 
 try men's soles," and I suppose my interesting family is now prepared 
 
38 The Fakm and The Fieeside. 
 
 to show stone bruises and blisters with anybody. It is a long story, 
 Mr. Editor, and cannot possibly be embraced in a single column of 
 your wandering newspaper; but I will condense it as briefly as possi- 
 ble, smoothing over the most affecting parts, so as not to occasion too 
 great a diffusion of sympathetic tears. 
 
 After our hasty flight from the eternal city, we became converted 
 over to the doctrine of squatter sovereignty, and pitched our tents in 
 the piney woods. Afar off in those fields of illimitable space, we 
 roamed through the abstruse regions of the philosophic world. There 
 no unfriendly soldier was perusing around and asking for papers. 
 There the melancholy mind was soothed. There the lonely runagee 
 could contemplate the san^y roads, the wire-grass woods, and the mil- 
 lions of majestic pines that stood like ten-pins in an alley, awaiting 
 some huge cannon-ball to come along and knock 'em down. The 
 mountain scenery in this romantic country was grand, gloomy and 
 peculiar, consisting in numberless gopher-hills, spewed up in promis- 
 cuous beauty as far as the eye could reach. All around us the 
 swamp frogs were warbling their musical notes. All above us the 
 pines were sighing and singing their mournful tunes. Dame Nature 
 has spread herself there in showing her lavish hand, and wasting tim- 
 ber along those endless glades. Truly, we were treading on classic 
 ground, for we pitched our tents in a blackberry patch, and morning, 
 noon and night, luxuriated in peace upon the delicious fruit which 
 everywhere adorned the sandy earth. 
 
 But those piney woods to which we fled, did not, by any means, 
 agree with our ideas of future comfDrt. After it had rained some 
 forty days and forty nights without a recess, the corn crop had pretty 
 well died out, and General Starvation seemed about to assume com- 
 mand of the region round about. 
 
 We felt constrained to depart from those coasts, and seek an 
 Egypt somewhere in a rounder and more rolling country. So we 
 took the train for Atlanta and designed to take roundance from there 
 and find a retreat away up the Chattahoochee river where Mrs. Arp's 
 father lived. 
 
 All along the line, at every station, pretty women get on and get 
 off. When they leave, us, an affectionate man like myself uncon- 
 sciously whispers, ** Depart in peace, ye treasures of delight." Casting- 
 a longing, lingering look behind, I exclaimed in the beautiful language 
 
The Farm and The Fikeside. 39 
 
 of Mr. Shakespeare, 'I have thee not, but yet I see thee still/ Fare- 
 well, sweet darlings, until I come again. But woman is sometimes 
 very variegated and peculiar in the way she does. I am just reminded 
 how, on a late occasion, I found but one vacant seat in the car after I 
 located my numerous and interesting family. A luxurious lady, with 
 some aggravating curls, had occupied nearly all of a seat spreading 
 herself like a setting-hen, all over the velvet cushion. "Madam, can 
 I share this seat with you?" said I. "Certainly, sir," and she closed 
 in her skirts some several inches. In a short space of time she became 
 affected with drowsiness. Her neck became as limber as a greasy rag. 
 Leaning on my shoulder, she seemed wonderfully affectionate, as her 
 head kept bobbing around, and I felt very peculiar at such times as 
 she would subside into my palpitating bosom. About this critical 
 juncture, I ventured to turn my astonished gaze towards Mrs. Arp, 
 and seeing that she was waiting for some remark, I observed, "Hadn't 
 I better remove my seat ? Do vou think I can endure the like of 
 this?" 
 
 "I do not, William," said she. "You had better stand up awhile, 
 and when you get tired some of the children will relieve you." The 
 glance of her eye and the manner in which she spoke brought me up 
 standing, and gave me a correct view of the situation. Immediately 
 I assumed a perpendicular attitude, and the curly head was left with- 
 out a prop. I assure you, Mr. Editor, a man's wife is the best judge 
 of such peculiar things; and as for me, I am always governed by it. 
 
 We arrived in Atlanta about the time the first big shells com- 
 menced scattering their unfeeling contents among the suburbs of that 
 devoted city. Then came the big panics; then shrieked the man-eater; 
 then howled the wild hyena among the hills of Babylon. 
 
 All sorts of people seemed moving in all sorts of ways, with an 
 accelerated motion. They gained ground on their shadows as they 
 leaned forward on the run, and their legs grew longer at every step. 
 With me it was the second ringing of the first bell. I had sorter got 
 used to the thing, and set myself down to take observations. ' ' How 
 many miles to Milybright?" said I. But no response came, for their 
 legs were as long as light, and every bursting shell was an old witch 
 on the road. Cars was the all in all. Depots were the center of 
 space, converging lines from every point of the compass made tracks 
 to the ofhces of railroad superintendents. These functionaries very 
 
40 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 prudently vamoosed the ranch to avoid their too numerous friends, 
 leaving positive orders to their subordinates. The passenger depot 
 was thronged with anxious seekers of transportation. "Won't you 
 let these boxes go as baggage?" *'No, madam, it is impossible." Just 
 then somebody's family trunk as big as a nitre bureau was shoved in, 
 and the poor woman got desperate. *'A11 I've got ain't as heavy as 
 that," said she; "I am a poor widow, and my husband was killed in 
 the army. I've got five children, and three of them cutting teeth, 
 and my things have got to go." We took up her boxes and shoved 
 them in. Another good woman asked very anxiously for the Macon 
 train. "There it is, madam," said I. She shook her head mourn- 
 fully and remarked, "You are mistaken, sir, don't you see the engine 
 is headed right up the State road, towards the Yankees? I sha'nt 
 take any train with the engine at that end of it. No, sir, that ain't 
 the Macon train." Everywhere was hurrying to and fro at a lively 
 tune. "What's to-day, nigger," said a female darkey, with a hoop- 
 skirt on her arm. * ' 'Taint no day, honey, dat eber I seed. Yester- 
 day was Sunday, and I recokon to-day is Runday from de way de 
 white folks are movin* about. Yah, yah; ain't afeered of Yankees 
 myself, but dem sizzin bum-shells kills a nigger quicker dan you can 
 lick your tongue out. Gwine to getaway from here — I is." 
 
 I went into a doctor's shop, and found my friend packing up his 
 vials and poisons and copiva and such like. Various excited individuals 
 came in, looked at a big map on the wall, and pointed out the roads to 
 McDonough and Eatonton and Jasper, and soon their proposed lines 
 of travel were easily and greasily visible from the impression of their 
 perspiring fingers. An old skeleton, with but one leg, was swinging 
 from the ceiling looking like a mournful emblem of the fate of the 
 troubled city. "You are going to leave him to stand guard, doctor?" 
 said I. "I suppose I will," said he; "got no transportation for him." 
 "Take the screw out of his skull," said I, "and give him a crutch, 
 maybe he will travel; all flesh is moving and I think the bones will 
 catch the contagion soon." 
 
 A few doors further, and a venerable auctioneer was surveying the 
 rushing, running crowd, and every now and then he would raise his 
 arm with a seesaw motion and exclaim, "Going — going — gone! Who's 
 the bidder?" "Old Daddy Time," said I, "he'll get them all before 
 long." The door of an old friend's residence swung open to my gaze, 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 41 
 
 and I walked in. Various gentlemen of my acquaintance were dis- 
 cussing their evidences of propriety over a jug of departing spirits. 
 "I believe I'll unpack," said one, * 'dinged if Fm afraid of a blue- 
 tailed fly; Fm going to sit down and be easy. ''In a horn," said I. 
 Just then a sizzing, singing, crazy shell sung a short-metre hymn right 
 over the house. "Jake, has the dray come?" he said, bouncing to his 
 feet: "confound that dray — blame my skin if Fll ever get a dray to 
 move these things — boys, let's take another drink." After which, 
 another friend remarked, "Boys, lets all stay; durned if it don't look 
 cowardly to run ! Boys, here's to — who shall we drink to?" "Here's 
 to Cassabianca," said I. "Good, good," they all shouted. "Here's to 
 Cabysianka. Let me speak it for you, boys," said our host; "I've 
 spoken it a thousand times." He mounted the seat of a broken sofa, 
 and spreading himself, declaimed : 
 
 " The boy stood on the burning deck, 
 When all had fled but him." 
 
 "That's me," said one. "It's me exactly," said another. "Fm 
 Cabysianka myself — dog my cat if I don't be the last one to leave this 
 ship." Another shell sizzed, and bursted a few yards off, "Boys let's 
 take another drink and leave the town — dod rot the Yankees." "Here's 
 to — the — the 'Last of the Mohikans,'" said I. "Exactly — that's so. 
 Fm him myself. I'm the mast of the Lohikens; durned if I'll leave 
 
 these diggins as long as — as long as " "As the State road," said 
 
 I, "which is now about four inches and a half." "That's it; that's 
 so," said my friends. "Here's to the State road and Dr. Brown and 
 Joe Phillips, as long as four inches and a half." 
 
 By and by the shells fell as thick as Governor Brown's proclama- 
 tions, causing a more speedy locomotion in the excited throng who 
 hurried by the door, but my friends inside had passed the Rubicon, 
 and one by one retired to dream of Bozarris and his Suliote band. 
 Vacant rooms and long corridors echoed with their snores, and they 
 appeared like sleeping heroes in the halls of the Montezumas. 
 
 Contageous diseases are said to be catching and the Atlanta big 
 panics brought the Atlanta folks to an active perpendicular quicker 
 than all the physic ever seen in a city drug store. It certainly has 
 a tendiincy to arouse the dormant energies of feeble invalids. Weak 
 backs and lame legs, old chronics and rheumatics, in fact, all the 
 internal diseases which honest fear of powder and ball had developed 
 
42 The Fakm and The Fireside. 
 
 since the war began , were now forgotten in the general flight ; and 
 the examining boards could have seen many a discharge invalidated, 
 and a living, moving lie given to their certificates. 
 
 All day and all night long the iron horses were snorting to the echoing 
 breeze. Train after train of goods and chattels moved down the road, 
 leaving hundreds of anxious faces waiting their return. There was 
 no method in this madness. All kinds of plunder was tumbled in 
 promiscuousl}^ A huge parlor mirror, some six feet by eight, all 
 bound in elegant gold, with a brass buzzard spreading his wings on 
 top, was set up at the end of the car and reflected a beautiful 
 assortment of parlor furniture to match, such as pots, kettles, baskets, 
 bags, barrels, kegs, bacon and bedsteads piled up together. Govern- 
 ment officials had the preference and government officials all have 
 friends. Any clever man with a charming wife or a pretty sister 
 could secure a corner in more cars than one, and I will privately 
 mention to you, Mr. Editor, that I have found a heap of civility on 
 this account myself Indeed, I have always thought that no man is 
 excusable who has not either one or the other. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 43 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Bill Arp Addresses Artemus Ward. 
 
 Rome, Ga., September 1, 1865. 
 Mr. Artemus Ward, Showman — 
 
 Sir : The reason I write to you in perticler, is because you are 
 about the only man I know in all "God's country," so-called. For 
 some several weeks I have been wantin' to say sumthin'. For some 
 several years we rebs, so-called, but now late of said country deceased, 
 have been tryin' mighty hard to do somethin'. We didn't quite do it, 
 and now it's very jmiuful, I assure you, to dry up all of a sudden, 
 and make out like we wasn't there. 
 
 My friend, I want to say somethin'. I suppose there is no law 
 agin thinkin', but thinkin' don't help me. It don't let down my ther- 
 mometer. I must explode myself generally so as to feel better. You 
 see, I'm tryin' to harmonize. I'm tryin' to soften down my feelin's. 
 Fm endeavoring to subjugate myself to the level of surroundin' cir- 
 cumstances, so-called. But I can't do it until I am allowed to say 
 somethin'. I want to quarrel with somebody and then make friends. 
 I ain't no giant-killer. I ain't no Norwegian bar. I ain't no boar- 
 constrickter, but I'll be hornswaggled if the talkin' and writin' and 
 slanderin' has got to be all done on one side any longer. Sum of 
 your folks have got to dry up or turn our folks loose. It's a blamed 
 outrage, so-called. Ain't you editors got nothin' else to do but peck at 
 us, and squib at us, and crow over us ? Is every man what can write 
 a paragraph to consider us bars in a cage, and be always a-jobbin' at 
 us to hear us growl ? Now, you see, my friend, that's w^hat's dishar- 
 monious, and do you jest tell 'em, one and all, e pluribus unum, so- 
 called, that if they don't stop it at once or turn us loose to say what 
 we please, why we rebs, so-called, have unannnously and jointly and 
 severally resolved to — to — to — think very hard of it — if not harder. 
 
 That's the way to talk it. I ain't agoin' to commit myself. I know 
 when to puL on the breaks. I ain't goin' to say all I think. Nary 
 time. No, sir. But I'll jest tell you, Artemus, and you may tell it 
 
44 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 to your show. If we ain't allowed to express our sentiments, we can 
 take it out in hatin'; and hatin' runs heavy in my family, sure. I 
 hated a man once so bad that all the hair cum off my head, and the 
 man drowned himself in a hog- waller that night. I could do it agin, 
 but you see I'm tryin' to harmonize, to acquiess, to becum calm and 
 screen. 
 
 Now, I suppose that, poetically speakin', 
 " In Dixie's fall, 
 We sinned all." ♦ 
 
 But talkin' the way I see it, a big feller and a little feller, so-called, 
 got into a fite, and they font and fout a long time, and everybody alt 
 'round kept hollerin', ''hands off," but helpin' the big feller, until 
 finally the little feller caved in and hollered enuf. He made a bully 
 fit'-., I tell you. Well, what did the big feller do ? Take him by the 
 hand and help him up, and brush the dirt off his clothes? Nary 
 time ! No, sur ! But he kicked him arter he w^as down, and throwed 
 mud on him, and drugged him about and rubbed sand in his eyes, and 
 now he's gwine about huntin' up his poor little property. Wants to 
 confiscate it, so-called. Blame my jacket if it ain't enuf to make 
 your head swim. 
 
 But Fm a good Union man, so-called. I ain't agwine to fight no 
 more. J shan't vote for tl next war. /ain't no gurrilla. I've done 
 tuk the oaiU, and I'm gwine to keep it, but as for my bein' subjugated, 
 and humilyated, and amalgamated, and enervated, as Mr. Chase says, 
 it ain't so — nary time. I ain't ashamed of nuthin' neither — ain't 
 repentin' — ain't axin' for no one-horse, short-winded pardon. Nobody 
 needn't be playin' priest around me. I ain't got no twenty thousand 
 dollars. Wish I had ; I'd give it to these poor widders and orfins. 
 I'd fatten my own numerous and interestin' offspring in about two 
 minutes and a half. They shouldn't eat roots and drink branch-water 
 no longer. Poor unfortunate things! to cum into this subloonary 
 world at sich a time. There's four or five of them that never saw a 
 sirkis or a monkey-show — never had a pocket-knife, nor a piece of 
 chees, nor a reesin. There's Bull Run Arp, and Harper's Ferry Arp, 
 and Chicahominy Arp, that never saw the pikters in a spellin' book. 
 I tell you, my friend, we are the poorest people on the face of the 
 earth — but we are poor and proud. We made a bully fite, and the 
 whole American nation ought to feel proud of it. It shows what 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 45 
 
 Americans can do when they think they are imposed upon. Didn't 
 our four fathers fight, bleed and die about a little tax on tea, when 
 not one in a thousand drunk it ? Bekaus they succeeded, wasn't it 
 glory? But if they hadn't, I suppose it would have been treason, 
 and they would have been bowin' and scrapin' round King George for 
 pardon. So it goes, Artemus, and to my mind, if the whole thing 
 was stewed down it would make about half a pint of humbug. We 
 had good men, great men. Christian men, who thought we was right, 
 and many of them have gone to the undiscovered country, and have 
 got a pardon as is a pardon. When I die I am mighty willing to risk 
 myself under the shadow of their wings, whether the climate be hot 
 or cold. So mote it be. 
 
 Well, maybe I've said enough. But I don't feel easy yet. I'm a 
 good Union man, certain and sure. I've had my breeches died- blue, 
 and I've bot a blue bucket, and I very often feel blue and about t\vice 
 in a while I go to the doggery and git bhie^ and then I look up at the 
 blue serulean heavens and sing the melancholy chorus of the Blue- 
 tailed Fly. I'm doin' my durndest to harmonize, and think I could 
 succeed if it wasn't for sum things. 
 
 I don't want much. I ain't ambitious, as I used to was. You all 
 have got your shows and monkeys and sircusses and brass bands and 
 organs, and can play on the patrolyuna "^d the harp of a thousand 
 strings, and so on, but I've only got one favor to ax y^w. I want 
 enough powder to kill a big yaller stumptail dog that prowls around 
 my premises at night. Pon my honor, I w^on't shoot at anything blue 
 or black or mulatter. Will you send it? Are you and your folks so 
 skeered of me and my folks that you won't let us have any ammunition ? 
 Are the squirrels and crows and black racoons to eat up our poor 
 little corn-patches? Are the wild turkeys to gobble all around with 
 impunity? If a mad dog takes the hiderphoby, is the whole com- 
 munity to run itself to death to get out of the way? I golly! it 
 looks like your people had all tpok the rebelfoby for good, and was 
 never gwine to get over it. See here, my friend, you must send me 
 a little powder and a ticket to your show, and me and you will har- 
 monize sertin. 
 
 With these few remarks I think I feel better, and I hope I han't 
 made nobody fitin' mad, for I'm not on that line at this time. 
 
 I am truly your friend, all present or accounted for. 
 
46 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Falling Leaves. 
 
 The blackgiim leaves are turning red, 
 
 The sycamores are turning yellow, 
 The farmer feels serene and glad. 
 
 For everything is ripe and mellow. 
 
 The nights are getting cool, and the days are getting shorter. The 
 fodder is all pulled and safely stowed away in the barn loft. 
 
 If facts are stubborn things, then pulling fodder in the low grounds 
 is a fact. There ain't a redeeming circumstance about it. Its work- 
 ing on a continual strain to pull it, and there's no fun in tyeing it up, 
 and I reckon that the toting of it two or three hundred yards to the 
 wagon road, ten bundles at a time, stepping like a blind horse over 
 corn-stalks bent down, and tripping up in tangled morning glories, 
 and every now and then losmg your holt and having to load up again, 
 and all the time smothered up so that you can't see where you are 
 going, and not a breath of refreshmg air to cool you, is about the 
 meanest business I have ever experienced. It's all fact — solemn fact 
 — no romance, no poetry, no joke. But that ain't all of it. Its got 
 to be hauled and then thrown up m the barn loft and stacked away, 
 and if there's any hotter place to work in than a barn loft, I don't 
 know it, and I've been considerin' that after its all done you can't sell 
 it for more than a dollar a hundred, and right now, m my present 
 frame of mind, if I had any to sell and some fellow without any soul 
 was to offer me 90 cents I should hit him if it was the last lick I ever 
 struck. They may jew me on corn and wheat and cotton and potatoes, 
 but I won't be jewed on my fodder by nobody. It does seem to me 
 that all this sort of work ought to be done by machinery or not to be 
 done at all. 
 
 I've been diggin' my taters. Me and the children have been looking 
 forward to this interesting side-show to the farming busmess with 
 pleasant anticipations. I always did love to follow after the plow 
 
» 
 
 
 %KS_1 ...^^T^tl^i^l v^ 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 49 
 
 and see 'em roll out and tumble up, and pick up the big ones 
 and feel the v>^eight of them, but I didn't calculate on having to make 
 a full hand. For two whole days my boys pressed me into service, 
 and I got awful tired of picking up and toting off in the baskets to the 
 end of the rows where the vines would be handy to cover them up. 
 My farmer boy stripped the vines with a horse-rake of his own inven- 
 tion, and it done it better and cleaner than I ever saw done with a 
 plow. Then he run a one-horse twister on each side, and me and the 
 little chaps kept up pretty well, and when he split open the middles 
 and throws 'em up right and left we all had to move up lively, I tell 
 you. My legs are all right, but I don't believe my back is as limber 
 as it used to be. I got awful tired, and the plow business seemed to 
 go 'long so smooth and easy I ventured to exchange work for awhile. 
 I could run round the rows pretty well, but when I come to splitting 
 open the middles the plagued thing seemed to get cranky, and would 
 run out and run in, first on one side and then on the other, and the 
 furrows I left behind looked like the track of a crazy snake. I used 
 to could plow, but it looks like I have lost the lick. My boys ivas a-lookin^ 
 at me and smotherin' their fun, and about the time I was willin' to cpait 
 I observed Mrs. Arp and the girls a-perusin' me through the crack of 
 the fence. They was mighty nigh dead from laughing, which I didn't 
 enjoy, but tne sympathizin' woman suddenly composed herself and 
 remarked that I was workin' too hard considerin' my age and infirmity. 
 " You are all over in a sweat of perspiration," said she, "and I thought 
 you had a touch of St. Vitus dance, as you was following that plow. 
 Let the boys do it, and come to the house and rest." But I wouldent. 
 I'm not going to give it up yet by no means. I'm not going to get 
 old before she does — nary time. So I stuck to the patch until the job 
 was done and I got the sticky turpentine juice that milks out of the 
 yams all over my hands, and the stain died my fingers an Injun red, 
 and it wouldn't wash off nor scour off, but it's all honest, and is a sign 
 of work. I tell you what, hard work and the sweat of the face is the 
 curse of that original sin put on us, but it was tempered down in 
 mercy, and there is a comfort that follows it that folks who don't try 
 it don't know anything about. The law of compensation comes into 
 everything in this life, and the poor can be about as happy as the rich, 
 if they have a mind to, and don't spend their time in grumblin' and 
 complainin' about their hard lot in this subloonary life. 
 
50 Tke Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 Hard work is tlie best antidote for grumbling. It won't do to stop. 
 If I can't plow I can do something else; I can tote water for a rest. 
 
 Grease the wagon, oil the machinery, lubricate the energies with a 
 little recreation. Don't run in the old ruts too long. Dig a while 
 and then try another tool. My good old father used to say, * ' Wil- 
 liam, when you get tired hoeing potatoes you may weed the onions for 
 a rest." Chop wood, shell corn, go to mill, and it won't hurt to take 
 a little tramp after squirrels and ducks and partridges or pursue the 
 social 'possum on a moonlight night. Variety is the spice of life. It 
 helps a man in body and mind, but the poor women can't do such 
 things to any great extent — tho' my girls do sometimes go 'possum 
 huntin' with me and the boys and blow the melodious cows' horns and 
 scream at a booger in every bush. One day the boys said it was too 
 wet to plow and they were going down on the creek to hunt rabbits, 
 so I concluded to go along and tote the game. Mrs. Arp said she 
 knew we wouldn't kill anything, and we asked her if she would cook 
 all we brought home, and she said, " Yes, and dress it, too." About 
 the time we got started the two little chaps came up and begged 
 me so sweetly to let them go I couldn't refuse, and so there were six 
 of us in all, and two guns and two dogs, and in about an hour we 
 had jumped six rabbits, and killed five of them, and they were get- 
 ting awful heavy, when suddenly one of the boys looked up in an elm 
 tree that was in the middle of a canebrake and said, ' ' I thought 
 them things up tnere were squirrels' nests, but I do believe I saw one 
 of 'em move." We all stopped and looked, and sure enuf it did 
 move, and the other one moved and we knew they were coons. I 
 never saw boys get excited so quick. They called the dogs and made 
 for the canebrake. The creek was to cross and nary log in sight, so 
 they just waded through and surrounded the tree and held the dogs 
 fast while one of the boys got ready to fire. By this time I was get- 
 ting ready to be a boy again myself, and I hollered to them to wait, 
 and I pulled the little chaps through the cane till I found a log and 
 got them across, and was soon on the battle-ground. Bang went a 
 gun and dow^n came a wounded coon, the biggest old fellow I ever 
 saw, and I never saw such a fight in my life. He wasn't hurt much 
 with the small shot and he did fight and growl and screech most 
 amazin'. First ^ne dog and then the other backed out with a howl 
 and then set in on him again, until finally old Zip surrendered and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 51 
 
 gave up the ghost. Bang went another gun and the other coon let 
 go and fell into a for-k, and there he lay for dead for about fifteen 
 minutes, when one of the boys said he was going to have him anyhow. 
 So he climbed the tree, and when he had got about fifty feet up the 
 coon straightened up in the fork and looked savagely at him and gave 
 a growl. I wish you could have seen that boy slide. He came down 
 that tree like a fireman comes down a scaling ladder. He left his hat 
 and right smart of his breeches on the bark and grapevines. Well, 
 of course they shot him again, and that tumbled him, and then we 
 had another fight, and the boys say they never had as much fun, and 
 they feel sorry for your town boys who don't have any sport and are 
 penned up within brick walls and the best they can do is to waste a 
 few dollars on a French actress, and not know a word she said, and 
 then go home and say, bully for Sara. Well, I shouldered the big- 
 gest coon, and I think he weighed about twenty pounds when we 
 started and about forty when I got home, and I laid him down sud- 
 denly in Mrs. Arp's lap and said, "Skin him and cook him, if you 
 please ?" I oughtent to have done that. Jit was premature, and not 
 altogether calculated to promote our conjugal felicity. Mrs. Arp is a 
 stately, deliberate woman, but I think she got up a little quicker than 
 I had ever observed her. If I were to kill a thousand coons I 
 wouldn't try that little joke again. It didn't pay. 
 
 But we had lots ot fun out of the coons, and the time spent in the 
 hunt was not w^asted, for the sport renewed our energies and made us 
 feel all the more like work. 
 
 And so we go, mixing in with our daily labor any fun that comes 
 to hand. 
 
52 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ADVENTURES ON THE FARM. 
 
 Variety is the spice of life; and if a man can get any fun out of 
 trouble he had better do it. Farming is an ever-changing employ- 
 ment. There is something new turns up nearly every day, something 
 unexpected and out of the general run. It aint so with storekeep- 
 ers, nor carpentering, nor any mechanical business, for with those 
 pursuits one day is pretty much like another, and that is why I like 
 farming. There is more play for a man's ingenuity and contrivance 
 and more gratification in his success. If a farmer contrives a good 
 gate or a good stall for the stables, or makes a good wagon tongue, or 
 a single-tree, or plow stock, he is proud of his labors and thinks more 
 of himself. 
 
 I have been mighty busy of late fixing up fences. Fences are a 
 big thing in these parts, and if a man aint careful it will take about 
 half he makes on his farm to keep 'em mule high and bull strong and 
 pig tight. I had about a mile to build this spring, and timber was 
 too scarce to make it all of rails, so I went to work and cut down a 
 lot of pines for stock ; and borrowed a carrylog and began to haul 'em 
 to the saw mill. The pines were on the side of a rocky ridge, and 
 the steers were sorter bull-headed and took all sorts of roads to get 
 down, and run over saplings, and against stumps, and my old darkey 
 couldn't do much with 'em, and the iron dogs would come out of the 
 logs when the hind end rolled over a rock, and the log would stop 
 and the steers go on, and it took all hands to head 'em with sticks and 
 thrash poles and make 'em turn around and go back and straddle the 
 log again — we had to swing one big log five times before we got down 
 to the road — and it was "gee Dick," and "haw Tom," and "come 
 back here," and "whar you gwine" a hundred times, and the key come 
 out of the bow, and the bow dropped down, and old Tom thought he 
 was loose and started for home, and we had a time of it all around. 
 After awhile I noticed that the dogs were too straight and didn't 
 
5#^' .^./ 
 
 
 Bill Tries the Carry-Log. 
 
I 
 
 The Farm and The Fireside. 55 
 
 swell around the log as tliey ought to, so I sent 'em to the shop and 
 bent 'em, and after that we could drive 'em in deeper, and we had no 
 more trouble on that line. When we got all the stocks down to the 
 big road, we began to haul 'em to the mill, and there was a right 
 smart hill to go up, which was tne only hill on the way. Old Tom is 
 a mean old steer. He is just like some folks, he has fits of pulling 
 and fits of not pulling and when he does pull he wants to pull as hard 
 as he can. He took a notion that the hill was too much for him, so 
 he wouldn't go worth a cent; we hawd him, and gee'd him and 
 whijDped him, and hollered at him and twisted his tail, but he got 
 sullen and got down on his knees and played off, and w^e fooled away 
 half a day without moving a stock. Then I sent after the mules and 
 a double tree, and fifth chain, and hitched the mules in front and all 
 hands hollered "get up there," and I cracked the long whip and old 
 Tom come down to his work, for he saw he had help, and the w^ay we 
 jerked those logs up the hill was a cortion. We had no more trouble 
 after that, until the time to go home, and I concluded a ride on the 
 carrylog tongue would suit me pretty well, for Ralph, my fourteen 
 year old boy, said it was good riding, and so I mounted on the little 
 plank seat, and took the lines and the whip and give the words of 
 command, and suddenly old Tom took a notion to run away for 
 amusement. It was down a gentle grade for a quarter of a mile, and 
 there were deep little ruts in the road, and pine roots crossing it ever 
 and anon and some turnouts around the bad places, and so I began 
 to pull on the lines and holler, "wo, wo, wo, I tell you; wo Tom, wo 
 Dick," but they paid no more attention to me than if I was a big hog 
 in the road. They just went a kiting, and didn't miss a big stump 
 half an inch, and the ruts and the roots bumped me up and down 
 like a churn dasher. I never was scared so bad in my life. The 
 darkey and Ralph come a running as fast as they could to get ahead 
 of the brutes, and that made 'em worse. I didn't dare to jump ofi* for 
 fear the big wheels would get me, and then there was those con- 
 founded iron dogs with their big hooks hanging down and I expected 
 every minute to be jolted off, and have 'em catch me in the slack of 
 my pants, or somewhere else, and drag me home a mangled and life- 
 less carcass. I dropped the long whip and let the lines go, when 
 suddenly a turn in the road brought the infernal beasts right square 
 up against a wagon that was coming, and they stopped. I left that 
 
56 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 tongue before you could say Jack Robinson, and sat down on a log to 
 be thankful. 
 
 Driving steers is not my forte, and I shall hereafter let all such 
 foolishness alone. The folks have not got done laughing at me yet. 
 Carl drew a picture on his slate of a carrylog and steers and tw^o big 
 hooks a hanging down, and a man hugging the tongue, and when I 
 came into the room Jesse was a cackling and the girls a giggling, and 
 Mrs. Arp laughing like she had found a circus; but I can't see any 
 more fun in it than a last year's bird's nest. 
 
 I am building a fence now, a good fence, and a cheap fence. We 
 got one hundred chestnut posts, six feet long, in one day, and hauled 
 'em home. I put 'em twenty-two inches in the ground and twelve feet 
 apart; my plank is twelve feet long. The base is ten inches wide, 
 and the next three six inches wide, and then comes the barbed wire 
 two inches below the top of the post, and this makes the fence just 
 four feet high. There is a strip of six-inch plank nailed up and down 
 in the middle of every panel, w^hich is nearly as good as if there was 
 a post in the middle. This strip keeps the plank in line and 
 keeps them from w^arping. The nails should not be driven in straight, 
 but a little slanting to make 'em hold better. I built a half mile of 
 this kind of fence two years ago, and can find no fault with it. The 
 wind can't blow it down, and stock never try to jump it. My lum- 
 ber cost me five dollars a thousand for sawing; my wire cost me half 
 a cent a foot, and that makes the fence cost twenty-eight cents a rod 
 besides my labor, and a rail fence can't be built much cheaper, con- 
 sidering the value of timber. Fences are generally made too high 
 and too top-heavy, and the wind rocks 'em about, and the posts get 
 loose, and the rain drips in and rots 'em. Gates are most always made 
 too heavy — a gate should be made wide, say nine feet, and very light. 
 Use bolts instead of nails at the corner and in the middle of the brace. 
 Don't let the gate swing when it is shut. Let the bottom of the latch 
 post rest on a piece of scantling, bevel the scantling a little and let 
 the gate slide upon it as it shuts. An iron roller put in like one is 
 put in a bed-post is a good thing, for then the gate will roll up instead 
 of slide up. A gate is open very little compared with the time it is 
 shut, and if it rests on something when shut it will never swag when 
 open. A gate should be no higher than the fence, but I make my 
 farm gates w^ith the hinge post three feet higher, and run a brace across 
 
The if arm and The Fireside. 57 
 
 that one from the other two corners. Pack post well at the bottom, 
 •especially on the front and back. The plank will hold 'em the other 
 way. I think I ^now a right smart about gates and about fencing, 
 but I don't know how to drive steers, and I don't want to learn. 
 
58 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Smoking the Pipe of Peace. 
 
 REFLECTIONS AND DEDUCTIONS BUGS AND THINGS — THE RISE AND 
 
 FALL OF PRESIDENTS AND PREACHERS A HIGH-MINDED MULE A 
 
 LITTLE POLITICAL DISCOURSE SOLDIERS OF THE CAMP AND SOLDIERS 
 
 OF THE CROSS. 
 
 I love to meet a nabor and hear him say, "how's craps?" I 
 continue to like farmin'. I like it better and better, except that the 
 wheat is sumwhat doubtful about making a crop. A little long bug 
 with a tail at both ends has got in the joints and sucked the sap out, 
 and it's fallin' down in patches. Looks like there is always somthin' 
 preyin on somthin', and nothin' is safe from disaster in this subloonary 
 world. Flies and bugs and rust prey on (he green w^heat. AVeevils 
 eat it up when it's cut and put away. Rats eat the corn — moles eat the 
 gubbers — hawks eat the chickens — the minks killed three of our ducks 
 in one night — cholera kills the hogs — and the other night one of my 
 nabor's mules cum along with the blind staggers and fell up a pair of 
 seven steps right into my front gate and died without kickin'. Then 
 there is briars and nettles and tread safts and smartsweed and poison 
 oak and Spanish needles and cuckle burrs and dog fennel and snakes, 
 that's always in the way on a farm and must be looked after keerfuUy, 
 especially snakes, which are my eternal horror, and I shall always 
 believe are sum kin to the devil himself. I can't tolerate such long 
 insects. But we farmers hav to take the bad with the good, and there 
 is more good than bad with me up to the present time. 
 
 I wonder if Harris ever saw a pack saddle. Well, its as pretty as a 
 rainbow, just like mgst all of the devil's contrivances, and when you 
 crowd one of 'em on a fodderblade you'd think thatfortyyaller jackets 
 had stung you all in a bunch and with malice aforethought. And 
 there's the devil's race horse which plies around about this time and, 
 Uncle Isam says, chaws tobakker like a gentleman and if he spit in 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 59 
 
 your eyes you'd go blind in a half a second. And one day he showed 
 me the devil's darning needle which mends up the old fellow's stockins, 
 and the devil's snuff box which explodes when you mash it, and one 
 ounce of the stuff inside will kill a sound mule before he can lay 
 down. Then there's some flow-ers that he wears in his button-hole 
 called the devil's shoestring and the devil in the bush. 
 
 I like farmin'. Its an honest, quiet life, and it does me so much 
 good to work and get all over in a swet of presperation. I enjoy my 
 umble food and my repose, and get up every mornin' renewed and 
 rejuvenated like an eagle in his flight, or words to that effect. I 
 know I shall like it more and more, for we have already passed over 
 the Rubycon, and are beginnin' to reap the rewards of industry. 
 Spring chickens have got ripe, and the hens keep bloomin' on. Over 
 200 now respond to my old 'oman's call every morning, as she totes 
 around the bread tray a-singin' teheeky, teheeky, teheeky. I tell you, 
 she watches those birds close for she knows the value of 'em. She 
 was raised a Methodist, she was, and many a time has watched 
 through the crack of the door sadly, and seen the preachers helped to 
 the last gizzard in the dish. There was 54 chickens 7 ducks, 5 gos- 
 lins, 12 turkeys and seven pigs, hatched out last week, and Dai^^y had 
 a calf and Mollie a colt, besides. This looks like bisness, don't it? 
 This is what I call successful farmin' — multiplying and replenishing 
 according to Scripter. Then we have a plenty of peas and 
 potatoes and other garden yerbs, which helps a poor man out, and by 
 the 4th of July will have wheat bread and buiskit and blackberry 
 pies, and pass a regular declaration of independence. 
 
 I like farmin'. I like latitude and longitude. When we were 
 penned up in to\\n my children couldn't have a sling-shot, or a bow 
 and arrow, nor a chicken fight in the back-yard, nor sick a dog on 
 another dog, nor let off a big Injun whoop, without some neighbor 
 making a fuss about it. And then, again, there was a show, or a 
 dance, or a bazar, or a missionary meeting most every night, and it 
 did look like the children were just obleeged to go, or the world would 
 come to an end. It was money, money, money, all the time, but now 
 there isn't a store or a milliner shop within five miles of us, and we 
 do our own work, and have learned what it costs to make a 
 bushel of corn and a barrel of flour, and by the time Mrs. 
 Arp has nursed and raised a lot of chickens and turkeys, she thinks so 
 
60 The Faem and The FmEsroE. 
 
 much of 'em she don't want us to kill 'em, and they are a heap better 
 and fatter than any we used to buy. We've got a great big fire-place 
 in the family room, and can boil the coffee, or heat a kettle of water 
 on the hearth if we want to, for we are not on the lookout for com- 
 pany all the time like we used to be. We don't cook half as much 
 as we used to, nor w^aste a whole parsel every day on the darkey, and 
 we eat what is set before us, and are thankful. 
 
 It's a wonder to me that everybody don't go to farmin'. Lawyers 
 and doctors have to set about town and play checkers, and talk poli- 
 tics and wait for somebody to quarrel or fight, or get sick ; clerks and 
 book-keepers figure and multiply and count until they get to counting 
 the stars and the flies on the ceiling, and the peas in the dish, and the 
 flowers on the papering; the jeweler sits by his window all the year 
 round, working on little wheels, and the mechanic strikes the same 
 kind of a lick every day. These people do not belong to themselves; 
 they are all penned up like convicts in a chain-gang ; they can't take 
 a day nor an hour for recreation, for they are the servants of their 
 employers. There is no profession that gives a man such freedom, 
 such latitude, and such a variety of employment as farmin'. 
 
 While I was ruminating this morning, a boy come along and said 
 the dogs had treed something down in the bottom. So me and my 
 boys shouldered the guns and an ax, and took Mrs. Arp and the 
 children along to see the sport. We cut down a hollow gum tree, and 
 caught a 'possum and two squirrels, and killed a rabbit on the run, 
 and had a good time generally, with no loss on our side. We can 
 stop work most any time to give welcome to a passing friend and have a 
 little chat, and our nabors do the same by us ; but if you go into one of 
 these factories or workshops, or even a printing-office, the first sign- 
 board that greets you says, "Don't talk to the workmen." Sociable 
 crowd, aint it? 
 
 There's no monotony upon the farm. There's something new every 
 day, and the changing work brings into action every muscle in the 
 human frame. We plow and hoe, and harrow and sow, and gather it 
 in at harvest-time. We look after the horses and cows, the pigs and 
 sows, and the rams and the lambs, and the chickens, and the turkeys, 
 and geese. We cut our own wood, and raise our own bread and meat, 
 and don't have to be stingy of it like city folks. A friend, who 
 visited us not long ago, wrote back from the town that his grate don't 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 61 
 
 seem bigger than the crown of his hat since he sat by our great big 
 friendly fire-place. 
 
 But they do git the joak on me sometimes, for you see, I'm farmin* 
 accordin' to schedule, and it don't always make things exactly lumi- 
 nous. Fur instance, it said that cotton seed was an excellent fertil- 
 izer. Well, I had 'em, and as they was a clean, nice thing to handle, 
 I put 'em under most everything in my garding, I was a-runnin' 
 inyun sets heavy, and one mornin' went out to peruse 'em and I saw 
 the straight track of a big mole under every row. He had jest 
 histed 'em all up about three inches. He hadn't eat nary one, and 
 thinks I to myself, he's just goin' around a-smellin' of 'em. Next 
 mornin' all my sets was a settin' about six inches up in the air and 
 on top of the thickest stand of cotton you ever did see. Now, if I had 
 known about spilin' of 'em, as my nabors call it, before we used 'em it 
 would have been more luminous. Howsoever, I knifed 'em down 
 and set the inyuns back again, and nobody ain't got a finer crop. 
 
 It's a great comfort to me to set in my piazzer these pleasant even- 
 ings and look over the farm, and smoke the pipe of peace, and rumi- 
 nate. Kuminate upon the rise and fall of empires and parties and 
 presidents and preachers. I think when a man has passed the Rubi- 
 con of life, and seen his share of trouble, smokin' is allowable, for it 
 kinder reconciles him to live on a while longer, and promotes philo- 
 sophic reflections. I never know^ed a high-tempered man to be fond 
 of it. 
 
 I may be mistaken, but it seems to me a little higher grade of hap- 
 piness to look out upon the green fields of wheat and the leafing trees 
 and the blue mountains in the distance and hear the dove cooing to 
 her mate, and the whippoorwill sing a w^elcome to the night, and hunt 
 flowers and bubby blossoms with the children, and make whistles for 
 'em and hear 'em blow, and see 'em get after a jumpin' frog or a gar- 
 ter snake, and hunt hen's nests, and paddle in the branch and get 
 dirty and wet all over, and w^atch their penitent and subdued expres- 
 sion when they go home, as Mrs. Arp looks at 'em with amazement 
 and exclaims, " Mercy on me ; did ever a poor mother have such a 
 set? Will I ever get done making clothes? Put these on right clean 
 this morning, and not another clean rag in the house! Get me a 
 switch, right straight; go! I will not stand it!" But she will stand 
 it, and they know it — especially if I remark, "Yes, they ought to 
 
62 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 be whipped." That saves 'em, and by the time the switch comes the 
 tempest is over, and some dry xilothes are found, and if there is any 
 cake in the house they get it. Blessed mother ! Fortunate children ! 
 What would they do without her? Why her very scolding is music in 
 their tender ears. I'm thankful that there are some things that corner 
 in the domestic circle that Wall street cannot buy nor money kings 
 depress. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 63 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Sounds on the Front Piazza. 
 
 It was after midnight. About the time when deep sleep falleth 
 upon man, but not upon woman, for Mrs. Arp's ears are always 
 awake, it seems to me. I felt a gentle dig in my side from an elbow 
 and a whispered voice said ; " William, William, don't you hear 
 that ? " " What is it ? " said I. '' Somebody is in the front piazza," 
 said she. " Don't you hear him rocking in the rocking chair?" And 
 sure enough I did. The chair would rock awhile, and then stop, 
 and then rock again. ''Is the gun loaded?" said she; ''they are 
 robbers, but don't shoot, don't make a noise ; can't you peep out of the 
 window? Mercy on us, what do they want to rob us for? Maybe 
 they come to steal one of the children. Slip in the little room and 
 see if Carl is in his bed. Don't stumble over a chair, maybe some- 
 body is under the bed." The rocker took a new start and I had 
 another dig in my side. "It is the wind," said I. " No, it is not," 
 said she. " There is no wind, the window is up, and the curtain don't 
 move. They are robbers, I tell you. Hadn't you better give them 
 some money and tell them to go ? " "I havn't got any money," said 
 I. " It's all gone." " Lord have mercy upon us," said she. "Wil- 
 liam, get your gun and be ready." 
 
 I gently slipped out of the bed and tiptoed to the window and cau- 
 tiously peeped out, and there was the pointer puppy sitting straight up 
 in my wife's rocking chair and ever and anon he would lean forward and 
 backwards and put it in motion. I whispered to Mrs. Arp to come 
 and see the four-legged robber, which she did, and in due time all 
 was calm and serene. 
 
 Last night there was anothf^r sensation in the back piazza, and it 
 was sure enough feet this time, for they made a racket on the floor 
 and moved around lively, and the elbow digs in my side came thick 
 and fast ; took me a minute to get fairly awake, and after listening 
 awhile I exclaimed inaudible language, "goats, Carl's goats," and I 
 
64 The Farm and The FmEsmE. 
 
 gathered a broom and mauled them down the back steps. '* 1 told 
 you, my dear," said I, "that those goats would give us trouble, but I 
 can stand it if you can." 
 
 Carl and Jesse have been begging for goats a good while and I was 
 hostile, very hostile to goats, for I knew how much devilment they 
 would do, but the little chaps slipped up on the weak side of their 
 mother, and she finally hinted that children were children; that old 
 folks had their dotage and children had their goatage and her little 
 brothers used to have goats, and so the pair of goats were bought and 
 Ealph worked two days making a wagon, and contrived some harness 
 out of old bridle-reins and plow lines, and it took all hands to gear 'em 
 up, and at the first crack of the whip they bounced three feet in the 
 air, and kept on bouncing, and jerked Carl a rod, and got loose and 
 run away and turned the wagon up side down, and they kept on leap- 
 ing and jumping until they got all the harness broken up and got 
 away. It beat a monkey show. We all laughed until we cried, but 
 the little chaps have reorganized on a more substantial basis, and there 
 is another exhibition to come off soon. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare says that a man has seven ages, but to my opinion 
 a boy has about ten of his own. He begins with his first pair of 
 breeches and a stick horse, and climbs up by degrees to toy guns and 
 fire crackers and sling shot and breaking calves and billy goats, and to 
 sure enough guns and a pointer dog, and the looking glass age when he 
 admires himself and greases his hair and feels of his downy beard, and 
 then he joins a brass band and toots a horn, and then he reads novels 
 and falls in love and rides a prancing horse and writes perfumed notes 
 to his girl. When his first love kicks him and begins to run with 
 another fellow he drops into the age of despair, and wants to go to 
 Texas or some other remote region, and sadly sings : 
 
 "This world is all a fleeting show." 
 
 Boys are mighty smart now-a-days. They know as much at ten 
 years as we used to know at twenty, and it is right hard for us to keep 
 ahead of 'em. Parents used to rule their children but children rule 
 their parents now. There is no whipping at home, and if a boy gets 
 a little at school it raises a row and a presentation to the grand jury. 
 When my teacher whipped me I never mentioned it at home for fear 
 of getting another. I got three whippings in one day when I was a lad ; 
 
The Farm a5jd The Fireside. 65 
 
 I had a fight with another boy and he whipped me, and the school 
 teacher whipped me for fighting, and my father whipped me because 
 the teacher did. That was awful, wasent it. But it was right, and 
 it did me good. One of these modern philanthropies was telling my 
 kinsman the other day how to raise his boy. "Never whip him," said 
 he. "Raise him on love and kindness and reason," and then he 
 appealed to me for endorsement. "And when that boy is about 
 twelve years old," said I, "do you go and talk to him and if possible 
 persuade him not to whip his daddy. Tell him that it is wrong and 
 unfilial, and will injure his reputation in the community." 
 
 The modern boy is entirely too bigity. I was at church in Rome 
 last Sunday and saw two boys there, aged about ten and twelve years, 
 and after service they lit tbeir cigarettes and went off smoking. An 
 old-fashioned man looked at 'em and remarked: " I would give a 
 quarter to paddle them boys two minutes. I'll bet their fathers is 
 afraid of 'em right now." The old-fashioned man never was afraid of 
 his. He worked 'em hard, but he gave 'em all reasonable indulgence. 
 He kept 'em at home of nights, and he made good men of them. 
 They have prospered in business and acquired wealth, and are raising 
 their children the same way, and they love and honor the old gentle- 
 man for giving them habits of industry and economy. He was a 
 merchant and didn't allow his boys to sweep out a string or a scrap of 
 paper as big as your hat. Habits are the thing, good habits, habits of 
 industry and economy ; when acquired in youth they stick all through 
 life. 
 
 And the girls need some watching too. They are most too fast 
 now-a-days. Too fond of fashion, and they read too much trash. 
 The old fashion retiring modesty of character is at a discount. They 
 don't wait for the boys to come now, they go after 'em ; they marry in 
 haste and repent at leisure ; they run round in their new-fashioned night 
 gowns and call it a Mother Hubbard party. The newspapers have got 
 up a sensation about the arm clutch ; well I don't see any difference 
 between that clutch and any other clutch. The waist clutch in these 
 round dances is just as bad or worse. They are all immodest and there 
 is not a good mother in the land that approves of them. A girl who 
 goes to a promiscuous ball and waltzes around with promiscuous fel- 
 lows puts herself in a promiscuous fix to be talked about by the 
 dudes and rakes and fast young men who have encircled her waist. A 
 
66 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 girl should never waltz with a young man whom she woold not be 
 willing to marry. Slander is very common now, slander of young 
 ladies, and there are not many who escape it ; the trouble is it is not 
 all slander, some of it is truth. In the olden times when folks got 
 married they stayed married, but now the courts are full of divorces 
 and the land is spotted with grass widows, and in many a household 
 there is a hidden grief over a daughter's shame. It is a good thing 
 for the girls to work at something that is useful. There is plenty of 
 home work to do in most every household. If there is not then they 
 can try drawing and sketching or painting or music, something that 
 will entertain them. There are as many female dudes as males, and 
 they ought to marry, I reckon, and go to raising fools for market. 
 
 We have got a cook now and my folks are taking a rest. She is an 
 old-fashioned darkey and flies around with a quick step and lightly. 
 Anybody could tell that " Sicily" had had good training from a white 
 mistress. When she gets through her work she brings up a tub of 
 water and goes to washing up the floors without being told ; she 
 washes the dishes clean and is nice about the milk and the churning, 
 and is good to the children. She lets them cook a little and make 
 boys and horses out of the biscuit dough. The like of that suits Mrs. 
 Arp exactly. If I was a darkey I would know exactly how to get 
 Mrs. Arp's money and her old dresses and a heap of little things 
 thrown in. Yesterday morning Sicily's husband knocked at the door 
 very early and said his wife was sick, sick all night, and Mrs. Arp 
 turned over and exclaimed," Oh my." I told him to go to the next 
 room and tell the girls, and I heard 'em groan and say "goodness 
 gracious," but they got up and gave us a first-class breakfast, and I 
 praised 'em up lots. I promised to let 'em go to town and tumble up 
 the new goods and bring back a big lot of samples. Girls should be 
 encouraged when they do well. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 67 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mr. Arp Feels His Inadequacy. 
 
 Sometimes a man feels entirely unadequate to the occasion. A kind 
 of lonesome and helpless feeling comes over him that no philosophy 
 can shake off. I dident have but five sheep. They were fine and fat 
 and followed us about when we walked down to the meadow, and our 
 little shepherd dog thought they were the prettiest things in the world, 
 and they would eat salt out of the children's hands, and we were 
 thinking about the little lambs that would come in the spring. There 
 was a house for them in the meadow and it was full of clean wheat 
 straw where they could take shelter from the rain and the wind. 
 
 Alas for human hopes. It looks like everything is born to trouble, 
 especially sheep. Yesterday morning I walked down to the branch 
 with my tender offspring, and before I was prepared for it the torn 
 and bloody form of the old he ram was seen lying in the water before 
 me. While I stood and pondered over this sad calamity, the children 
 soon found the others scattered round in the mire and bullrushes stiff 
 and cold and dead. I thought of Mrs. Arp, my wife. What would 
 she say. I thought of that passage of Scriptures which says "beware 
 of dogs." I thought of Joe Harris and the Constitution and that 
 confounded legislature. I thought of guns and striknine and the 
 avenger of blood. Slowly and sadly we returned to the house, and 
 when the children had unfolded the mournful tale Mrs. Arp, my wife, 
 stopped washing the dishes and sat down by the fire. For awhile she 
 never spoke. She seemed unadequate. There was a solemn stillness 
 pervading the assembled family. The children looked at me and then 
 at their mother, when suddenly says she, choking up, "The poor 
 things; torn to pieces by the dogs right here in a few steps of the 
 house. I heard Juno barking furiously in the piazzo and I heard the 
 cows lowing like something was after their calves, and I thought I 
 would wake you, but I didn't. Poor things, if they had only blated 
 or made a noise. After a solemn pause, she rose forward and exclaimed : 
 "William Arp, if I was a man I would take my gun and never stop 
 till I had killed every dog in the naborhood. A little while back 
 
68 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 they killed all our geese in that same meadow. These trifling people 
 round here hunt rabbits all over your plantation with their sheep kill- 
 ing dogs, and you won't stop 'em for fear of hurtin their feelings, and 
 now you see what we get by it. I'd go and shoot their dogs in their 
 
 own yards, and if they made a fuss about it I would well, I don't 
 
 know what I wouldn't do." 
 
 *'If I knew the dogs that did it — " said I, meekly. 
 
 "Knew the dogs!" said she. ''Why you know that big, brindle 
 that got hung by his block down there in the willows, and you ought 
 to have killed him then, and you know that white dog, and the spotted 
 one that prowls around, and those dogs that them boys are always 
 hunting with — you can kill them anyhow. We will never have any- 
 thing if you don't protect yourself, and the Lord knows we've got 
 little enough now." 
 
 "They will come back to-night," said I, and shore enough they did, 
 and the boys laid in w^ait for 'em and got some revenge, and we've 
 given the naborhood fair warning that henceforth we will kill every 
 dog that puts his foot on our premises, law or no law, gospel or no 
 gospel. We've declared war. A dog that won't stay at home at night 
 ain't fit to be a dog. The next man w^ho runs for the legislature in 
 this county has got to commit himself against dogs or I'll run against 
 him whether the people vote for me or not, and if he beats me I 
 reckon I can move out of the county, can't I, or quit trying to raise 
 sheep. My nabor, Mr. Dobbins, says they have killed over a hun- 
 dred for him in the last two years and he has quit. He won't try to 
 raise any more. 
 
 But we are reviving a little. The ragged edge of our indignation 
 has worn off. We skinned the poor things and the buzzards have 
 preyed upon their carcasses, and once more our family affairs are 
 moving along in subdued serenity. Last night Mrs. Arp, my wife, 
 told the girls she didn't think their lightbread w^as quite as light and 
 nice as she used to make it, and she would show them her \vay, so they 
 could take pattern. She fixed up the yeast and made up the dough 
 and put it down by the fire to rise, and this morning it had riz about 
 a quarter of an inch, which she remarked was very curious, but 
 reckoned it was too cold, and so she put it in the oven to bake and 
 then it got sullen and riz downwards, and by the time it was done it was 
 about as thick as a ginger cake, and weighed nigh unto a pound to 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 69 
 
 the square inch. She never said anything, but hid it away on the 
 top shelf of the cupboard. I saw the girls a blinking around, and 
 when lunch time came I got it down and carried it along like it was a 
 keg of nails and put it before her. ' ' I thought you would like some 
 ligh thread," said I. 
 
 She laid down her knife and fork, and for a moment was alto- 
 gether unadequate to the occasion. Suddenly she seized the stubborn 
 loaf, and as I ran out of the door it took me right in the small of my 
 back, and I actually thought somebody had struck me on the spine 
 with a maul. "Now, Mr. Impudence, take that," said she. "If a 
 man asks for bread w^ill you give him a stone," said I. Seeing that 
 hostilities were about to be renewed, I retired prematurely to the 
 piazzo to ruminate on the rise of cotton and w^heat, and iron, and 
 everything else but bread. She's got two little grandsons staying with 
 her, and unbeknowing to me she hacked that bread into chunks and 
 armed five little chaps with 'em, and she came forth as captain of the 
 gang and suddenly they took me unawares in a riotus and tumultuous 
 manner. They banged me up awfully before I could get out of the 
 way. My head is sore all over, and take it all in all, I consider myself 
 the injured person. I mention this circumstance as a warnin' to let 
 all things alone when your wife hides 'em, especially bread that 
 wouldent rise. Mrs. Arp, my wife, has most wonderful control of 
 these little chaps — children and grand-children. She can sick 'em 
 onto me with a nod or a wink, but I can't sick 'em onto her ; no, sir. 
 I never tried, and I don't reckon I ever will, but I just know I 
 couldn't. I don't have much of a showing with these children. This 
 morning I found one of 'em climbin' up on the sash of the flower pit 
 and while I was hunting for a switch the little rascal ran to his grandma, 
 and that was the end of it. She never said nothing, but sorter paused 
 and looked at me. My only chance is to get 'em away off in the field 
 or the woods and thrash 'em generally for a month's rascality, and then 
 honey them up just before we get home to keep 'em from telling on 
 me. For thirty years Mrs. Arp, my wife, has labored under the 
 delusion that the children are hers, and that I had mighty little to do 
 with 'em from the beginning. I would like to see somebody try to 
 take 'em away with a habeas corpus or any other corpus. Goodness 
 gracious! Talk about a lioness robbed of her whelps or a she bear of 
 her cubs. Well, it couldn't be done, that's all. 
 
70 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A Feast in a Sycamore Grove. 
 
 THE LAMB AND THE PIG THE WATERMELON AND THE BRUNSWICK 
 
 STEW AN ANECDOTE OF JUDGE JUNIUS HILLYER PEELING 
 
 PEACHES. 
 
 I was peeling nice soft peaches for dinner just to save Mrs. Arp the 
 trouble, and get an approving smile, when suddenly she came up 
 behind me and said, "William, are your hands right clean?" I held 
 them up for her to look at as I remarked, "If they were not at first I 
 reckon they are now." It seems to me that some folks get more par- 
 ticular about such things as they grow older, and it takes more water 
 and soap and whitewash and sweeping and scouring than it used to. 
 Maybe the appetite is not so good, and the spectacles magnify too 
 much. I used to could knock the ashes out of my pipe on the piaza 
 floor and get a little dirt from my shoes on the banisters and leave 
 some dirty water in the pan at the back door, but I am gradually 
 quitting these little things for the sake of being calm and serene in 
 my declining years. Cleanliness is a good thing, I know, and the 
 scripters say it is next to godliness, and if so I know some good 
 women who are mighty nigh sanctified already. But somehow I like 
 a little clean dirt scattered around, just to enjoy the contrast when we 
 do clean up. I don't think a man can enjoy a clean shirt until he 
 gets one dirty. When I showed Mrs. Arp my fingers that the peaches 
 had made so clean it reminded me of the venerable Judge Hillyer, 
 the old patriarch, whom I used to venerate when I was a boy, for he 
 was handsome and eloquent, and used language with such precision 
 and accent. He was always looking into the reason of things — the 
 why and the wherefore, and if he saw anything strange he stopped and 
 perused and inquired until he got to the bottom of it. The first time 
 he ever went to New York, Howell Cobb was his companion, and 
 Howell had a hard time in getting the judge along, for he wanted to 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 71 
 
 see everything and to know everything. "Now, Howell," said he, 
 ''just stop right here and tell me what that is, and what is it for?" 
 "Howell, do you suppose that all these people have got pressing busi- 
 ness that hurries them along so fast?" "Howell, have you any idea 
 what that store of Stuart's cost ?" Cobb w^as hurrying him along a 
 back street, when the judge stopped and looking over a window screen 
 into a room, saw the heads and shoulders of two men going up and 
 down with a curious motion. His curiosity was excited and says he, 
 "Howell, what are those men doing?" "Oh, I don't know, Junius. 
 Come along," said Howell. "We will never get to the hotel if we 
 keep stopping to examine everything you see." "But, Howell, I 
 want you to look at those men. They are engaged in something very 
 peculiar, and conscientiously, I would like to know what it is." 
 
 Howell peeped through an opening in the screen and said, " Why, 
 Junius, they are treading up dough in a trough ; they are making 
 baker's bread. Don't you see ? " 
 
 The judge was amazed. He looked earnestly at them as they 
 tramped the dough with their bare legs and feet, and with great 
 emphasis, said slowly and distinctly, " Howell, do you suppose their 
 feet are clean?" "I haven't a doubt of it, Hillyer," said Cobb. 
 " I know they are clean by this time." And he hurried him along. 
 
 Cobb said afterwards that the judge was very fond of baker's bread, 
 but he noticed that he didn't eat much more of it in New York. 
 
 But folks get tired of eating the same kind of vittels every day, 
 and in the same room and keeping off the same flies and kicking the 
 same cat from under the table, and so the other day I took a notion 
 to change the programme. Mrs. Arp had told me many a time that 
 she had never eat any barbecued meat since she was a child, and she 
 thought then that it was the best meat she ever did eat. And so I 
 got an old-fashioned darkey who said, " Yes, boss, I used to barbecu 
 meat for old master away back when Mr. Polk run agin Mr. Clay, 
 and the old master and all of us niggers was for Mr Clay, and w^e 
 used to give barbecues and have a powerful time just afore de 
 'lection." 
 
 I cleaned up the ground and trimmed the trees in a beautiful 
 little sycamore grove down by the branch, and I had a little pit dug, 
 and we sacrificed a fat lamb and a fat pig, and hung them up over 
 night, and we hauled a load of bark and stovewood, and the old dar- 
 
72 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 key had a big bed of coals by daylight, and had the meat on, and after 
 breakfast we built a table and some plank seats, and put up a swing 
 for the children and swung the hammock, and toted down some chairs 
 and put everything in shape for the company. Of course I invited 
 Mrs. Arp first and foremost, and then the kindred and friends who 
 are our welcome guests. The girls fixed up the vinegar and pepper 
 and butter to baste the meat with while it was cooking, and they made 
 an old-fashioned Brunswick stew, and I roasted a lot of green corn in 
 the shuck under the hot ashes at one end of the pit, and while every- 
 thing was in a weaving way about twelve o'clock I blowed the horn 
 for the company, and about a score of them came down and were 
 delighted with the prospect and the place. Everybody seemed happy, 
 especially the children, and Mrs. Arp organized herself a toasting 
 committee of one, and in due time pronounced it all very good and 
 ready for business. Gallant gentlemen carved the odorous carcasses 
 and prepared it for distribution. The stew was declared splendid. I 
 noticed that thfe married women all flavored it with hot onion sauce, 
 and it alw^ays seemed strange to me how soon after marriage a woman 
 begins to love onions. The meats came on in due time, and every- 
 body got a sweet and juicy rib. The ribs are the best part of any- 
 thing, and I reckon that is why a woman is so sweet, for she was made 
 of a rib while man was made of dirt. After this course was over the 
 girls surprised us all with lemon pies and cake and frozen sherbet, and 
 after that we all rested and played cards, and had music and song on 
 the banjo, and the men told some big yarns, which the young ladies 
 believed and the old ones didn't. Can't fool a married woman long 
 with yarns. One of our party told about hunting deer up in the 
 Cohutta mountains, and he rode up a clifiT so steep that w^hen he got 
 most to the top he pulled the top burrs irom a pine tree a hundred 
 feeit high that grew at the base of the mountains. Another one told 
 about killing nineteen wild turkeys at one shot away out in the 
 Indian nation where he said they broke down the trees, aild there was 
 fifteen thousand killed on one creek in the month of December. These 
 sort of yarns are catching and one calls for another, and so I was just 
 about to wade in when I noticed that Mrs. Arp was perusing me and 
 modestly I refrained and postponed my adventures to a more conven- 
 ient season. It is not prudent for an old man to tell the heroic 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 73 
 
 exploits of his youth if his wife lived in the same settlement and 
 knows his raising, and so I never do brag much when she is about. 
 
 Well, we had a splendid afternoon, and wound it up with melons 
 from the spring, and then adjourned to the house feeling all the bet- 
 ter for this little episode in our daily life. 
 
74 ^Ihe Farm and The Fieeside. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Trials and Tribulations. 
 
 *' All the world's a stage," as Mr Shakespeare says, and all the men 
 and women merely travelers. It is a mighty big stage, of course — 
 in fact, an omnibus, for it carries us all, and we are traveling along 
 and getting in and getting out all along the line, and ever and anon stop- 
 ping by the wayside to nurse our sick and bury our dead. There is noth- 
 ing else that puts on the brakes as we move down the big road on the 
 journey of life. Sickness and death are a veto upon all progress, and 
 upon plans, and schemes, and hopes, and ambition, and fame, and fash" 
 ion and folly. We suffer awhile ani stop awhile, but if we don't die 
 we get in the stage again and move on with the crowd. Sickness 
 knocks up a man and humbles him quicker than anything. Just let 
 the pitiless angel of pain come along suddenly and seize him by some 
 vital part and twist him around a time or two and shake him up, and 
 he will know better what the word torture means when he reads it in 
 a book. I thought I was a strong man and tough, and so the angel 
 has had no terrors for me. I've had the toothache and mashed my 
 big toe with a crow-bar and got around lively with a green-corn dance, 
 but after it was over I forgot the sting of it and only remembered the 
 joke. But there are some things without any joke, and that won't let 
 you forget 'em, and when they come and go they leave you humbled 
 and hacked and meek as a lamb with his legs tied. They take away 
 your pride, and your brag and your starch and stiffening. They strip 
 you of flowers and frills and thread lace and jewelry and leave a poor 
 mortal like a dependent beggar for the charity of health, good health. 
 "If I was only well again," the poor victim sighs; "Oh, if I was 
 only well again." 
 
 When a man gets along to my age he forgets that he is on the down 
 grade ; that he is like a second-hand wagon patched up and painted 
 and sold at auction to the highest bidder. It will run mighty well on 
 a smooth road and a light load and a careful driver, but it won't do to 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 75 
 
 lock wheels with another, or run into a gully, or over stumps, or up to 
 the hubs in the low grounds. A man is very much like a wagon, any- 
 how, for his shoulders and hips are the axle-trees and his arms and 
 legs are the wheels and the wagon-body is his body and the coupling 
 pole is his spine and the hounds are his kidneys — his reins, as the 
 kScriptures call 'em — and they brace up everything and hold up the 
 tongue and the coupling pole, and if the hounds are weak and rick- 
 ety the hind wheels don't track with the fore wheels, and the whole 
 concern moves along with a hitch and a jerk and a double wabble. 
 " He tryeth the reins of the children of men," for that was the test 
 of a man. If the kidneys were sound and well ordered the man was 
 right before the Lord, for in them was supposed to be centered the 
 affections and passions and emotions of a man. Those oldtime philos- 
 ophers attached a good deal of importance to the kidneys, but I 
 thought it was a superstition of their ignorance, and I never cared 
 much about my kidneys. In fact, I didn't care whether I had any 
 kidneys or not, for I was a thinking what Judge Underwood told me a 
 long time ago about the spleen, which he said was only put there to 
 make men splenetic and cross, and keep 'em from getting overjoyful 
 in this subloonary world. I thought that maybe the kidneys w^ere like 
 the liver of a man over in California, which was crushed out of him 
 in a mine some fifty years ago, when he was about fifty years old, but 
 he was sewed up and got well, and he is a hundred years old and not 
 a hair turned grey, nor a wrinkle come, nor his eyes grown dim, nor 
 his teeth come out, and he keeps well and sound and plumb and active, 
 and goes to balls, and never has an ache or a pain, and its all because 
 his liver is gone. Jesso. 
 
 Well, you see I had promised to build a dam across the branch 
 down in the willow thicket and make a bathing pool for the children; 
 and so a few days ago I went at it with a will, and got my timbers 
 across and my boards nailed on slanting up the stream to a rock bottom, 
 and then I put on some old boots and old clothes and went to chinkin' 
 up the leaks with turf and gravel and willow brush and sand bags, 
 and as fast as I stopped one leak another broke out; but I worked fast 
 and W'Orked hard, and the children waited on me and brought me 
 material, and after awhile the water began to rise on me, and got 
 higher till it went over the dam. It was then about noon, and the 
 hot sun w^as blistering dow^n, and ihe cold spring water was chilling 
 
76 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 me up, and I begun to feel age and infirmity ; so I took a bath myself, 
 and put on dry clothes and retired to rest from my labors. That 
 evening I listened to the shouts of happy children as they frolicked in 
 the pool, and I rejoiced, for it always makes me happy to see them 
 happy. The next day I dident get up well, and as I was a knockin' 
 around in my garden, a holdin' up my back, shore enough, without 
 any warnin', the unfeelin' angel of pain come along suddenly and 
 snapped me up by the left kidney like he wanted to wrestle, and took 
 all underholt, and he spun me around with such a jerk I almost lost 
 my breath with agony, and he pummeled me and humped me all the 
 way to the house, and threw me on the bed while I hollered. "What 
 in the world is the matter with you, William?" says my wife, Mrs. 
 Arp, says she to me ; and the children all gathered round and thought 
 I was snake bit. ''I've got a turrible pain round here," says I; 
 "turrible, turrible. Oh, Lordy!" They filled up the stove in a 
 hurry, and brought water ; and they gave me camphor, and paregoric, 
 and one thing another; but I got worse, and groaned and grunted 
 amazingly, for I tell you I was a suiferin'. 
 
 "I expected it! I expected it!" says Mrs. Arp, as she moved round 
 lively. *'I just knew some trouble would come from all that dam 
 business of yesterday." My stomach had suddenly got out of order — 
 I don't know how — for everything they give me come up before it was 
 down; and so they tried salts and quinine and hot water and pain- 
 killer, and morphine, and magnum bonum and everything in the 
 house, but nothing would stick, and at last the pain just left as sud- 
 denly as it came on, and I went to sleep. But my system was all out 
 of order; the machinery wouldn't work nowhere. The cold sweat 
 poured from me all night, and I dreamed I was away off in a wet 
 prairie, lying down in the cold grass, hiding from a herd of buffaloes, 
 and I woke up with a shaking ague and had to have my night clothes 
 changed and dried off like a race horse. The morning brought 
 another attack still worse than the first, but the good Dr. Kirkpatrick 
 came in time and put me on morphine and spirits of nitre, a hot bath 
 and shortened up the time, and told me my trouble was in the kidneys, 
 and what was going on, and when he left me I was easy and meek 
 and humble, and could look around upon wife and children like 
 nobody was a sinner but me. When I was awake I could look up at 
 the old whitewash that was peeling off from the ceiling and see all 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 77 
 
 sorts of pictures I never saw before. They took shapes innumerable, 
 for there were monkeys, and camels, and bears and buzzards, and 
 turtles, and big Injuns, and little Frenchmen, and old witches, and 
 anacondas and other menagerie animals all out of shape, and funny 
 and fantastic; and while I was asleep 1 dreamed ridiculous dreams, 
 and the quinine that was in me made me to hear waterfalls and mill- 
 dams, and once I imagined the dam I had built had grown and swelled 
 until Niagara was but a circumstance compared to it. But alas, there 
 is no rest for the wicked, for although I had escaped for a day and 
 night, and was banking upon bright hopes and returning health, the 
 unfeeling angel came along again, and seeing me recovering 
 from the fight, began on me with a second assault, and beat up my 
 left kidney again till it was all in a jelly and as sore and as sensitive 
 as a carbuncle. While he was beating me I seemed to hear him say, 
 "You didn't know you had kidneys, did you? How many do you 
 think you have now?" "About a dozen," said I; " eight or ten any- 
 how, and they are as big and as heavy as shot bags." The fact is that 
 my left side was so sore and I was so nervous that it almost gave me 
 a spasm to think of anybody touching me there with a stick. But 
 the torture all of a sudden left me, as suddenly as it came, and the 
 breath, good and free, could get way oiice more. But now I think I 
 am all safe, and Richard is himself again. Good nursing and the 
 doctor's skill and patience has got the wagon in traveling condition, 
 and now I think I will make friends with my kidneys and a treaty of 
 peace with the angel, and the treaty is that I am to build no more 
 dams during life, if I have to wade in the water to do it. 
 
78 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Love Affairs. 
 
 Married and gone. It is the same old story. Love and courtship. 
 Then comes the engagement ring and a blessed interval of fond hopes 
 and happy dreams, and then the happy day is fixed — the auspicious 
 day that is never to be forgotten — a day that brings happiness or mis- 
 ery and begins a new life. Then comes the license, the permit of the 
 law which says you may marry, you may enter into bonds. The 
 State approves it and the law allows it, and it will cost you only a 
 dollar and a quarter. Cheap, isn't it ? And yet it may be very dear. 
 Then comes the minister, and the happy pair stand up before him and 
 make some solemn vows and listen to a prayer and a benediction, and 
 they are one. In a moment the trusting maid has lost her name and 
 her free will, and is tied fast to a man. Well, he is tied fast, too, so 
 it is all right all round, I reckon, but somehow I always feel more 
 concern about the woman than the man. She is a helpless sort of a 
 creature and takes the most risk, for she risks her all. 
 
 We gave him a cordial welcome into the family, and we kissed her 
 lovingly and bade them good-bye, and the children threw a shower of 
 rice over them a3d an old shoe after them, and they were soon on their 
 way to the land of flowers. She was not our child, but was almost, for 
 Mrs. Arp was the only mother she ever knew, and we loved her. 
 
 I sat in my piazza ruminating over the scene, and I wondered that 
 there were as many happy matings as there seem to be. Partners for 
 life ought to be congenial and harmonious in so many things. W hen 
 men make a partnership in business they can't get along well if they 
 are unlike in disposition or in moral principle, or in business ways and 
 business habits. But they can dissolve and separate at pleasure and 
 try another man. 
 
 A man and his wife ought to be alike in almost everything. It is 
 said that folks like their opposite, their counterparts, and so they do 
 in some respects. A man with blue eyes goes mighty nigh distracted 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 79 
 
 over a woman with hazle eyes. I did, and I'm distracted yet when- 
 ever I look into them. But in mental qualities and emotional quali- 
 ties and tastes and habits and principles and convictions and the like, 
 they ought to class together. Indeed, it is better for them to have 
 the same politics and the same religion. And so I have observed that 
 the happiest unions, as a general thing, are those where the high con- 
 tracting parties have known each other for a long time, and have 
 assimilated from their youth in thought and feeling. When a man 
 goes off to some watering place and waltzes a few times with a charm- 
 ing girl and falls desperately in love and marries her off hand, it is a 
 long shoot and a narrow chance for happiness. Why, we may live in 
 the same town with people and not know as much about them as we 
 ought to. I never made any mistake about my choice of a partner 
 for the dance of a life, but I've thought of it a thousand times that if 
 Mrs. Arp had known I loved codfish and got up by daybreak every 
 morning, she never would have had me. It was nip and tuck to get 
 her anyhow, and that would have been the feather to break the 
 camel's back. Well, I'm mortal glad she didn't know it, though I am 
 free to say that if I had known she slept until the second ringing of 
 the first bell for breakfast and was fond of raw oysters, it would have 
 had a dampening effect upon my ardor for a few minutes, only a few. 
 But I have seen some mighty clever people eat oysters raw and sleep late 
 in the morning. But still a man and his wife can harmonize and com- 
 promise a good many of these things, and it is a beautiful illustration 
 of this to see Mrs. Arp cooking codfish for me and fixing it all up so 
 nice with eggs and cream, and it is a touching evidence of my undy- 
 ing devotion to her, to see me wandering about the house lonely and 
 forlorn every morning for an hour or two, and forbidding even the 
 cat to walk heavy while she sleeps. That codfish business comes to 
 me honestly from my father's side, and my mother put up with it 
 like a good, considerate wife, and we children grew up with an idea 
 that is was good. I've heard of a young couple who got married and 
 went off to Augusta on a tour, and the feller stuck his fork into a 
 codfish ball and took a bite. He choked it down like a hero, and 
 when his beloved asked him what was the matter, replied: ''Don't 
 say anything about it, Mandy, but as sure as you are born there is 
 something dead in the bread." 
 
 Well, we can make compromises about all such things as habits and 
 
80 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 tastes, but there are some things that won't compromise worth a cent. 
 If a girl has been brought up to have a good deal of freedom, and thinks 
 it no harm to go waltzing around with every gay Lothario who loves 
 to dance, and after she gets a feller of her own, wants to keep at it 
 and have polluted arms around her waist, she had just as well sing 
 farewell to conjugal love and domestic peace, for it is against the order 
 of nature for a loving husband to stand it, and he oughtn't. There 
 is another thing that ought to be considered, and that is age. A few 
 years makes no difference, but an old man had better be careful about 
 marrying a young wife. He wont be happy but about two weeks, and 
 then his misery will begin and it will never end. It may be better 
 for a woman to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave, but 
 she had better be neither. When a young girl marries an old man for 
 his money she has gone back on herself, for money don't bring happi- 
 ness. Money helps, but money with a dead weight is a curse — an 
 aggravation. I was talkmg one day to an old man, a Frenchman, 
 who had made a hermit of himself, and was living all alone in the 
 woods, and he said : " Mine frien', I have make one grand meestake. 
 Mine first wife whom I marry ven I vas young vas an angel from 
 heaven, God bless her, but mine last wife she did not come from up 
 dere, she come dis vay — and he pointed downwards. " I vas old and 
 she vas young. I had money and she had none. I marry her in 
 haste and repent at my leisure. I try to live wid her tree years, but 
 we were not compatible. It was against the order of nature and I 
 find myself a fool and a prisoner, and so I geeve her half my monies 
 and run away from her and hide in dis vilderness, and here vill I live 
 and here vill I die, and ven I go oop to St. Peter and tell heem how 
 dat voman trouble me on earth de good man vill open de garden gate 
 and say, come in my brother, for you have had trouble enough." 
 
 Country marriages are generally happier than those made in cities 
 among the families of the rich. Children raised to work and to wait 
 on themselves make better husbands and better wives than those raised 
 in luxury. It is mighty hard for a man to please his wife and keep 
 her in a good humor if she has been petted by her parents and never 
 knew a want and had no useful work to do. She soon takes the ennui 
 or the conniptions or the "don't know what I want," and must go back 
 to ma. A young lady who never did anything after she quit school 
 but dress for company and make visits and go to the theatre or the 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 81 
 
 dance, will never make a good wife. This wife business is a very 
 serious business. It is right hard work to play wife. The mother of 
 six, eight or ten children has seen sights. She knows what care is 
 and work is, and one of these do-nothing women can't stand it. If 
 she is a used up institution with one child, two will finish her, and if 
 it wasn't for condensed milk the children would perish to death in a 
 month after they were born, and sorter like the cows in Florida. I 
 heard a Florida man say the other day that a Florida cow dident give 
 enough milk to color the coffee for breakfast, and they had to raise the 
 calves on the bottle. Getting married ought to be a considerate bus- 
 iness. Folks oughtn't to get married in a hurry, neither ought they 
 to wait' four or five years; six months is long enough for an engage- 
 ment. I don't mean children. I mean grown folks who have settled 
 down in life and know what they are about. There is no goodlier 
 sight in all nature than to see a good-looking healthy young man, who 
 is making an honest living, standing up at the altar with a pure, sweet, 
 good-tempered, affectionate, industrious girl, and the parents on both 
 sides approving the match. Then the big pot ought to be put in the 
 little pot, and everybody rejoice. 
 
<S2 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Tells of His Wife's Birthday. 
 
 It is impossible for a man or a woman either to be calm and serene 
 ■when surprised by awful and terrible things, unless they are always 
 prepared for 'em, which they ain't. I have been wanting to see some 
 big thing all my life, but I wanted to be in a safe place while it hap- 
 pened, and at a very respectable distance. I would like to have been 
 there when Vesuvius run over and swallowed up Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii, and I want to feel the shake of a big earthquake a mile 
 or two away from the crack. I would enjoy a storm at sea and a gen- 
 uine shipwreck if I knew we were to strike some rock not far from 
 shore and eventually be saved. I've been reading every now and 
 then about those awful storms and winds that of late years have been 
 perusing the country below us and blowing wagons up in the tree tops 
 and shingles through solid oak trees and carrying houses away and 
 twistmg off timber like it was wheat straw, and I thought I would like 
 to see a young cyclone meandering around, just to get the hang of the 
 thing, and shore enough a little one come along here last Sunday and 
 made a call without any premonition, and now I'm satisfied, and don't 
 hanker after any more such visitations. We were sitting on the piazza 
 watching the black clouds as they loomed up in the west, and listening 
 to the rumbling thunder, when suddenly the roar of coming winds was 
 heard, and the storm came in sight over the brow of Mumford's moun- 
 tain, and came down the valley before us with the big drops of rain in 
 front, and then the hail following after, and the wind like a tornado. We 
 hurried down the window sash and took in the chairs, and before we 
 knew it, it took two of us to shut the front door, and so we retreated 
 to the back piazza, and by the time we got there the roof was rattling 
 like a million buck-shot w^as being poured on it from a big dump-cart 
 away up yonder, and it covered the ground and banked up in the back 
 yard about three inches deep, and while we were all a wondering what 
 the thing would do next, the wind shifted around and around and 
 
The Farm and The FiREStDE. 83 
 
 €ome from the east as hard as it did from the west, and pretty soon it 
 was coming from all points of the compass and everywhere else all at 
 once and slammed all the doors and twisted the tree tops around and 
 around, and I was a-fixing to move the family down in the basement, 
 when suddenly my wife, Mrs. Arp, says she to me, ** Where is Carl 
 and where is Kalph?" *' They are down in the barn," said I calmly. 
 ' ' They are all safe, for the barn is under the hill." ' ' Merciful heavens," 
 said she. "I know something will happen to 'em. You must go after 
 'em." So I put on the oilcloth and fooled round for an umbrel and 
 couldn't find one, and it wouldn't have been any more than a fly in a 
 hurricane no how, and I heard the limbs a-popping and saw the trees 
 a-bending and the hail was getting bigger and more thicker and more 
 denser and I knowed the little boys were safe, and so I kept foolin' 
 round and round until shore enough I dident go and Mrs. Arp she 
 calmed down a little, for about this time the storm abated a little, and 
 we could see the boys looking out from the barn windows. I aint 
 tellin' no lie when I say that fall of rain and hail dident last more than 
 fifteen minutes, but it raised the branch that crosses the big road by 
 my house five feet in half an hour and spread out all over the meadow 
 and up and down the road for a hundred yards, and a nabor come 
 along from town in a buggy and had to swim it horse and all, and he 
 said the road was as dry as a powder horn at Felton's chapel, and 
 another man came from the other way and said it was all dust at 
 Bishops, and this showed me that the storm-path was only about a mile 
 wide, and it was obliged to have been a cyclone, for we have heard of 
 it going on about the same way and tearing things up fearfully. One 
 nabor had a big tree blown on his barn, and a lad of a boy was in 
 there and it skeered him so he tried to run head foremost home, and 
 the wind picked him up and spun him round like a hummin' top and 
 then laid him down flat and told him to stay there, and he stayed. 
 The oats that had not been harvested look just like a big iron roller 
 had been rolled over 'em and then the whole concern ironed out smooth 
 with a flat iron. We've been mighty busy mowing 'em with the 
 machine, and have managed to save 'em pretty well, though it's right 
 hard to tell which is the best end of the bundles. But they will thrash 
 all the same, and no loss on our side. The rail fences on nabor Cot- 
 ton's hill went to play in' Jack-straws, and the corn looks like the 
 blades had all been drawn through a shuck riddle. Nearly all my 
 
84 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 tomatoes have got a bruise on 'em, and the grapes are pretty much in 
 the same fix. Squash leaves and cabbage leaves are riddled with holes, 
 but after all I can't see any very serious damage, and we are trying to 
 be calm and serene. Well, I believe the cyclone did sorter surprise 
 two nice young gentlemen who were perusing the girls at our house, 
 and when they went out in the hail to keep their horse and buggy 
 from running away the storm got so bad, and they got so damp and 
 moist all over, they had to go home prematurely, which we didn't 
 approve, for we could have made a fire and dried 'em in a few minutes, 
 or they could have put on some of my garments which would have 
 been more than a foot or a foot and a half too short at both ends. 
 But they are young and hopeful, and went oflT down the road singing 
 Hail Columbia, happy land. Hail Boreas and be hanged. 
 
 We've had a birthday at our house. There are big birthdays and 
 little ones, common ones and uncommon ones, when the female 
 patriarch of a family, the queen of the household, meets her 60th 
 birthday and has got too much good sense to go back on her age or be 
 ashamed of it, it is an event, it is, sorter like a golden wedding or the 
 declaration of independence or some other big thing. But there is no 
 collapse, no surrender, no let down, not a silver thread among the 
 raven hair, no crow's feet or wrinkled brow, no loss of speech or lan- 
 guage, no weakness of memory. Sometimes I wish she would forget 
 something, but she can't, and my short comings, like Banquo's ghost, 
 come up before me ever and anon. So the queen had a birthday 
 dinner and she got a nice new dress and a hall lamp and a beautiful 
 chair and a pair of peafowls wherewith to raise her own fly brushes, 
 and that night we had music and dancing and song, for Solomon says 
 old age is honorable, and I never could see any good sense in a woman 
 or a widower trying to conceal it. I never expect to be either the one 
 or the other, and can't appreciate their peculiar feelings, but I never 
 hear of a married woman concealing her advancing years but what I 
 think she is fixing the triggers for a second husband before the first 
 one dies. But one thing is certain — there's no triggers about our 
 house, and there will be no step-father to my children, for, as Mrs- 
 Arp says, sometimes a burnt child dreads the fire. Jesso. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Mrs. Arp Goes Off on a Visit. 
 
 Man was not made to live alone, I don't mean alone like Robinson 
 Cruso, but alone in a house withoijt a woman — a help-mate, a pard. 
 Its an awful thing to come in and find the maternal chair vacant, 
 even for a season. I know she has gone, but still I imagine that she 
 is somewhere on the premises a circulatiu' around and around. I am 
 listenin' for the rustle of her dress or the creak of her nimble shoe — 
 she wears number 2's, with a high instep, and walks like a deer. 
 Ever and anon methinks I hear her accustomed voice saying, William 
 William — major, come here a moment. 
 
 What wonderful resolution some women have got! Mrs. Arp has 
 at last departed. She has undertook a journey. For several weeks 
 it has been the family talk. Some said she w^ould get off and some 
 said she wouldent. As for herself, she was serious and non-committal, 
 but we daily observed that the big old trunk that contained the 
 accumulated fragments of better days was being diligently ransacked. 
 Scraps of lace, and lawn, and ribbon, and silk, and velvet, and mus- 
 lin, and bumbazeen, and cassimere were brought forth and aired, and 
 the flatiron kept busy pressing and smoothing the wrinkles that age 
 had furrowed in them. All sorts of patterns from Demarest, and 
 Ehrick and Butterick, were over-hauled and consulted with a kind of 
 sad reality. A woman may be too poor to buy calico at 5 cents a 
 yard, but she will have patterns. Little jackets, and pants, and shirts, 
 little dresses, and drawers, and petticoats, and aprons had to be made 
 up, and nobody but her knew what they would be made of. I tell 
 you, one of these old-fashioned mothers is a mirical of grace. It aint 
 uncommon for folks nowadays to be their own tailors and dressmakers, 
 but it takes sense and genius to get up a respectable outfit from scraps 
 and old clothes outgrown or abandoned for ratage and leakage. It 
 was wonderful to see her rip 'em, and turn 'em, and cut 'em, and twist 
 'em — getting a piece here and a scrap there, cutting them down to the 
 
S6 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 pattern — running them through the machine, and before anybody 
 knew it she had the little chaps arrayed as fine as a band-box and 
 never called on anybody for a nickel. That's what I call the quintes- 
 sence of domestic economy. Nobody can beat her in that line. She 
 knows how to put the best foot foremost. Her children have got to 
 look as decent as other people's, or she will keep 'em at home, certain. 
 She don't go about much, and seems to grow closer and closer to the 
 chimney corner; but when she does move its a family sensation. 
 Every one helps — every one advises and encourages her in a subdued 
 and respectful way. All want her to go off and rest and have a good 
 time for her own sake, but tell her over and over how much they will 
 miss her, and wear a little shadow of sorrow in the nigh side of the 
 face. I think though she suspected all the time they would turn up 
 Jack while she was away. 
 
 Well, she did get off at last — on a three hours' journey and to stay a 
 whole week. It was a tremendious undertaking, for she said the har- 
 ness might break, or the buggy collapse, or the old mare run away on 
 the road to town, and the cars might run ofi^ the track or break 
 through a bridge, or not stop long enough for her to get off with the 
 children, or let her off and take the children on, or some of us would 
 get sick, or the house catch afire, or some tramp come along in the 
 night and rob us and cut all our throats while we were asleep, and 
 we wouldent know a thing about itjtill next morning. 
 
 "Now, William," said she, "be- mighty careful of everything, for 
 you know how poor we are anyhow." ''Poor as Lazarus," said I "but 
 he's a restin' in Abraham's bosom." "Well, never mind Lazarus," 
 said she, ' ' the paregoric and quinine and turpentine are on the shelf 
 in the cabinet. I have hid the laudanum, for its dangerous, and you 
 havent more than half sense in the night time, and might make a mis- 
 take. Don't let Ralph have the gun nor go to the mill pond. There 
 are four geese a setting, and you must look after the 'goslins, and if 
 you don't shoot that hawk spring chickens will be mighty scarce on 
 this lot. And see here, William, I want you to take the beds off the 
 bedsteads in my room and shut the doors and windows and make a fire 
 of sulphur in some old pan. They say it will just kill everything." 
 "Must I stay inside or outside," said I, in a Cassibianca tone. "May 
 be you had better try it awhile inside," said she, "just to see if you 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 87 
 
 ever could get used to it. Now, William, take good care of every- 
 thing, for you may never see me again. Somehow I feel like some- 
 thing's going to happen to me. Don't whip Kalph while I'm gone — 
 the poor boy aint well — he looks right pekid — and when you whipped 
 Carl the other day the marks were all over his little legs." She 
 always looks for marks — the little willows are soft as broom straws, but 
 she is bound to find a faint streak or two, and there's a tear for every 
 mark. 
 
 ''William, the buttons are all right on your shirts. Feed the little 
 chickens till I come back. I think the buntin hen is setting some- 
 where, and there's six eggs in my drawer that old Browny laid on my 
 bed. If the children get sick you must telegraph me." "And if I 
 get sick myself," said I, inquiringly — "Why there's the medicine in 
 the cabinet," said she, "and you musent forget to water my pot-plants. 
 I told Mr. Freeman to look after you and the boys, and Mrs. Freeman 
 will keep an eye on the girls. Goodbye. Don't you cut the hams. I 
 want them for company, and don't go in the locked pantry." I reckon 
 she must have taken the key off with her, for we can't find it. "Good- 
 bye — take care of Bows." She kissed us all round and choked up a 
 little and dropped a few tears and said she was ready. I looked at the 
 clock and told her we could barely make it — five miles in an hour and 
 five minutes, and the road muddy and the mule slow. She said she 
 had never been left by the train in her life, and she didn't think she 
 would be too late. I pressed the old mule through mud and slop, up 
 hill and down hill. She was afraid of that mule, and when I larruped 
 him she told me not to. Then he would put on the breaks, and she 
 declared she would be left if I dident drive faster. We dident say 
 much but leaned forward and pressed forward in solemn energy as if 
 the world hung upon the crisis. When we got within half a mile of 
 town the whistle blowed away down the road and we had a slick hill 
 to clime. I larroped heavily and clucked every step of the way, and 
 we made the trip just in time to be left. The train moved off right 
 before us. It didn't seem to care a darn. We gazed at it with feel- 
 ings of sublime despair. Mrs. Arp was looking dreamily away oft 
 into space when I ventured to remark, "shall we go back?" She 
 quietly pointed to the St. James and replied, "hotel." 
 
 I saw her and little Jessie comfortably quartered in a nice room 
 
88 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 with a cheerful fire. Mr. Hoss, the landlord, was kind and sympa- 
 thetic and promised she should not be left by the morning train, and 
 so bidding them a sad goodbye, I returned to my bairns. Take it all in 
 all it was a big thing — a mighty big thing at my house. I'm poking 
 around now hunting for consolation. She knows I'm desolate and is 
 sorter glad of it. I know she is homesick already but she wont own 
 it. She would stay away a whole year, before she would own it. She 
 wants me to beg her to come back soon, and I won't, for she left her 
 other little darling with me, and he will bring her. I've half a mind 
 to drop her a postal card and say: ''Carl is not well, but don't be 
 alarmed about him," and then go to meet her on the first train that 
 could bring her, for I know she would be there. It does look like a 
 woman with ten children wouldent be so foolish about one of them, 
 but there's no discount on a mother's anxiety. Her last command 
 was, "keep Carl with you all the time, and tuck the cover under him 
 good at night, bless his little heart." I wonder what would become of 
 children if they didn't have a parent to spur 'em up. In fact, it takes 
 a couple of parents to keep things straight at my house. Yesterday the 
 gray mule broke open the gate and let the cow and calf together. Carl 
 left open another gate and the old sow got in the garden. Another 
 boy has got a felon on his finger, and whines around and says his ma 
 could cure it if she was here. He can't milk now, and so I thought 
 I would try it, but old Bess wouldn't let nary drop down for me. I 
 squeezed and pulled and tugged at her until she got mad and sud- 
 denly lifted her foot in my lap and set it down in the bucket, where- 
 upon I forgot my equlibrium, and when I got up I gave old Bess a 
 satisfactory kick in the side and departed those coasts in great humility. 
 It's not my forte to milk a cow. The wind blew over moi'e trees 
 across my fences. The clock run down. Two lamp chimneys 
 bursted. The fire popped out and burnt a hole in the carpet while 
 we were at supper, and everything is going wrong just because Mrs. 
 Arp's gone. 
 
 It's mighty still, and solemn, and lonely around hsre now. Lonely 
 aint the word, nor howlin' wilderness. There aint any word to express 
 the goneness and desolation that we feel. There is her vacant chair 
 in the corner — 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 89 
 
 Yes, the rocker still is sitting 
 
 Just where she was ever knitting — 
 Knitting for the bairns she bore. 
 
 And now the room seems sad and dreary, 
 
 And my soul is getting weary, 
 And my heart is sick and sore — and so forth. 
 
 The dog goes whining round — the malteese cats are mewing and the 
 children look lost and droopy. But we'll get over it in a day or two, 
 may be, and then for a high old time. 
 
90 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Voice of Spring. 
 
 Hark, I hear a bluebird sing, 
 And that's a sign of coming spring. 
 The bull-frog bellers in the ditches, 
 He's throwed away his winter britches. 
 The robin is bobbin around so merry, 
 I reckon he's drunk on a China berry. 
 The hawk for infant chickens watcheth, 
 And 'fore you know it one he cotcheth. 
 The lizzard is sunning himself on a rail; 
 The lamb is shaking his newborn tail. 
 The darkey is plowing his stubborn mule, 
 And gaily hollers, "gee, you fool." 
 King Cotton has unfurled his banner. 
 And scents the air with sweet guanner. 
 The day grows long — the night's declinmg. 
 The Indian summer's sun is shining, 
 The smoking hills are now on fire. 
 And every night it's climbing higher. 
 The water warm, the weather fine. 
 The time has come for hook and line ; 
 Adown the creek, around the ponds. 
 Are gentlemen and vagabonds. 
 And all our little dirty sinners 
 Are digging bait and catching minners. 
 The dogwood buds are now a-swelling. 
 And yaller jonquills sweet are smelling; 
 The little busy bees are humming, 
 And everything says spring is coming. 
 
 It has been a hard old winter on man and beast. Hard in weather 
 and harder in fire and flood and pestilence, and all sorts of unnatural 
 troubles. The horrors of hotels burning up, and theatres and circus- 
 ses shrouded in flames, and thousands of poor people made homeless 
 and destitute by the raging waters, and smallpox marking its victims 
 all over the land, is pitiful, most pitiful, but I can't get over the shock 
 
COBE. 
 
The Farm and The Fhieside. 93 
 
 of those poor little children who were trampled to death in that 
 school-room in New York City. I can't help but seeing them all laid 
 out in the room together, and their parents hovering over their little 
 disfigured and mangled corpses. The distressing scene haunts me. 
 There is a power of trouble in the world that we know nothing about 
 — trouble that we who live in the country do not have. Here there 
 are no storms, no floods, no fires, no pestilence, no scarcity of wood, or 
 of food, or comfortable clothing. A poor man in the country is safer 
 from all calamity than a rich one in the city. A poor man may 
 lament his poverty and envy the rich, but he has no reason to. A 
 man who makes a comfortable living on a farm has a greater security 
 for life and liberty and happiness and long life than any other class 
 that I know of. Cobe says he is getting along ' ' tolerable well, I thank 
 you." Cobe is always calm and serene. He owns a mouse-colored 
 mule, and has owned him ever since the war. That mule is one of 
 the family and he knows it. The children play under him and over 
 him, and between his legs, and the mule is happy too. Cobe has a 
 chunk of a cow and a sow and pigs, and about enough old rickety fur- 
 niture to move in one wagon load, and that's all Cobe has got except 
 his wife and half a dozen little children, who live on corn bread and 
 taters. And they are smart children, and healthy and good looking, 
 though Cobe is called the ugliest man in the county, and I think 
 enjoys his reputation. His face is of three colors and splotched about, 
 and his mouth is in a twist one way and his nose in another, and his 
 eyes are of a different color, and he is hump-shouldered and walks 
 pigeon-toed, but he don't care. His wife says he is just the best little 
 man in the world. He works hard, he and the mule, and always says 
 he is getting along ''tolable," and finds no more trouble in sujDporting 
 six children than he did one. He says there never was a 'possum 
 born that dident find a 'simmon tree somewhere. Says he is raising 
 his boys more for endurance than for show — for another war will come 
 along about their time of day and he wants 'em to be able to stand it. 
 Cobe is an honest man, and came from an honest family, and his wife 
 did too, and their children are well-mannered and they are getting a 
 little schooling, and my opinion is, that there is more hope and better 
 hope for the country in that kind of stock than in the average chil- 
 dren of the rich. They will make good, humble, law-abiding citizens, 
 and they will work and produce something. When war or trouble 
 
94 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 comes, it is the yeomanry of the land we have to depend on. The 
 children of the poor are running this Southern country now. They 
 are the foremost men in most everything. They are the best mer- 
 chants in Atlanta and other cities — the best farmers, the best mechan- 
 ics and the best railroad men. Some of 'em make splendid bankers, 
 if they do spell hog with a double g. Grammar may deceive, but fig- 
 ures don't lie. 
 
 We are all mighty busy now in these parts. I can sit in my piazza 
 and see over a good deal of farming territory, and the mules are mov- 
 ing up lively. They seem to know the spring is late, and the farmers 
 are behind time. But I don't sit long at a time, for the garden is to 
 plant, and the rose bushes have to be trimmed, and the flower beds 
 dressed off, and the compost scattered around, and the vines want new 
 trellaces, and everything got ready for a suit of new clothes. The old 
 year is just now dead, and the new one is born with the spring. 
 March used to be the first month and it ought to be now. I don't see 
 what they ever changed it for. One hundred and twenty years ago 
 our English forefathers took a notion to set old Father Time back a 
 couple of months, without any good reason for it, and I think we 
 ought to move up the clock and put him forward where he was. The 
 spring is the new birth of nature, and is the type of our own resur- 
 rection. I don't believe that everything that dies will live again, but 
 I do believe that everything that is good and beautiful will, even to 
 animals, trees and flowers. This is a mighty pretty world we live in — 
 mighty pretty, especially in the spring, and for fear of accidents, I am 
 willing to be a tenant a good while longer. 
 
 "I would not live always, 
 I ask not to stay," 
 
 is a very beautiful sentiment, provided a man is sure of a better home 
 when he quits this one. But another poet sung with more caution and 
 content when he said : 
 
 "This world is very lovely — oh, my God, 
 I thank thee that I live." 
 
 I reckon the majority of mankind are like the fellow who said he 
 dident want to go to heaven if he had to die to get there. Many 
 would like for the ages of Adam and Methusaleh to come back again. 
 It wouldent do, though — it wouldent do at all, for if Jay Gould and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 95 
 
 Vanderbilt and company should live a thousand years they would 
 gobble up the whole terrestrial concern and crowd us all off onto a 
 plank in the ocean. On the whole I'm obliged to think that every- 
 thing is fixed up about right — ^I reckon it is. 
 
96 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 The Love of Money. 
 
 Money is a right good tWng and no sensible man will turn up his 
 nose at it. Money brings comfort and leisure, and Solomon says m 
 leisure there is wisdom. A man who has to be digging away every 
 day for a living don't have much time to read and reflect and rumi- 
 nate. It don't matter whether he is a merchant or mechanic or farmer 
 or a professional man, if he works hard all day he wants to rest at 
 night. 
 
 Money promotes domestic tranquility and that is the biggest and 
 best thing I know of. But money ought to be hard to get, so that its 
 real value may be appreciated — money has to be earned to be prized. 
 If it is inherited or drawn in a lottery or won at games of chance or 
 found in the road or obtained by lucky speculation in stocks or bonds 
 or cotton futures, it goes at a discount. It is undervalued and don't 
 stick to a man long. A fortune gained in a year rarely sticks to any- 
 body. Luck is a right good thing when it follows along with labor 
 and honesty, but luck by itself is a deceiver. * ' Trust to luck" is the 
 devil's maxim. I knew a hard working man who was so anxious to 
 get ahead that he stinted his family and invested part of his earnings 
 in the Louisiana lottery for five years and never drew but ten dollars. 
 He told me he had lost five hundred dollars that way, and every time 
 he saw the list published of the lucky numbers and read about the 
 lucky men who drew the prizes it fired him up and he tried it again. 
 Sometimes I wish I3ncle Jubal and General Beauregard would tote 
 fair and publish a list of them fellows who dident draw anything. 
 But I reckon that would be so long and occupy so many columns in 
 the newspapers they couldent afford it. 
 
 It is just human I know to want more money than we have got, 
 especially if we are hard run and living on a strain. I want more 
 myself, and if I was to find a hundred dollars in the road I couldent 
 help hoping that the owner would never miss it, and never call for it. 
 
The Farm And The Fireside. 97 
 
 Just like a boy who finds a pocket knife and feels like it is his, but 
 that sort of money is not as solid and satisfactory as money we work 
 for. I know an old preacher who had ten dollars and his son had ten 
 dollars and the young man went down to Atlanta and took all the 
 money to buy some things, and he came across a wheel of fortune 
 and saw a fellow win ten dollars just as easy, and so he was persuaded 
 to try his luck, and shore enough he won ten dollars, and it hope him 
 up mightily and he tried it again and won some more, and he kept 
 on until he had won fifty dollars and become a fool, for right then his 
 luck changed and he lost it all and his ten dollars and his daddy's ten 
 besides, and had to borrow a dollar and a half to get home on, and 
 like to have perished to death in the bargain. Well, he belonged to 
 the church and they had him up and tried him and he made a clean 
 breast and told how he was overtaken and tempted and how he went on 
 and on until he had made fifty dollars clean. "And right there" said 
 the old man, "is whar John's sin begun. If he had stopped right there 
 it would have been all right but, like a fool he went on and on to 
 destruction." Well, John wasent such a dreadful sinner after all, for he 
 wanted the money to buy something to please the old folks. But 
 money don't come that easy very often. I know a man who has been 
 kept on a strain for five years working out of his losses on cotton 
 futures. Sometimes luck runs along with a man for ten years and 
 more and that makes him vain and he thinks his judgment is infallible 
 and suddenly he collapses like Seney and Eno and Keene. No money 
 is safe except that made by honest men. 
 
 The rewards of labor are mighty good and sure. Here I set in my 
 piazza and look over my farm and see the wheat and the oats all in a 
 strut and waving so beautiful in the breeze, and I feel proud and 
 serene, for I sowed that wheat myself and helped to prepare the land, 
 and it is my wheat and my oats and come honestly and wasent made 
 out of somebody else, and it does me good to cut a few choice heads 
 and bunch 'em and take 'em to town and show the folks what I can do. 
 It beats money made by luck all to pieces, and so does walking in my 
 garden and digging the potatoes I planted and working them ever so 
 nice and bringing them in the house to show to my wife and hear her 
 say, "they are very fine." She never says much on that line, she 
 don't, but a little goes a great ways with me. She never indulges in 
 rapture; she never uses adjectives to any excess, such as lovely, 
 
98 The Farm and The FiREsroE. 
 
 exquisite, splendid and the like, but I know what she thinks about 
 anything just as well as if she did. I'm going to get her a mess of 
 raspberries to-day, the first of the season, and I'll surprise her with 'em 
 at dinner time. She likes that. Women like these little thoughtful 
 attentions. They are like oil on the axletree, and makes the ma- 
 chinery run smooth. But then there ought to be a little money to 
 mix up with such things. Money is a good domestic lubricator itself. 
 A man feels more like a gentleman with some change in his pocket, 
 and he ought to always have a dollar or so just to feel of. It stiffens 
 him up and keeps him from feeling like a vagabond. And woman 
 wants some too. When a pedler comes along with tin ware, or a 
 wagon load of jugs, or the Gypsies come along with lace, or the book 
 agent comes along with pictures; and . besides it is such a dignified 
 comfort to have a little hid away for the children when they are just 
 obliged to have something to wear and don't want to ask papa for the 
 money, for he is so hard run and talks so poor all the time. 
 
 This is the money that goes for all it is worth. Money that comes 
 hard, money that is earned. Even woman does not prize money 
 when she has oodles of it and has every w^ant supplied. Folks must 
 be cramped to be happy. They must have something to stimulate 
 them. Something to provoke economy and industry and I'm thankful 
 we've always had these stimulants at my house. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 99 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 CoBE Talks a Little. 
 
 "Everything is adopted." Says I, "Cobe, you musent say adopted, 
 for you mean adapted." ''Well, I reckon so," says he. "Everything 
 is adapted. Everything fits to everything. There is that houn' dog 
 a-runnin' that rabbit and the dog is adopted to the rabbit and the rab- 
 bit is adopted to the dog. One was made for the tother to run. If 
 there wasent any rabbits there wouldent be any houn' dogs. Boys is 
 adopted to squirrels. If there wasent any boys there wouldent be any 
 squirrels. If there wasent any chickens there wouldent be any hawks, 
 for hawks is adopted to chickens, and if there wasent any chickens 
 and birds I there wouldent be any bugs and worms; and the bugs and 
 worms is adopted to the leaves and vegetables, and there is always 
 enough left of everything for seed and for white folks to live on. 
 Hogs is adopted to acorns, and if there wasent any hogs there wouldent 
 be more than eight or ten acorns on a tree — just enough for seed; and 
 hogs is adopted to folks, and if there wasent any folks there wouldent 
 be any hogs. There wouldent be any use for 'era. I'll tell you, 
 major, everything was fixed up about right, as shore as you're born, 
 and most everything was fixed up for us. Hogs has got sausage meat 
 and tripe and cracklins, and souse and backbone and sparerib and lard 
 and ham and shoulder and jowl to eat with turnip-greens, and it's all 
 mighty good and its all adopted." 
 
 "That is all so, Cobe," said I; "everything is adapted whether it is 
 adopted or not." 
 
 " Yes," said he, "and I've noticed it for a long time, when the 
 wheat is cut ofi* the land the grass comes up for hay, and if we cut it 
 ofi" another crop comes up and keeps the hot sun ofi the land and one 
 crop follows another, and if we make a poor crop one year we make a 
 better one the next year, and if we don't we can live on hope and 
 cut down expenses and work the harder to fix up, and some how 
 or other or somehow else we all get along, and when there is a gap we 
 
100 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 fill it up with something, and we all get along and nobody perishes to 
 death in the name of the Lord, for everything fits and everything is 
 adopted." 
 
 "Well," says I, "Cobe, that is all so — not only so, but also, but 
 there are a heap of things come along that don't seem to be adopted, 
 as you call it. Here comes the army worm, and the grasshoppers, 
 and the caterpillars, and all sorts of vermin, and they are not 
 adapted, and what are we going to do with them? What are you 
 going to do with snakes, mad dogs, and storms, and pestilence, and 
 diptheria, and smallpox, and all such afflictions? Are they adopted 
 or are they adapted, or what are they ? " 
 
 *' Well, sir," says Cobe, *' I'll tell you. I havn't been troubled with 
 them things yet, but if I was I know there would be some oflset. 
 Something to balance the account. I never knowed a man to have a 
 big trouble but what there was something to balance oflT the trouble. 
 I never knowed a man to go to Texas but what he writ back that 
 there wasn't anything to brag off alter he got there. The good things 
 of this life are pretty equally distributed if we only did know it. A 
 rich man haint got much advantage of a poor man if the poor man is 
 any account. Some poor folks is bad stock and don't want to work 
 and goes about grumbling. They is just like a bad stock of horses or 
 cattle or dogs and ought to die out and quit the country. We don't 
 send round the settlement to git a poor dog or a poor cat, or a poor 
 hog or a poor cow. We want a good stock of anything ; and there is 
 about the same difference in folks that there is in anything else. 
 There are some rich folks that are clever and some that are mean — 
 some grind you down and some help you up, but them who grind you 
 down don't have much enjoyment. They are too mean to enjoy good 
 health. They are never happy unless they are miserable. I'd rather 
 be poor than to be some rich men that I know. My children have a 
 better time eating simmons and black haws and digging gubbers and 
 hunting possums than their children do in getting to parties and wear- 
 ing fine clothes and fussing with one another and doing nothing for a 
 living. There is nothing like work — working for a living and being 
 contented with your situation. I love to see rich folks doing well, for 
 they help out the country and build railroads, and factories, and car 
 shops, and open up the iron mines, and I know that if everybody was 
 as poor as I am the country wouldent prosper, and it looks like every- 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 101 
 
 thing was adopted, and we need rich folks to plan and poor folks to 
 work, and they couldent get along without us any more than we could 
 get along without them. I don't want their fine clothes, nor their fine 
 house, nor their carriage and horses, and they don't want my little old 
 mule, nor my bobtail coat, and so its all right all round, and every- 
 thing is adopted. It don't take me but a minute and a half to git 
 ready to go to meetin', for all I've got to do is to put on my coat and 
 comb the cuckleburs outen my hair and wash my face and git a couple 
 of chaws of tobacco and take my foot in my hand and go. I can 
 squat down at the door when I git there, and hear all the preachers 
 has to say, and thank the Lord for his goodness, and that is worship 
 enough for a poor man, I reckon, and its all adopted. When I see 
 fine things and fine people I'm always thankful for some favors that 
 are pow'ful cheap considering that money runs the world, for we have 
 got good health and good appetites at my house and can sleep well on 
 a hard bed, and a drink of spring water is the best thing in the world 
 to a hungry man. We haint got no dishpepshy nor heart burn, and 
 nobody haint suing me for my land for I haint got any, and my wife 
 can make as good corn bread as anybody, and our tables is a good kind 
 and the old cow lets down her milk about right and can live and do 
 well without being curried and fed up like a Jersey, and she under- 
 stands my children and they understand her and so it looks like every- 
 thing is adopted. I was a thinking the other day how much service 
 this old coat Mrs. Arp give me has done, for if it had been a new one 
 I would have been afeerd of it, but I've wore it now for six months, 
 and its good yet, and the children have wore the old clothes she give 
 them, and they are all adopted, and now, major, if you have got a 
 chaw or two of that good tobacco you always have I want a bite or 
 two, for that is one thing that I like better than poor folks' tobaccer. 
 Its one thing that I think is a leetel better adopted than anything else. 
 At least I like it better." 
 
 Cobe got his tobacco and flanked his little mule with his heelless 
 shoes and galloped away in peace. If he is not adapted, I know he 
 feels adopted. Cobe has peculiar ideas and a peculiar language. He 
 always says that thunder killed a man, and when I told him that it 
 was lightning he said, " Well, I know they say it is lightning, but IVe 
 always noticed that when it strikes a tree or a man or a mule the thun- 
 
102 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 der and the lightning comes all in a bunch, and you can't tell tother 
 from which." *'But, Cobe," says I, "when a gun shoots, the noise 
 don't hurt anything ; it is the shot." " Just so," says he, " but there 
 is no shot about this thunder business." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 103 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. j 
 
 The Ups and Do\yns of Farming. 
 
 I never could write like a school-master, and now my fingers are 
 all in a twist and I am as nervous as a woman with the neuralgia. 
 Me and my hopeful boy set out yesterday morning to cut an acre of 
 second-crop clover, for these lazy niggers round here wanted a dollar 
 a day and board, and I wouldn't give it, and so me and him under- 
 took the job for our vittles alone, and he had a good mowing-blade 
 and I rigged up an old scythe that belonged to a wheat-cradle, and it 
 was about six feet long aad took a sweep accordin', and the clover was 
 rank and mixed up with morning glories, and for the first ten minutes 
 it looked like we would just walk through it like one of McCormick's 
 reapers; but you see, that kind of work brought into play a new set of 
 nerves and muscles that hadent been used in a long time, for mowin' 
 clover with a long blade is an irregular, side-wipin' business that 
 swings a man in all sorts of horrizontal attitudes, for sometimes he 
 don't put on enough power for the reach of his blade, and then again 
 he puts on a little too much and it comes round with a jerk (hat twists 
 him up like a corkscrew, and so the first thing I knew I was blowin' 
 worse than a tired steer and my shirt stuck to me and my heart was 
 beating like a muffled drum, and I rather look back at what I had cut 
 than ahead of me what I hadn't. But I was too proud to surrender, 
 for, though I say it myself, there*s grit in me, and ever and anon it 
 shows itself, under peculiar circumstances. I heaved ahead of my boy 
 with my long-sweepin' simiter, that give me time to stop and git my 
 wind and wait for my palpitatin' bosom to quit thumpin', and then I 
 would rally my wastin' forces and go it again until I couldent go it 
 any longer. My boy was as willing to quit as I was, for the sun was 
 hot and the air was close, and, I say now after due reflection it was 
 the hardest morning's work I ever did, and I'm not for hire to repeat 
 it at a dollar a day or any other insignificant reward, for it has twisted 
 me out of all decent shape and I go about hump-shouldered and sway- 
 
104 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 backed aud as sore all over as if I had been beat with a thrash-pole. 
 I don't think I would have made such a fool of myself, but you see 
 some of my wife's female relations had come a long ways to see us 
 and all the family paraded over to the clover held like a general and 
 his staff, and as they stood around I put on as much style as possible 
 in swingin' my blade and could hear 'em admiring us how gracefully 
 and easily we handled the instruments, when the truth was we had 
 mighty nigh mowed ourselves to death and saved the king of terrors 
 the job. 
 
 What a power of influence these female smiles do have upon us. 
 What undertaking is there that we will not undertake if they will 
 stand by and look on and encourage. Why sir, I have thought in 
 moments of enthusiasm that if my w^ife, Mrs. Arp, was to unfold her 
 angelic wrings and soar away to Chimborazoes top, and call me with a 
 heavenly smile, I'd go too if I could. I wish they were all rich, for 
 these two traits about w^oman have always struck me. They can live 
 on less when they are obliged to, and make a little go a heap further 
 than the men, but when money is handy they can spend more and 
 take more satisfaction in gettin' rid of it than anybody. 
 
 1 read the other day in a farming paper that moles dident do any 
 harm, but on the contrary they did good in eating up bugs and worms; 
 well, I caught one on the first day of this month, a nice, slick, fat 
 fellow; and as my folks had been making an April fool of me all day, 
 I just emptied the sugar bowl and sliut the sweet little innocent up in 
 there. Mrs. Arp is a dignified Avoman, especially at the table. She 
 takes her seat the last of all and after grace she arranges the cups in 
 the saucers, and the next thing is to put in the sugar and cream and 
 give it a little stir with a spoon. Mrs. Arp is afraid of rats, and so 
 when she stretched forth her sweet little hand and removed the sugar 
 dish top the varmint rose suddenly to a perpendicular position, and 
 stuck his red snout just above the top edge. She saw him — I know she 
 did from the way she done. Anticipating a catastrophy, I had slipped 
 around to the rear and reached her just in time to receive her in my affec- 
 tionate arms as she was reclining backward in a riotous and tumul- 
 tuous manner. Shutting up the animal again, I departed those coasts, 
 and it took me two days to mole-ify her lacerated feelings and make 
 things calm and serene. The next morning I turned him loose in the 
 garden, and before night he had run his under-ground railroad right 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 105 
 
 under a row of peas that was about tea inches high, and cut the peas 
 from the seed, and the tops was lying flat and wilted, like a cabbage 
 plant whep the cut worms find it. 
 
 Farmin' is a good deal like fishin'. Every time you start out you 
 can just see yourself catchin' *em; but after try in' every hole in the 
 creek you go home sorrowfully, with a fisherman's luck. But we 
 are not complainin' by no means, for we've got wheat enuf for biskit 
 every day and light-bread on Sunday, and a few bushels to spare for 
 them angels that's to cum along unawares sum of these days. We 
 finished cuttin' the oat crop this mornin', and what with them and the 
 clover already housed, the cattle are safe for another year. I imagine 
 they look sassy and thankful; but as for me, I am a used up indi- 
 vidual. Durin' harvest I have had to be a binder, and if you don't 
 know what that is, ask Harris. The ends of these fingers which are 
 now inscribin' this epistle are in a bad fix. Skarified and stuck up 
 with bull nettles and briars, they are as sore as a school-boy's bile. 
 There was sum variation to my business, such as catchin' young rab- 
 bits, and findin' partridge nests, and pickin' dewberries ; but the romance 
 wore ofi the first day, and by the end of the next my wife says I was 
 as humble a man as any woman could desire. Its a mighty purty 
 thing to write about and make up oads and pomes. The golden grain, 
 the manly reapers, the strutten' sheaves, the song of the harvesters, 
 and purty Miss Ruth coquettin' around the fields of old man Boaz, 
 and *'how jokin' did they drive their team afield," is all so sweet and 
 nice to a man up a tree with an umbrel, but if them poets had to tie 
 wheat half a day in a June sun, their sentimentality would henceforth 
 seek another subjek. I tried swiugin' the cradle awhile, but somehow 
 or somehow else, I couldn't exactly get the lick. It wasent the kind 
 of a cradle I've been used to, and I am too old a dog to learn new tricks 
 now. 
 
 The branches are getting low. The corn is curling in the blades. 
 The mills grind a little in the morning and then wait for the pond to 
 fill. The locust is singin' a parchin' tune. Summer flies keeps the 
 cows' tails busy, and all nature gives sign of a comin' drouth. I don't 
 like this, but am tryin' to be resigned. Before I turned farmer such 
 weather dident concern me much if I could find a cool retreat, but 
 now I realize how dependent is mankind upon the farm, and the farmer 
 upon Providence. The truth is, its a precarious business all around, 
 
106 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 and I sometimes catch myself a wishin' I was rich or had a sorter side- 
 show to my circus. 
 
 A sorry farmer on a sorry farm is a sorry spectacle. A good farmer 
 on poor laud and a poor farmer on good land are purty well balanced, 
 and can scratch along if the seasons hit; but I reckon a smart and 
 diligent man with good land to back him is about as secure against the 
 shiftin' perils of this life as anybody can be; and then if a man could 
 have besides a few thousand dollars invested in stocks and draw the 
 intrust twice a year he ought to be as happy as subloonary things can 
 make him. Then, you see, he could send off his children to school, and 
 visit his kin, and keep a cook and a top buggy, and lay in some chancy 
 ware and a carpet for the old 'oman, and new bonnets and red ear-rings 
 for the girls, and have a little missionary money left. If the drouth 
 or the army worm or the caterpillar comes along he would have some- 
 thing to fall back on and make him always feel calm and screen. I 
 think I would like that — wouldent you ? — and I reckon there ain't no 
 harm in prayin' for it as Agur did when he said, ' ' give me neither 
 poverty or riches." Most every aspirin' man I know of in the towns 
 and cities is lookin' forward to this blessed state. They work and toil 
 and twist, and dodge in and dodge out, and do a thousand little things 
 they are sorter ashamed of, with a view at the last of settling down on 
 some good farm with creeks and springs and meadows and mills and 
 fine cattle, and wiudin' up a perplexin' life in peace with mankind 
 and communion with honest nature. No ambitious man becomes lost 
 to such pleasant hopes as these, and the more trouble he has the more 
 he longs for it, for its about the fittenest way I know of to get time to 
 repent and make preparation for shuffling off this mortal coil. But 
 to all such the outside investment is highly necessary. Even Beecher 
 could not get along without it — for there are a thousand little leaks in 
 farmin' that a man without experience can't stop, and without capital 
 can't remedy. Why, only this mornin' one of my boys was driving 
 across a bridge and the mule Joe got skeered at his shadder and shoved 
 Tom over on the hand rail and it broke, and he fell in the creek and 
 dragged Joe with him, and the wagon, too, and broke the tongue all 
 to pieces, and the houns and the haims and the harness and the driver, 
 and both the mules set into kickin' with the front end of the waggon 
 on top of 'em, and the hind end up on the bridge, and you could have 
 heard the racket for two miles without a telefone, and the girls ran 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 107 
 
 and screamed, and Mrs. Arp liked to have fainted every step of the 
 way, for she said she knew Paul was killed as he fell, and kicked to 
 d^ath by the mules and drowned afterwards, and it took two hours to 
 clear the wreck and restore the wounded and passify the women and 
 get everything once more calm and screen. Now, you see, there's 
 some unforseen damages to pay and nobody to pay 'em, and all we 
 can do is to charge it up to the mule. I do think that we farmers 
 ought to have some protection agin the like of this, and I want to 
 introduce a bill the next session, for they've been protecting manu- 
 factures for 75 years and neglectin' agriculture, which is the very 
 subsill of a nation's prosperity. I wonder if our law-makers who can 
 save a State couldn't fix up an arrangement that would give everybody 
 a good price for what they had to sail, and put everything down low 
 that we had to buy, and then abolish taxes and work the roads with 
 the chain-gang, and let the bell-punch run the government. Such a 
 aw would give universal satisfaction and immortalize its author. 
 
108 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Family Preparing to Receive City Cousins. 
 
 It's a thrilliu' time when a country family have invited thefr city 
 cousins to visit 'em, and are fixin' up to receive 'em in a hospitable 
 manner. 
 
 The scouring moo and the floor-cloth and an old jar of lie soap 
 and a pan lull of sand are not very elegant things to handle but they 
 are useful and can't be abolished with decency. 
 
 Everything around and about our premises is mighty clean and 
 nice now. I wish it would stay so. I don't care so much about it 
 myself, but it harmonizes with Mrs. Arp and the girls and the Script- 
 ures. Pm afraid Pm a little heathenish about such things, for I don't 
 like to live under such constraint — to have to scrape my shoes so much 
 and shut the doors and hang up my hat and empty the wash-bowl. I 
 don't like to see the ashes taken up quite so clean and so often and so 
 much sweeping and scrubbing. I dou't think the broom ought to be 
 set in the corner upside down nor the clean towel hid in the wash- 
 stand where me and the little boys can't find it. I think I would like 
 a room somewhere close about where me and the children could do as 
 we please and enjoy a little dirt on the floor and throw the saw and 
 the hammer and a few nails around and kick off our muddy shoes and 
 mould bullets and pop corn and play horse and marbles and tumble 
 up the bed and do as we please and clean up things about once a 
 month. But there's no room to spare and so I have to endeavor to 
 live like a gentleman whether I want to or not. Pve got an idea that 
 a little clean dirt is healthy. Pm afraid that little tender children are 
 washed and bathed too much. They get puny and pale, and delicate. 
 Poor little things. It's very disagreeable to 'em. I never saw one 
 that liked it, and that's pretty good evidence it's not accordin' to 
 nature. Once a week is very reasonable, but this every night's busi- 
 ness is a sin. They say it keeps the pores open, but maybe they 
 oughtent to be kept open all the time. The surgeons say that a hand- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 109 
 
 ful of fresh earth bound on a flesh wound or a bruise will cure it up, 
 and I've found out that the best cure for scratches in horses' feet is 
 walking in fresh plowed ground. I never saw a healthy child that 
 didn't love to play in the dirt, and the sand, and make frog houses 
 and mud pies. But still I don't go to extremes. I don't want 'em to 
 get so dirty their skin hasn't got any pores at all and their little ears 
 would sprout turnip seed. Everything must be done in reason and in 
 season. There's some things I am mighty particular about — such as 
 clean dishes and butter and milk and sausage-meat. I saw a woman 
 milking the other day, and she pulled the calf away by the calf's tail 
 and then wiped ofi* the cow's tits with the cow's tail and went to milk- 
 ing. I thought there was too little water and too much tail in that. 
 
 But to return to the preparations for the reception. The girls took 
 matters in charge, and for several days the exciting episode went on. 
 It was like clearing the deck of a man of war for a fight. The house 
 has been scoured and scrubbed and sand-papered. Everything in it 
 has been taken down and put up again, and moved to a new place, 
 and I can't find anything now when I want it. The old faded car- 
 pets have been taken up and beaten, and patched all over, and cur- 
 tailed and put down again. They get smaller and smaller, which 
 they say is a good way to wear 'em out without taking cold. The fur- 
 niture has been freshly varnished with kerosene oil ; the window glass 
 washed on both sides, and the knives and forks, water buckets, wash 
 pans, and shovel and tongs brightened up. The hearths have been 
 painted a Spanish brown, the soiled plastering whitewashed, the fam- 
 ily portraits dusted, and the pewter teapot and plated castors and 
 spoons and napkin rings polished as fine as a jewelry store. 
 
 I surveyed the operations from day to day with affectionate interest, 
 for it does me good to see young people work diligently in a meritori- 
 ous cause; nevertheless my routine of daily life appears to be some- 
 what demoralized. On the first day our humble dinner was dispensed 
 with and me and the boys invited to lunch on bread and sorghum at a 
 side table. The next day we were allowed to lunch in the back 
 piazzer, for fear we would mess up the dining room, and the next we 
 were confined to the water-shed to keep us from messing up the piazzer 
 and after that I meekly prepared myself to be shoved out doors on a 
 plank, but we wasn't. Mrs. Arp lectures me every day on manners 
 and she don't confine her lectures to my private ear. The last time 
 
110 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 we had turkey we had company, and when I asked a lady if she 
 would have some of this fowl, my wife, Mrs. Arp, she looked at me 
 indignantly, and said: ''William, that is not fowl — it is turkey." 
 AVhen I asked the lady if she would have some of the stuffing, Mrs. 
 Arp, my wife, observed sarcastically, " Of course she wiU have some 
 of the 'dressing.'" You see, I thought that dressing was generally 
 worn outside, but it seems that a turkey is not dressed until it is 
 undressed. Well, she overlooked me when the pie was sent around ; 
 she overlooks me a great deal, and when I ventured to remind her 
 that I would take some of the dessert, she said she didn't have any 
 Sahara, but maybe a desert of mince pie would do just as well. We 
 took tea at a nabor's once and when the servant handed me a little 
 glass dish of peaches in a waiter, I thought the whole concern was for 
 me and set it down by my plate. But my wife, Mrs. Arp, she 
 watches me pretty close and whispered to me to take some of the pre- 
 serves if I wanted any, as the servant was waiting for the dish. So 
 after awhile I was handed a saucer of canned peaches, and when I 
 took one out and put it on my plate, my wife, Mrs. Arp, kindly 
 requested me to eat out of the saucer. She has never got reconciled 
 to the way I imbibe my coiFee, for you see I was raised to pour it out 
 in the saucer, and when I try to take it from the cup it burns me so I 
 have to give it up. Some folks will endure a heap for style, but I 
 am too old to begin it now. I think I do pretty well considering all 
 things and deserve credit. 
 
 Delicate hints have been given that it ain't polite to set down to 
 dinner with one's coat off, or eat hominy with a knife, or smoke in the 
 parlor. The wash bowl has been turned upside down to keep us from 
 using it. With this side up it holds about a pint and a half, and as I 
 was washing my face with the tips of my fingers they surveyed 
 me with a look of unutterable despair. When I raise my workin* 
 boots on the banister rail for an evening rest they wipe it off with a 
 wet rag as soon as I leave. I mustn't step on the purty red hearth to 
 make a fire or put a back log on that weighs fifty pounds. They've 
 put pillows on my bed about half as big as a bale of cotton and 
 fringed all round like a petticoat. They are to stay on in day time 
 and be taken off at night. When I'm tired and feel the need of a 
 midday nap that bed was a comfort, but the best I can do now is to 
 sit up in a chair and nod. The dogs don't understand the new system 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. Ill 
 
 at all. Old Bows has been coming in the house to the fire or lying in 
 the piazza for fourteen years, and it does seem impossible to break 
 him of it in a sudden though dogmatic manner. Broom-handles and 
 fishing-poles move 'em out at one door, but they slip in at another. 
 
 I think the best thing I can do is to vamoose the ranch and take 
 the dogs and cats and children with me. We can sleep on the hay in 
 the loft and eat peas and drink water and swell to keep from starvin'. 
 Maybe Mrs. Arp and the girls will take pity on us then and let us 
 come back to the old regulations. AVhen the cousins come all will be 
 well. I wish they were here now. 
 
112 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Bad Luck in the Family. 
 
 It's bad luck now at our house. One of those peculiar spells when 
 everything goes wrong and nobody to blame for it. Saw the new 
 moon through a brush, I reckon. On Monday two of my pigs, just 
 littered, got drowned in the branch; Tuesday my shoats got into 
 my potato patch; Wednesday a nigger was found struttin' around 
 town with my equestrian walking cane, which was a present, and 
 which I dident know was lost, and yesterday mornin', while Mrs. Arp 
 was away, I thought it was a good time to cut little Jessie's hair off, 
 for it was continually gittin' down over her eyes like any other country 
 gal's, and so I shingled it all over after a fashion of my own, and 
 when her mother came home I dident know at first but what she had 
 took the highsterics, but I soon found out better without much assist- 
 ance, if any, and all that day I had right smart business away from 
 the house. I gently suggested that it was all owin' to the way she 
 looked at the moon, but that dident screen anything, for you see she 
 was countin' on showin' off the child at the fair, and now she can't. 
 I am hopeful, however, that when the ambrosial locks grow out again 
 our conjugal life will once more be calm and screen. Husbands ! 
 fathers ! martyrs to wedded bliss, don't cut your little girl's hair oft 
 without permission — don't. 
 
 It looks like my bad luck all comes in a bunch. You see, I had 
 dug a flower pit and rigged it up with shelves and put glass windows 
 in the top of it, and Mrs. Arp and the girls had managed one way and 
 another to fill it with geraniums and all sorts of pretty things, and 
 some of them were in bloom and everything growing so nice and 
 smelt so sweet and the women folks were proud of 'em and nursed 
 them and watered them and showed them to everybody; but yester- 
 day they discovered some little varmints, about as big as a gnat, were 
 gathering on the leaves and doing damage, and when they told me 
 about it, I didn't say nothing, but I thought I knew what would kill 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 113 
 
 'em, for I had tried it iu the hen house, and it worked like a charm. 
 So I got some sulphur and put it in an old pan and set it afire and 
 shut down the sash. Well, I have killed all the bugs., that's a fact, 
 and the misery of it is I have killed most everything else. I'm not 
 going to enlarge upon the melancholly consequences, but will just say 
 I wish my folks would put on mourning and be done with it. I can't 
 stand this sort of resigned sadness that's hovering over us much 
 longer. If they would tear around and cut up awhile and quit, I 
 wouldent mind it, but this drooping way they've got of going to the 
 flower-pit like it was a graveyard is just a-killen me. They don't say 
 nothing and I don't say nothing, so I have been reading history for 
 consolation. 
 
 Old Bows is dead, my loving and trusty friend, the defender of my 
 children, the protector of my household in the dark and silent watches 
 of the night. For thirteen years he has been both fond and faithful, 
 and now we feel like one of the family is dead. Bows was the best 
 judge of human nature I ever saw. He knew an honest man and a 
 gentleman by instinct. He never frightened a woman or a child — he 
 never went tearing down the front walk after anybody but the very 
 looks of him. would mighty nigh skeer a nigger to death. When they 
 had to come to our house they begun to holler "hello" a quarter of a 
 mile off. Bows loved to skeer 'em, he did. He had character and 
 emotions. Having no tail to wag (for he was not cur-tailed) he did the 
 best that he could and wagged where it ought to be. Bows was a dark 
 brindle. He was a dog of ancestors. His father was named Shy- 
 lock, and his grand-father's name was Sheriff. They were all hon- 
 orable dogs. He was not quarrelsome or fussy. I never knew him 
 to run up and down a nabors pailings after the dog on the other side. 
 He was above it — but he never dodged a responsibility. He has come 
 in violent personal contact with other dogs a thousand times, more or 
 less, and was never the bottom dog in the fight. And then what an 
 honest voice he had. His bark was not on the C, but it was a deep, 
 short basso profundo. We have buried him on the brow of the hill 
 where he used to sit and watch for tramps and stragglers. Slowly and 
 sadly we laid him down. Talk about your sheep — I wouldn't have 
 given him for a whole flock. Sheep are to eat and wear, but Bows 
 was a friend. It's like comparing appetite with emotion — the animal 
 with the spiritual. But I am done now. Let Harris press on his dog 
 
114 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 law. I've got nothin' agin sheep — in fact, I like 'em. Ever 
 since Mary had a little lamb I've thought kindly of sheep, and I am 
 perfectly willin' to a law that will exterminate all houns and suck-egg 
 pups and yaller doggs and bench-leg fices. They are a reflection on 
 Bowses memory. 
 
 Yesterday morning about the broke of day a big clap of thunder 
 come along and shook a month's rain out of the clouds in half an 
 hour. My old friend Peckerwood says he's lived here 35 years and 
 never seed the like before. It dident rain nor pour, but jest come 
 down in horrizontal sheets, and the little branches turned into creeks, 
 and the creeks into rivers and they swelled out of their channels and 
 all over the bottom land, and tore down fences and bridges and 
 water-gates and carried off rails and planks and watermelons and 
 punkins, and the low ground corn ain't nigh as high as it was, and 
 there's a dozen places in the farm where my nabors' hogs can walk 
 into my fields and help themselves if they want to, and they 
 always want to, you know, for I never saw a gate open or the 
 bars down that there wasent an educated hog in sight some- 
 where. I reckon a hundred people have told me I had the 
 well-waterdest farm in the county, and now I believe it; but 
 if you know of a man who has got one that ain't quite so well- 
 watered, and is a mile or two high, and not subject to the avalanch, 
 and I keep in my present humor, please send him along and I'll 
 swap. 
 
 Everywhere that a fence crossed a slew or a branch it's washed away 
 for a dozen panels, and the big long logs that swung the water gates 
 are gone, and the plank fences on both sides of the big road are gone, 
 and now it takes all the hands and the dogs to keep the nabors' hogs 
 back while we are repairin' damages, and reminds me of the time we 
 used to guard the road to keep the small-pox from comin' to town. 
 
 The meandering swine whose fourfathers ran down into the sea, 
 have been perusin' the pasture and now its open to the tater patch, 
 and so we've had to pen up everything in the barn-yard together, and 
 the old sow has been samplin' the young chickens and the Governor 
 (that's our man cow) tried to horn General Gordon, the finest colt 
 perhaps you ever laid your eyes on, and this morning as I was a 
 movin' about with alacrity, Mrs. Arp told me the flour was out and I 
 told her to run us on shorts, and she said the shorts was out, and I 
 
The Farm and The Fhieside. 115 
 
 hollered back to run us on meal, and she said the meal was out, and 
 then I surrendered, and had some wheat and corn sent to the mill, 
 and in about an hour Ralph come back and said one mill dam had 
 washed away and the other mill had up the rocks a peckin' of 'em, and 
 the creek was still a risin' and he couldn't cross any more, and I sent 
 him to one nabor to borrow and they had locked up and gone a 
 visitin', and another nabor didn't have but a handful in the house, 
 and so here we are jest a perishin' to death in the name of the state, 
 and if you and your folks have got any bowels now is the time for you 
 to extend to me and my folks your far reachin' sympathies — ain't it? 
 
 (A.nd Mrs. Arp thought it a good day to clean up the kitchen and 
 scour up the pans and cook- vessels, and the girls said shorely nobody 
 would come foolin' around in such wether, and they went to moppin' 
 and sloppin' over the house, and shore enuf about four o'clock this 
 evenin' p. m., in the afternoon a couple of nice young gentlemen 
 swum their horses all the way from town to get to see 'em, and there 
 was no darkey to open the door and my black-eyed Pocahontas had it 
 to do, and she got behind it and hid and ax'd 'em in, and about sun- 
 down I come home and told 'em I was agoin' to put up their nags and 
 they must stay all night, which was the boldest venture on the least 
 capital I ever made in my life, but they respectfully declined, which 
 was fortunate for them, for although bright eyes and rosy cheeks and 
 bang'd up hair may have some effect on a young man's heart, they are 
 mighty little comfort to his stomach — aint they ? 
 
 And it aint done freshin' yet, for the frogs are croakin' and the air 
 is full of swet and the salt sticks together and the camphor bottle is 
 cloudy, and I don't think Mrs. Arp is as smilin' as usual, and all of 
 these signs hardly ever fail at once you know. 
 
 Such is life and I can't help it. The bad and the good, the wet and 
 the dry, is all mixed up together. I have spread forth my trouble 
 and feel better. There's lots of folks in my fix, and I want 'em to 
 know I sympathize. I'm sorry for 'em, and if they are sorry for me 
 it's all right. As Cobe says, it's all right. We have got a power of 
 good things to be thankful for. A little boy was drowned in my 
 nabor's mill-pond yesterday, but he wasn't mine. The doctor passes 
 my house most every day, but he don't stop. There was a barn full 
 of corn and mules burnt up in the settlement last week, but it wasent 
 mine. The poor house is just up the road a piece, but we don't board 
 
116 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 there. I'm not a candidate for any office. I've got plenty to eat 
 right now, and when we get tired of our homely fare we can just step 
 over to nabor Freeman's and fare better. There's nothing like having 
 a good nabor in eating distance — for we don't have to dress up nor put 
 on any particular style about it, but just send up word we are coming 
 up to supper and it's all right. Folks can't do that way in town. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 117 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Struggle for Money. 
 
 I don't hear of many folks getting rich. I don't know of but a few 
 ^ho are making more than a good fair living, and there's ten to one 
 who are powerfully scrouged to do that. The majority of man- 
 kind are always on a strain. Most of them work hard enough 
 but somehow or somehow other, they can't get ahead, and a 
 good many are in old Plunket's fix who said he was even with the 
 world for he owed about as much as he dident owe. Some folks are 
 just like hogs. They won't stay in one place or keep at one business 
 long enough to make anything, but are always a rooting and ranging 
 around for new places. I've noticed children picking blackberries — 
 some will stay at a bush until they have gathered 'em all and others 
 will spend nearly all the time in hunting for a better place. You can 
 teU 'em by their buckets when they get home. My good old father 
 used to say he never knew a man to stick closely to a business for ten 
 years but what he made money — tnat is, excepting preaching and pol- 
 itics. The one don't want to make it and the other can't keep it, as a 
 general rule, for money made easy goes easy. When a lawyer gets 
 five dollars for writing a deed he spends it before night, but if he had 
 to make ten bushels of corn to get it he would carry it in his pocket 
 just as long as he could. It's altogether another sort of a V. But 
 it's all right, provided we are happy, and I don't think there is very 
 much difference in this respect between the poor and the rich. I used 
 to be sorter curious of rich people, and wondered at Providence for 
 letting them have so much more than they needed, but I ain't now ; 
 I've got more sense, for I perceive they are no happier than I am, and 
 then, besides, when they begin to get old their grip weakens, and 
 they build up colleges and churches, and orphans' homes, and 
 establish libraries and other institutions. If they don't do that, their 
 children get it, and as a general rule they scatter it all before they die, 
 for it comes easy and it will go the same way. So it's all right in the 
 long run and if it aint I can't help it, and I'm not going to grieve over 
 
118 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 what I can't remedy. Honest industry and a contented disposition is 
 the best insurance company for happiness in this world and will make 
 a man independent of fine houses and fine clothes and the luxuries of 
 life on the one side and court houses and jails and pinching poverty on 
 the other. It seems to me that somebody has said something like this 
 before, but I'll say it again anyhow. There's one thing I consider 
 settled — my children will have no chance to waste and squander my 
 money, for there won't be any left to speak of and it will be such a 
 long division the fractions will be too small to fuss about. Time about 
 is fair play, and if we take care of them in infancy and youth and 
 spend the last dollar we get on 'em, they must look after us when we 
 get old and helpless — and they will, I know. We've tried to make 
 their young lives happy. I've mighty nigh wore myself out playing 
 horse and marbles and carrying 'em on my back, and rolling 'em in a 
 wheelbarrow, and doing a thousand things to please 'em, and thafe 
 more than a rich man will do, who is all absorbed in stocks and bonds 
 and speculation, and goes home at night with money on the brain. 
 He's no father — he ain't ; he's a machine. The average family man 
 is hard run. There's nobody perishing or freezing in this sunny land, 
 and very few folks boarding at the poor house, but still there is a gen- 
 eral struggle going on in the town and the country. Most everybody 
 is in debt more or less, and what one crop don't pay has to lap over on 
 the next. The merchants say that money is awful tight right now, and I 
 reckon it is. I'm sorry for the merchants, for as a general thing money is 
 their sole dependence. If he hasent got money he is a busted institu- 
 tion, and that is where the advantage of being a farmer comes in. 
 He can be out of money and still squeeze along, for he has corn and 
 wheat and sheep and hogs and chickens, and don't have to wear store 
 clothes to any great extent, and his children can wear their old ones a 
 long time and go bare headed and bare footed when there's no com- 
 pany around. Town folks have to dress better and dress oftener, 
 whether they can pay for 'em or not. But it is a hard time all round 
 to make a living, and I don't know exactly what is the matter. The 
 average family is not extravagant. They understand the situation at 
 home and try to conform, but it looks like they are just obleeged to fudge 
 a little and go in debt, and then the misery begins. When the good 
 man gets his mail from the post-office, he is most afraid to open it 
 for fear of a dun. These darned little just debts as Saul McCarney 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 119 
 
 used to call 'em, hang around him like a shadow. The four D's are 
 mighty close kin — debt, duns, death and the devil — and one is nearly 
 as welcome as the other. A man who was born rich and managed to 
 keep so or a man who was born poor and has gotten rich, don't know 
 much about the horror of debt and hasent got much sympathy for the 
 debtor class and is very apt to lay it all to their imprudence or bad 
 management, but the fact is most of our rich men got a start before 
 the war or built up on the ruins of it before society with its extrava- 
 gance got hold of 'em. They couldent do it now. I know lots of 
 rich men who, if they were to lose their fortunes, couldent start now 
 and make another. They think they could, but they couldent; man- 
 kind are too smart and too sharp now for an old-fashioned man to 
 stand any chance. He would get licked up in his first experiment. 
 Money makes money and money can keep money after it is made, but 
 there is a slim chance now for a young man to make money and save 
 it and keep in gun-shot of society. He can bottle himself up and 
 remain a bachelor and turn his back on society and accumulate a for- 
 tune, but the trouble is that most of 'em want to marry and ought to 
 marry, and if he bottles himself up and spends nothing and dresses 
 common he is not the sort of man the girls are waiting for. And so 
 if he spends freely and rides around, he is apt to get married, and 
 then comes house rent and servant's hire and clothes according, and 
 he squeezes along and is always on the strain. There are mighty few 
 getting rich now-a-days, but when a man does get a start, he can get 
 richer than they used to. A half a million now is about what fifty 
 thousand dollars used to be. But the average man is not going to get 
 rich, and I reckon it is the common lot, and therefore it is all right. 
 Nobody ought to distress himself about it, or hanker after money, but 
 somehow I can't help wishing that our common people were a little 
 better ofi. 
 
 Let us encourage the boys — the rising young men and middle aged 
 men. Let us pat 'em on the back and point to the flag and say, 
 "Excelsior." It will help 'em climb the mountain. Jesso — but I 
 said awhile back that this generation will not produce men as grand as 
 our fathers, and it won't. There are no young men who give promise 
 of equaling Clay or Webster or Calhoun or Crawford or Forsyth or 
 Tioup or Howell Cobb or Toombs, in the days of his splendor, or 
 Stephens or Joseph Henry Lumpkin or Warner or Walter T. Colquitt, 
 
120 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 and a score of others I could name. I am talking about grand men — 
 men who stood away above their fellows and adorned society like 
 mountains adorn and dignify a landscape. Nobody is to blame about 
 it that I know of, for it comes according to nature's laws and the 
 decrees of Providence, and I reckon its all right. Those grand men 
 of the olden time have served their day and accomplished their work. 
 They moulded manners and statesmanship and great principles and 
 patriotism and the masses looked up to them and learned wisdom. All 
 this was in the days of Southern aristocracy, and these grand men had 
 abundant leisure and dident have to be on the wild hunt for money. 
 It was the aristocracy of dominion, for dominion dignified a man then, 
 and it does now just as it did in the days of the centurion, who said: 
 "I say unto this man, go, and he goeth, and to another come, and he 
 Cometh." Dominion over men makes a man feel a responsibility that 
 nothing else does, and this responsibility enlarges his moral nature and 
 ennobles him as a gentleman and a philosopher. It is this feeling 
 that dignifies judges and railroad presidents, and captains of ships, 
 and generals in armies. They can all command men and be obeyed. 
 
 But the time came in the Providence of God for a change. The 
 masses of the people were under a cloud. They were over- 
 shadowed, and the wreck of the slave aristocracy, together with the 
 results of the war, made an opening for them and their children. 
 Humbler men have come to the front and now run the machine. The 
 masses are looming up. Overseers have got rich. Poor boys, who 
 had a hard time, are now our merchant princes. The old lines of 
 social standing are broken down, and one man is good as another, if 
 he succeeds. Success is everything now, especially success in making 
 money. Statesmanship has gone down. Great learning is at a dis- 
 count, money rules the roost, and everybody knows it, and everybody 
 is pushing for it. Money makes presidents, and governors and mem- 
 bers of congress. We talk about a candidate's ''bar'l" now just as 
 we used to talk about his eloquence or his service to his country. 
 Everywhere there is a wild rush for money, and it don't matter how 
 a man gets it so he gets it. 
 
 Now, how can this sort of an age produce great men ? How can 
 the young men escape the infection ? Where is any purity or honor in' 
 politics or in the court house? When a man has to resort to deceit or 
 hypocrisy or questionable means to support his family he loses his self- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 121 
 
 respect, and when his self-respect is gone, his ability to be a great man 
 is gone. He can't do it. No man is truly great who is not honest and 
 and sincere and a lover of his fellow-men. A lawyer who lies or resorts 
 to tricks — a merchant who conceals the truth may get rich, but they 
 will never be great. I tell you the grand old men are gone, or going, 
 and their places will not be filled by this generation nor the next. 
 The next generation will be worse than this, for these people who have 
 sprung up and got rich are going to get richer, and they will spoil their 
 children with money and a fashionable education. They are doing it 
 now, and by and by these children will get to be proud and vain and 
 no account, and won't work, and finally go down the hill their father 
 climbed. Stuck up vagabonds will marry the girls, and the boys will 
 loaf around town and play billiards and drive a fast horse. A man 
 who was raised poor and by a hard struggle gets rich, is the biggest fool 
 in the world about his children. He came from one extreme and puts 
 his children on the other. 
 
 Nevertheless I am hopeful, and if I do sometimes take the shady 
 side, I mean no harm by it. I am always reconciled to what I can- 
 not help. The wild rush for a big pile of surplus money alarms me, 
 for the older I grow the surer I am that the surplus will not bring 
 happiness or be a blessing to the children. There is no security except 
 in honest industry, and boys won't work whose fathers are rich. Old 
 Agur was right. ''Lord give me neither poverty nor riches, lest if I 
 be sick I take thy name in vain or lest I be poor and steal." But 
 there is some comfort in this great change from the old to the new. 
 The common people have a better chance than they used to have. All 
 classes are assimulating and becoming more alike — more on an equality. 
 One man is about as good as another now, if not better. The Joe 
 Brown type is in the ascendant, and the humblest man has an equal 
 chance for the highest honors. So let it rip along, for a wise Provi- 
 dence is above us. * * * * * 
 
 Cobe says he "aint makin' a blessed thing — no corn, no 'taters, no 
 cotton, no nuthin' — and Willy is down with the new-mony, and the 
 chickens all died with the cholera;" and then he gave a three-cornered 
 grin and squeezed his tobacco between his teeth as he remarked, "but, 
 major, it ain't nigh as bad as it mout be; it ain't nigh as bad as war." 
 Then he stuck his heels in the little mule's flanks and away he went 
 galloping up the road. There used to be a bureau called the bureau 
 
122 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 of refugees and abandoned lands, and Cobe says if them yankees will 
 revive it now he is about ready to jine the concern. Says he will do most 
 anything except beg or steal, or go to the poor house. So when I 
 feel melancholly I think about Cobe and cheer up. The truth is, we 
 all borrow too much trouble. It is better to look back once in awhile 
 and recall the vast amount of fears and forebodings that were wasted 
 and maybe that will give us brighter hopes of the future. 
 
 :^ ^ ^ >t^ ;i< >i< >i< 
 
 There's a new lot of boys a circulatin' around us now. Grand- 
 children have come to visit us and see the spring show open in our 
 country home. Penned up for months in a little city, they have lived in 
 a sort of prison home and feel now like school boys when recess comes 
 — want to go out and rock somebody. They hardly took time to kiss 
 and say howdy and shuck off their store clothes before they were off 
 — dabblin' in the branch, rockin' the ducks in the little pond, fighten 
 the ganders as they stand guard over their sitting mates, digging bait, 
 fishing for minners, rollin' an old hogshead down the hill, breakin' the 
 bull calf and every half hour sendin' to grandma for some more gin- 
 gerbread. Here they go and there they go, while their poor mother 
 jumps up every five minutes to see if they haveut got killed or 
 drowned or turned over the hen-house. She had like to took a fit this 
 mornin' as she looked out of the window and seen 'em coming down 
 the big road with a calf a pullin' a little wagon with gum-log wheels. 
 One a pullin' haw, another pullin' gee, and four of 'em a ridin' and 
 all a hollerin' tell they made such a racket the calf took a panic and 
 run away with the whole concern and never stopped tell he got in the 
 branch and landed their gable ends in the water. 
 
 Blessings on the children and the children's children. How I do 
 love to have 'em around and see 'em frolic and ever and anon hear 
 one squall with a cut finger or a stumped toe, or the bark knocked off 
 his hide somewhere. What a pity they have got to grow up and see 
 trouble and be sent to the legislature or congress, and there get a lit- 
 tle behind in morals and money. But sufficient unto the day is the 
 evil thereof. 
 
 P. S. — Now is the time to plant potatoes. Be shore to plant 'em 
 in the dark of the moon and then plant some more just two weeks 
 later, and they'll be *'allee samee." I tried it last year. 
 
 * * ^ * ;;< ;Ii 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 125 
 
 My little boy geared up an imitation bug last night, made of black 
 cloth with horse-hair legs — an awful looking varmint — and slyly 
 swung it before me on a stick, and I had like to have a fit, trying to 
 knock the ugly thing out of my face. The little rascal just laid 
 down and hollered, and the family ain't done laughing about it till 
 yet. Mrs. Arp sometimes tells me I let them take too many liberties 
 with the dignity of their paternal ancestor, but it's all right, I reckon. 
 And I noticed the other night when the girls jerked her up from the 
 sofa and whirled her round the room to the music of the dance, she 
 submitted to it with a humility and a grace that was impressive. I 
 like that. I like an affectionate familiarity between parents and 
 children, though I want it understood that I'm the boss of the family, 
 that is, when Mrs. Arp is away from home. I give 'em butter on 
 their biscuit as a regular thing, but when I put sugar on the butter 
 I expect 'em to be more than ordinarily grateful. 
 
126 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 On A Strain. 
 
 In a numerous family of eight or ten children and some poor kin, 
 it is right hard to maintain them, and keep up with the nabors in 
 style and appearances. That is, it is right hard to do it from the 
 profit of a little farm, and so if a man can't make a little money out- 
 side, he has to live on a strain. Folks are just obliged to keep up 
 with the nabors, strain or no strain. The children must have as good 
 clothes and the parlor as good furniture, and there must be as much 
 good eating when company comes, and as good china ware to eat out 
 of, and so on and so forth. But it is all a pardonable pride, for 
 mothers are proud of their children, and their greatest pleasure is to 
 see them look as well as other people's. Mothers have to stay at home 
 all the time, and home ought to be made as attractive as possible. 
 The men and the boys can go about and see folks and talk and joke 
 and have a good time, and they don't care so much for show or orna- 
 ment, but woman is penned up at home and has to look at the same 
 old thing from morning till night and night till morning. I don't mean 
 to say that she is a prisoner or unhappy by her fireside, for she is not, but 
 her mind is active and her emotions are wide-awake, and it is her 
 nature to love the beautiful, both in art and nature. Men too fre- 
 quently forget this, and neglect many little things that would give the 
 good wife and daughters pleasure. A man would let a worn-out curtain 
 hang and hang until it was all faded out by the sun or speckled by 
 the flies, and he had just as leave see it tacked up as hung from a 
 cornice. If a window glass gets broken he is content to paste a piece 
 of paper over the hole, and sometimes he won't do that, and the poor 
 wife has to stick a pillow or some old rags in it to keep out the wind. 
 I've seen the like of tKat at poor folks' houses, and I always blamed 
 the man for it, for it is his business, and he could fix it up if he 
 would. AVoman gets discouraged after awhile about fixing up, and 
 then she becomes careless and sloven, and maybe goes to eating snufi* 
 on the sly — on the sly at first, but after awhile as a regular thing. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 127 
 
 She makes that compromise with her indifferent husband, and after 
 that they just live along after a fashion, and call it life. 
 
 In such cases there is a sad difference between the pretty, nice, 
 sweet girl he married a few year ago and the wife he has got now, 
 and he is more to blame for it than she is. Why dident he fix up 
 some home-made pleasures for her ? He could make some cornice for 
 the curtains, and a hanging shelf for the books, and he could buy a 
 cheap chromo or two for the walls, and put a scraper on the door-step, 
 and whitewash the fence, and plant out some rosebushes, and get a 
 woodbine and a jessamine from the swamp and grow them by the front 
 piazza, and then border the garden walks, and do a lot of little things, 
 and keep doing them for her sake; and it would pay him well, for 
 it would bring smiles and loving words, and above all, it would bring 
 content and happiness. Woman loves ornament, for it is her nature, 
 and why shouldent she? Our Heavenly Father painted nature in 
 beautiful colors. He adorned the birds with plumage, and the fields 
 with flowers, and the heavens with stars. All these costs us nothing 
 to look at and admire. The best thing and the most beautiful things 
 in nature are the cheapest. Riches can't buy them, nor hoard them, 
 nor hide them from the poor. Air and sunlight, and water, and shade 
 trees, and fruit, and flowers, and the sweet songs of happy birds, and 
 the love of children, and good health, and refreshing sleep and the 
 happy union of loving hearts — all these cost nothing, and are worth 
 more to make us happy than anything else. Well, of course we 
 must have something to eat and something to wear, but it is only 
 the rich who don't have a good appetite and who have nothing to 
 wear. All the poor folks in this region have enough to eat and 
 enough clothes to make them comfortable, but I do know of some 
 rich ones who are always troubled because they have nothing to wear. 
 Some of them can't go to church for want of a new dress or a new 
 bonnet or a shawl, or a set of jewelry as fine as their nabors. 
 
 The most important food in the world is ■ bread, and it is the 
 cheapest, and then comes milk and molasses, and meat, which are all 
 within the reach of a workingman's purse. It is a wise provision of a 
 kind Providence that the labor of one man, whether upon the farm 
 or in the workshop, will feed and clothe eight persons and keep them 
 comfortable — that is, eight dependent persons, as a wife and six chil- 
 dren, and himself. When there are more than six children in a 
 
128 The Farm and The FrREsroE. 
 
 family, the older ones are big enough to help — that is, unless the good 
 wife has doubled on him and has a whole passel of twins, which she 
 ought not to do if she can help it. But poor folks for children and 
 poor folks for twins, and when I remonstrated with Cobe about it, he 
 smiled and said: "It's all right, it's all right, and me and the old 
 'oman ain't sorry nary bit, for the Lord never sent a 'possum in the 
 world but what He planted a 'simmon tree close by." 
 
 In this country most any laboring man can earn his dollar a day, 
 and that will buy bread and molasses for a family of eight, and have 
 fifty cents left for clothing and other things. It is mighty little, I know, 
 and I wish it was more, but nobody need to starve or steal. The 
 trouble is, that it don't leave anything for schooling, or for sickness, 
 or doctor's bills, or any of the little luxuries of life. That misfortune 
 is the man's own fault, when you cift it down, for he ought to have 
 laid up something before he got married, and something more before 
 the children come along so numerous; but we are all thoughtless 
 creatures in our youth, and like Cobe, are relying upon luck and the 
 'simmon tree. I can look back now and see my own mistakes, and 
 sometimes feel like singing that old song: 
 
 I wish I was young again, 
 
 I'd lend a different life, 
 I'd save my money and put it away 
 
 To comfort my loving wife. 
 
 Money is a right good thing for old age, and every patriarch ought 
 to have some. It dignifies him and his wife to have a surplus that 
 they can draw upon when the children and grandchildren come to see 
 them. It is so nice to be able to help those along that need help and 
 to give little presents around, and then when Christmas comes, and 
 there is a family gathering, it takes money to give all things a pleas- 
 ant direction. I've heard it said that an old man without money 
 is without friends, and had as well be dead, but that is a slander upon 
 our humanity. I know a number of aged people who are loved and 
 honored, not only by their children and children's children, but by 
 the community; and, although they are poor, their every want i& 
 provided for. If a man raises his children right, they are not going 
 to turn their aged parents off or neglect them. We have no fear of 
 want at our house. There is no poor house waiting for us. We have 
 done all we could for our children and they love us, and they are not 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 129 
 
 waiting for us to die either, so as to divide out the remnant of their 
 patrimony. Our fondest ambition now is to always have a home, a 
 gathering place, a sacred ancestral spot where, as long as we live, they 
 will love to come, like pilgrims to Jerusalem, and for awhile be happy 
 and make us happy. That is the highest and best earthly joy for old 
 folks, and if they are too poor to entertain their posterity as they 
 would like to, why, then the posterity must bring their rations with 
 them and help the old folks out. That is the way to do it. I know 
 a venerable man now in his ninetieth year, who lives not tar from me, 
 at his old homestead, where he has lived for half a century, and his 
 children are all married and gone but one, and she wouldn't leave 
 him. I remember when he was a distinguished member of congress 
 and when he w^as a statesman of reputation, and when he was a mon- 
 arch in his rule over hundreds of slaves and dependents, and was 
 loved and honored by them, and when his draft was good for thou- 
 sands of dollars. But the war left him penniless, and all he saved was 
 his homestead and a few acres of land on the banks of the river. He 
 is very poor and goes about with tottering gait and trembling fingers, 
 but he is grand and noble still, and never complains. Rich in mem- 
 ory and in love for his race, it is still a feast to visit him and listen to 
 his counsels. His children and grandchildren gather there once or 
 twice a year and make him happy, and they always go laden with the 
 comforts and luxuries of life — enough and more than enough for him. 
 This is the bright side of our love and our humanity, and it is pleas- 
 ant to think of it. 
 
 Children, ''Honor thy parents, that thy days may be long in the 
 land." 
 
130 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 New Year's Tkvie. 
 
 I was discoursing Mrs. Arp, my wife, about that last night. You see, 
 it was New Year, and I called on her. I dident have any swallow-tail 
 coat and white kids, but I called. I had procured a bunch of misseltoe 
 full of pearly berries, and I got the girls to make it into a wreath with 
 some heliotrope blossoms, and sweet violets, and geraniums, and straw, 
 berry blooms which they had in the pit, and as she sat by the parlor fire 
 I came in and addressed her : "Fair lady, I come with the New Year's 
 greeting. May it bring you joy and peace, and love and rest, and 
 happy days. Thirty long years of devotion and arduous duty in the 
 infantry service of your country entitles you to be crowned the queen 
 of love and beauty. Allow me to encircle your brow with this 
 wreath." She enjoyed that first-rate, and when the girls took off* the 
 chaplet to show it to her, she remarked with a touch of sadness, ' ' It 
 is very beautiful, but your promising parent has been promising me a 
 tiara of diamonds for thirty years, and now he pays me off" in mistle- 
 toe and flowers." "Solomon," said I, "in all his glory, had no such 
 gems as these. You know, my dear, I have always desired to be able 
 to purchase a diamond ring and breast-pin and a diamond tiara for 
 you, not that you need any ornaments to make you beautiful and 
 attractive, for all the gems of Golconda could add nothing to your 
 natural loveliness." "Ralph," said she, "your father has got a fit; 
 you had better throw some water on him." 
 
 "But then," continued I, "the love of ornament is natural to 
 women ; Isaac knew her weakness when he sent Rebecca the ear-rings 
 and bracelets. The ear-rings weighing half a shekel apiece, which, 
 according to the tables, made the pair worth exactly sixty-two and a 
 half cents. It rejoices me, my dear, that I shall soon be able to 
 present you with a full set of genuine diamonds of the first water." 
 
 "When did you get so suddenly rich?" says she. "Have you 
 drawn a prize in a lottery?" "Not at all, by no means," said I. 
 
Thb Farm and The Fireside. 131 
 
 *'But a London chemist has just discovered how to make diamonds of 
 charcoal. They have known for 20 years how to make charcoal out 
 of diamonds, but now they reverse the process and pure diamonds will 
 soon be manufactured on a large scale, and it is predicted, will be sold 
 at about 8 dollars a bushel. When they get down to that price, my 
 dear, I am going to buy you a whole quart and you can string 'em all 
 over you and cook in 'em and wash in 'em and make up the beds in 
 'em. I'm going to stick a kohinor in the end of the broom handle. 
 What do you think of that, my dear, won't it be elegant ? " 
 
 ''No it won't," said she. "I don't want any of your charcoal dia- 
 monds. Eight dollars a bushel is 25 cents for the quart you propose 
 to spend on me. I wouldn't be so extravagant if I were you. No I 
 thank you. Isaac spent more than that on Kebecca, and didn't hurt 
 himself. Buy me a carriage and horses and I'll do without the dia- 
 monds. They were intended for homely folks, and I am so beautiful 
 and lovely I don't need them. Suppose you try me with a pearl neck- 
 lace. I reckon your London man is not making pearls out of char- 
 coal, is he ? " 
 
 "Why, that's an old trick," said I. "Parisian jewelers have them 
 at fifty cents a string and you can't tell them from the genuine. 
 What does it matter if they are cheap so they are beautiful ? What 
 are all the gems of the ocean to be compared to these fragrant and 
 lovely flowers that cost us nothing? Beautiful flowers that "weep 
 without woe and blush without a crime." I never liked golden 
 ornaments, nohow, as Tom Hood says, it's ' ' bright and yellow, hard 
 and cold," you can't tell it from brass without close inspection, and it 
 "wouldent be worn as jewelry if it was cheap. I wish everything was 
 cheap — cheap as the air and the water. Then we wouldent be tied 
 down to one little spot all the time, but we would travel — we would 
 go to Florida and California and London and Paris and all over the 
 Alps, and see the pyramids and the city of Jerusalem, and when we 
 got tired we would come back home again and rest. Wouldent that 
 be splendid?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Arp. "All that is very romantic, but it 
 sounds very much like 'college talk,' as old Mr. Dobbins would say. 
 Whenever he hears anybody gassing around or talking extraordinary 
 he says, "Oh, that don't amount to anything. Its college talk." He 
 says he never knew a college-bred man that didn't build air-castles, 
 
132 The Fakvi and The Fireside. 
 
 ■> 
 
 and imagine a heap more than ever come in sight. We are right here 
 on this farm and we will never see California nor the pyramids, and 
 I'll never see the diamonds nor the pearls, and I don't care to, but I 
 never like cheap things for they are not much account — so will fall 
 back on the flowers, and when you have a little money to spare I want 
 to send on for a few choice ones and a collection of seed. Do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 "I do, madam," said I, ''you are a sensible woman. You shall 
 have the money if I have to sell my Sunday boots. ' Bring flowers, 
 bring flowers to the fair young bride.'" 
 
 I believe it's a good rule for everybody to attend to their own busi- 
 ness. The other night I was reading aloud to the family about a 
 feller who was standing at the forks of the road with an umbrella 
 over him, when a flock of sheep came along and got tangled up, and 
 so he thought he would help the driver by shooing 'em a little 
 and waving his umbrel. An old ram dident like that and suddenly 
 made for him and went through his umbrel like it was a paper hoop, 
 and having knocked him down in the mud, he had to lay there until 
 about a hundred sheep jumped over him one at a time. When he 
 arose and took in his dilapidated condition, he remarked: "The next 
 time I see a drove of sheep a-coming I reckon I'll attend to my own 
 business." 
 
 Next day Mrs. Arp, my wife, was fixing to grind up sausage meat 
 and I ventured to remark that if she would salt the pieces before she 
 put them through the machine, it would save her a heap of trouble. 
 Her sleeves were rolled up and as she looked at me she assumed a 
 chivalric attitude and remarked: "There will be an old ram after 
 you the first thing you know." Of course I retired in good order, 
 and now I can't make a remark about domestic affau-s without having 
 that old ram thrown up to me. You see a woman has more liberty of 
 speech than a man, for its mighty nigh the only liberty she has and I 
 don't begrudge her the use of it. But then their five senses are more 
 sensitive and acute than ours. In fact I think my wife, Mrs. Arp, 
 has seven or eight, for she can come to a conclusion about things so 
 quick it makes my head £wim, and I know she must have some per- 
 ceptions unknown to the books. She can hear more unaccountable 
 noises in the night, and see more dirt on the floor, and smell more 
 disagreeable odors than anybody in the world. I won't say she can 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 133 
 
 point partridges, but a few years ago our nabor come over one dav 
 aud said he had lost his dog, and my wife, Mrs. Arp, laid down her 
 knitting, and says she: ''That dog is in our well. The water has 
 tasted and smelt like a dog all day." We all laughed at her and con- 
 tinued to use the water for two or three days, but she dident. Finally 
 we give it up that something was wrong, and I sent a darky down a 
 hundred feet to the bottom, and shore enough there was the dog. 
 
 Well, the rats took possession of our house not long ago and we 
 could hear 'em at all times of night ripping around overhead and 
 playing tag and leap-frog, till it was past endurance. So I got some 
 rat poison that was warranted to drive 'em away to water, and shore 
 enough they disappeared and we were happy. The next morning my 
 wife, Mrs. Arp, was snuffling around about the mantel-piece, and says 
 she, * 'William, these rats are dead, but they never went after water 
 — they are all in these walls." Well, we dident pay much attention 
 until next day, when some of the family thought there was a very 
 slight taint in the atmosphere. We waited another day, and then had 
 to take down the mantel-piece and found six dead ones behind it as 
 big as young squirrels, and we have mighty nigh tore the house all to 
 pieces hunting for the rest of 'em. Fact is, we had to quit the room, 
 and it's just gittin' so now we can live in it. There's no fooling such 
 a nose with fraudulent combinations. If a man ventures to take a 
 little something for his stomach's sake and his often infirmities, she can 
 tell what kind of medicine it was by the time he gets to the front 
 gate, which to say the least of it is very inconvenient. 
 
134 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Old Things Are Passing Away and All Things Have Become 
 
 New. 
 
 That is the way it used to be in Scripture times, and it is the same 
 way now. I wonder what were their old things? In those primitive days 
 there were not very many things of any kind — not much invention or 
 contrivance — no steamboats, or steam cars, or telegraphs, or telephones, 
 or sewing machines, or telescopes, or spectacles, or cookiug stoves, or 
 reaping machines, or threshing machines, or patent plows, or cotton 
 factories, or wool carders, or printed books, or the like. But still I 
 suppose they did improve some, and shook off the old ways of living, 
 and cooking, and dressing. I was looking at a venerable patch-work 
 quilt the other day that a good old lady made some forty years ago, 
 and it was very nice and pretty; and right beside it, on another bed, 
 was a printed one that was pretty, too. One costs days and weeks of 
 labor, and the fingers got tired, and so did the eyes, and I reckon the 
 back; and if the labor and time could be fairly computed, it was worth 
 twenty-five dollars, and now one can be made for a dollar that is just 
 as good and just as pretty. What a world of trouble our forefathers 
 and foremothers had ! And yet they were just as happy and got 
 along about as easy as we do. They dident want much and they 
 dident have much. They had simple ways and simple habits. They 
 prized what they made a good deal more than we do what we buy. 
 When the good housewife put the last stitch in a woolen coverlet, or 
 even a pair of woolen socks, she felt happy. Her work was a success 
 and it was a pride. 
 
 The otner day I received a present of a pair of socks, knit with 
 golden silk, and the good old lady wrote me a note with her trembling 
 fingers that this was the 865th pair that she had knit upon the same 
 needles; that she began more than half a century ago and had knit 
 for young and old, for silver weddiugs and golden weddings, and for 
 weddings that were new-born — when the lily and the rose put their 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 135 
 
 first blush upon the maiden's cheek; that she had knit scores of pairs 
 for the soldiers in the last terrible war, both in the field and in the 
 hospital, and that she had never lost any time from her other house- 
 hold duties, but knit only after her other labors were done. 
 
 Well, it is a wonderful amount of work to think about. I know 
 some venerable women, who are close akin and very dear to me, who 
 have been working in the same way, too. They havent knit as much, 
 but they have sewed and patched and darned for large households and 
 never complained. It is a world of work for a mother to keep her 
 children clothed, especially in these days when it takes more clothes than 
 it used to. How many little jackets, and waists, and breeches, and 
 shirts, and drawers, and petticoats, and dresses, and aprons, and socks, 
 and stockings! When the great pile of clothes comes in from the 
 washerwoman, and Mrs. Arp sits down beside it to assort out and put 
 away in the different drawers, I look on with amazement, and wonder 
 when she made them all. Why, it takes about sixty different gar- 
 ments for our youngest child, who is only ten years old, and she hasent 
 got anything fine — not very fine. There are about ten little dresses, 
 mostly calico, and a like number of undergarments and stockings and 
 aprons, but it takes work, work — lots of work — and the sewing machine 
 rattles away most all the time. What a blessing that wonderful inven- 
 tion is to woman, for society is exacting and progressive, and the 
 families of moderate means could hatdly keep in sight of the rich if 
 all the stitches had to be made by hand. As it is, we keep up pretty 
 well — that is, we keep in a respectable distance — and our folks can fix 
 up well enough to go to church and send the children to school. 
 
 The old ways were pretty hard ways, and the next generation is not 
 going to work like the last. I am glad that it won't have to, for it is 
 a waste of time and toil to make a patch-work quilt now, or to knit 
 the stockings, or to beat the biscuit dough, or to bake them in a spider 
 with coals underneath and coals on top of the heavy old-fashioned lid. 
 Our mothers used to do all that "when niggers was," but the cooking 
 stove came along just in the right time, and now it is much easier 
 to cook "when niggers wasent." 
 
 Everything was hard to do in the old times. It was hard to thresh 
 out the wheat with a couple of hickory flails. I have swung them 
 many a day until my arms were tired, and I could find only a few 
 bushels under the straw after a half day's work. But it made me 
 
136 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 strong and made the wheat bread taste mighty good. I remember the 
 first cotton gin that ' was put up in our county, and the long round 
 bags we used to pack with a crow-bar, and how we used to wagon it 
 to Augusta and camp out at night and hear the old trusty wagoners 
 recite their wonderful adventures. It was a glorious time to us boys, 
 and when we got back home again and brought sugar, and salt, and 
 coffee, and molasses and shoes all round for white and for black with 
 the wooden measures in them, and the names written upon them all, 
 the family was as happy and merry as if Christmas had come before 
 its time. I remember when a pocket-knife was a wonderful treasure, 
 and a pair of boots the height of all ambition. But now a pocket- 
 knife is nothing to a boy. He can lose it in a month and get another, 
 and if he isent born in boots, he gets them soon after. 
 
 " I remember, I remember 
 
 The house where I was born, 
 The little windows where the sun 
 
 Came peeping in at morn." 
 
 Well, there was no glass in that window — only a shutter — and 
 there was no ceiling overhead. But we boys kept warm under the 
 cover of a winter night, and when the rain pattered on the shingle 
 roof above us it was the sweetest and most soothing lullaby in the 
 world. Folks would complain now if their children had to put up 
 with such a shelter, and I reckon they ought to, for this generation 
 haven't been raised that way and they couldent stand it. But we 
 found out during the war what we could stand, and it dident take us 
 very long to get used to it. A shingle roof and a plank window 
 would have been a luxury then. But even war is not as hard as it 
 used to be. Here is a road in front of my house that Gen. Jackson's 
 soldiers cut out, and is called Jackson's road yet. He cut it out for a 
 hundred miles during the war of 1812. In those days, when the sol- 
 diers wanted to march across a country, they had to carry the roads 
 with them. They had to make them as they went along ; but now 
 the railroads pick up an army and hurry it along — everything is 
 lightning now. 
 
 Truly, the old things are done away. Farewell to home-made 
 chairs, and home-made jeans, and the old back log, and the crane that 
 swung in the kitchen fire-place, and to home-made baskets, and shuck 
 collars, and shuck foot-mats, and dominicker chickens and old-fash- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 137 
 
 ioued cows, and castor oil, and paregoric, and opodeldoc, and salts, 
 and sassafras tea. Farewell to marigolds and pinks and holly-liocks, 
 for there are finer flowers now. Farewell to simplicity of manners, 
 and water without ice, and temperate habits, and contented disposi- 
 tions. Farewell to abundance of time to come and to go and to stay, 
 for everybody is in a hurry now — a dreadful hurry — for there is a 
 pressure upon us all, a pressure to keep up with the crowd, and the 
 times, and with society. Push ahead, keep moving, is the watchword 
 now, and we must push or we will get run over, and be crushed and 
 forgotten. 
 
 So let us all work and keep up if we can. We must fall into line 
 and keep step to the new music that is in the air. ''Old Hundred" 
 is gone, and "Sweet Home," and "Kathleen Mavourneen," and 
 " Billy in the Low-grounds," and now it is something else that passeth 
 comprehension. But there is no use in complaining about what we 
 cannot help, for some things are better, even if others are worse. We 
 can still do our duty and put on the brakes for our children. We 
 can tell them to go slow and go sure. Be honest. Money is a good 
 thing, but money gained by fraud or by luck will do no good. Money 
 earned by honest, diligent labor is the only kind that will stick to a 
 man and do good. Money is a social apology for lack of brains or 
 lack of education or graceful manners, but it is no apology for lack of 
 honesty or good principles. Make money, save money, but not at the 
 sacrifice of self respect or the respect of others. Some things pay in 
 the short run and for a little while, but honesty and truth and dili- 
 gence pay in the long run, and that is the run we have to die by. 
 Folks differ about religion and politics, but all mankind agree on this. 
 It is old-fashioned talk, I know, but some old-fashioned things are 
 good yet. I have even got respect for my rheumatism, for it has 
 stuck by me like a friend for a long time, and is nearly the only dis- 
 ease that has not changed its name and its pain since I was a boy. 
 
138 The Farm and The Fieeslde. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The Country. 
 
 I have now been farming six years, and, take it all in all, I like it 
 better than anything else that I have tried. They say that a rolling 
 stone gathers no moss, and a man who is Jack-at-all-trades is good at 
 none ; but I don't regret what I have learned about merchandise and 
 carpentering and law, for my experience in these different pursuits has 
 broadened my views and enlarged my charity and give me a better 
 knowledge of human nature than I would have learned by running a 
 bee-line all my life. A man is happier if he acquires a variety of 
 knowledge, but it is fortunate for mankind that some folks get 
 absorbed in one thing and pursue it diligently, and develop and inx, 
 prove and invent, until they bring it to protection. A wise Provi- 
 dence has created just such men in all ages, and the world is indebted 
 to them more than to any other class for its progress in art and science. 
 Still, I am satisfied that the Germans have overdone this thing. A 
 German father will pick out a trade or a profession for his boy before 
 he is in his teens, and will drive him into it whether he likes it or not, 
 and keep him at it about fourteen hours in a day until he is twenty- 
 one. The best music teacher and one of the finest musicians I ever 
 saw, told me he never liked it, and the unwilling pursuit of it 
 withered all his youth. He had a taste for mathematics, and wanted 
 to be an engineer and build railroads and bridges; but the door was 
 shut in his face. We had a Belgian civil engineer at Rome who stood 
 at the top of his profession, but he didn't know anything outside of it. 
 He didn't know a mule's parentage until I told him. When he saw 
 cotton in the field for the first time, he said he thought it grew on the 
 cotton-wood tree, and he asked me what kind of a plant silk grew on. 
 Outside of his calling he had but little more sense than an idiot. He 
 reminds me of a feller that Jules Verne wrote about. A compiler of 
 Logarithms had offered ten thousand dollars reward to anybody who 
 could find a mistake in any of his figures, and so this feller, ''Polan- 
 
The Farm and The FniEsroE. 139 
 
 der," set about on logs and stumps from day to day doing all the sums 
 over in his head, and one day the tide rose on him and the alligators 
 came arcmnd him and were just about to grab him, when he suddenly 
 flourished his umbrella and exclaimed, "I've found it! I've found it! 
 and the ten thousand dollars are mine !" I like to see a man earnest 
 in his profession or business, but a man oughtn't to become so absorbed 
 as to let the alligators eat him up. These over-earnest men sometimes 
 accomplish great things, but they are not much account to their 
 families. A woman had just as well marry a machine, for she has no 
 husband, and 'her children have no father, and he is a nabor to nobody. 
 There is no good sense in burning midnight oil. It is contrary to 
 nature. A young man can sit and study and rack his brain until he 
 loses his appetite, and then he loses his health and prematurely dies. 
 The stomach has got to be nursed, and exercise is the best doctor. If 
 the stomach is out of order, the whole man gets sick. The stomach is 
 the most important part of the human machine. Some folks talk 
 about the heart being the seat of the affections and the emotion, bnt 
 the heart can be diseased and the man not know it. It has no effect 
 upon the brain or upon man's cheerfulness or hilarity; but if the 
 stomach is out of order the whole machine is demoralized until it is 
 fixed up again. Old Solomon understood it when he wroLe about 
 bowels of mercies and bowels of compassion. From their good, healthy 
 condition comes the best reward of labor — oat-door labor, on the farm 
 or in the workshop. Good health, good appetite, good sleep — why a 
 city nmn can't enjoy his dinner without whetting up his appetite with 
 a drink, and that is a poor thing to grease the wagon with. It cakes 
 and cuts and wears out the axles. City folks eat their meals more 
 from habit than hunger, but country folks love to hear the horn blow. 
 Seven-tenths of the people live in the country, but seven-tenths of 
 the whisky and wine and beer is drank in the towns, and most of 'em 
 drink it because they are not hungry and want to be. A right hungry 
 man doesn't want whisky. He wants something to eat — something 
 solid; and so, after all the fuss about the temperance problem, work, 
 toil,' sweat is the best remedy, for a laboring man can't cheat his 
 stomach with juices. Ben Franklin was a smart man, and he said 
 that man was a bundle of habits, and he said also, that idleness was 
 the parent of all vice. So it is best for a man to raise his boys in the 
 country, where he will get a habit of work, and where there are not 
 
140 The Farm and The Fieeside. 
 
 many temptations. A man can't throw off his habits like he does his 
 coat. If contracted in youth they will stick in manhood and old age, 
 whether they be good or bad. I've got an old mare that will quit a 
 good pasture and let down the bars to go into a poor one, and it's just 
 because she got into a habit of letting the bars down. Habits are 
 stronger than principles. They are not cast-iron, for you can break 
 that, but they are more like green withes and new ropes — the more 
 you wet 'em the tighter they draw, especially if you wet 'em with 
 whisky. 
 
 A farmer's life is a pretty hard one in some respects, and not one in 
 a hundred makes any clear money at it — money to lay up and put away 
 for hard times or old age ; but the law of compensation comes in and 
 balances off all its troubles. There is an independence about it that 
 belongs to no other profession. The farmer belongs to nobody. His 
 time is his own. If he can't get rich, he can live comfortably and 
 raise his children to industry, and that is the best legacy in the world. 
 It is very natural for a man to imagine that other people are better off 
 than he is, and to wish that he had chosen some other business. Very 
 few are content with their lot. Old man Horace, who lived 2,000 
 years ago, alluded to this when he said, ''How comes it that most 
 everybody is dissatisfied with his calling and thinks he would be better 
 off and happier if he were pursuing some other?" But Horace, like 
 all other poets, gave the preference to a country life. He says, "The 
 city is the best place for a rich man to live in, and the country is the 
 best place for a poor man to die in; and, inasmuch as riches are 
 uncertain and death is sure, it becomes a man to move to the country 
 as soon as he can get there." It is amusing to me to see how all the 
 famous poets, who never plowed a furrow in their lives, go off* into 
 raptures and ecstacies over rural life : 
 
 "God made the country, man made the town." 
 "How jocund did they drive their team afield." 
 "Delightful toil ! There must be husbandry in heaven." 
 
 And they write gushingly of fields and flowers and harvest moon 
 and mountains and brooks and grand old woods and setting suns and 
 happy birds and tinkling bells and the cotter's Saturday night. 
 
 • All that is mighty pretty, and there is comfort in it; but there is 
 mighty little fun in pulling fodder right now, or in carrying a load of 
 
The Farm and The Fhieside. 141 
 
 it through the long, hot rows and stepping, like a blind horse, over 
 morning glory vines and bending corn stalks. There ain't very much 
 hilarity about getting stung with a packsaddle or fodder-blade or 
 waking up a yallerjacket's nest. Farmers are not tickled to death 
 over picking cotton all day as hard as they can pick, and thinking 
 they will get 200 pounds and it weighed out about 150. There is not 
 very much fun in getting up in the morning and finding half a dozen 
 of your nabor's hogs or cows in your field, and having to run after 
 'em all through the wet grass and then can't make 'em go out at the 
 same break they came in. There is many a little trouble that these 
 spectacled poets know nothing about, and never will until they try it. 
 There is not much fun in any kind of toil, but it is the common lot, 
 and we are all happier when at work than when sitting down or loaf- 
 ing around in idleness. A man who was raised a pampered youth, 
 and knew no wants and had no falls or hair-breadth escapes, no 
 stumped toes or mashed fingers, no horse to run away with him, no 
 colts to break, no bull calf to drive, hasn't been much of a boy, and 
 will never be much of a man. He has no marvelous things to tell 
 his little boys if he ever has any, which he oughtn't to have, consider- 
 ing his fitness to raise 'em. 
 
 When boys have learned to farm and built up their constitutions 
 and settled their habits, why then is time enough for 'em to try the 
 city and soar to more ambitious things; but the country is the place 
 to raise 'em. I've a poor opinion of a boy raised in town to* strut 
 around and then be sent to college to raise cain. 
 
142 The Faem and The Fieeside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 But Once a Year. 
 
 Another busy year has gone — gone like the water that has passed 
 over the dam — gone never to return. It has carried many friends 
 along with it and left sad memories in our household, but on the 
 whole it has been a good year to us all, and Providence has been kind. 
 Now is the time to look back and review the past — to take an account 
 of stock like the merchants do — a time to be thankful for what we 
 have received, and to compare our condition, not with those who are 
 better off, but with those who are worse off. 
 
 It is a good time to feel happy, for there is something about Christ- 
 mas that seems like a recess from a long year of work, and toil, and 
 tribulation. Man needs just such a rest for body, and mind, and 
 spirit. These periods of relaxation prolong life, both of man and 
 beast. If it were not for the Sabbath we would wear out before we 
 got old, and I remember reading a long time ago, about some emi- 
 grants going overland to California. Some of them rested their teams 
 every Sunday, and some did not, and the first got there several days 
 ahead, and ^\ere in the best condition at the end of the long journey. 
 But one day in seven is not enough — we want a whole week at the end 
 of the year, and according to scripture it is a good thing to have a 
 whole year in seven — a year of jubilee when even the land we till shall 
 have rest and a time to recover itself and renew its wasted energies. 
 Blessings on the holy fathers who established the Christmas holidays, and 
 on the good men who for eighteen centuries have preserved it for us and 
 our children. It is a blessed heritage and belongs to all alike — the rich 
 and the poor, the bond and the free, the king and his subject. But 
 these good old ways are changing and becoming circumscribed. Man- 
 kind is growing too stingy of time. Christmas used to last from the 
 25th of December to the 6th of January, and for twelve days there 
 was neither work nor toil, nor official business, nor suits for debt, dun- 
 ning, nor preparations for war, but all was peace and pleasure and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 143 
 
 kindly feelings. The peasant was on a level with the prince, and the 
 girls and boys wore chaplets of ivy and laurel and holly and ever- 
 green, and it was no sin for them to take a sly kiss while the rosemary 
 wreaths encircled their brows, for a kiss under the rose was an emblem 
 of innocence and had the sanction of heaven, and love whispered 
 while wearing the mistletoe crown was too pure to be lost or betrayed. 
 
 I love the old superstition that clusters around this season of my 
 joy and gladness. Long did I lament the day when ray childish eyes 
 were opened and I learned there was no Saint Nicholas nor Santa 
 Claus, no reindeer on the roof, no coming down the chimney to fill 
 the stockings that hung by the mantel. Even now I would fain 
 believe, with Skakespeare, that for these twelve days witches, and 
 hobgoblins and devilish spirits had to fly away from the haunts of 
 men and hide themselves in the dark pits and caves of the earth while 
 the good spirits who love us and watch over us, nestled their invisible 
 forms among the evergreens that hung upon the walls. It was pleasant 
 to think that on the last day of the twelve the cattle knelt down at 
 midnight and humbly prayed that souls might be given them when 
 they died, so that they, too, might live in heaven and worship God. 
 I hope the poor things will have a good time in the next world, for 
 they see a rough one in this, and I reckon they will, considering what 
 a splendid pair of horses came down after the prophet Elijah. Heaven 
 wouldn't be any the less heaven to me to find my good dog Bows up 
 there, all renewed in his youth, and to receive the glad welcome that 
 wags in his diminished tail. 
 
 How naturally we become reconciled to the approach of death. 
 How tired we get fighting through the hard battle of life. I remem- 
 ber when it was the grief and horror of my young life that sometime 
 or other I would have to surrender and give it up, but I don't care 
 now. Let it come. I would not live it over again if I could. I do 
 not lament like Job that I ever was born, but still I have no desire to 
 hold on and worry and struggle for several hundred years longer, as 
 did the old patriarchs before the flood. If I was a good man, and 
 everything moved along serenely I wouldn't care, but there's a power 
 of trouble, and we make the most of it ourselves. Like David and 
 Solomon, w^e keep sinning and repenting, and the memory of it haunts 
 a man and cuts into him like a knife, and all sorts of friends come 
 
144 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 along and clutch the handle and give it a gentle twist. Not one in a 
 thousand will pull it out and put a little salve on the wound. 
 
 I always thought it a pretty idea to weigh a man — to put his life in 
 a pair of balances, the good on one side and the bad on the other, and 
 let him rise to heaven or fall below it, as the scales might turn. I 
 know it's not an orthodox doctrine exactly, for they say that one bad 
 deed will outweigh a thousand good ones. Nevertheless, Belshazzer 
 was weighed, and the Scriptures abound in such figures of speech. It 
 will take miracles of grace to save us all anyhow, and it becomeo 
 everybody to help one another, for the devil is doing his best. David 
 committed murder, and Solomon worshipped idols, Cain killed his 
 brother, and Jabob cheated Esau out of his birthright, and Noah got 
 drunk and Peter denied his Master, but they all repented and got for- 
 giveness, and if there's any difference between folks now and folks 
 then I don't know it, unless it is that they had the strongest support 
 and the least temptation to fall. 
 
 But then, a man ought not to take too much comfort from such 
 comparisons, for they savor of vanity, and vanity don't save anybody 
 nor keep him from doing wrong. A man who moves along the path- 
 way of life happily and serenely in the midst of cares and temptations, 
 is a long ways better off than one who don't. A man who brmgs no 
 sorrow to his friends and nabors lives to a better purpose than 
 one who does, and it must be a blessed bed to die on when a man gets 
 old and has no stinging memories in his pillow case. There is no 
 goodlier sight in nature than a good man going down to the grave in 
 graceful composure. I recall one who, not long ago, reached his four- 
 score years and died. He was a model of that sweet decay that has 
 no odor of dissolution. He was never a burden nor a cross, and to 
 the last received his children and his children's children with a rejoic- 
 ing smile. Would that I, too, like him, might go down behind the 
 everlasting hills — not in a cloud nor yet in a blaze of glory, but 
 rather like the sun when his rays are softened and subdued by the 
 Indian summer sky. 
 
 Our family frolic is over. The show of it and the pleasant hilarity 
 of the occasion, with all the delightful surprises and rejoicings, passed 
 away most happily, but the sweet perfume of love and kindness that 
 Christmas brought remains with us still. It is more blessed to give 
 than to receive, and the purest pleasure we can feel is m making others 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 145 
 
 happy. In the good old times Prince Rupert used to go round in dis- 
 guise and find out who was needy and grateful and kind, and when 
 Christmas came he distributed his gifts according to their deservings. 
 It seems to me that if i was Mr. Vanderbilt I would like that, but 
 maybe not. 
 
 Then a rich and merry Christmas to the rich, 
 And a bright and happy Christmas to the poor; 
 
 So their hearts are joyful it doesn't matter which 
 Has the fine velvet carpet on the floor. 
 
 For riches bring a trouble when they come. 
 
 And money leaves a pain when it goes, 
 But evierybody now must have a little sum 
 
 To brighten up the year at its close. 
 
 :^ ^ -^ -^ -^i 
 
 Pleasing the children is about all that the majority of mankind is 
 living for though they don't realize it and if they did they would hardly 
 acknowledge it. It is emphatically the great business of this sublu- 
 nary life. We look on with amazement at the busy crowd in the town 
 and cities that are ever going to and fro, and the most of them are 
 working and struggling to please and maintain children. It i^ the 
 excuse for all the mad rush of business that hurries mankind through 
 the world. It is the apology for nearly all the stealing and cheating 
 and lying in the land. One time a man sold me a Poland China sow 
 for $15 and she eat up $5 worth of chickens the day I got her, and 
 when I asked him why he didn't tell me she was a chicken eater, he 
 smiled and said he thought I would find it out soon enough. He spent 
 that money on his children and so I had to forgive him. Sometimes 
 when I ruminate upon the meanness of we grown-up folks, I wish 
 that the children w^ould never get grown, for they don't get very mean 
 or foolish until they do. 
 
 Now the biggest part of all this Christmas business is to please the 
 children. Of course there is service in the churches, and the good 
 pious people celebrate the day in prayer and devotion, but most of it 
 is for the children. The stores are thronged with parents hunting 
 something for them. The Christmas trees are for them, and all the 
 dolls and wagons and tea-sets and pocket-knives and harps and fire- 
 crackers and a thousand other things too numerous to mention. Why 
 there will be five thousand dollars spent in this county this week for 
 
146 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 Christmas gifts. There will be half a million in the State. There 
 will be twenty millions in the United States, and it is nearly all for 
 children. So, my young friends, you must understand how very 
 important you are in this world's affairs, but you needent get uppity 
 nor bigoty about it, for that spoils all the old folks' pleasure. 
 
 Now, let us all imagine we are around the cheerful Christmas fire 
 and talk about Christmas and tell what it means. Of course you 
 know that it is the anniversary of the birth of Christ, and all Chris- 
 tian people celebrate it. It is very common everywhere to celebrate 
 birthdays. Americans make a big fuss over Washington's birthday 
 because he was called the father of his country. My folks make a 
 little fuss over my birthday and my good wife's birthday. They don't 
 toot horns nor pop fire-crackers, but they have an extra good dinner 
 and fix up a pleasant surprise of some sort. We used to surprise the 
 children with a little present like a pocket-knife, or a pair of scissors, 
 or sleeve buttons or something, but so many children came along that 
 there was a birthday in sight almost all the time, and as we got rich 
 in children we got poor in money and had to skip over sometimes. 
 The 4th of July was the birthday of a nation and so the nation always 
 celebrates that day. 
 
 Christians began to observe Christmas about 1,500 years ago at 
 Jerusalem and Rome. They had service in the churches and made 
 it a day of rejoicing. In course of time the young people rather lost 
 sight of the sacredness of the da^ and the devotion that was due to 
 the occasion, and made it a day of frolic and feasting. They sang 
 hilarious songs, because they said the shepherds sang songs at Bethle- 
 hem. They made presents to each other because they said the wise 
 men from the east brought presents to the young child and its mother. 
 They kept up their festivities all night because the Saviour was born 
 at midnight. The Roman Catholic church has observed these annual 
 celebrations for centuries, and the Church of England took them up, 
 and so did the Protestants in Germany and other countries. Christ- 
 ians everywhere adopted them, and Christmas day became a universal 
 holiday except among the Puritans of New England, who forbade it 
 under penalties. They never frolicked or made merry over anything. 
 In a great painting of the nativity by Raphael, there is seen a shep- 
 herd at the door playing on a bagpipe. The Tyroleese who live on 
 the mountain slopes of Italy always come down to the valleys on 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 147 
 
 •Christmas eve, and they come carroling sweet songs and playing on 
 musical instruments, and spend the night in innocent festivities. A 
 century or so ago there were many curious superstitions about Christ- 
 mas. It was believed that an ox and an ass that were near by when 
 the Saviour was born bent their knees in supplication, and so they said 
 the animals all went to prayer every Christmas night. Of course, 
 they might have known better if they had watched all night to see, 
 but when folks love a superstition they humor it. If a child believes 
 in ghosts they are sure to see them, whether they are there or not. 
 Those old-time people believed that when the rooster crowed for mid- 
 night on Christmas night all the wizzards and witches and hobgoblins 
 and evil spirits fled away from the habitations of men and hid in 
 caves and hollow trees and deserted houses, and stayed there for 
 twelve days. 
 
 i^ations have superstitions just like individuals have them. The 
 Persians had their genii and fairies; the Hindoos their rakshar; the 
 Greeks and Komans had all sorts of wonderful gods and godesses, such 
 as Jupiter and Juno and Hercules and Vulcan and Neptune, and 
 they built temples for them to dwell in. The more learned and 
 enlightened a people are the more sublime are their superstitions. The 
 uncivilized Indians are mystified and "see God in the clouds, and hear 
 Him in the wind." The native Africans come down to crocodiles and 
 serpents and owls for their gods. Some of the negro tribes take a 
 higher grade of animals and set their faith in brer fox and brer rabbit, 
 as Uncle Eemus has told you. When I was a boy we could tell the 
 difference in the negro character by the stories they told us in their 
 cabins at night; and good negroes always told us funny, cheerful 
 stories about the tar baby, and the bear and the bee-tree, and about 
 foxes and wolves ; but the bad negroes told us about witches and 
 ghosts and Jack-o'-lanterns, and raw-head-and-bloody-bones. I used 
 to listen to them until I didn't dare to look around, and I got up 
 closer and closer to the fire, and when my brother called me I had to 
 be carried to the house in a negroe's arms. But what about the ever- 
 greens the holly and laurel and ivy and mistletoe and the Christmas 
 tree ? That is a curious history, too, and it all came from the poetry 
 and romance that belongs to our nature. Evergreens have for ages 
 been used as symbols of immortality. The victors returning from the 
 wars were crowned with them ; chaplets of green leaves and vines 
 
148 The Farm and The Fieeside. 
 
 were made for the successful ones at the Olympic games. The poets 
 of Scripture tell us of green bay trees and the cedars of Lebanon. 
 Churches and temples have been decorated with them for centuries. 
 Evergreens have always had a poetic prominence in the vegetable 
 kingdom. We all love them, for they cheer us in midwinter when 
 there are no other signs of vegetation to gladden our longing eyes. 
 
 Now, children, these superstitions are all fancy, as you know, and 
 are not even founded on fact, and yet it is human nature to love 
 them. We are all fond of anything that is marvelous, especially if 
 it turns out well for the good. We love to read the Arabian Nights 
 and we rejoice with Alibaba who outwitted the forty thieves, and with 
 Aladdin who found the wonderful lamp. Just so we rejoice with 
 Cinderella for marrying the prince, and we take comfort in it, although 
 we know it never happened. It is human nature to want good to 
 triumph over bad, and on this heavenly trait in our humanity is our 
 government and our social system founded. 
 
 You know all about St. Nicolas and Santa Claus, and where that 
 pleasant superstition came from, but the traditions of the Germans 
 about the good Knight Rupert are just as good, and, I think, are 
 more stimulating to the children. In every little village Knight 
 Rupert comes out just after twelve o'clock, and nobody knows where 
 he comes from. He has a beautiful sleigh and four fine horses, all 
 dressed up in silver spangles and silver bells, and he dashes around 
 from house to house and calls out the mother and whispers something 
 to her and she whispers something to him, and he bows his head and 
 wags his long gray beard and dashes away to the next house. You 
 see he is going around to find out from the mother which ones of her 
 children have been good and which ones have been bad, so as to know 
 what presents to bring and how many. If the good mother says sor- 
 rowfully, ' ' Well, Knight Rupert, my Tom has not been a good boy ; 
 he is not kind to his sisters, and he is selfish and has fights with other 
 boys, and he won't study at school, but I hope he will get to be better, so 
 please bring Tom some little thing, won't you." She is obliged to tell the 
 truth on all her children, and it goes very hard with her sometimes. 
 So after Knight Rupert has been all around he drives away about dark 
 and nobody knows where he went to. That night he brings the pres- 
 ents while the children are all asleep, and sure enough Tom don't get 
 anything. Now, that is what they pretend to believe, but of course 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 149 
 
 Knight Rupert is some good jolly fellow about town, and he is all 
 bundled up and disguised and cuts up just such a figure as old Santa 
 Claus does in the pictures. 
 
 The year is almost gone, and all of us ought to stop a minute and 
 think about how much good we have done since the last Christmas. 
 How many times we have tried to make our kindred happy — not only 
 our kindred, but our nabors and companions. As I came out of the 
 Markham house, in Atlanta, one cold morning, two little dirty news- 
 boys came running to me from opposite directions to sell me a paper. 
 They are not allowed to go inside the hotels to sell papers, and so they 
 stand outside in the cold and watch for the men to come out. One of 
 these boys was a stout lad of ten years, and the other was a little puny, 
 pale-face, barefooted chap, and although he was the farthest off, he got 
 ta me first. I said to the biggest boy, "Why didn't you run? You 
 could have got here first." He smiled and said, "I dident want to." 
 ''Why not?" said I. "Is that boy your brother?" "No, sir," said he, 
 " but he's little, and he's been sick." Now, that was kindness that 
 will do for Christmas or any other day. I gave them a dime apiece, 
 and they were happy for a little while. Children, if you can't do a 
 big thing you can do a little thing like that. I wouldent let the 
 little ragged newsboys get ahead of me. 
 
 We keep Grier's almanac at our house. We get a good many 
 almanacs from the merchants as advertisements, but Grier's is the old 
 standard and is the one that is always hung by the mantle. If you 
 have that kind at your house and will look at the bottom of the last 
 page to see what kind of weather we are to have this Christmas week 
 you will find it put down this way: "Be thankful for all the bless- 
 ings you have enjoyed this year and try to do better the next." That 
 is a curious kind of weather, but it is mighty good weather. 
 
150 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Grandfather's Day — The Little Urchin of the Third Gen- 
 eration. 
 
 This is a most blessed land — where everything grows that man is 
 obleeged to have, and a power of good^ things throw'd in just to min- 
 ister to his pleasure. The summer sun is now ripening the fruits of 
 the earth, and when I see children and grandchildren and nefews and 
 neeses rejoicin' in their wanderin's over the fields and orchards, it car- 
 ries me back to the blessed days of childhood. The old-field plums 
 and the wild strawberries and cherries, mulberries and blackberries 
 were worth more then than gold, and it made no difference who was 
 priest or president, or how rich was Astor or Girard or any of the 
 nabors, or whether Sal Jackson's bonet was purtier than Melyann 
 Thompson's or not. What a glorious luxury it was to go barefooted 
 and wade in the branch and go saining and climb trees and hunt bird's 
 nests and carry the corn to the mill and leave it, just to get to run a. 
 horse-race home again. I know now that those days w^ere the happiest, 
 and so I won't rob my posterity of the same sort, if I can help it. I 
 want 'em to love the old homestead, and I want children's children to 
 gather about it and cherish its memory. What a burlesque on child- 
 hood's joy it must be to visit grandma and grandpa in a crowded city, 
 penned up in brick walls with a few sickly flowers in front and a gar- 
 den in the rear about as big as a wagon sheet. But that's the way the 
 thing is drifting. Them calculatin' yankees have long ago done away 
 with the 'old back log' and the blazing hearth-stone and substituted a 
 furnace in the basement and a few iron pipes running around the 
 walls and a hole in the floor to let the heat in. All that may be econ- 
 omy, but in my opinion a man can't raise good stock in no such way. 
 They'll be picayunish and nice and sharp featured and gimlety, but 
 they won't do to bet on like them children that's been bro't up 'round 
 a fire-place on a hundred acre farm and had plenty of fresh air and 
 latitude. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 151 
 
 Pleasin' the children is about all the majority of mankind are livin' 
 for, though they don't know it; and if they did they wouldn't 
 acknowledge it. It is emphatically the great business of life. We 
 look on with wonder and amazement at the busy crowds in a great 
 city that are ever goin' to and fro like a fiddler's elbow, and eight out 
 of ten of 'em are workin' and strugglin' to please and maintain the 
 children. It's the excuse for all the mad rush of business that hur- 
 ries mankind through the world. It's the apology for nearly all the 
 cheatin' and stealin' and lyin' in the land, and in a heap of such cases 
 I have thought the good angels would drop tears enuf on the big book 
 to blot 'em out forever. The trouble is, that most people are always 
 liviu' on a strain, tryin' to do a little too much for their children, and 
 scufflin' against wind and tide to git just a little ahead of their nabors. 
 Some of 'em won't let a ten year old boy go to meetin' or to Sunday- 
 school if he can't fix up as fine as other boys. They won't let him go 
 barefooted nor wear a patch behind nor before, nor ride bareback, nor 
 go dirty, and so the domestic pressure for finery becomes tremendous. 
 Jesso with bonnets, and parasols, and kid gloves, and silk dresses, and 
 chanyware, and carpets, and winder curtins — and a thousand things 
 that cost money and runs up the outgo a heap bigger than the incum. 
 Generally speakin' this home pressure ain't a noisy one, but, on the 
 contrary, is very silent and sad — so sad that a body would think there 
 was somebody dead in the house, and so after awhile sumhow or sum- 
 how else the finery comes, and thus for awhile all is screen. But the 
 collapse is shore to cum sooner or later, and the children ain't to 
 blame for it. Sumtimes when I ruminate upon the meanness of man- 
 kind I wish the children never got grown, for they don't get mean or 
 foolish until they do. Just think what a svv'eet time of it old mother 
 Eve and Mrs. Commodore Noah, and aunt Methusaler had with thirty 
 or forty of 'em wearin' bibs and aperns until they were fifty years old, 
 toggin' along after their daddies until they were a hundred. I don't 
 think old father Woodruff" could have stood that. When a man who 
 ain't no yearlin' gits married, and ten or a dozen of 'em cum right 
 straight along in a row, and by the time he gets on the piazza, tired 
 and grunty, they begin to climb all over him and under him and 
 betwixt him, and on the back of his chair and the top of his head, it's 
 a little more than his venerable nature can stand. On such occasions, 
 it ain't to be wondered at that he gently shakes himself aloose and 
 
152 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 exclaims, "Lord have mercy upon me." But, then, the like of this 
 must be endured. 'Tis a part of the bargain, implied if not expressed, 
 as the lawyers say, and no man ought to dodge it. Humor 'em, play 
 boss and frolic with 'em, wash 'em, undress 'em, tell 'em stories about 
 Jack and the bean stalk, and what you done when you was a little 
 boy; scratch their backs and put 'em to bed, and if they can't sleep, 
 get up with 'em away in the night, and nod around in your night- 
 gown until they can. Let them trot after you a heap in week days 
 and all day of a Sunday, and don't try to shirk off the trouble and 
 the responsiblity on the good woman who bore 'em. Solomon says: 
 ''Children are the chief end of man, and the glory of his declining 
 years," and raisin' of 'em is the biggest business I know of in this life, 
 and the most responsible in the life to come. 
 
 When a man begins to get along in years he gradually changes 
 from being a king in his family to a patriarch. He is more tender 
 and kind to his offspring, and instead of ruling them, the first thing 
 he knows they are ruling him. My youngest children and my grand- 
 children just run over me now, and it takes more than half my 
 time to keep up with 'em, and find out where they are and what they 
 are doing. It rains most every day, and the weeds and grass are 
 always wet, and the children and thje dogs track mud all over the house. 
 We can't keep 'em in and we can't keep 'em out. The boys have got 
 traps set in the swamp, and are obliged to go to 'em every fifteen min- 
 utes, and if they catch a bird it's as big a thing as killin' an elefant. 
 They built a brick furnace in the back yard, and have been cookin' on 
 it for two days, bakin' hoe-cakes, and fryin' eggs, and boilin' coffee, 
 and their afflicted mother has mighty near surrendered; for she can't 
 keep a skillet, nor a spoon, nor a knife, nor a plate in the kitchen, 
 and so she tried to kick the furnace over, and now goes about limpin' 
 with a sore toe. Some of the older ones have found a chalk quarry 
 in a ditch, and taken a notion to drawin' and sculpture, and made 
 pictures of dogs and chickens and snakes all around the house on the 
 outside; and while the good mother was cookin' the two youngest ones 
 chalked over the inside as good as they could. The mantel-piece, and 
 jams, and doors, and beadsteads, and sewin' machine, and window-glass 
 were all ring-streaked and striked, and as I couldent do justice to the 
 subject myself, I waited for reinfoi'cements. When the maternal 
 ancestor appeared, I was a peepin' through the crack of the door. She 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 153 
 
 paused upon the threshold like an an actor playing high tragedy in a 
 theater. '' Merciful fathers ! " then a long and solem pans. "Was 
 there ever such a set upon the face of the earth? What shall I do? 
 Ain't it enough to run anybody distracted? Here I have worked and 
 worked to make this old house look decent, and now look at it! I've 
 a good mind to wring your little necks for you. Did ever a mother 
 have such a time as I have — can't leave me one minit that they ain't 
 into mischief, and it's been the same thing over and over and over 
 with all of 'em for the last twenty-nine years, I'd rather been an old 
 maid a thousand times over. I wish there wasn't a child in the world 
 — yes, I do!" (Looks at 'em mournfully for a minute.) "Come 
 here, Jessie, you little pale-faced darling. Mamma ain't mad with 
 you; no, you're just the sweetest thing in the world; and poor little 
 Carl's broken finger makes my heart ache every time I look at it. He 
 did have the sweetest little hand before that boy mashed it all to 
 pieces with his maul ; and there's that great scar on his head, where 
 the brick fell on him, and another over his eye, where he fell on the 
 hatchet. I wonder if I ever will raise you poor little things ; you look 
 like little orphans; take your chalk and mark some more, if you want 
 to." When I came in she was a helpin' 'em make a bob-tail dog on 
 the closet door. "I've found your old tom cat," said I; "Carl had 
 him fastened up in that nail keg that's got a hen's nest in it." "Why, 
 Carl, what upon earth did you put the cat in there for?" "Why, 
 mamma, he's a settin, and I wanted him to lay some little kittens. 
 Me and Jessie wants some kittens." 
 
 These little chaps ride the horses and colts over the meadow and 
 pasture, and make the sheep jump the big branch, and they go in a 
 washing two or three times a day, and they climb the grape arbor and 
 the apple trees and stuff* their craws full of fruit and trash, and they 
 can tell whether a watermelon is ripe or green, for they plug it to see. 
 and every one of 'em has got a sling shot and my pigeons are always 
 on the wing, and the other day I found one of the finest young pullets 
 laying dead with a hole in her side, and all the satisfaction I can get 
 is I dident mean to do it, or I won't do it any more, or I dident do it 
 at all. Jesso. It's most astonishing how the little rascals can shoot 
 with their slings, and now I don't believe it was a miracle at all that 
 made David plump old Goliah in the forehead, for these boys can 
 plump a jaybird now at 40 yards, and we have had to take all their 
 
154 The Farm and The Firesidh. 
 
 weapons away to protect the birds and poultry. Sometimes I get mad 
 and rip up and round like I was going to do something desperate, but 
 Mrs. Arp comes a-slipping along and begins to tell how they dident 
 mean any harm, and they are just like all other boys, and wants to 
 know if I dident do them sort of things when I was a boy. Well, 
 that's a fact — I did — and I got a lickin' for it, too. You see, I was one 
 of the oldest boys, and they always catch it, but the youngest one never 
 gets a lickin', for by the time he comes along the old man has mellowed 
 down and wants a pet. The older children have married and gone, 
 and the old folks feel sorter like they have been throwed off for some- 
 body no kin to 'em, and so they twine around those that are left all 
 the closer, but by-and-by they grow up, too, and leave them, and it's 
 pitiful to see the good old couple bereft of their children and living 
 alone in their glory. Then is the time that grandchildren find a wel- 
 come in the old family homestead, for as Solomon saith, the glory of 
 an old man is his children's children. Then is the time that the little 
 chaps of the second and third generation love to escape from their 
 well ruled home, and for awhile find refuge and freedom and frolic at 
 grandpa's. A child without a grandpa and a grandma can never have 
 its share of happiness. I'm sorry for 'em. Blessings on the good old 
 people, the venerable grand-parents of the land, the people with good 
 old honest ways and simple habits and limited desires, who indulge in 
 no folly, w^ho hanker after no big thing, but live along serene and 
 covet nothing but the happiness of their children and their children's 
 children. I said to a good old mother not long ago: "Well, I hear 
 that Anna is to be married." "Yes, sir," said she, smiling sorrow- 
 fully, "I don't know what I will do. The last daughter I've got is 
 going to leave me. I've nursed her and petted her all her life, and I 
 kinder thought she was mine and would always be mine, but she's run 
 off* after a feller she's no kin to in the world, and w^ho never did do a 
 thing for her but give her a ring and a book or two and a little French 
 candy now and then, and it does look so strange and unreasonable. I 
 couldent understand it at all if— if I hadent done the same thing 
 myself a long time ago," and she kept knitting away with a smile and 
 a tear upon her motherly face. ^^ 
 
 But I am not going to slander these little chaps that keep us so busy 
 looking after them, for there is no meanness in their mischief, and if 
 they take liberties it is because we let 'em. Mrs. Arp says they are 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 155 
 
 just too sweet to live, and is always narrating some of their smart say- 
 ings. Well, they are mighty smart, for they know exactly how to get 
 everything and do everything they want, for they know how to manage 
 her, and they know that she manages me, and that settles it. A man 
 is the head of the house about some things, and about some other 
 things he is only next to head, if he ain't foot. A man can pimish 
 his children, but it's always advisable to make an explanation in due 
 time and let his wife know what he did it for, because you see they 
 are her children shore enough, and she knows and feels it. The pain, 
 and trouble, the nursing and night watching have all been hers. The 
 washing and dressing, and mending, and patching — tieing up fingers 
 and toes, and sympathizing with 'em in all their great big little troubles 
 all falls to her while the father is tending to his farm, or his store, or 
 his office, or friends, or may be to his billiard table. When a woman 
 says "this is my child," it carries more weight and more meaning than 
 when a man says it, and I've not got much respect for a law that will 
 give a man the preference of ownership just because he is a man. I 
 remember when I was a boy, a sad, pretty woman taught school in 
 our town, aud she had a sweet little girl about eight years old, and 
 one day a man came there for the child and brought a lawyer with, 
 him, and the mother was almost distracted, and all of us boys — big 
 and little — got rocks and sticks and thrash poles and hid the little girl 
 up in the cupalo, and when the sheriff came we attacked him like 
 killing snakes or fighting yaller jackets, and we run him off, and 
 when he came back with more help, we run 'em all off, and the 
 man never got his child, and I can say now that the soldiers who 
 whipped the yaukees at Bull Kun were not half so proud of their 
 victory as w^e were, though I found out afterwards that the sheriff was 
 willing to be whipped, for he was on the side of the mother and didn't 
 want to find the child no how. But the world is getting kinder than 
 it used to be — kinder to women and to the poor and the dependent, 
 and kinder to brutes. Away up in New England they used to drown 
 women for being witches, but they don't now. Well, they do bewitch, 
 a man powerfully sometimes, that's a fact, but if any drowning is 
 done he drowns himself because he can't get the woman he wants and 
 live under her witching all the time. But a man is still the head of 
 the house and always will be, I reckon, for it's according to Scripture. 
 He has got a natural right to run the machine and keep" up the sup- 
 
156 The Farm and The Fieesidh. 
 
 plies, and if he always has money when the good wife wants it and 
 doesn't wait for her to ask for it but makes her take it as a favor to 
 him, then he is a successful husband and peace reigns supreme. 
 Jesso. When there is money in the till a man can sit m his piazza 
 with his feet on the banisters and smoke the pipe of peace. A 
 woman loves money for its uses. She never hoards it or hides it away 
 like a man — and when I used to be a merchant I thought there was 
 no goodlier combination in all nature than a new stock of dry goods 
 and a pretty woman in the store with a well filled purse in her pocket. 
 Jesso. 
 
The Farm and The FinEsmE. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Making Sausage. 
 
 Hog killing is over at last. We had about made up our minds 
 to kill one at a time as we needed them and not cure any for bacon, 
 but the weather got right and the moon was on the increase, and so 
 we slayed them. I don't care anything about the moon myself, but 
 there are some old family superstitions that the meat will shrink in the 
 pot if the moon is on the wane when you kill it. The new moon is 
 quite level this time, which is a sure sign that it will rain a good deal 
 this month, or that it won't. We have pretty welf disposed of this 
 greasy business. The little boys had a good time frying liver on the 
 hot rocks and roasting tails in the ashes and blowing up balloons, and 
 now if we had a few darkies to cook up the heads and clean the feet 
 and fix up the skins for sausages and make a nice lot of souse, we 
 could live like princes, but it's troublesome work and costs more than 
 it comes to if we have to do it ourselves. 
 
 I am very fond of sausage — home made sausage such as Mrs. Arp 
 knows how to make, and so she delicately informed me that the meat 
 was all chopped and ready for the machine, and said something about 
 my everyday clothes and one of her old aprons. She further 
 remarked that when it was all ground up she would come down and 
 show me how much salt and pepper and sage to put in and how to 
 mix it all up together. Well, I didn't mind the machine business at 
 all, but I remembered seeing her work mighty hard over that mixing 
 of the salt and pepper and sage, and frying a little mess on the stove 
 and tasting it, and then putttng in more salt and work it over again, 
 and cooking another mess and tasting it again, and then putting in 
 more pepper and more sage, and after the job was all over, heard her 
 declare there wasn't enough of anything in it, and so I conjured up a 
 bran new idea, and sprinkled^ about a hatful of salt and a quart of 
 black pepper and a pint of cayenne and all the sage that was on the 
 premises all over the meat before I ground it. Then I put it through. 
 
158 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 the machine, and cooked and tasted it myself. Well, it was a little 
 hot — that's a fact — and a little salty, and a right smart sagey, but it 
 was good, and a little of it satisfied a body quicker than a good deal 
 of the ordinary kind, and the new plan saved a power of mixing. I 
 took a nice little cake of it up to Mrs. Arp to try, which she did with 
 some surprise aud misgiving. By the time she had sneezed four times 
 and coughed the plate out of her lap, she quietly asked me if it was 
 all like that. "All," said I, solemnly. **Do you like it?" said she. 
 "Pretty w^ell, I think," said I; "I wanted to save you trouble, and 
 maybe I have got it a leetle too strong." She never replied, but the 
 next day she made up the little cloth bags and stuffed 'em and hung 
 all overhead in the kitchen, and remarked as she left, "Now, chil- 
 dren, that's your pa's sausage. It's a pity he hadn't stayed away 
 another day." 
 
 Mrs. Arp has been mighty busy, as usual — always a working, for 
 the house will get dirty, and the children's clothes will wear out, and 
 it's clean up and sew, and patch, and darn, and sew" on buttons ; and 
 it's the same old thing day after day and week after w^eek ; and the lit- 
 tle chaps have to be watched all day and washed every night ; and 
 their shoe-strings get in a hard knot, and it's a worry to get it undone. 
 They wander over the hill and play in the branch, or frolic in the 
 barn loft, or slip oft to Cobe's ; and I can hear a sweet motherly voice 
 about forty times a day, as she steps to the door and calls: "Carl — 
 you Carl ! Jessie, Jessie e-e ! Where upon earth have those chil- 
 dren gone to? I will just have to tie the little wretches, or put a 
 block and chain to them." One day she caught me laughing at her 
 anxiety, and I knew she didn't like it, for she said: "Never mind, 
 AVilliam, some of these days those children will come home drowned 
 in the creek, or carried oft by the gypsies, and you won't laugh then." 
 AVhen she succeeds in getting them home she places her arms akimbo, 
 and with a look of unutterable despair gazes at them and exclaims : 
 ' ' Merciful fathers ! did ever a poor mother have such children ? — feet 
 right wet, shoes all muddy ; and there — another hole in the knee of 
 his pants — and Jessie has torn her apron nearly off of her. Bring me 
 a switch. I will not stand it, for it's sew and patch and worry for- 
 ever. I could hardly put those shoes on you this morning, for they 
 have been wet and dried, and wet and dried until they are as hard as 
 boards, and your pa won't get you any new ones ; and your stockings 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 159 
 
 are worn out and all wet besides ; and the diptheria is all over the 
 country, and it's a wonder you don't take it and die. Come into the 
 fire, you poor little orphans, and warm your feet. You may pop 
 some corn, and here's some apples for you. Don't you want some din- 
 ner, my darlings?" 
 
 The poet hath said that ''a baby in the house is a well spring of 
 pleasure." There is a bran new one here now, the first in eight years, 
 and it has raised a powerful commotion. It's not our baby, exactly, but 
 it's in the line of descent, and Mrs. Arp takes on over it all the same as 
 she used to when she was regularly in the business. I thought maybe 
 she had forgotten how to nurse 'em and talk to 'em, but she is singing 
 the same old familiar songs that have sweetened the dreams of half a 
 score, and she blesses the little eyes and the sweet little mouth and 
 uses the same infantile language that nobody but babies understand. 
 For she says, *'tum here to it's dandmudder," and "bess its 'ittle 
 heart," and talks about its sweet little footsy-tootsies and holds it up 
 to the window to see the wagons go by and the wheels going rouny- 
 pouny, and now my liberty is curtailed, for as I go stamping around 
 with ray heavy farm shoes she shakes her ominous finger at me just 
 like she used to and says, *' Don't you see the baby is asleep?" And 
 so I have to tip-toe around, and ever and anon she wants a little fire, 
 or some hot water, or some catnip, for the baby is a-crying and shorely 
 has got the colic. The doors have to be shut now for fear of a draft 
 of air on the baby, and a little hole in the window pane about as big 
 as a dime had to be patched, and I have to hunt up a passel of kin- 
 lings every night and put 'em where they will be handy, and they 
 have sent me off to another room where the baby can't hear me snore, 
 and all things considered, the baby is running the machine, and the 
 well spring of pleasure is the center of space. A grandmother is a 
 wonderful help and a great comfort at such a time as this, for what 
 does a young mother, with her first child, know about colic and 
 thrash, and hives and hiccups, and it takes a good deal of faith to 
 dose 'em with sut tea and catnip, and lime water, and paregoric, and 
 soothing syrup, and som times with all these the child gets worse, and 
 if it gets better I've always had a curiosity to know which remedy it 
 was that did the work. Children born of healthy parents can stand 
 a power of medicine and get over it, for after the cry comes the sleep, 
 and sleep is a wonderful restorer. Eock 'em awhile in the cradle, 
 
 k 
 
160 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 then take 'em up and jolt 'em a little on- the knee and then turn 'em 
 over and jolt 'em on the other side, and then give 'em some sugar in 
 a rag and after awhile they will go to sleep and let the poor mother 
 rest. There is no patent on this business, no way of raising 'em all 
 the same way, but it is trouble, trouble from the start, and nobody 
 but a mother knows how -much trouble it is. A man ought to be 
 mighty good just for his mother's sake, if nothing else, for there is no 
 toil or trial like nursing and caring for a little child, and there is no 
 grief so great as a mother's if all her care and anxiety is wasted on an 
 ungrateful child. 
 
 It looks like we will be obleeged to import a doctor in the settle- 
 ment. Fact is we are obleeged to have a doctor — not that one is 
 needed at all, but just to quiet the female hystericks when any little 
 thing happens. Since we've lived here I've had to send five miles on 
 the run for a doctor two times just to keep down the family hystericks. 
 Both times the patient recovered before the doctor arrived, but then 
 it w^as such a comfort to have him around and hear him say it is all 
 right, and see him measure out a little yaller powder. It was only 
 day before yesterday that Kalph put our little Carl on the old mare 
 and was leading her along at the rate of half a mile an hour, when 
 the little chap took a notion to fall off and as soon as the wind of it 
 got to headquarters, there was a wild female rush to the scene of 
 great disaster. "Oh mercy, oh the dear child. He's killed. I 
 know he's killed, poor little darliug. Oh my child, my child. Ealph, 
 I'll whip you for this if I live. Oh my precious. Just look at 
 that place on his little head. Children, where is your pa? Send for 
 the doctor. Oh mercy — what did we ever move out here for, five 
 miles from a doctor ?" I w^as mighty busy planting peas and so forth 
 in my garden, but I snuffed the commotion in the air, and in a few 
 moments found 'em all bringing the boy to the house, and Mrs. Arp 
 and the girls talked so fast and took on so I couldent find out what 
 had happened to him. Finally I got the bottom facts from Ralph, 
 the reckless — the butt end of all complaints — the promise of a thous- 
 and whippings with nary one performed. I looked in vain for 
 wounds and bruises and dislocations. "The boy is not seriously hurt," 
 said I — "he is badly scared and you are making him worse by all 
 this commotion — what he wants is rest and sleep." 
 
 "Oh, never," said my wife, "it won't do to let him sleep — when the 
 
The Farm and The FniEsroE. 161 
 
 brain is hurt sleep is the very worst thing — it brings on coma and coma 
 is next thing to death — we must not let him sleep." I was pretty well 
 aroused by this time and said, ''he shall sleep," and turned everybody 
 out but Mrs. Arp and she acquiesced in my determination and the 
 boy slept. He slept all night and Mrs. Arp sat beside the bed and 
 watched. He was all right in the morning and ready for another 
 ride. 
 
162 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Tpie Old Trunk. 
 
 The old trunk was open. Away down in its mysterious recesses 
 Mrs. Arp was searching for something, and as I sat in the other corner 
 with my little table and pen I watched her as she laid the ancient 
 relics on a chair and unfolded first one and then another and looked 
 at them so earnestly, and then folded them up again. *' What are 
 you hunting for, my dear?" said I. "Oh, nothing much," said she; 
 "I was just looking over these little dresses to see if there was any- 
 thing that would do for the little grandchildren. Here is a pretty 
 dress. This dress cost me many a careful stitch. All these plaits 
 were made by my hand, my own hand. There is very little such work 
 done now, for we had no sewing machines then, and it took a long, 
 long time. This embroidery was beautiful then, and it is pretty yet. 
 Do you remember when the first daguerrean came to our town to take 
 pictures? Well, Hattie wore this dress when her picture was taken, 
 and I thought she was the sweetest little thing in the world, and so 
 did you, and she was. Since then we have had ambrotypes and pho- 
 tographs and porcelain pictures, and I don't know what all; but that 
 little daguerreotype gave me more pleasure than anything since, and 
 it is pretty now. Let me see — that was twenty-five years ago, and 
 now I think this same dress will look right pretty on Hattie's child. 
 And here is one that our first boy was christened in, and there is no 
 machine work about it either. That was more than thirty years ago, 
 and now there are four grandchildren at his house, and three more at 
 another one's house, and I don't know what will become of the poor 
 little things, but I reckon the Lord will provide for them. And here 
 is a little garment that Jennie made. Poor Jennie, she had a troubled 
 life, but she is in heaven now, and Pll save this for Pet. She will 
 prize it because her mother made it. And here is a piece of my 
 wedding dress — do you remember it? I know you said then that I 
 looked like an angel in it, but my wings have dropped off long ago, 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 163 
 
 and now I'm only a poor old woman, a faded flower, an overworked 
 mother, ten living children and three more up yonder, and I will be 
 there, too, I hope, before long, for I'm getting tired, very tired, and it 
 seems to me I would like to be nursed, nursed by my mother, and 
 petted like she used to pet me in the long, long ago. And here is a 
 pair of little baby shoes, and the little darling who wore them is in 
 the grave, but he is better off now, and I wouldent call him back if I 
 could. Sometimes I want to feel sad, and I rummage over these old 
 things. There is not much here now, for every little while I have to 
 get out something to mend with or patch or make over again. I wish 
 you would go and see what Carl and Jessie are doing; down at the 
 branch I reckon, and feet all wet, and they have both got dreadful 
 colds. I can't keep them away from that branch." 
 
 *'Dident you play in the branch, my dear, when you were a child?" 
 said I. *' Yes," said she mournfully, ''but nothing couldent hurt me 
 then ; we were not raised so delicate in those days. You know I used 
 to ride to the plantation, twelve miles, and back again in a day and 
 bring a bag of fruit on the horn of the saddle, but the girls couldent 
 do it now. They can go to a party in a buggy and dance half the 
 night, but that is all excitement, and they are not fit for anything the 
 next day. We dident have any dances — hardly ever — we went to the 
 country wedding sometimes. You remember we went to James Dun- 
 lap's wedding, when he married Rebecca Sammons. That was a big 
 frolic — an old-fashioned frolic. Everybody was there from all the 
 naborhood, and there were more turkeys and roast pig and cake than 
 I ever saw, and we played everything we could think of. Rebecca 
 was pretty then, but poor woman — she has had a thousand children, 
 too, just like myself, and I reckon she is faded too, and tired." "But 
 Jim Dunlap hasn't faded," said I. "I see him when I go to Atlanta, 
 and he is big and fat and merry — looks a little like old David Davis." 
 
 *'0h, yes, of course he does," said Mrs. Arp. *'The men don't 
 know anything about care an anxiety and sleepless nights. It is a 
 wonder to me they die at all." *'But I have helped you all I could, 
 my dear," said I, "and you see it's telling on me. Look at these silver 
 hairs and these wrinkles and crows-feet, and my back hurts ever and 
 anon, and this rainy, bad weather gives me rheumatism, but you haven't 
 a gray hair and hardly a seam on your alabaster forehead. Why, you 
 will outlive me, too, and maybe there will be a rich widower stepping 
 
164 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 around here in my shoes and you will have a fine carriage and a pair 
 of beautiful bay horses, and — " 
 
 "William, I told you to go after Carl and Jessie." 
 
 '*If Vanderbilt's wife should die and he could accidentally see you," 
 said I, "after I'm gone, there's no telling — " 
 
 "Well, go along now and find the children, and when you come 
 back I'll listen to your foolishness; J'm not going to let you die if I 
 can help it, for I don't know what would become of us all. Yes, you 
 have helped me, I know, and been a great comfort and did the best 
 you could — most of the time; yes, most of the time — and I might have 
 done worse, and you must nurse me now and pet me, for I am getting 
 childish." "And you must pet me, too," said I. "Oh, of course I 
 will," said she; "am I not always petting you? Now, go along after 
 the children before we both get to crying and have a scene ; and I wish 
 you would see if the buff cochin hens have hatched, in the hen house." 
 "She has been setting about fourteen weeks,'' said I, "but she is get- 
 ting old, and these old mothers are slow, mighty slow." 
 
 I went after the children, and sure enough they were fishing in the 
 spring branch, and their shoes were wet and muddy, and they were 
 bare-headed, and I marched them up tenderly, and Mrs. Arp set them 
 down by the fire and dried their shoes, and got them some more stock- 
 ings, and then opened their little morning school. How patiently 
 these old-fashioned mothers work and worry over the little things of 
 domestic life. Day after day, and night after night, they labor and 
 watch and watch and wait, while the fathers are contriving some big 
 thing to keep up the family supplies. Parents are very much like 
 chickens. The old hen will set and set and starve, and when the 
 brood comes will go scratching for worms and bugs as hard as she can 
 and be always clucking and looking out for hawks, but the old rooster 
 will strut around and notice the little chickens with a paternal pride, 
 and when he scratches up a bug makes a big fuss over it and calls 
 them with a flourish, and eats it himself just before they get there. 
 
 That was a mighty good talk in your last Sunday's paper about 
 sleep, and letting folks sleep until nature waked 'em. He was a smart 
 doctor who said all that, and he said it well, but I couldent help think- 
 ing what would become of the babies if the mothers dident wake until 
 they had got sleep enough. There are no regular hours for them. 
 Job speaketh of the dark watches of the night when deep sleep falleth 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 165 
 
 upon a man, but it don't fall upon 'a weary mother with a fretful 
 child when it is cutting its front teeth and wants to nurse the livelong 
 night. When she is sleeping she is awake, and when she is waking 
 she is half asleep, and the morning brings no rest or refreshment, and 
 I was thinking, too, of what would become of the farm if the boys 
 were not waked up early in the morning. Not many boys will awake 
 up themselves, and they must be called, and in course of time have 
 habits of waking forced upon 'em. A family that sleep late will 
 always be behind with farm work. I do not believe in getting up 
 before day and eating breakfast by candle light, but I do believe in 
 early rising. I don't know how long my children would sleep if I 
 did not call 'em, for I never tried it; but I don't call Mrs. Arp, of 
 course I don't, though she says I had just as well, for I stamp around 
 and slam the doors and whistle and sing until there is no more sleep 
 for her. She wants me to build her a little house away off in the 
 garden, where she can sleep enough to make up for lost time, and be 
 always calm and serene, and I think I will. 
 
166 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 The Georgia Colonel. 
 
 Speaking of Georgia colonels, I was thinking the other day how- 
 there came to be so many of 'em. We used to have general musters 
 all over the State twice a year. The militia were ordered out to be 
 reviewed by the commander-in-chief, which was the governor. The 
 constitution required him to review 'em, and as he couldn't travel all 
 around in person, he had to do it by proxy, and so he had his proxy 
 in every county, and he was called the governor's aid-de-camp with 
 the rank of colonel. This gave the governor over a hundred aid-de- 
 camps, and they all took it as a compliment and wore cockade hats 
 with red plumes, and epaulets, and long brass swords, and big brass 
 spurs, and pistols in their holsters, and rode up and down the lines at 
 a gallop, reviewing the meelish. The meelish were in a double 
 crooked straight line in a great big field, and were armed with shot- 
 guns and rifles, and muskets, and sticks, and corn-stalks^ and thrash- 
 poles, and umbrellas, and they were standing up and setting down, or 
 on the squat, or playing mumble peg, and they hollered for water 
 half their time, and whiskey the other ; and when the colonel and his 
 personal staff" got through reviewing he halted about the middle of the 
 line and said, "Shoulder arms — right face — march," and then the 
 kettle drums rattled and the fife squeaked, and some guns went off 
 half cocked, and the meelish shouted awhile and were disbanded by 
 the captains of their several companies. These colonels held their 
 rank and title as long as the governor held his office, and they were 
 expected to holler hurrah for the governor on all proper occasions, and 
 they did it. If the governor ran again and was defeated, the next 
 governor appointed a new set from among the faithful, and the old set 
 had to retire from the field, but they held on to the title. For a great 
 many years the old whigs and democrats had it up and down, in and 
 out, and so new colonels were made by the score until the State was 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 167 
 
 chock full again. They had a general muster and a grand review 
 once up at Lafayette, and Bob Barry lived up there and was the b-hoy 
 of the town. Bob never wore shoes or a hat or hardly anything else 
 in those days, and he had petted and tamed a great big long razor- 
 backed hog, and could ride him with a rope bridle, and so as the col- 
 onel and his staff came galloping down the lines with their cockades 
 and plumes and glittering swords, Bob suddenly came out from behind 
 a house mounted on his razor-back hog, and a paper cap with a tur- 
 key feather in it on his head, and a pair of old tongs swinging from 
 his suspenders, and some spurs on his bare -footed heels, and he fell in 
 just behind the cavalcade, and got the hog on a run, and scared their 
 horses, and the whole concern ran away and the hog after 'em, and 
 such a yell and such an uproar was never heard in those parts or any- 
 where else. The hog never stopped running until he got home, when 
 he dismounted and took to the woods for fear of consequences. Bob 
 is running a Sunday-school now, and I'm glad of it, for it will take a 
 good deal of missionary work in him to make up for some things the 
 Lafayette people tell about. 
 
 But these militia musters got to be sucli farces that the legislature 
 abolished 'em about thirty-five years ago, though they couldent abolish 
 the colonels. When the war broke loose most of 'em went into the 
 army and got reduced. Many a peace colonel got to be a war major 
 or a captain, or even a high private, and in that way their ranks were 
 thinned. Our governors, however, still make a few new ones as often 
 as they are elected, and so the peace colonel is still destined to live 
 and illustrate the good old State. The Georgia majors are not so 
 numerous. They came from these same militia musters, for every 
 county had her battalions and every battalion had its major. But 
 now his destiny is fixed. There are no more majors to come, and the 
 old stock is passing away. I'm glad you have a paper in your town 
 that is perpetuating the good old name, for the time was in the good 
 old days when he was a power in the land — when he, too, wore epau- 
 lets and a sword and marched his cohorts up the hill and marched 'em 
 down again. 
 
 After the muster was over then came the horse swapping, and the 
 horse races, and the pugilistic exercises in the town in front of the 
 groceries. No pistols, nor knives, nor sticks were allowed, but tha 
 
168 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 boys stripped to the waist and went at it with nature's weapons. It 
 was short work and quick work and nobody hurt very much, though 
 sometimes Billy Patterson got an awful lick. These fighting boys had 
 no cause to quarrel, but Rancy Sniffle wanted it settled as to who was 
 the best man in his beat. That was all. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 169 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 On the Old Times, Alexander Stephens, Etc. 
 
 Two cents — only two cents. When I look at a postage stamp it 
 carries me away back. Back to the time when my father was post- 
 master and I was clerk, and had to make up the mails in a country 
 town. The difference between now and then shows that the world's 
 progress in this department is hardly excelled in any other branch of 
 improvement. We couldn't bear to be set back again in the old ways 
 that our fathers thought were pretty good. There were no stamps 
 and no envelopes and no mucilage. The paper was folded up like a 
 thumbpaper, and one side slipped in the other and sealed with a wrap- 
 per. The little schoolboys, you know, had to use thumb-papers in 
 their spelling books to keep them clean where their dirty thumbs kept 
 the pages open. Girls didn't have to use them, for they were nicer 
 and kept their hands clean, and didn't wear out the leaves by the 
 friction of their fingers. Boys are rough things any how, and I don't 
 see what a nice, sweet, pretty girl wants with one of 'em. Girls, they 
 say, are made of sugar and spice and all that's nice, but boys are 
 made of snaps and snails and puppy dogs' tails. Josephus says, that 
 when the queen of Sheba was testing Solomon's wisdom, she had fifty 
 boys and fifty girls all dressed alike in girls' clothes and seated around 
 a big room, and asked the king to pick out the boys from the girls, 
 and he called for a basin of water and had it carried around to each 
 one and told them to wash their hands. The girls all rolled up their 
 sleeves a little bit, the boys just sloshed their hands in any way and 
 got water all over their aprons, and so the king spotted every mother's 
 son of them. 
 
 The postage used to be regulated by the distance that Uncle Sam 
 carried the letters. It was 12^ cents anywhere in the state, and 18 J 
 cents to Charleston, and 25 cents to New York. It was never pre- 
 paid. A man could afllict another with a pistareen letter that wasent 
 worth five cents. A pistareen, you know, was 18|- cents — that is a 
 
170 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 sevenpence and a thrip. We had no dimes or half dimes. The dol- 
 lars was cut up into eighths instead of tenths. When a countryman 
 called for letters and got one, he would look at it some time and turn 
 it over and meditate before he paid for it, and very often they would 
 say, "where did this letter come from?" Well, I would say, for 
 instance, *'it came from Dahlonega — don't you see Dahlonega written 
 up on the corner ? " Then he would say, "well, I reckon it's from 
 Dick, my brother Dick. He is up there diggin' gold. Don't you 
 reckon it's from Dick?" "I reckon it is," said I. "Why don't you 
 open it and see ? " "No, I'll wait until I get home. They'll all want 
 to see it," When he got home that letter would be an event in the 
 family, and perhaps it would take them half an hour to wade through 
 it and make out its contents. Nine out of ten of those country let- 
 ters began, ' ' I take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well, 
 and hope these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing." 
 My father kept store and his country customers used to ask him to 
 write their letters for them, and he always sent them to me, and most 
 of them told me to begin their letters that way. There was not more 
 than one in five that could write, but they were good, clever, honest 
 peoj)le and paid their debts, but they hardly ever paid up in full at 
 the end of the year, and so they gave their notes for the balance and 
 made their mark. My father used to say that he had known cases 
 where a man swore oif his written signature, but he never knew a man 
 to deny his mark. Our big northern mail used to come in a stage 
 from Madison twice a week, and I used to think the sound of the 
 stage-horn as the stage came over the hill, was one of the sublimest 
 things in the world, and I thought that if ever I got to be a man I 
 would be a stage-driver if I could. Well, I came pretty near it, for 
 my father had hired a man to ride the mail to Roswell and back twice a 
 week, and the man got sick and so my father put me on a dromedary 
 of a horse and the mail in some saddle-bags behind me, and I had to 
 make the forty-eight miles in a day and kept it up all the winter. I 
 liked to have frozen several times, and had to be lifted off the horse when 
 I got home, and it nearly broke my mother's heart, but I was getting a 
 dollar a trip and it was my money, and so I wouldn't back out. The 
 old w^omen on the route used to crowd me with their little commissions 
 and get me to bring them pepper, or copperas, or bluing, or pins and 
 needles, or get me to take along some socks and sell them, and so I 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 171 
 
 made friends and acquaintances all the way. The first trip I made, 
 an old woman hailed me and said, *' Are you a mail boy ? " "Why, 
 yes, mam," said I. "You dident think I was a female boy, did 
 you ? " I thought that was smart, but it wasent very civil and it 
 made her so mad she never told me what she wanted, and as she 
 turned her back on me I heard her say, "I'll bet he's a little stuck up 
 town boy." 
 
 My father was postmaster for nearly thirty years. It didn't pay 
 more than about $200 a year, but it made his store more of a public 
 place. He didn't know that anybody else hankered after it or was 
 trying to get it, but all of a sudden he got his orders to turn over the 
 oflSce to another man, an old line Whig and a competitor in business. 
 It mortified him very much and made us all mad, for there was no 
 fault found with his management, and he never took much interest in 
 politics but voted for the man he liked the best whether he w^as a 
 W hig or a Democrat. When he found that Alex. Stephens had it done 
 he wasent a Stephens man any more, and I grew up with an idea 
 that Mr. Stephens was a political fraud. I dident understand the 
 science of politics as well as I do now. I told Mr. Stephens about it 
 one night at Milledgeville when we were all in a good humor and 
 were talking about the old times of Whigs and Democrats, and he 
 smiled and said, ' ' yes, we had to do those things, and sometimes they 
 were very disagreeable." I will never forget that night's talk. It 
 was during the session of the first legislature after the war. Jim 
 Waddell took me to Mr. Stephens' room to hear him talk, and there 
 was Mr. Jenkins and Tom Hardeman and Benning Moore and Beverly 
 Thornton and Peter Strozier and Dr. Ridley and some others, and 
 everybody was in a good humor, and Mr. Stephens was reclining on 
 his bed and told anecdote after anecdote about the old AYhigs and 
 how he met the Democrats on the stump and what they said and what 
 he said, and he most always got the advantage and carried the crowd 
 with him. I was very much fascinated with his conversation, but 
 couldent help being reminded of a circumstance that transpired some 
 years before in the town of Calhoun. The Whigs of Gordon county 
 had sent for Mr. Stephens to come up and make a speech and rally 
 the boys for the next election, for Gordon was pretty equally balanced 
 between Whigs and Democrats, and the Whigs wanted a big revival. 
 So Aleck accepted^ and when the day came the crowd was tremendous. 
 
172 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 The Democrats had tried to get Howell Cobb and Herschel Johnson 
 to come up and reply to Aleck, but they couldent come, and so little 
 Aleck had it all his own way. In the meantime the Democratic boys 
 had hunted up A. M. Russell and got his promise to reply to Mr. 
 Stephens. Russell was an original genius. He was gifted in language, 
 gifted in imagination, gifted in cheek, gifted in lying, and was utterly 
 regardless of consequences. 
 
 Mr. Stephens made a splendid speech. He arraigned the Democ- 
 racy and held them up to ridicule, and when he got through the 
 Whigs were more than satisfied, and Mr. Stephens was satisfied, too — 
 he came down from the stand and was receiving the congratulations of 
 his friends, when suddenly Russell mounted the rostrum and, rapping 
 on the plank in front of him, screamed out in one unearthly yell; 
 ''Fellow citizens!" Everybody knew him, and everybody wanted to 
 hear him, and hushed into silence. After a sentence or two Mr. 
 Stephens was attracted to him, and with curious and astonished inter- 
 est inquired, *'Who is that man?" After Russell had paid an elo- 
 quent tribute to the glorious old Democratic party, and given it 
 credit for every good thing that had been done since the fall of Adam, 
 he then turned to Mr. Stephens, and, with a sneering scorn, said: 
 "And what have you and your party been doing and trying to do ? 
 What made you vote away the public lands so that yankees and fur- 
 riners could get 'em and our people couldent? What made you vote 
 for high tariff on sugar and cofiee and raise the price so that our poor 
 people couldent buy it?" Mr. Stephens rose excited and irritated, 
 and stretching his long arm to the audience, screamed out: **I never 
 did it, my fellow-citizens — I deny the fact and call upon the gen- 
 tlemen for his proof." With the utmost self-possession, Russell said, 
 *'You do — you call for the proof. Sir, if I was to go two miles from 
 home to make a speech I would carry my proof with me. I wouldent 
 be vain enough to go without it ; but, sir, I am at home — these peo- 
 ple know me — they raised me and when I assert a thing they believe 
 it. You are the man to bring the proof." The crowd shouted an(J 
 laughed as tumultuously as they had done for Mr. Stephens, and he 
 sat down disgusted. Russell continued: *'And what was your motive 
 when you were a member of the legislature in voting for a law that 
 prohibited a man from voting unless he was worth $500? Answer 
 me that while you are here face to face with these humble citizens of 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 173 
 
 Gordon county. At this Mr. Stephens rose again furious with indig- 
 nation and screamed : "It is ialse, sir, it is false; I deny the fact." 
 
 *'You do," said Kussell, scornfully, "I supposed you would — you 
 deny the fact. That is just what you have been doing for twenty 
 years — going about over the country denying facts." And the 
 crowd went wild with merriment, for even the AVhigs couldn't help 
 joining in the fun. Mr. Stephens turned to his companions and said 
 with a tone of despair, "Let us go to the hotel," and they went, 
 
 I thought of all this while Mr. Stephens was telling me of his 
 triumphs over veteran foes, and so when he came to a pause I timidly 
 said: "Mr. Stephens, did you ever encounter a man by the name of 
 Kussell up at Calhoun?" 
 
 With a merry glistening of his wonderful eyes he straightened up and 
 said : ' 'I did, I did, yes, I did. I will never forget that man. He got me 
 completely. If I had known him I would not have said a word in 
 reply, but I dident know him. He cured me of one expression. I 
 frequently used to emphasize my denial of lies and slander, and that 
 was to say, 'I deny the fact.' I had never thought of its grammatical 
 absurdity, but that man Russell taught me and I quit it. I think he 
 had the most wonderful flow of language and lies of any man I ever 
 met." Mr. Stephens then made a pretty fair recital of his recounter 
 and his "utter defeat," as he expressed it, all of which we eujoyed. 
 Where are they now? Old Father Time has cut them all down but 
 three, Hardeman and Thornton and myself are here, but all the rest 
 of that bright, intelligent crowd are gone. It looks like most every- 
 body is dead. If they are not they will be before long, and another 
 set will be in their places and have their jokes and flash their wit and 
 merriment all the same. 
 
174 The Fakm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 Sticking to the Old. 
 
 As the world grows older mankind becomes more liberal in opinion 
 and less wedded to prejudice and superstition. We rub against one 
 another so closely nowadays, and talk so much and read so much that 
 our conceit is weakening, and we think more and think deeper than 
 we used to, and are more ready to absorb knowledge. A man don't 
 dare nowadays to say anything is impossible, for many impossibilities 
 have already been performed, and we now live in a state of anxious 
 expectation as to what big thing will come next. Still, there are some 
 folks who stubbornly refuse to fall into line, and they stand by the 
 old landmarks. Not long ago I passeed by a blacksmith shop away 
 off in the country, and there was a horse doctor cutting the hooks out 
 of a horse's eyes to keep him from going blind, and he got very indig- 
 nant when I told him that the horse books were all against it, and said 
 it ought to be prohibited by law. I heard an old hardshell arguing 
 against this idea that the world turned over every day, and he declared 
 it was against common sense and Scripture, and he wouldent let his chil- 
 dren go to school to learn any such nonsense, for he knowed that the 
 water would all spill out if you turned it upside down, and the Scrip- 
 ters said that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and it stood 
 still ; and he asked me how I was going to get over the like of that. 
 I saw that the crowd was agamst me, and so I replied: "Jesso. 
 Jesso, my friend. And right then the wonderful change took place. 
 The sun used to go around the earth, of course, but Joshua stopped it 
 and he never set it to going again, and it is there yet." 
 
 This weakened the old man a little and unsettled the crowd, and I 
 got away from there prematurely for fear the old man would send for 
 his Bible. Answer a fool according to his folly is a good way some- 
 times. Dr. Harden told me about his father raising a rumpus a long 
 time ago in old AVatkinsville by asserting that all horses had botts in 
 'em, and it was accordin' to nature and the botts were not a disease. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 175 
 
 and a horse never died on account of 'em. Old man Moore kept the 
 tavern there and he swore that Harden was a luniack, and so one day 
 when they were playing checkers in the tavern a storm came up and a 
 terrible crash was heard, and pretty soon a darkey came running in 
 the house and told his master the lightning had struck his iron grey 
 horse and killed him. Old man Moore thought as much of that horse 
 as he did of his wife, and the crowd all hurried out to the lot to see 
 him. Moore was greatly distressed and used bad language about the 
 catastrophe, and after he subsided a little, Harden says he, "Now 
 Moore, if you say so, I'll cut open that horse and show you the botts, 
 and I reckon that will settle it." So Moore agreed to it, and when he 
 was opened, and the botts began to cut their way out and worm 
 around, Harden looked at Moore with triumphant satisfaction and 
 paused for a reply. Moore had his hands crossed behind his back, 
 and was gazing intently at the ugly varmints, when suddenly he 
 exclaimed, ''Harden, I was powerful mad with that lightning for kill- 
 ing old Selim, but I ain't now, for if the lightning hadent struck him 
 I'll be damned if them infernal botts wouldent have killed him in 
 thirty minutes." Moore had a big fighting stump-tail dog by the name 
 of Ratler, and one day a little Italian came along with an organ and 
 a monkey, and as the crowd gatherd around he asked the man if his 
 monkey could fight. "Oh, yes, he fight," said the Italian. "Will 
 he fight a dog?" said Moore. "Oh, yes; he fight a dog — he whip 
 dog quick," said the Italian. Moore pulled out a five dollar bill and 
 said, "I'll bet you this that I've got a dog he can't whip." The little 
 fellow covered it with another five and the money was handed over to 
 a stakeholder and they went through to the back yard, followed by 
 half the folks in the little town. There lay the dog on the grass 
 asleep, and at the word the Italian tossed the monkey on him. In 
 less than a jiff^y the little brute had his teeth and his claws fastened 
 like a vise in the stump of that dog's tail and was screeching like a 
 hyena. The dog gave but one astonished look behind as he bounced 
 to his feet and made tracks for another country. The monkey held 
 on until Katler sprung over a ten-rail fence at the back of the garden 
 when he suddenly quit his hold and sat on the top rail, and watched 
 the dog's flight with a chatter of perfect satisfaction and danced along 
 the rail with delight. The crowd was convulsed. They laughed and 
 roared and hollered tumultuously, all but old man Moore whose, voice 
 
176 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 could be heard above all others as he stood upon the fence and shouted 
 "Here Katler, here, here; here Ratler, here; here Ratler, here." 
 But Ratler wouldent hear. Ratler rattled on and on, across field after 
 field, until he got to the woods and was gone from-human sight. The 
 Italian shouldered his monkey affectionately, and walking up to Moore, 
 said: "Your dog not well to-day, maybe your dog gone off to hunt 
 rabbeet. Your dog no like my monkey — he not acquint. Maybe 
 ven I come again next year he come and fight some more. Ven you 
 look for heem to come back?" Moore gave up the wager, but he 
 asserted solemnly that Ratler would have whipped the fight if he 
 hadent have run. "The surprise, gentlemen, the surprise was what 
 done it," said he, "for that dog has whipped wild cats and a bear and 
 a she wolf and every dog in ten miles of Watkinsville." And all 
 that evening and away in the night and early the next morning an 
 inviting mournful voice could be heard at the back of the garden 
 calling, "Ratler here;" Ratler, here; and three days after a man 
 brought Ratler home, but he had lost his integrity and never could be 
 induced to fight anything more. 
 
 Some men never give up a thing, and some give up too much. 
 Judge Bleckley says that he is in the cautious, credulous state about 
 everything, and just lives along serenely and waits for events. He 
 says that if a man can hear the voice of a friend from New York to 
 Boston by the aid of a telephone, why shouldn't all the other senses 
 be aided in like manner by some invention; and he hints that he 
 wouldent be surprised at an invention that would enable a man to kiss 
 his wife across the Atlantic ocean. I don't think that follows to reason, 
 for hearing and seeing are both for distance, and so is smelling, but 
 feeling is a very different thing. Feeling means contact, and the 
 closer the contact the more intense the feeling. It never was intended 
 to feel afar off, and so I don't believe that any good would come of a 
 man kissing his wife through a machine a thousand miles long. It 
 would be very dangerous, for it might encourage folks to be kissing 
 other people's wives, and the machine would be kept busy all the time, 
 for there are some men who couldent be choked off, and by and by 
 the whole world would be kissing one another, and business would 
 be neglected and mankind would come to want. 
 
 But I do believe that everything will come that ought to come. 
 Nature has a mighty big storehouse, and she always unlocks it at the 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 177 
 
 riglit time. She is very economical of her treasures, and keeps 'em 
 from us until she sees that we are obliged to have 'em. Cotton dident 
 come, nor cotton machinery, until the world was bad off for clothing. 
 The sewing machine come along just as the poor women were about 
 worn out, and Tom Hood had written his sad, sweet "Song of the 
 Shirt." Coal was found when wood got scarce in the old world. Rail- 
 roads and steamships were invented as population increased, and now 
 we couldent possibly do without 'em. Old Peter Cooper said that a 
 million of people would perish in New York city in one month if the 
 cars were to stop running that long. Then came the telegraph, and 
 now the telephone, and I don't think any other very big thing will 
 happen soon, for mankind is very comfortable, and don't need it, so 
 let us all rest awhile and let Dame Nature rest. She has been very 
 kind to her creatures, and we all ought to be thankful. 
 
178 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A Prose Poem on Spring. 
 
 On this pellucid day when the sky is so beautifully blue and the 
 sun so warm and cheerful, when the jaybirds are chanting their safe 
 return from purgatory and the crows are cawing over the sprouting 
 corn, when the sheep bells tinkle merrily in the meadow and children 
 and chickens are cackling around, it seems like everything in nature 
 was happy and everybody ought to be. The darkies are singing to 
 the mules in the cotton field and are happier with a little than the 
 white folks are with a good deal. The darkey never borrows trouble. 
 I wish our race would take a few lessons in contentment from 'em — 
 not enough to make us shiftless and with no ambition to better our 
 condition, but enough to stop this restlessness, this wild rush for 
 money, this wear and tear upon brain and heart that is getting to be 
 the curse of the land. I wish everybody was happy and had nothing 
 against nobody. I wish every farmer had fine horses and fat cattle 
 and plenty of pocket change, and dident have to work only when he 
 felt like it. I wish I had a winter home in Florida with orange groves 
 and pine apples and bananas, and a summer home up among the 
 mountains, and a railroad and palace cars between the two, and a free 
 pass over the line and plenty of monoy at both ends of it. I wish I 
 was a king with a mint of gold and silver at my command, so I could 
 go about in disguise and mingle with the poor and friendless and lift 
 them up out of distress and make 'em happy. I wish I was a genii 
 like we read of in the Arabian Nights, and could, at a breath, build 
 palaces and make diamonds and pearls and marry all the poor girls to 
 rich husbands, and all the struggling boys to princesses and kick up a 
 cloud of golden dust wherever I went. No I don't, either, for I know 
 now that the like of that wouldent bring happiness in this sublunary 
 world. The best condition for a man is to have neither poverty nor 
 riches. Old Agur prayed a good prayer and he knew how it was — 
 
 ->• 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 179 
 
 For riches bripg us trouble when they come, 
 And there's want in the homes of the poor, 
 
 But it's good for a man to have a little sum 
 To keep away the wolf from the door. 
 
 Some folks are never happy unless they are miserable. Their livers 
 are green and yellow like melancholy, and they want everything they 
 can get, and would rather see mankind going to hell than to heaven 
 if they could stay behind and play wreckers on eternity's shore. I 
 have seen men whose very presence would dry up all hilarity as quick 
 as a slack tub cools hot iron. Men who never smile willingly, and 
 when they force one the cadaverous visage is lit up for a moment with 
 a brimstone light, and then relapses into its natural scowl. Such peo- 
 ple are a nuisance upon society, and ought to be abolished or put into 
 a lower asylum like luniacks. I've no more toleration for 'em than 
 for a mad dog, and if there's any apology it's in favor of the dog. 
 
 How inspiring is the earliest breath of spring, when nature like a 
 blushing maid is putting on her pantalets and preparing to bang her 
 silken hair. How quickly it brings to life the slumbering emotions 
 "which, though chilled by the frosts and the winds of winter, were not 
 dead, but only lay dormant like a bear in his den. What harmoni- 
 ous feelings spring up in one's bosom and gush forth to all mankind. 
 This balmy weather fills all the chambers of the soul with music that 
 is not heard and with poetry that is not expressed. The very air is 
 redolent with love and peace. Turnip greens are running up to seed, 
 the plum trees are in bloom, the busy bee is sucking their fragrant 
 blossoms, and by and by will be stinging the children as usual. The 
 sweet south wind is breathing upon the violet banks. Alder tags 
 hang in graceful clusters upon their drooping stems. Jonquills are 
 in a yellow strut, and the odorous shallots are about right for the fry- 
 ing pan. The little silver-sides and minnows have opened their 
 spring regattas. The classical robin has ceased to get drunk on the 
 China berry, and the ferocious chicken hawk catches about one a day 
 from our earliest broods. Everything is lively now — 
 
 Over the meadows the new-born lambs are skipping, 
 Over the fields the little boys are ripping. 
 
 The country is the best place for children. What a glorious luxury 
 it is for them to go barefooted and wade in the branch and go seining, 
 and climb trees and hunt bu:ds' nests, and carry the corn to mill, and 
 
180 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 run pony races. It is well enough for a man to live in a town or a 
 city when he is young and active, but when he gets married and the 
 little chaps come along according to nature, he ought to get on a farm 
 to raise 'em. An old man with numerous grandchildren has got no 
 business in a city. What a burlesque on childhood's joy it must be 
 to visit grandpa and grandma in a city penned up in brick walls, wtih 
 a few sickly flowers in the window, and a garden in the rear about as 
 big as a wagon sheet. Might as well try to raise good, healthy, vig- 
 orous colts in a stable yard. There is too much machinery about rais- 
 ing children now-a-days anyhow. The race is running out, and noth- 
 ing but country life can save it. The old back-log is gone, and the 
 big, open, friendly fire-place, and the cheerful blazing family hearth; 
 and now it is a hole in the floor, or iron pipes running around the 
 walls. I reckon that is economy, but in my opinion a man can't im- 
 prove the stock that way, nor keep it as good as it was. The children 
 will be picayunish and over-nice and sharp-featured, and potty before 
 and gimletty behind. They won't do to bet on like those chaps 
 brought up around a fire-place on a hundred-acre farm. 
 
 Raising children is the principal business of human life, and is about 
 all that the majority of mankind are working for, though they don't 
 know it. It is the excuse for all the mad rush of business that hurries 
 su along. It is the apology for nearly all the cheating and stealing and 
 lying in the land. Working for the children is behind it all, and the 
 trouble is that most everybody is trying to do too much for 'em and 
 scuffling against wind and tide to keep up with their nabors or get a lit- 
 tle ahead. Too many fine clothes, too many kid gloves and parasols and 
 new bonnets — too many carpets and curtains and pictures, and a thou- 
 sand other things that run up the outgo bigger than the income, and 
 keep the poor fellows always on a strain. I love to humor 'em and 
 play horse with 'em, and tell 'em stories about Jack and the bean 
 stalk, and what I did when I was a little boy ; and I put 'em to bed 
 and rub their backs and let 'em trot around with me a good deal on 
 week days and all day Sunday, but I'm not going to waste my slender 
 substance on 'em, for it's nature's law that they must work for a liv- 
 ing and they shall. I'm going to raise 'em in the country, for as 
 Thomas Jefl^erson said, *'the influence of great cities is pestilential to 
 health and morals and the liberties of the people." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 181 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 Uncle Bart. 
 
 Old Uncle Bart, as we call him, wasn't a common drunkard nor an 
 uncommon one either, but every time he came to town he would get 
 drunk. He came mighty seldom, for when he did the memory of it 
 lasted him about three months. He told me after such a spree he felt 
 as mean and lonely as a stray dog. He said he couldn't eat nor sleep, 
 and away in the night wanted water so bad he "felt like he could bite 
 a branch in two and swallow the upper end." 
 
 One morning he came in early to see Dolph Ross, who was going to 
 Texas. He came across him before he came across the grocery, and 
 says he: ''Hallo, Dolph — gwine to Texas?" 
 
 "Yes, Uncle Bart, I am." 
 
 "Well, my brother Ben lives over there, and he's got big rich, and 
 no family, and I thought if you'd see him and tell him how sorry we 
 was gettin' along he mout do something for us. You see my wheat 
 crop is likely to fail, for the back-water from the spring freshet got 
 over it, and it's all turned yaller, and my corn looks sickly, and my 
 best cow got snake-bit last week and died, and the old lady is power- 
 tul puny, and Sal she got to hankerin' arter a likely chap in the 
 naborhood and married him, and he ain't got nothin', and I'm gettin' 
 old and can't stand nigh as much as I used to, and I want you to see 
 Brother Ben, and maybe he'll do somethin' — you see?" 
 
 "Yes, I see. Uncle Bart, but where does your brother Ben live?" 
 
 "Live? Why, he lives in Texas, I told ye! If you don't meet 
 him in the road you can send him some word by somebody and he'U 
 find you. He's over there, shore." 
 
 In about an hour he met Dolph again, find slapping his foot down 
 limberly, he seized Dolph's hand with a loving grip, and says he, 
 "Hello, Dolph— gwine to Texas?" 
 
 "Yes, Uncle Bart." 
 
 "Will you tell Brother Ben that we are all doin' tol'able; the crop 
 
182 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 looks 'bout as good as common, and the old 'oman's sweet and sassy as- 
 ever, and Sal, she's married and done splendid. Good by, Dolph, 
 God bless you, I love you." 
 
 In about two more drinks, from that time. Uncle Bart come weavin' 
 along, and, says he, "Hello, Dolph, gwine to Texas? — tell Brother 
 Bren I've got — I've got the brest crop in the — State — to let me know 
 how he's golonging along — if he wants anything — he shall — s'havit — 
 he shan't — he shan't — she shan't suffer — as long as — as I've got nothin' 
 — I can send him — twen or twelve-teen dollars — any time — fwarwell 
 Dolph." 
 
 About the close of the day Dolph found him on the lowermost step 
 of the grocery, his head on his knees and his hat on the ground. 
 Thinking it a poor place to spend the night, he aroused him to a glim- 
 mering view of the situation. 
 
 ''Hello — Roff Doss," says he, "gwine to — Texas? — tell Brother 
 Ben — hdVs afloat and the river's a-Tisin\" (Hie.) 
 
The Farm and The Fhieside. 183 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 Christmas on the Farm. 
 
 A happy New Year to you and your readers. I don't mean just the 
 first day, but all the year round. I wish from my heart everybody 
 was comfortable and contented and everybody lived in peace. I was 
 ruminating over that kind of a millenium which would come if there 
 were no bad folks — no lazy folks, no envy nor spite nor revenge — no 
 bad passions but everybody took things easy and tried to make all 
 around them happy. I wasent thinking about a religious millennium 
 for I have known peoplo to make mighty good, honorable citizens 
 who dident have any religion to spare and some who had a power of it 
 on Sunday but was a juggling with the devil all the rest of the week. 
 I was thinking about that class of folks who gave us no trouble and 
 was always willing to tote fair. The law wasent made for them. I 
 was thinking about the half a million of dollars it costs to run the 
 State government a year and the half a million more it costs to run 
 the counties and courts. If everybody was clever and kind we could 
 save most all of it and in a few years everybody would have enough to 
 be comfortable and to educate their children. The laws are made for 
 bad people only and bad people costs us about all the surplus that's 
 made. I know folks all around me who never violate a law or impose 
 on their nabors or have a law suit, and it seems to me they ought not 
 to be taxed like people who are always a fussing around the court- 
 house and taking up the time of juries and witnesses. There ought to 
 be some way to reward good citizens who give us no trouble or ex- 
 pense, and to make folks who love strife and contention pay the 
 expense of it. 
 
 But I started out wishing for a happy New Year to everybody, and 
 my opinion is that we can all make it happy if we try. Lets try. 
 Lets turn over a new leaf. Lets have a Christmas all the year long. 
 Lets keep the family hearth always bright and pleasant. Fussing 
 and fretting don't pay. Solomon says its like water dropping on a 
 
184 The Farivi and The Fireside. 
 
 rock — it will wear away a stone. The home of an unhappy discordant 
 family is po home at all. It aint even a decent purgatory. The 
 children won't stay there any longer than possible. They will emi- 
 grate and I don't blame 'em. 
 
 We've had a power of fun at my house the last few days. Mrs. 
 Arp said she was going to town. She had a little passel of money 
 hid away — nobody knew how much or where she got it, but sometimes 
 when my loose change is laying around or left in my pockets, I've 
 noticed that it disappears very mysteriously. It took about two hours 
 to arrange herself for the expedition and she left us on a mission of 
 peace on earth and good will to her children. 
 
 *'Now William, you know the Christmas tree is to be put up in the 
 hall. You have very good taste about such things and I know I can 
 trust you without any directions. Put in that large square box in the 
 smoke house and fasten it well to the bottom and put the top on the 
 box for a table, and the girls will cover it nicely with some curtain 
 calico. But I wiU not direct you for I know you can fix it all right. 
 There are most too many limbs on the tree. There is a lot of pop 
 corn already threaded and you can arrange them in festoons all over the 
 tree, and the oranges that Dick sent us from Florida are locked up in the 
 pantry. Thread them with a large needle and tie them all about on the 
 limbs. The little wax candles and the tins to fasten them are in the 
 drawer of my bureau. I've had them for several years and we will 
 light up the tree to-night. The milk is ready to churn you know. 
 Set the jar in the large tin bucket before you churn. It will save 
 messing the floor. There are two turkeys in the coop — take the fat- 
 test one — you can tell by holding them up in your hands. Ralph will 
 help about the turkey. If you think one turkey will not be enough 
 you had better kill a couple of chickens to go with it. I do hope all 
 the children will be here, but I am afraid they won't. It does look 
 like we might get together once a year anyhow. Now do attend to 
 the turkey just as nice as you can, and leave the butter for me to work 
 over when I come back. The front yard ought to be swept and the 
 back yard is in an awful mess. But I will just leave everything to 
 you. Keep the hall doors locked for the children mustent see the tree 
 until Santa Claus comes. That mistletoe must be put over the parlor 
 pictures. Hunt up a few more eggs if you can find them. Don't 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 185 
 
 disturb the mince pies in the closet — never mind about that either, for 
 I've got the key in my pocket." 
 
 It always did seem to me that ours was the noisiest, liveliest and 
 most restless set that ever stumped a toe or fell into the branch. They 
 "went through the measles, and the whoopin' cough, and chicken pox, 
 and I don't know how many more things, without stoppin' to see what 
 was the matter. A long time ago it was my opinion that I could reg- 
 ulate 'em and raise 'em up accordin' to science, but I dident find that 
 amount of co-operation which was necessary to make a fair experi- 
 ment. On the contrary, I found myself regulated, besides being from 
 time to time reminded by their maternal ancestor that the children 
 were hern, and to this day she always speaks of 'em as "my children. 
 Well, that's a fact ; her titleis mighty good to 'em I know, and on 
 reflection I don't remember to have ever heard any dispute about who 
 was the mother of a child. 
 
 Well, we can sing the same old song — how*the' little folks had lived 
 on tip-toe for many days waiting for Santa Glaus, and how that umble 
 parlor was dressed in cedar and mistletoe, and the big back log put 
 on, and the blazing fire built up, and the little stockings hung by the 
 mantel, and everything got ready for the kind old gentleman. How 
 that blue-eyed daughter played deputy to him, and was the keeper of 
 everybody's secret; and shutting herself up in the parlor, arranged 
 everything to her notion. How that when supper was over one of the 
 boys slipped up the ladder to the top of the house with his cornet and 
 tooted a few merry notes as the signal that Santa Claus had arrived. 
 Then came the infantile squeal, and the youthful yell, and the Arpian 
 shriek, and all rushed in wild commotion to the festive hall. Then 
 came the joyful surprises, all mixed up with smiles and sunbeams, and 
 exclamations and interjections. Tumultuous gladness gleamed and 
 glistened all around, and the big bucket of family joy ran over. But 
 everybody knows how it is hisself, and don't hanker after a history of 
 other people's frolics. 
 
 Well, the old year has buried its dead, and brought forth its living 
 to take their places. And the time is at hand when everybody is 
 going to open a new set of books, and turn over a new leaf and pass 
 a few resolutions to be kept about three weeks. That's all right. Keep 
 'em as long as you can, but don't repent of this year's sins too much 
 at once. Don't get too much religion at a revival, for by and by the 
 
186 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 snow will be gone, and the spring will open and the birds begin to 
 sing and the flowers to bloom and man's conceit and independence 
 come back to him and make him forget the winter and his promises, 
 and strut around like he was running the whole macheen. But it's 
 all right, judge, all Tight, as Cobe says. If a man is good accordin' 
 to his capacity he can't be any gooder. 
 
The Farm and The FiREsmE. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 Democratic PRmcrPLES. 
 
 How sweet are the sounds from home. How soothing the conso- 
 solations of a discerning wife. I was feeling bad and she knew it. 
 My cogitations over the election news were by no means jubilant. 
 Silent and sad, with the newspaper open on my knee, I had been look- 
 ing dreamily at the flickering flames for about ten minutes while Mrs. 
 Arp sat near me sewing a patch on a pair of little breeches, when 
 suddenly she inquired : 
 
 "What did you expect Mr. Cleveland to do for you?" 
 
 ''Nothing," said I, ''nothing at all; but then you see, my dear, its 
 highly important that a Democrat should be at the head of the 
 nation." 
 
 She never looked up nor for a moment stopped the graceful jerk of 
 her needle and thread as she again inquired : 
 
 "And what would a Democratic President do for you?" 
 
 "Well, nothing — nothing at all," said I, "but then you see I feel 
 interested in the success of our party and the promulgation of the 
 great general principles of the Democracy. They are the hope of the 
 country — the — the" 
 
 "Please tell me something about those great principles," said she ; 
 "what are they?" 
 
 "Why, my dear, the great principles of our party are — they — are 
 — they — why they are as old as the government. They underlie the 
 foundation of Democratic institutions — they" — 
 
 "But what are they?" said she. 
 
 "Well, in the first place," said I, "when Thomas Jefferson was 
 President he eliminated and set forth those principles in a series of 
 state papers that have established in the mind of American patriots a 
 reverence for democratic gcvernment that" — 
 
 "But what are the principles?" said she. 
 
 "Well as I was going on to say, the democratic institutions of our 
 country have contributed more to the peservation of life, liberty and 
 happiness than all other causes combined ; indeed the benefits that is 
 adherent partake of are — they are" — 
 
 "Justification, adoption, and sanctification," said she. 
 
188 The Farm and The FiREsroE. 
 
 *'No, not exactly; not to that pious extent," said I. *' An enumer- 
 ation of all those great principles would require more time than — 
 than—" 
 
 ''Well, nevermind, William, never mind," said she affectionately, "I 
 don't want to take up your valuable time, but I've been suspecting, 
 for a long time, that those principles were to get in office and draw 
 big salaries, and live high without work, and I reckon one party can 
 do that about as well as another ; don't you ? " 
 
 "Well, yes, my dear; there is, I confess, some foundation for your 
 suspicions ; but then, you see, we are trying to nationalize the Ameri- 
 can people through a national party, and become once more in frater- 
 nal union, and — " 
 
 ''Well, you can't do that, William," said she. "They never did 
 like us and we never did like them. We needn't have any more war, 
 but we can be stately and distant like we have to be with nabors that 
 are not congenial. If I was you I'd let national politics, as you call 
 it, alone, for it's a jack o'lantern business and will never profit you. 
 Look after your farm and your home affairs. You had better go out 
 now and water the flowers in the pit, and see where Carl and Jessie 
 are. The meal is nearly out, and you had better shell a turn of corn 
 this evening, and while you are down there see if the old blue hen 
 has hatched. Her time is about up. Stir around awhile and don't 
 be looking so far away." 
 
 Blessed woman ! I did stir 'round, and it made me feel better. I 
 shall take no more interest in national politics until — well, until the 
 next election. Consolation is a good thing. I'm going to be recon- 
 ciled anyway and not give up the ship. Keckon I can stay at home 
 and make corn and cotton, and frolic with the children, and ruminate 
 on the uncertainties of life and bask in the sunshine of the family 
 queen. 
 
 "I am afraid you are hankering after an office," said she, "and that 
 would take you away from home and leave me and the children alone. 
 Office is a poor thing; when a man gets one, everybody is envious of 
 him, and he has to give away about half his salary to keep his popu- 
 larity. We've got a good home, and we are getting along in years, 
 and I think we had better stay here, and be as happy as we can. Don't 
 you, John Anderson, my Joe?" and she placed her little soft hand so 
 gently and lovingly on my frosty brow, my reverend head, that I 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 189 
 
 havent thought about office since. I'm going to camp right here. 
 Dr. Talmage has been preaching a sermon lately on married folks, 
 and he says it's the way the women do that drives their husbands off 
 at night to the club houses, and the stores, and the loafing places about 
 town ; says they don't sweeten up on 'em like they did before they was 
 married — don't come to the door to meet 'em — don't play the piano, 
 but sorter give up, and are always complaining about something, or 
 scolding the children or the servants. Well, maybe that's so to some 
 extent, but my observation is that most of them fellers went to the 
 club-houses and loafed around before they were married. I've knowed 
 men to quit home and go up town every night because they said they 
 was in the way while the children were being washed and put to bed. 
 My wife, Mrs. Arp, taught me a long time ago that a man could per- 
 form those little offices about as well as a woman, and if they are his; 
 children he ought to be willing to do it. There the poor woman sits 
 and sews and nurses the little chaps all the day long, tieing up the cut 
 fingers and stumped toes, and doctoring the little tooth-ache, and leg- 
 ache, and stomach-ache, and fixen 'em something to eat, and helping 
 'em in a thousand little ways — while the lord of the house is chatting 
 with his customers or sitting in his office with his feet upon a table or 
 against the mantel-piece, and another feller just like him is doing the 
 same thing, and they talk, and swap lies, and laugh, and carry on, 
 and it's "ha, ha, ha," and "he, he, he,** and "ho, ho, ho;" and about 
 dark he stretches and yawns and says, "Well, I must go home; it's 
 about my supper time," and brother Talmage wants his poor wife ta 
 be a watching at the window, and when she sees him coming she must 
 run out and meet him 'twixt the house and the gate, and kiss him 
 on his old smoky lips and say, "Oh, my dear, my darling, I'm so glad 
 you have come." Well, that's all right, I reckon, if a woman ain't 
 got nothing else to think about but fitting herself for heaven, but to 
 my opinion a man ought to go home a little sooner than he does, and 
 take a little more interest in things when he gets there. 
 
 Women are a heap better than men if they have half a chance. 
 They were created better. They begin the world better in their 
 infancy Little girls don't go round throwing rocks at birds and 
 shooting sling-shots at the chickens and running the calves all over the 
 lot and setting the dogs on the barn cats and breaking up pigeons' nests 
 and all that. Never saw a boy that didn't want to shoot a gun and 
 
190 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 kill something. It's a wonder to me that these kind, tender hearted 
 girls will have anything to do with 'em, but it seems like they will, 
 and I reckon it's all right, but if I was a young marryin' woman I 
 would be mighty particular about mating wdth a feller round town who 
 belonged to half a dozen societies of one sort or another and was out 
 every night. If I wanted a man all to myself I would look out for 
 some farmer boy who would take me to the country where there ain't 
 no clubs or Masonic lodge or Odd Fellows or Knights of Honor or 
 Pythias or Scylla or Charybdis, or fire companies, or brass bands, or 
 mardi gras, or pate defoi gras. I'd force him to love me whether he 
 wanted to or not, for there wouldn't be anything to distract his atten- 
 tion. But then, if a girl wants to fly round and be everybody's gal, 
 and have all sorts of a time, why then she'd better marry in town. 
 It's all a question of having one good man to love you, or a dozen 
 siUy ones to admire. But as I ain't a woman, I suppose it's none of 
 my business. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVm. 
 
 Politics. 
 
 POLITICS is a hard ROAD TO TRAVEL. 
 
 Politics are pretty hot, but no hotter than they were forty-five years 
 ago between the Whigs and Democrats. I remember when Dr. 
 Miller, the Demosthenes of the mountains, used to follow Judge 
 Lumpkin on the grand rounds and whip him in everything but gettin* 
 votes ; when the democratic school boy couldent nigh kiss a whig girl, 
 nor buck up to her with honorable intentions, party spirit run high in 
 them days, shore. There were party lawyers and doctors, and party 
 clients and patients. If a Democrat got sick, he was afeared a Whig 
 doctor would pizon him, and vice voce. There were party stores and 
 blacksmith shops and gristmills. The line was drawn tite between 
 'em in almost everything, and they hated one another. 
 
 I remember the great Harrison jubilee, when the Whigs of our 
 town fixed up for a big torch-light procession and hifalutin' speech- 
 ifyin', and sent down to Decatur and borrowed a cannon, and hauled 
 it up with four yoke of oxen, and was to fire it all day to make the 
 Democrats feel just as bad as possible, and that night it poured down 
 rain in great sluices, and ten of the Democrat boys stole the cannon 
 out of a back yard and dragged it ofi* about two miles and hid it in a 
 swamp, and the rain put out all the tracks before day. I've seen a 
 heap of mad critters in my life and hearn tell of some, but nothin' 
 was ever more madder than them Whig boys the next mornin'. They 
 ripped and raved, and snorted, and cavorted, and tore 'round like 
 wildcats and hunted everywhere, and sent ofi after some track dogs, 
 but that cannon wasent found. It dident come to light until the next 
 Democratic victory, when one dark night it went off right in the mid- 
 dle of the town and like to have skeered everybody to death, but 
 nobody know'd how it got there or who fired it. WeU, I tell you, 
 them Whigs did hate powerfully to haul that gun back to Decatur, 
 
192 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 shore. Ask Luster if they dident, and some of these days, after he 
 is elected, ask him in a confidential way who stole it. But don't you 
 tell Dr. Jim Alexander, nor his brother Tom, for I don't know 
 exactly how long it takes 'em to get over that sort of a thing. 
 
 It dident matter much in them days whether a man was a Methodist 
 or a Baptist, honest or tricky ; whether he was smart or sorter thick- 
 headed, but it did matter a good deal whether he was a Whig or a 
 Democrat. When Polk was nominated everybody was waitin' for the 
 news, and as soon as the postmaster jerked the wrapper off the news- 
 paper and read it out to the crowd, Nic Omberg threw up his hat and 
 said he was the very best man they could have nominated, and then 
 leaned over and asked the postmaster what he said his name was. 
 Omberg was a fair sample of all of 'em. He was a good man and a 
 devoted Democrat, and it would have been all the same to him if they 
 had nominated Sam Patch. I don't suppose there was one in a thou- 
 sand could have told the diff^erence between Whig principles and Dem- 
 ocratic principles. The fact is, there wasent very much — none to 
 speak of, except the spoils of office. They were like folks are about 
 their religion. Mighty few can tell the diff^erence between one church 
 and another church. Most of 'em are just what their fathers were, 
 and that's reason enough without botherin' their brains with any other, 
 
 n^ ^ 't^ ^t^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 If our party ever gets in office again we are going to run the politi- 
 cal machine on merit and fitness and to suit the people everywhere. 
 We are not going to turn a good man out just because he is a Kepub- 
 lican. If the community he lives in are satisfied with him we will let 
 him stay. We will make a few more offices and raise all the salaries 
 a little, I reckon, for our people are mighty poor and powerful hun- 
 gry, and have waited long. We are going to give protection to the 
 manufacturers and free trade to the consumers. We are going to buy 
 the farmers' corn at a dollar a bushel, and sell it to the poor for twenty- 
 five cents. We are going to issue ten thousand millions of greenbacks 
 so that everybody can have a hat full, and then we will build rail- 
 roads to every town and open all the creeks and mackadamize all the 
 roads, and give all soldiers and widows and orphans pensions, and 
 have a general jubilee all over the country. I am going to set Cobe 
 up in a phaton behind a spanking team just to see him ride and bob 
 up serenely as it springs up and down over the bumps in the road. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 193 
 
 I'll bet you couldn't drag Cobe into a pbaton with a steam engine. He 
 has got a little old truck wagon and won't even put a plank across the 
 body for fear of getting sea sick, but he just sets down in the bed and 
 goes singing along : 
 
 Old Eve she did an apple pull, 
 And then she filled her apron full ; 
 Old Adam he came hobbing around 
 And spied the peelings on the ground. 
 
 Old Noah he did build an ark, 
 Of white oak splits and hickory bark; 
 The animals they come in two by two, 
 The elephant and the kangaroo. 
 
 And then they come in three by three, 
 'Possom and coon and bumble bee; 
 Old Noah kicked his old tom cat 
 For not diskiverin ara rat. 
 
 And ever and anon he punches his claybank mule and says, '^ Peg 
 along y Tatum." 
 
 But a nice little office under the State is a good thing, and gener- 
 ally lasts a long time, for our people are kind and considerate and 
 don't turn folks out for nothing. I wouldent mind having an office 
 that was a sort of a "sine qua non," as old Major Dade called it — an 
 office with good, fair pay and not much to do but boss. I always did 
 like to boss. Bossing comes natural to the Anglo-Saxon. They like 
 it. A few years ago the Rome railroad let out a contract for a thou- 
 sand cords of wood to two fellers and they sub-let it in jobs to eight 
 other fellers, and they sub-let it again to some niggers, and there was 
 ten darkeys doing the work and ten white men bossing the job, and 
 all of 'em made some money out of it and were happy — so that was 
 all right all round, but I much rather play boss than darkey. Hadent 
 you? 
 
194 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 Harvest Time. 
 
 The harvest has begun. The harvest sun is shining by day and the 
 moon by night. Our Burt oats, that we sowed in March, have come 
 in ahead of the wheat and are falling before the cradle blade. It is a 
 charming scene. The good, old-fashioned way is not a bad way after 
 all. I've got a reaper and shall use it in the low grounds on the 
 wheat, but the everlasting rains this spring made too many little ruts 
 and furrows on the upland, and the cradles are better. The machine 
 jolts and bumps around so that Ralph could hardly keep his seat. 
 But the oats are good. I have never seen a better upland crop. Carl 
 and Jessie follow along in the wake of the cradlers and tie up their lit- 
 tle bundles, and when they get tired of that they pile them into doz- 
 ens, set them up into shocks and are proud of their work. What a 
 pity it is that w^e can't all make play of our work. How fond the 
 children are of trying to do grown folks' work. Carl wants a little 
 cradle to reap with and thinks he could do it splendid, but it most kills 
 him to take a bucket of water to the field. That sore on his foot 
 where he snagged it on a nail hurts awful bad then, and he limps all 
 the w^ay to the spring and back, but he can trot to the dewberry patch 
 or the mulberry tree as lively and gay as a colt in the meadow. 
 Grown folks are that way, too. I've known some mighty nice 
 girls get tired, most broke down cleaning up the house, cooking, 
 sewing and the -like, but they could wake up to the music that 
 night and dance till the rooster crowed for morning. We can all 
 do what we want to do, and we go at it with alacrity. It is 
 easier to go to a picnic than it is to church. But labor and toil has 
 a sweet reward. We will never reap if we do not sow'. The harvest 
 that is now at hand is one of the great lessons of life, for our life is 
 like a field and our years like the acres, and our months and weeks 
 and days and minutes are the roods and rods and yards and feet which 
 Bub-divide the whole. Some portions are well sown and tended and 
 
The Farm and The FiREsmE. 195 
 
 some are not, but a good man will make an average crop. We may 
 fail here and there, and have our little sins and weaknesses, but at the 
 last a man must be measured by his average crop. Character is not 
 made or lost in a day or a week, but it takes a life and we can never 
 write a true epitaph until this life is closed and we write it on the 
 tomb. 
 
 But a few days ago the fields were beautifully green, and the grain 
 bent its proud heads gracefully before the gentle breeze and seemed 
 conscious of its life and health and consequence. It reminded me of 
 man in his prime, moving to and fro upon the earth acquiring wealth 
 or fame or pleasure, and all unmindful of the reaper. But soon he 
 ripens and must fall and make way for another crop. If the proud 
 has born fruit golden fruit, it is well, and his mission in life is accom- 
 plished ; but if clogged and tangled and corrupted with cheat and 
 cockle and smut and rust and brambles, the crop is a failure and ought 
 to have been cut down while it was green. 
 
 I had w^orked hard all the morning helping Mrs. Arp take up her 
 carpets for the summer. The hay and dust that was under had to be 
 swept up ever so gently — yes, gently — that was the word she used — 
 "gently, now, William; you are raising the dust and it will be all 
 over the house. Don't be in such a hurry — gently." I got it all up 
 after a fashion and put out of the window in the wheelbarrow, and 
 put the carpets on the fence ready for beating, and then 1 took her 
 long handled broom and swept the walls, and the ceiling, and the cor- 
 nices, and behind the pictures, and then our chunk of a darkey 
 brought water and washed up the floors, and the girls worked on the 
 bedsteads with kerosene and turpentine and corrosive sublumate and 
 rat poison and damnation powder, and I don't know what all, and this 
 morning when my wife was making up her bed and lifted up the cor- 
 ner of the mattress she discovered one of the biggest, fattest ones you 
 ever saw, and her heart sank down within her and she reclined on a 
 chair in despair. I was sorry for her, I was, for the pesky varmints are 
 her eternal horror, and if I was rich I would build her a brand new 
 house and fill it with brand new furniture, all made of china wood or 
 camphor wood. I care nothing about these silent perambula- 
 tors myself, and it has been hinted to me on more than one occa- 
 sion that it is because I am tough and old and alligatorish, which I 
 ^reckon is so, though I do know some women who are no spring chick- 
 
196 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 ens themselves. But I do sufler from the varmints anyhow, and have 
 my sleep broken, for sometimes I have to get up in the night and help 
 search for them, and when found I assume a theatrical attitude and 
 exclaim in the beautiful language of Mr. Shakspeare : ''How now, 
 ye secret, dark and midnight hags ! What is it ye do ? " 
 
 Well, I took Mrs. Arp down in the low land wheat this evening, 
 where it is thick and green and tall, and I explained to her all about 
 wheat being first in the boot and then in the milk and then in the 
 dough, and as we walked along in a water furrow I said, it reminded 
 me of the old song of "Coming Through the Eye," that I would 
 change it a little, and say : 
 
 If a body meet a body coming through the wheat, 
 And a body kiss a body, wouldent it be sweet. 
 
 And she smiled and said the rye of the poet was not a field but a 
 rocky branch named Rye, and the lassie was wading through it when 
 her lover met her on the rocks and kissed her. So that knocked all 
 the poetry out of the situation, and I said no more on the subject. 
 I've seen the day when that wheat field would have been as good a 
 place for the business as a branch, and if anything, better. While we 
 sauntered along old Bob White was whistling to his loving mate, and 
 we talked over the days of our childhood, when we used to follow the 
 reapers in the field and get the partridge eggs from the nests, and have 
 a big frolic over them when they were boiled, and how we caught the 
 young rabbits in their nest, and how everything was so fresh and 
 bright and rosy, and now how serious and earnest everything had 
 become. Such is life and we cannot help it, and I don't want to help 
 it. No matter how old or how poor, there is some happiness for us 
 all if we will find it. The trouble with most of us is we search for it 
 too far away — away off yonder somewhere when it is right near us. 
 Yes, within our reach, if we will only see it. **Carpe diem," says 
 the poet — *' enjoy the day." Enjoy to-day and every day as it comes 
 and don't let old father time cheat us out of a moment. 
 
The Farm and The FiKEsmE. 197 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 The Old and the New. 
 
 The aristocracy of the South was, before the war, mainly an aris- 
 tocracy of dominion. The control of servants or employees is 
 naturally elevating and ennobling, much more so than the mere pos- 
 session of other property. The Scriptures always mention the num- 
 ber of servants when speaking of a patriarch's censequence in the 
 land. This kind of aristocracy brought with it culture and dignity of 
 bearing. Dominion dignifies a man just as it did in the days of the 
 centurion who said, "I say unto this man go, and he goeth, and to 
 another come, and he cometh." Dominion is the pride of a man — 
 dominion over something. A negro is proud if he owns a possum 
 dog, and can make him come and go at his pleasure. A poor man is 
 proud if he owns a horse and a cow, and some razor-back hogs. The 
 thrifty farmer is proud if he owns some bottom land and a good horse 
 and top buggy, and can take the lead in his country church and country 
 politics. The big boy loves dominion over his little brother, and the 
 father over all. But the old Anglo-Saxon stock aspires to a higher 
 degree of mastery. They glory in owning men, and it makes but lit- 
 tle difference whether the men are their dependents or their slaves. 
 The glory is all the same if they have them in their power. Wealthy 
 corporations and railroad kings and princely planters have dominion 
 over their employees, and regulate them at their pleasure. It is not a 
 dominion in law, but is almost absolute in fact, and there is nothing 
 wrong or oppressive about it when it is humanely exercised. In fact, 
 it is generally an agreeable relation between the poor laborer and the 
 rich employer. An humble poor man, with a lot of little children 
 coming on, loves to lean upon a generous landlord, and the landlord 
 is proud of the poor man's homage. 
 
 The genuine Bill Arp used to say he had rather belong to Col. 
 Johnson than be free, for he had lived on the Colonel's land for 
 
198 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 twenty years, and his wife and children have never suffered, crop or 
 no crop; for the Colonel's wife threw away enough to support them, 
 and they were always nigh enough to pick it up. 
 
 He was asked one day how he was going to vote, and replied: **I 
 don't know until I ax Colonel Johnson, and I don't recon he can tell 
 me till he sees Judge Underwood, and maybe Underwood won't 
 know till he hears from Aleck Stephens, but who in the dickens tells 
 little Aleck how to vote I'll be dogged if I know." 
 
 The dominion of the old aristocracy of the South was not over 
 their own race, as it was at the North, but over another, and it was 
 • absolute both in law and fact. 
 
 Hence it naturally grew into an oligarchy of slave-owners, and the 
 poorer whites were kept under the ban. There was a line of social 
 caste between them, and it was widening into a gulf, for the poor 
 white man could not compete with slave labor, any more than the 
 farmer or mechanic can now compete with convict labor. This kind 
 of slave aristocracy gave dignity and leisure to the rich ; and Solomon 
 says that in leisure there is wisdom ; and so these men became our 
 statesmen and jurists and law-makers, and they were shining lights in 
 the councils of the nation; but it was an aristocracy that was 
 exclusive, and it shut out and overshadowed the masses of the com- 
 mon people, like a broad spreading oak overshadows and withers the 
 undergrowth beneath it. 
 
 But now there are only two general classes of people at the South 
 — those w^ho have seen better days and those who havent. The first 
 class used to ride and drive, but most of them now take it a-foot or 
 stay at home. Seventy-five per cent, of them are the families of old 
 Henry Clay Whigs. Thirty-five years ago they were the patrons of high 
 schools and colleges, and stocked the learned professions with an 
 annual crop of high-strung graduates, who swore by Henry Clay, and 
 Fillmore, and Stephens, and Toombs, and John Bell, and the Code of 
 Honor. They were proud of their birth and lineage, their wealth and 
 culture, and when party spirit ran high and fierce they banded to- 
 gether against the pretensions of the struggling Democracy. When I 
 was a young man, a Whig girl deemed it an act of amiable conde- 
 scension to go to a party with a Democratic boy. But the wear and 
 tear of the war, the loss of their slaves, and a mortgage or two to lift, 
 broke most of these old families up, though it didn't break down their 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 199 
 
 family pride. They couldn't stand it like the Democrats, who lived in 
 log cabins, and wore wool hats and copperas breeches. 
 
 I speak with freedom of the old Georgia Democracy, for I was one 
 of them. The wealth and refinement of the State was in the main 
 centered in that party known as the old-line Whigs. Out of 160 
 students in our State University, 45 years ago, 130 of them were the 
 sons of Whigs. I felt politically lonesome in their society, and was 
 just going over to the Whig party when I fell in love with a little 
 Whig angel w^ho was flying around. This hurried me up, and I was 
 just about to go over to that party, when suddenly the party came 
 over to me. I don't know yet whether that political somersault lifted 
 me up or pulled the little angel down — but I do know she wouldn't 
 have me, and at last I mated with a Democratic seraph who had 
 either more piety or less discrimination. She took me, and she's got 
 me yet; she surrendered, but I am the prisoner. 
 
 These grand old gentlemen of the olden time were the pioneers in 
 all the great enterprises of their day. They sowed the seed and we 
 are reaping the harvest. They planted the tree and we are gathering 
 the fruit. They laid the foundations of the proud structure of our 
 commonwealth, and we have built upon it. My good old father took 
 $5,000 of stock in the Georgia Railroad before it was built. He kept 
 it for twelve years without a dividend, and when financial embarrass- 
 ment overtook him the stock was down at its lowest point, and he sold 
 it to Judge Hutchins at $27 a share. There was a gloom over the 
 family that night, but I tried to disperse it, for I told them I had 
 just made a matrimonial arrangement with the judge's daughter, and 
 maybe the stock matter would come out all right ; and it did. I got 
 it all back for nothing, and the judge's lovely daughter to boot, and 
 it was the best trade I ever made in my life. 
 
 Most of these old families are poor; but they are proud. They are 
 highly respected for their manners and their culture. They are 
 looked upon as good stock, and thoroughbred, but withdrawn from 
 the turf. Their daughters carry a high head and a flashing eye, stand 
 up square on their pastern joints, and chafe under the bit. They 
 come just as nigh living as they used to as they possibly can. They 
 dress neatly in plain clothes, wear starched collars and corsets, and a 
 perfumed handkerchief. They do up their hair in the fashion, take 
 Godey's Lady's Book or somebody's Bazaar. If they are able to hire a 
 
200 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 domestic, the darkey finds out in two minutes that free niggers don't rank 
 any higher in that family than slaves used to. The negroes who know 
 their antecedents have the highest respect for them, and will say Mas' 
 William or Miss Julia with the same deference as in former days. One 
 would hardly learn from their general deportment that they cleaned 
 up the house, made up the beds, washed the dishes, did their own 
 sewing and gave music lessons — in fact, did most everything but wash 
 the family clothes. They won't do that. I've known them to milk 
 and churn, and sweep the back yard, and scour the brass, but I've 
 never seen one of them bent over the wash-tub yet, and I hope I 
 never will. I don't like to see any one reduced below their position, 
 especially if they were born and raised to it. In the good old times 
 their rich and patriarchal father lived like Abraham, and Jacob, and 
 Job. They felt like they were running an unlimited monarchy on a 
 limited scale. When a white child was born in the family it was ten 
 dollars out of pocket, but a little nigger was a hundred dollars in, and 
 got fifty dollars a year better for twenty years to come. 
 
 The economy of the old plantation was the economy of waste. Two 
 servants to one white person was considered moderate and reasonable. 
 In a family of eight or ten — with numerous visitors and some poor 
 kin — there were generally a head cook and her assistant, a chamber- 
 maid, a seamstress, a maid or nurse for every daughter and a little nig 
 for every son, whose business it was to trot around after him and hunt 
 up mischief. Then there was the stableman and carriage driver and 
 the gardener and the dairy woman and two little darkies to drive up 
 the cows and keep the calves off while the milking was going on. 
 Besides these there were generally half a dozen little chaps crawling 
 around or picking up chips, and you could hear them bawling and 
 squalling all the day long, as their mothers mauled them and spanked 
 them for something or for nothing with equal ferocity. 
 
 But the good old plantation times are gone — the times when these 
 old family servants felt an affectionate abiding interest in the family, 
 when our good mothers nursed their sick and old helpless ones, and 
 their good mothers waited so kindly upon their '' mistis," as they called 
 her, and took care of the little children by day and by night. Our 
 old black mammy was mighty dear to us children, and we loved her, 
 for she was always doing something to please us, and she screened us 
 from many a whipping. It would seem an unnatural wonder, but 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 201 
 
 nevertheless it is true, that these faithful old domestics loved their 
 master's children better than their own, and they showed it in num- 
 berless ways without any hypocrisy. Our children frolicked with 
 theirs, and all played together by day and hunted together by night, 
 and it beat the Arabian Nights to go to the old darkey's cabin of a 
 winter night and hear him tell of ghosts and witches and jack-o'-lan- 
 terns and wild cats and grave-yards, and we would listen with faith 
 and admiration until we didn't dare look round, and wouldn't have 
 gone back to the big house alone for a Avorld full of gold. Bonaparte 
 said that all men were cowards at night, but I reckon it was these old 
 darkeys that made us so, and we have hardly recovered from it yet. 
 When I used to go a-courting I had to pass a grave-yard in the suburbs 
 of the little village, and it was a test of my devotion that I braved its 
 terrors on the darkest night and set at defiance the wandering spirits 
 that haunted my path. Mrs. Arp appreciated it then, for she would 
 follow me to the door when I left and anxiously listen to my retiring 
 footsteps. But now she declares she could hear me running up that 
 hill by the grave-yard like a fast-trotting pony on a shell road. 
 
 It was a blessed privilege to the boys of that day to go along with 
 the cotton wagons to Augusta, of to Macon or Columbus, and camp 
 out at night and hear the trusty old wagoners tell their wonderful 
 adventures, and it was a glorious time when they got back home again, 
 and brought sugar and coffee and molasses, and had shoes all 'round 
 for both white and black, and the little wooden measures in them, with 
 the names written upon every one. They had genuine corn shuckings 
 in those days, and corn songs that were honest, and sung with a will 
 that beat a camp meeting chorus — and they had Christmas, too, for 
 white folks and black folks. Little red shawls and head handkerchiefs, 
 and jack knives, and jewsharps, and tobacco, and old-fashioned pipes 
 were laid up for the family servants, who always managed to slip up 
 about break of day with a whisper of " Christmasgif " before the 
 family were fairly awake. But it's all over now — and they are gone. 
 Like Job of old these proud old masters have all been put upon trial. 
 They lost their noble sons in the army, and their property soon after. 
 The extent of their afilictions no one will ever know, for the heart 
 knoweth its own bitterness, but they have long since learned how to 
 suffer and be strong. 
 
 I have now in mind a proud old family, living in quiet obscurity — 
 
202 The Farm and The Fieeside. 
 
 the children of one of Georgia's noblest governors, a statesman of 
 national reputation. They are poor, but they are not subdued. Their 
 children work in the field and milk the cows and chop the firewood, 
 but they have never forgotten or dishonored their grand old ancestor 
 from whom they sprung. I recall another one who, forty-five years 
 ago, represented us in the National Congress — who was for many years 
 almost a monarch in his rule over hundreds of employees, and w^hose 
 draft was honored for thousands of dollars. With tottering gait and 
 trembling fingers he now bargains for a nickel's worth of soda, but 
 still is grand and noble in his poverty. Always cheerful, he welcomes 
 those who visit him with the same kindness and dignity which charac- 
 terized him in his better days. 
 
 I believe the day of prosperity is coming back, and the children of 
 the present generation will yet reap an inestimable blessing from what 
 seemed to be a great calamity. 
 
 "Hard indeed was the contest for freedom and the struggle for 
 independence," but harder still has been the struggle of these old 
 families to live up to the good old style with nothing hardly to live 
 upon. Society is exacting, and then there were the long-indulged 
 habits of elegance and ease which a^e hard to be broken. The young 
 can soon learn to serve themselves, but the middle-aged and old found 
 it no labor of love to begin life anew on an humble scale. 
 
 What a change it was to the refined and dignified housewife when: 
 the chambermaid withdrew and S3t up for herself, and the good old 
 cook, who had grown fat and greasy with service, departed from the 
 old homestead in search of freedom, and the good lady, who was well 
 versed in the theory of cooking, had to take her first lesson in its 
 practice. The times have wonderfully changed since then — some 
 things for better, some for worse. The grand old aristocracy is pass- 
 ing away. Some of them escaped the general wreck that followed 
 the war, and have illustrated by their energy and liberality the doc- 
 trine of the survival of the fittest — :but their name is not legion. A 
 new and hardier stock has come to the front — that class which prior to 
 the war was under a cloud, and are now seeing their better days. The 
 pendulum has swung to the other side. The results of the war made 
 an opening for them and developed their energies. With no high 
 degree of culture, they have nevertheless proved equal to the struggle 
 up the rough hill of life, and now play an important part in running 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 208 
 
 the financial machine. Their practical energy has been followed by 
 thrift and a general recuperation of our wasted fields, and fenceless 
 farms and decayed houses. They have proved to be our best farmers 
 and most prosperous merchants and mechanics. They now constitute 
 the solid men of the State, and have contributed largely to tlie build- 
 ing up of our schools and churches, our factories and railroads, and 
 the development of our mineral resources. They are shrewd and 
 practical and not afraid of work. The two little ragged brothers who 
 sold peanuts in Rome in 1860 are now her leading and most wealthy 
 merchants. Two young men who then clerked for a meagre salary 
 are now among the merchant princes of Atlanta. These are but 
 types of the modern self-made Southerner — a class w^ho form the most 
 striking contrast to the stately dignity and aristocratic repose of tlie 
 grand old patriarchs and statesmen, whose beautiful homes and long 
 lines of negroe houses adorned the hills and groves of the South some 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 But the children of the old patricians have come down some and 
 the children of the common people have come up some and they have 
 met upon a common plain and are now working happily together both 
 in social and business life. Spirit and blood have united with energy 
 and muscle, and it makes a splendid team — the best all-round team 
 the South has ever had. 
 
 But there is one feature about the new order of things which has 
 surprised and bewildered the most philosophical minds, and that is the 
 disposition which this generation has to educate their daughters. In 
 the old ante bellum times the sons were the special objects of the 
 parents' care. They gave to both a first-class education if they could, 
 but if either had to be neglected it was always the daughters. The 
 female colleges were lew, while the male colleges abounded all over the 
 land, both North and South, and were thronged with the sons of 
 wealthy and aristocratic Southerners. But now the rule is reversed, 
 the boys are sacrificed and the girls are sent to college. 
 
 This is all very well, I reckon, and if it is not, I don't see how we 
 are going to help it. The trouble is to find out who these college girls 
 are going to marry. I don't suppose they will marry anybody until 
 somebody asks them, but it's natural and very proper for man and wife 
 to be pretty much alike, mentally and socially. They should, as it 
 were, class together, like the cotton buyer classes his cotton, or the 
 
204 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 merchant his sugar, or the farmer his cattle, or the geologist his strata 
 of rocks. I don't allude to property at all, for that is about the last 
 consideration that secures real happiness in wedded life, though I 
 wouldn't advise any poor man to marry a poor girl just because she is 
 poor, and I hope none of these girls will ever refuse a rich man 
 because he is rich. Money is a right good thing in a family, and no 
 sensible girl will turn up her nose at it. Money is a social apology 
 for lack of brains or education or graceful manners, but it's no apol- 
 ogy for lack of honesty or good principles. Money enables a man to 
 step up higher in the social circle than he could do without it. Hence, 
 we see a rich man without culture ranks pretty well with a poor man 
 with culture. Hence it is that lawyers and doctors and teachers and 
 preachers and editors, however poor, move in the same strata with 
 bankers and merchants, however rich. The difference is that money 
 may be lost, but education and culture cannot be ; and when an uned- 
 ucated man loses his money he loses caste, and must step down and out. 
 The value of a man's money depends, however, upon the manner in 
 which he obtained it. Shoddy fortunes don^'t amount to anything. 
 They may shine for a while in gilded coaches and splendid halls, but 
 they will not last. If the possessor does not lose it his children will 
 spend it, and leave the world as poor as their father came into it. A 
 fortune gained in a year rarely sticks to anybody. Five years is not 
 secure. But one gained by the pursuit of an honorable calling for 
 ten, twenty or thirty years brings with it that high social position 
 which justly entitles a man to be called one of the aristocracy. It is 
 a great mistake for anybody to desire a fortune to come suddenly. It 
 would embarrass him. A big pile of surplus money will make a fool 
 of most anybody on short acquaintance. It takes a man several years 
 to learn its best uses, and to handle it with becoming dignity. If a 
 man nev^er rode in a phieton behind a spanking team it takes him a 
 good while to get used to that. He doesn't know exactly what to do 
 with his hands or his feet, whether to lean complacently back or cau- 
 tiously forward. If the vehicle crosses a sudden rise, he doesn't rise 
 with it in graceful undulations, but humps himself awkwardly and 
 imagines that everybody is observing his conscious embarrassment. 
 Money-making sense is very good sense, but I know a wealthy young 
 man without culture who was made to believe that an ostrich egg which 
 he saw in a museum was laid by a giraffe. I know a nabob in Atlanta 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 205 
 
 who subscribed for Appleton's Cyclopedia, and when they came said 
 that he didn't know there was but one volume and refused to pay for 
 any more. And there is another one there whom I have known since 
 his boyhood when he plowed barefooted in a rocky field over treadsafts 
 and dewberry vines at ten dollars a month. He now swims in shoddy 
 luxury and lucky wealth. He took me through his new and elegant 
 mansion. He talked gushingly about his liberry room. He showed 
 me a beautiful piece of furniture in the dining room and when I said 
 it was unique he said no it was a sideboard. When I inquired after 
 the health of his wife he said she had a powerful bad pain in her face 
 and the doctor said it was newralogy but he believed she had an ulster 
 in her nose. 
 
 But what troubles me is that these girls are climbing up where there 
 are no boys, or very few at most. Mental culture begets mental supe- 
 riority, and that raises one socially and puts him or her in a higher 
 strata. There are, I suppose, not less than ten educated girls in the 
 South to every educated young man ; but where are the boys ? They 
 are in the stores or the workshops or on the farms. It did not use to 
 be so, but the bottom rail is now on the top. I don't know that it can 
 be helped, for the war left our people so poor they can't send all their 
 children off to college, and so they send the girls and put the boys to 
 work to pay for it. The consequence will be that these girls when 
 they go home can't find anybody good enough for them. A nice, 
 clever, country girl graduated last year^ and when she came home and 
 asked her farmer brother to name his fine colt Bucephalus, after Alex- 
 ander's famous horse, he said, ''Why, I didn't know that Tom Alexan- 
 der had any horse." 
 
 Well, now, you see a college girl is not going to marry a man like 
 that — that is, not right away quick, on the first asking. She will wait 
 a year or so at least for some chevalier Bayard or ^mne first honor 
 man to come along, but by and by she will get tired waiting, for he 
 won't come, and then, in a kind of desperation, she will mate with 
 some good, honest, hard-working youth, and educate him afterwards. 
 Maybe this will all work out very well in the long run ; for it's the 
 mother who makes the man, and if she is smart, so will her children 
 be. Of course it will delay and put off these early marriages, which 
 our wives and mothers say are all wrong. I have been very intimate 
 with a lady for thirty-five years, who was married at sweet sixteen, but 
 
206 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 she thinks it would be awfal for her daughters to do likewise unless 
 the offer was a very splendid one in all respects. I recon that was 
 the reason why she went off so soon. 
 
 I did not marry my first love, but Mrs. Arp did — bless her heart — 
 and she now declares I took advantage of her innocent youth and 
 gave her no chance to make a choice among lovers. That is so, I 
 reckon, for I was in a powerful hurry to secure the prize and pressed 
 my suit with all diligence for fear of accidents. Once before I had 
 loved and lost, and I thought it would have killed me, but it dident, 
 for I never sprung from the suicide stock. I had loved a pretty little 
 school girl amazingly. I would have climbed the Chimborazo moun- 
 tains and fought a tiger for her — a small tiger. And she loved me, I 
 know, for the evening before she left for her distant home I told her 
 of my love and my devotion, my adoration and aspiration and admira- 
 tion and all other "ations," and the palpitating lace on her bosom told 
 me how fast her heart was beating, and I gently took her soft hand in 
 mine and drew her head upon my manly shoulder and kissed her. 
 Delicious feast — delightful memory. It lasted me a year, I know, and 
 has not entirely faded yet, for it was the first time I had ever tasted 
 the nectar on a school girl's lips. I never mention it at home — no, 
 never — but I think of it sometimes on the sly — yes, on the sly. I 
 never saw her any more, for she never came back. ' In a year or so 
 she married another feller and was happy, and, in course of time I 
 married Mrs. Arp, and was happy too. So it is all right and no loss 
 on our side. 
 
 But what are the college girls going to do when they graduate and 
 settle down in the old homestead? It will be right hard to descend 
 from the beautiful heights of astronomy, the enchanting fields of 
 chemistry and botany, the entertaining grottos of history and geology, 
 and the charming chambers of music and social pleasures down to the 
 drudgery of washing dishes, scouring brass kettles, making little 
 breeches, and doing all sorts of household and domestic work. It will 
 take a good strong resolution and common sense and filial respect to do 
 it, and do it gracefully and cheerfully, and be always ready to bright- 
 en up the family hearth with her educated smile. Such girls are not 
 only happy in themselves, but they make others happy, and that is 
 the highest, purest and noblest of all ambitions. 
 
 Be content, then, with your lot, young ladies, and enjoy what you 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 207 
 
 have got; and if you haven't got anything, then enjoy what you 
 haven't got, and be contented still. 
 
 I know every true man wishes from his heart it was so that the 
 dear creatures did not have to work, only when they felt like it. I 
 never see ladies of culture and refinement doing the household drudg- 
 ery but what it shocks my humanity, and I feel like Mr. Bergh 
 ought to establish a society for the prevention of cruelty to angels. 
 The burden of bearing children and raising them is trial enough, and 
 involves more of the wear and tear of the sinews of life than all the 
 men have to endure. Mothers are entitled to all the rest and indul- 
 gence that is possible, and those who 'have brought up eight or ten 
 children ought to be retired on a comfortable pension from the Gov- 
 ernment. There is an old gander at my house who for four weeks 
 stood guard by his mate as she set on her nest. She plucked the 
 down from his breast and covered her eggs, and when she left them 
 for food he escorted her to the grass and escorted her back with a 
 pride and a devotion that was impressive. My respect for geese has 
 been greatly enlarged since I made their more intimate acquaintance. 
 
 But after all there need be no serious or gloomy apprehension con- 
 cerning the future of the sons and daughters of the South. If the 
 boys cannot go to college they will gather culture by absorption and 
 association, and acquire property by diligence and industry. Our 
 young men have learned that it is best to remain in the land of their 
 birth, and few emigrate to another clime; and indeed the attachments 
 of the Southern people to their neighbors and kindred and country 
 are stronger than those of our Northern brethren. Our society is not 
 made up of a mixture of all races. We have a common ancestry, 
 and have assimilated in thought and habits and customs and languages 
 and principles. Added to this we have the influence of a genial 
 climate, mild winters, fertility of soil, lovely sunsets, variegated 
 scenery, with fruits and flowers abounding everywhere to sweeten and 
 make glad the rosy days of our childhood. We have more latitude 
 and longitude. Our homes are more spacious, and our manhood is 
 comforted with the memories of our youth, when we roamed over 
 the fields and forest and hunted the deer and turkey by day and the 
 coon and 'possum by night. It is a hard struggle for our young men 
 to emigrate from the homes of their childhood, and when they do, a 
 
208 The Farm and The FiREsroE. 
 
 resolution to return at some future day lingers with them like a sweet 
 perfume and comforts them on their weary way. 
 
 Not so with the sons of New England, or the remote, inclement 
 North. Their earliest training is to go — go West — go anywhere for 
 business. They snap the cord that binds them to home and State and 
 kindred as they would snap a thread. I do not know a people upon 
 earth who have less emotional love or veneration for home and the 
 local memories of childhood. I speak respectfully of the descendants 
 of the Puritans. I speak advisedly, for I have mingled with them 
 and know them, and have many dear relatives in the old Bay State. 
 I had three male cousins in one family, and they were oif almost as 
 soon as they were out of their teens — one to Australia, one to Cali- 
 fornia, and the other to Nevada. They are at home in every land 
 but ours. We have been calling them kindly ever since the war. We 
 have tendered the olive branch, and gave cordial welcome to those 
 who did venture among us. We have sold them cotton, and sugar, 
 and rice, and tobacco, and bought their patent medicines, and fly- 
 traps, and picture papers, and Yankee notions, and gimcracks, and go 
 to all their circuses and monkey shows. I know we whipped them 
 pretty bad during the late war — that is, at first and all along the 
 middle, but at last they got the best of it, and it looks like they ought 
 to be satisfied, and make friends. We used to think slavery was the 
 cause of all this alienation, but slavery has been abolished 28 years. 
 Now, the Yankee is an Anglo-Saxon, and has many admirable traits 
 of character, some of which we have not, but need, and we have been 
 living in the hope that he would come down and live with us, and 
 teach us economy and contrivance, and mix up and marry with us, 
 and give us a cross that would harmonize the sections, but he will not. 
 The last census shows that there are 180,000 more females than males 
 in the New England States. Before the war their educated young 
 ladies used to venture South and teach school, and our young men 
 and widowers married them, and they made good wives and good 
 mothers; but they don't come now, and their young men keep going 
 off^, and the poor girls up there are in a bad fix. I have been trying 
 to persuade some of our poor and proud young men who seem so hard 
 to please at home, to go up there and take the pick of the lot, and 
 bring them down here, and they say they would if the girls would 
 send them the money to travel on. 
 
The Farm and The Fikeside. 209 
 
 My good father was born in Massachusetts. He came South just 
 seventy years ago, with a cargo of brick, and never returned. Well, 
 he couldn't return, for he was shipwrecked, and lost his cargo, and 
 had nothing to return on. My good mother was born in Charleston, 
 and was hurried away from there to Savannah during the yellow 
 fever panic of 1814. She went to school to my father, and he married 
 her. When I was old enough to understand my peculiar lineage, I 
 wondered that I could get along with myself as well as I did. When 
 a small chap, I used to bite myself and bump my head against the 
 door; but my good mother always said I couldn't help it, for it was 
 South Carolina fighting Massachusetts. It was a storm that lost my 
 father's cargo, and caused him to settle down in Savannah. It was a 
 fearful pestilence that hurried my mother away from Charleston when 
 she was an orphan child. So I was the child of storm and pestilence 
 and two belligerent States — how could I behave. But for these 
 remarkable combinations, I reckon my father would have lived and 
 died in the old Bay State, and my mother in Charleston; but what 
 would have become of me ? But fifty years' residence made my father 
 a good Southern man, and the Palmetto Cross made me a high-strung 
 rebel, and on the eve of secession, I loaded my pen with paper bullets 
 and shot them right and left. We soon found out it would take 
 some other sort to whip them in fight, and I joined the army, and 
 succeeded in killing about as many of them as they of me. But we 
 have all made friends again after a fashion, and now love one another's 
 money with a devotion that is unaffected and supreme. 
 
 In recurring to the grand old days that are past, I sometimes feel 
 sad because our children know so little of what the South was in the 
 good times, say from thirty to forty years ago — nothing of the old 
 patriarchal system — nothing of slavery as it was — nothing of those 
 magnificent leaders and exemplars of the people, such as Clay and 
 Calhoun and Berrien and Crawford and the Lamars and Styles. 
 
 They and their illustrious companions moulded manners and senti- 
 ment and chivalry and patriotism, and stood up above the masses like 
 the higher heads overtop the rest in a field of golden grain. But the 
 diffusion of knowledge is now bringing the masses up to the standard 
 of education which these noblemen created. The field of grain is 
 coming up to a uniform and unbroken level. The chances of men 
 for fortune and for fame are more generally diffused and more nearly 
 
210 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 equal than they have ever been, and the rise of a man from the 
 humblest walks of life is no longer considered a miracle. 
 
 The pendulum is always swinging. Generations play at see-saw — 
 up to-day and down to-morrow — but still the pivot on which they play 
 is rising higher and higher at the South. Then let us not complain 
 about that which we cannot help, for whether we are up or down we 
 have a goodly heritage. Let us all stand fast — stand fast by our land 
 and our people and by the blessed memories of the past. Let patri- 
 otism begin at home by the fireside and then stretch its wide arms 
 and take the whole nation in its embrace. 
 
Teoe Farm and The Fireside. 211 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 The Old School Days. 
 
 It was about the close of a bright and happy day. We were all sitting 
 in the broad piazza and Mrs. Arp had laid aside her spectacles and 
 was talking about the old Hog mountain that she had been reading 
 about in Joel Harris's pretty story, *'At Teague Poteets." "Why," 
 said she, "that Hog mountain is in old Gwinnett, away up north 
 towards Gainesville, and I went to school there when I was a child. 
 Old Aunty Bird taught us, and she was a sweet old soul. I know she 
 is in heaven if anybody is. I wonder if it is the same Hog mountain 
 — but I don't remember any of the Poteets." 
 
 Good, honest, clever Tom Gordon who lives a few miles above us 
 passed along as we were talking, and Mrs. Arp's memories took a 
 fresh start as she remarked: "He was a good boy, Tom was. I 
 went to school with him to Mr. Spencer, and I know his speech right 
 now," and she rose forward, and assuming an anxious, excited counte- 
 nance, she said as she stretched forth her hand, " Is the gentleman 
 done? Is he completely done?" Mrs. Arp is mighty good on a 
 speech, and her memory is wonderful, and so to toll her along I said, 
 "and Charley Alden, what was his speech?" and without a moment's 
 hesitation she took a new position and made one of those short neck 
 I)ows and cleared her throat, and repeated with slow and solemn voice, 
 
 " ' On Linden, when the sun was low, 
 All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, 
 And dark as winter was the flow 
 Of Iser rolling rapidly.' " 
 
 Then she put her other little foot forward, and brightened up as 
 she continued : 
 
 " ' But Linden saw another sight,' " 
 
 And when she got down to the thick of the fight it was thrilling to 
 hear her and to see her heroic attitude as she screamed : 
 
212 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 « < Wave, Munich — all thy banners wave, 
 And charge with all thy chivalry.' " 
 
 And she waved an imaginary flag all around her classic head. 
 
 We all cheered and clapped our hands, for the girls had never seen 
 their mother in that role before. 
 
 "And poor Thad Lowe," said I, "what was his speech ?" 
 
 "So from the region of the north," said she. 
 
 '•And Rennely Butler," said I. 
 
 "At midnight in his guarded tent," and she gave us a whole verse 
 of Marco Bozzaris, She likes that and we begged her to go on, and 
 she went through that fighting verse where the Greeks came down 
 like an avalanche, and her martial patriotism was all aglow as she said : 
 
 "Strike for the green graves of your sires, 
 Strike for your alters and your fires, 
 God and your native land." 
 
 Goodness gracious, what a soldier she would have made. 
 It was my turn now, and so I put in on Jim Alexander's speech at 
 my school. 
 
 •* Make way for liberty, he cried. 
 Make way for liberty and died." 
 
 Jim was always a cruising around for liberty, and the speech suited 
 him mighty well. But Tom, his brother, had a liking for the law and 
 spoke from Daniel Webster, "Gentlemen, this is a most extraordinary 
 case." And there was Gib Wright, the biggest boy in school, who car- 
 ried his head on one side like he was fixing to be hung, and he came 
 out on the floor with a flourish and made big demonstrations, fixing 
 his No. 13 feet, and you would have thought he was going to speak 
 something from Demosthenes or Ajax or Hercules or the rock of Gib- 
 ralter, when suddenly he stretched forth his big long arm and said : 
 
 "How doth the little busy bee 
 Improve each shining hour." 
 
 We never thought he would get to be a big lawyer and a judge, but 
 he did. 
 
 And General Woffbrd was there too, and his speech was the speech 
 of an Indian chief to the pale faces, and most every sentence began 
 with 'brothers," and he whipped a big sassy Spaniard by the name of 
 Del Gardo for imposing on us little boys, and then went oft to fight 
 
The Faem and The Fhieside. 213 
 
 the Mexicans for imposing on Uncle Sam, and ever since he has been 
 fighting somebody or imposing on somebody, and I think he had rather 
 do it than not. 
 
 And there was Jim Dunlap who used to spread himself and swell 
 aa he recited from Patrick Henry's great speech : *'They tell us, sir, 
 that we are weak, but when shall we be stronger ? Will it be the next 
 week or the next year?" and he just pawed around and shook the 
 floor as he exclaimed, ''Give me liberty, or give me death!" Jim 
 dident carry as much weight before him as he carries now, but he was 
 a whale and had a voice like a bass drum with a bull frog in it. Jim was 
 called on during the late war to choose betwixt liberty or death, and 
 he sorter split the difference and took neither, but he pulled through 
 all right. 
 
 After this effort, which sorter exhausted me, Mrs. Arp recalled 
 Melville Young's speech about "King Henry of Navarre," and Char- 
 ley Norton's speech to the eagle, "Great bird of the wilderness, lonely 
 and proud," and Charley Rowland's solemn dirge to Sir John Moore, 
 "Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note," and then I was called 
 on for my own speech and I had to stand up and advance forward and 
 make a bow and say : "My name is Norval —on the Grampian hills 
 my father fed his flocks." 
 
 I remember it took my teacher two weeks to keep me from saying 
 ^'my name is Norval on the Grampian hills," and he asked me what 
 was my name off the Grampian hills ; and finally I got the idea that 
 I must put on the brakes after I said Norval and then make a new 
 start for the hills. 
 
 Mrs. Arp then branched off* on the composition and recitations of 
 the girls, and recited sweet little Mary Maltbie's piece on the maniac : 
 "Stay jailer, stay and hear my woe," and Sallie Johnson's composition 
 on "Hope." 
 
 "Hope! If it was not for hope man would die. Hope is a good 
 invention. If it was not for hope, woman would mighty nigh give 
 up a ship." 
 
 And that reminded me of Mack Montgomery's prize essay on 
 money. 
 
 * ' Money ! Money is a good invention. The world couldn't get along 
 much without money. But folks oughtent to love money too good. They 
 oughtent to hanker after other folkses money, for if they do its mighty 
 
214 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 apt to make 'em steal and rob. One day there was a lonesome trav- 
 eler going along a lonesome road in the woods all solitary and alone 
 by myself, without nobody at all with him, when suddenly in the 
 twinkling of an eyeball out sprang a robber and shotten him down, 
 and it was all for money." 
 
 Mrs. Arp's thoughts seemed away off somewhere as she tenderly 
 repeated : 
 
 "When I am dead no pageant train 
 Shall waste their sorrows at my bier." 
 
 "That was my dear brother's speech," said she *'and it all came 
 true. He was killed at Chicamauga. The cruel bullet went in his 
 brain and he fell with his face to the foe and there was no pagent 
 train; no kindred; no sorrows wasted; no time for sorrow; no loving 
 hand; no burial for a long time. Oh, it is so sad, even now, to 
 think about the poor, dear boy. He was so good to us and we loved 
 him." 
 
 Our school-mates are few and far between now. Death has carried 
 most of them away and those who are left are widely scattered. How 
 the roads of life do fork — and some take one and some another. We 
 are all like pickets skirmishing around, and one by one get picketed 
 off ourselves by the common foe. I had liked to have got picked off 
 myself a day or two ago. The wagon had come from town with a 
 few comforts and one was a barrel of flour. Mrs. Arp and the chil- 
 dren always come to the south porch when the wagon comes, for they 
 want to see it unloaded and feel good for a little while, and so when 
 the hind gate was taken off and Mrs. Arp had wondered how we 
 would get out the flour, I thought I would show her what a man 
 could do. I rolled the barrel to me as I stood on the ground and 
 gently eased it down on my manly knees. My opinion now is that 
 there is a keg of lead in that barrel, for my knees gave way and I 
 was falling backwards, and to keep the barrel from mashing me into a 
 pancake or something else, I gave it a heave forward and let her go, 
 and it gave me a heave backward and let me go, and I fell on a pile 
 of rocks that were laid around a cherry tree, and they were rough 
 and ragged and sharp, and tore my left arm all to pieces and raked it 
 to the bone. The blood streamed through my shirt sleeve and I was 
 about to faint, for blood always make me faint, when Mrs. Arp 
 screamed for camphor, and the girls run for it, and before I could 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 215 
 
 stop 'em they had campfire and turpentine fire poured all over my 
 arm, and I went a dancing around like I was in a yaller jacket's nest. 
 It liked to have killed me, shore enuf, but after while I rallied and 
 went to bed. I havent used that arm nor a finger on that hand till 
 now, and go about sad and droopy. But I have had a power of 
 sympathy, and Mrs. Arp is good — mighty good. I'm most willing to 
 tear up a leg or two by and by, for they are all so good. And now 
 I'm in a fix — for I can't shave but one side of my face and company 
 is coming tomorrow. 
 
 Well, I used to could let down a barrel of flour — I used to could — 
 but rolling years will change a man — anno domini will tell. I reckon 
 by the time I get my neck broke I will begin to realize that Tm not 
 the man I used to be, but as Cobe says, "if I could call back 20 
 years I'd show 'em." The next time a barrel of flour comes to my 
 house I will get two skids twenty-five feet long and let it roll out, see 
 if I don't. But it's all right, and I've had a power of sympathy, and 
 sympathy is a good thing. I would almost die for sympathy. I shall 
 get well slowly — very slowly. But Mrs. Arp asked me this morning 
 if I couldn't pick the raspberries for dinner with one hand — said she 
 could swing a little basket round my neck. What a thoughtful, 
 ingenious woman. 
 
216 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Old School Days. 
 
 The older we grow the oftener do we reverse the telescope and look 
 back. How distant seem the scenes of our youth. If I did not 
 know better I would say it has been a hundred years since I was a 
 little boy trudging along to the first school I ever attended. The old 
 school days are a notable part of everyone's life. My wife and I fre- 
 quently indulge in these memories, for we -went to school together, 
 though I was six years her senior. We tell over to the children all 
 the funny things that happened, and discuss the frailties and the vir- 
 tues of our school mates and magnify the teachers, and she tells them 
 as how I was a smart boy and stood head in the spelling class for a 
 month at a time, and she remembers the speeches I spoke, and with a 
 pretended regret she says: ** Children, your father was a very hand- 
 some boy, with black, glossy hair, and he had plenty of it then. The 
 girls used to cast sheep's eyes at him then, but I didn't, for I was too 
 young to be a sweetheart then, but he had them. Yes, he was smart 
 and good-looking too, and he knew it. Yes, he knew it. He had a 
 fight once at school about his sweetheart. Her name was Penelope 
 McAlpin and another boy called her Penny-lope, just to tease your 
 pa, and he hit him right straight and they fought like wild cats for 
 awhile. When he was a young man and I was in my teens, he was 
 the dressiest youth in the town and wore the tightest boots. Oh, my! 
 I had no idea he would ever notice me, and I don't know yet what 
 made him do it." 
 
 Well, you see, the like of that called for a response, and so I had 
 to put in and tell what a beautiful, hazel-eyed Creole she was — what 
 long raven hair that fell over her shoulders in waving tresses, and 
 what beautiful hands and feet, and how fawn-like she locomoted about 
 and about, and how shy and startled she was when I began to address 
 her, and what juicy lips that seemed pouting for a lover, and then 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 217 
 
 lier teeth — ^her pearly teeth — that were almost as pretty as those she 
 has now. I told them how hard it was to win her until she found 
 out I was in earnest, and then how suddenly she surrendered with 
 tumultuous affection, and I recited with tender pathos those beautiful 
 lines of Coleridge: 
 
 *'She wept with pity and delight, 
 She blushed with love and virgin shame, 
 And like the murmur of a dream 
 I heard her breathe my name. 
 
 She half enclosed me in her arms. 
 She pressed me with a meek embrace, 
 And bending back her bead looked up 
 And gazed upon my face." 
 
 Just then Mrs. Arp stopped sewing and gazed at me sure enough, 
 as she said: "Was there ever such a story-teller? Why, you know 
 I didn't do any such thing. You ought to be ashamed of yourself." 
 
 "I was just telling how Genevive did," said I, "and how Coleridge 
 won his 'bright and beauteous bride.* She had hazel eyes, too." 
 
 Young man, you had better not try to flirt with a pair of hazle 
 eyes. It is a waste of time and dangerous. They are less susceptible 
 than the blue, and when once deceived do not pine away in grief, but 
 lally for revenge and take it out in scorn. If you tackle them you 
 had better go in to win or leave the country. And while I think of 
 it, I'll make another remark: When you woo and win and wed, you 
 had better keep on wooing and winning afterwards or leave the coun- 
 try. It takes a power of love to do them. 
 
 We little chaps used to go to school to female teachers — to Yankee 
 school marms, who were well educated and smart. But they never 
 taught school very long, for our widowers married them about as fast 
 as they came. You see, our high-strung blooded girls wouldn't marry 
 widowers, for they could always get young men to their liking, but a 
 well-to-do widower had a fancy for a settled woman, who was raised to 
 economy, and would be so grateful for having bettered her condition 
 in life. Of course they did not all marry widowers, but they married, 
 and they made good wives and good mothers, and their descendants are 
 all over the sunny land, and have proved a splendid cross from South- 
 ern blood and Northern energy. 
 
 The first teacher I ever went to was a Yankee woman, and she had 
 
218 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 a dunce block set up in the middle of the room for the lazy scholars 
 to sit on. The mischievous ones were made to stand on the table or 
 in the corner with face to the wall. She never whipped us, and wa& 
 a kind motherly woman. Jim Wardlaw "fit" her once and she laid: 
 him on her lap and tried to spank him, but he bit her on the knee 
 and she screamed "mercy" and let him go. 
 
 The other day I chanced to be one of a party of assorted gentle- 
 men and they took it by turns telling of their schoolboy frolics and 
 adventures. One said, "while I was going to school to old Greer I 
 picked a lot of wet mud off my shoe heels and made it into a ball and 
 thought I would just toss it over and hit Ed. Omberg, who sat on the 
 other side of the school room. Old Greer was on that side, too, and 
 right between me and Ed. , but I thought I could flip it over his head 
 while he was leaning over his desk setting copies, but somehow dident 
 flip it hard enough and it came down on old Greer's head kerflop and 
 flattened out like a pancake. I never saw a man more astonished in 
 my life, and I was scared mighty nigh to death. I ducked down to 
 my book and dident dare to look up. My ducking down was what 
 caught me, for the other boys were looking up in wonder, and they 
 would look at old Greer and then look at me, and a pointer dog couldn't 
 have spotted a bird any better. *Come here,* said he. 'Come here; 
 come here; come right along here;" and he met me half way and 
 gave me about twenty-five that lasted and lingered for a whole week. 
 
 ' 'Jim Jones was a stuttering boy, and chock full of mischief. Early 
 one morning he fastened the historic pin in old Greer's split-bottom 
 chair, and when he came in and called the roll and then took a seat in 
 his accustomed seat, he didn't stay there long, but rose up with great 
 alacrity. His eyes flashed fire as he gazed around the room, and he 
 caught Jim in the same way he caught me, and seizing a long, keen^ 
 supple hickory said: 'Come up here, sir, you villainous scamp. 
 I'll show you — come along, sir.' Jim approached trembling and slow. 
 'Come along, I tell you, sir.' Jim stopped and stuttered with pitiful 
 accents: * Ger-ger-ger-gwine to wh-wh-wh-whip me?' 'Come along,. 
 I tell you, or I'll — ' 'Ger-ger-ger-gwine to wh-wh-whip me hard.' 
 Old Greer started towards him, but Jim had lost confidence, and 
 wheeling suddenly made tracks for the door with old Greer after him. 
 Jim bounced over two benches to get there first, but Greer had to 
 turn a corner around the benches, and in doing so tripped and fell 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 219 
 
 broadcast and rolled over besides, and we boys just cackled. He 
 bounced up as mad as Julius Csesar, and said in a towering passion : 
 'I'll whip every boy that laughs. Now laugh again, if you dare.' 
 And we dident dare." 
 
 Well, it is curious that most every devilish boy in every school is 
 named Jim. The very name seems to make a boy devilish. They 
 generally make notable men, and some of them climb very high. 
 There is James Madison and James Monroe and Polk and Buchanan 
 and Garfield. And Jimmy Blaine is cavorting around and thinks he 
 ought to be president just because his name is Jim. If there is any 
 other good reason I don't know it. And I went to school with Jim 
 Wilson and Jim Alexander and Jim Wardlaw and Jim Linton and 
 Jim Walker and they were a sight. There is another thing to be 
 noted about school boys. They always call their teachers **old." 
 They called Dr. Patterson "old Pat," and Professor McCoy *'old 
 Mack," and Professor Waddell "old Pewt," and there was old Nahum 
 and old Beeman, and old Fouch and old Isham. 
 
 We were talking about old Isham, and one of our party said: **I 
 went to school to him, and sometimes he would slip up on a boy as 
 slyly as a cat upon a rat, and catch him making pictures on his slate. 
 He would hover over him for a moment, and then pounce down upon 
 him like a hawk upon a chicken, and catch him by the ears and shove 
 his face down on the slate and wipe out the pictures with his nose. 
 One day Jim Harris was up at the blackboard blundering along and 
 making all sorts of mistakes, and old Isham got mad and, seizing him 
 under the arms, lifted him up bodily and mopped the blackboard with 
 him and rubbed out all his figures, and set him down again and sent 
 him to his seat. 
 
 I went to school to old George, said another, and there was a fire- 
 place at one end of the long room, and when it was cold weather the 
 small fry were allowed to sit up near the fire and the big boys had to 
 do the best they could at the other end. Tom Jackson was a big, 
 strapping, freckle-faced boy, who was everlastingly hungry. One 
 morning he brought a big, long sweet potato to school and so he pre- 
 tended to be very cold and said "Mr. George, mayn't I go up to the 
 fire to warm?" "Go along, sir," said George. Tom took the shovel 
 and pretended to be punching the fire, but he was slyly opening a 
 hole in the ashes and suddenly dropped the potato in and covered it 
 
220 The Farm and The FmEsmE. 
 
 up. Some of the little boys saw him and whispered : ' ' Gimme some, 
 Tom; when its done gimme some." '^Hush," said Tom, **and I will." 
 In about half an hour Tom got very cold again and asked to go up 
 and warm. *'Go along, sir," said George, "you must be very cold 
 this morning." Tom warmed awhile and took the shovel and pulled 
 out the potato and put it in his pocket. ''Gimme some, Tom ; gimme 
 some," was whispered all around as he marched backed to his seat. 
 ''Gimme some or I'll tell." 
 
 The little boys began to snicker and point at Tom as he was peeling 
 and blown' his "tater" behind his desk. "What are you boys making 
 all that racket about?" said old George, as he approached them with 
 his hickory. "We was laughing at Tom Jackson over yonder eatin' his 
 'tater.' He roasted it here in the fire and promised to give us some 
 if we wouldn't tell, but he didn't." "Aha," said old George, "come 
 up here, Tom Jackson, you sly, deceitful rascal. That is what you 
 were so cold about. What is that sticking out of your pocket?" "A 
 tater, sir." "Give it here, sir. I'll have you to know this school 
 house is no cook kitchen. You are so cold I think a little warming 
 up will do you good, sir." And he gave him about a dozen over his 
 shoulders and lower down, and then divided the tater among the little 
 boys. 
 
 These school boy tales would fill a book, and I wish that "Philemon 
 Perch" would write another. 
 
The Faem and The Fireside. 221 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Roasting Ears and The Midnight Dance. 
 
 I once heard of a grumblin' old farmer who made a big crop of very- 
 fine corn and on being congratulated about it, said : 
 
 " Well, yes; my corn is all mighty fine, but I don't know how I'll 
 get along without some nubbins to feed the steers on." 
 
 It's a raining now every day, but it came a little too late, and we'll 
 all have plenty of steer food this year. I reckon we will make some 
 tolerable corn on the bottoms, and the late planting is coming out 
 smartly. If misery loves company we can take comfort like the dar- 
 key did that Mr. Stephens told about in his speech, for poor crops are 
 a pretty "general thing" in this naborhood. 
 
 But maybe it's all right — for we did make an abundance of wheat, 
 and it aint too late to make a right smart cotton and git 15 cents a 
 pound for it. A man ought to be reconciled to what he cannot help, that 
 is unless he owes a little passel of money he can't pay and is reminded of 
 it once a month on a postal card. That's bad, aint it ? Or unless he 
 has got a lot of sickly no account children. I tell Mrs. Arp we ought 
 to be mighty thankful for there's nary one of the ten that's cross-eyed 
 or knock-need or pigeon-toed or box-ankled or sway-backed or hump- 
 shouldered or lame or blind or idiotic and the grandchildren are an 
 improvement upon the stock, and I don't believe any of 'em will ever 
 git to the poor-house or carry a pistol or go to the legislature and have 
 some feller offer 'em a hundred dollars for his vote. 
 
 A sound, healthy body is a great blessing, and a fair set-off to most 
 every kind of bad luck that can happen to a man. Mr. Beecher was 
 right when he said the first rule to insure good health was to select 
 good, healthy parents to be born from. My ruminations on this sub- 
 ject have been quite luminous of late, for I've been powerful sick. 
 The fact is, I like to have died the other night, and all of a sudden. 
 You see I had overworked myself a fixing up a turnip patch, and got 
 vret besides, and didn't stop for dinner, and was sorter hungry and bil- 
 
222 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 ious to start on and we had roasten ears for supper and buttermilk and 
 honey, and takin' it all together I took the green corn dance about 
 midnight and the small of my back caved in and from then until day- 
 break I never sot up, nor lay down, nor stood still a minute. Doubled 
 up and twisted and jerked around with excruciatin' pains, I cavorted 
 all over one side of the house, for we had some Atlanta company on 
 the other, and my groan ings were worse than a foundered mule. It 
 was just awful to behold and awfuller to experience. Spirits of tur- 
 pentine, camphire, hot water, mustard plaster, mush poultice, pare- 
 goric, Jamaica ginger were all used externally and internally, but no 
 relief. I trotted around and paced and fox-trotted and hugged the 
 bed-post and laid down and rolled over on the floor like a hundred 
 dollar horse, and my wife, Mrs. Arp, she trotted around too, and dosed 
 me with this thing and that thing and had the stove fired up and hol- 
 lered for hot water forty times before she got it. 
 
 "I told you not to work so hard in the hot sun," said she. "Oh, 
 Lordy," said I. 
 
 **I asked you to change your clothes as soon as you came to the 
 house and you didn't do it." "Oh, my country," said I. 
 
 "Don't wake up the company," she continued. "And you would 
 eat them roasten ears for supper — did ever anybody hear of a man 
 eating roasten ears for supper and ^hen wash 'em down with butter- 
 milk and honey." "Oh, my poor back," said I. 
 
 ' ' Do you reckon it's your back — aint it further round in front ? " 
 "Oh, no," said I, "it's everywhere, it's lumbago, it's siatiker, it^e 
 Bright's disease, it's Etna and Vesuvious all mixed up. Oh, I'm so 
 sick — can't nobody do nothin'." 
 
 "Poor fellow, poor William, I'm so sorry for you, but you will wake 
 up the company if you don't mind — I'm doing everything I can. 
 You've taken enough things now to kill you. I declare I don't know 
 what to do next, and all this comes from moving to the country five 
 miles from a drug store or a doctor. I told you how it would be — 
 plumbags and skyatiker and a bright disease, and the Lord knows 
 what, and I would'nt be a bit surprised if you had the yellow fever 
 to boot — caught it a trampin' around Memphis, and it's just broke out 
 on you. Poor man, if he does die what will become of us ? But if 
 he gets well he'll go and do the same thing over again. Don't grunt 
 80 loud. I declare you make enough noise to wake up a grave-yard. 
 
The Farm and The FmEsmE. 223 
 
 I never saw such a man. Here, try this mush poultice. I thought 
 that water never would get hot. Does it burn you ?" 
 
 *'0h, yes; it burns, but fire is nothing now, let it burn. Oh! I'm 
 so sick. Bring me the paregoric, or the laudanum, or something, I 
 can't stand it ten minutes longer," said I. 
 
 * 'There aint a drop left. You've taken it all. There's nothing left 
 but chloroform, and I'm so afraid of that, but maybe it will relieve 
 you, William. My poor William, how I do hate to see you suffer so, 
 but you will never do as I tell you. Do please don't wake up the 
 company!" 
 
 Well, I took the chloroform and went to sleep — to the happy land 
 — all-blessed relief, and when I waked I was easier, and in due time 
 was restored to my normal condition. In my gyrations my mind was 
 exceedingly active. I ruminated over my past life, and could find a 
 little comfort in what Lee Hunt wrote about some Arab who was 
 admitted to heaven because he loved his fellow-men, that is, except 
 some. Just so I have loved mine, that is, except some. I thougnt 
 about money in comparison with health and freedom from 'pain, and I 
 felt such an utter disgust for riches; it made me sick at the stomach, I 
 would have given a house full of gold for two minutes' cessation of 
 those internal hostilities. 
 
 Well, I kept this numerous and interesting family in a very lively 
 state for a few long hours, and it taught me a useful lesson. I'm 
 going to take care of myself; I am going to do eveiy thing Mrs. Arp 
 tells me, for she has got sense — she has. She takes care of herself — 
 not a gray hair in her head, and is as bright as the full moon ; and 
 when she gives an opinion it is an opinion. From that horrible night's 
 experience I am more than ever satisfied she loves me as well as ever, 
 and wouldn't swap me off for nobody. When I stand up before her 
 and say "juror look upon the prisoner — prisoner look upon the 
 juror," she always says ''content." And then she has such a consider- 
 ate regard for her "company." 
 
224 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 Open House. 
 
 In the good old patriarchal times most every family of wealth kept 
 what was called 'open house' and all who came were welcome. There 
 was no need to send word you were coming for food and shelter were 
 always ready. The generous host met his guests at the gate and called 
 for Dick or Jack or Caesar to come and take the horses and put them 
 up and feed them. There is plenty of corn and fodder in the barn — 
 plenty of big fat hams and leaf lard in the smoke house — plenty of 
 chickens and ducks and turkeys in the back yard — plenty of preserves 
 in the pantry — plenty of trained servants to do the work while the 
 lady of the house entertained her guests. How proud were these 
 family servants to show off before their visitors and make display of 
 their accomplishments in the kitchen and the dining room and the 
 chamber. They shared the family standing in the community and 
 had but little sympathy for the ' 'poor white trash" of the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 Some of us try to keep open house yet but one can't do it like we 
 used to. The servants are not trained and they come and go at their 
 pleasure. Sometimes the larder gets very low and the purse looks 
 like an elephant had trod on it. But still we do the best we can. 
 We "welcome the coming and we speed the parting guest." — 
 
 During the last summer we had a great deal of company at our 
 house and some of them stayed a good long time, for most of them 
 were from a lower latitude and imagined that the yellow fever or some 
 dread pestilence was about to invade their low country homes. And 
 so they were easily pursuaded to protract their visit. When they had 
 all departed I was gla'd, for I knew that Mrs. Arp was tired — very 
 tired. I was glad too because the supplies were well nigh exhausted 
 and the cook had given notice of a change of base. Our recess had 
 just begun when I received the following appalling epistle: 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 225 
 
 Savannah, Ga. 
 3Iy Dear Cousin William : 
 
 It is about time that we were paying you that loug-ppomised visit. 
 [The way he came to be our cousin was his step-father's aunt married 
 my wife's great uncle about 40 years ago.] It is awful hot weather 
 down here. The thermometer is away up to an 100. It makes us 
 long for the rest and shade of some quiet, cool retreat in the mountains 
 of North Georgia, where we can get on the broad piazza of a country 
 home and enjoy the fresh mountain air and the cool spring water. 
 Our children are all at home now. Our eldest son has just returned 
 from college, and our eldest daughter is now spending her vacation, 
 and they need a good frolic in the country — and there are, as you 
 know, just six others of all ages and sizes and they continually talk of 
 your springs and your branches and the fish pond that you write about 
 80 charmingly in your Sunday letters. So if you have room for us 
 we will all be up in a few days. Our second boy has a favorite dog 
 to whom he is much attached. If you have no objections we will 
 bring the dog. He is well behaved and will give you no trouble. 
 The third boy has a pair of fancy goats that are trained to work in 
 harness, and I know your children will like to frolic with them. We 
 will bring the goats. Our nurse will come with us. Now don't give 
 yourselves any anxiety on our account for we are just coming to have 
 a free and easy time and enjoy the air and the water. We will bring 
 our fishing tackle along. Your Loving Cousin. 
 
 It was with great hesitation that I read this letter to Mrs. Arp, but 
 she was equal to the occasion, for her hospitality never surrenders. 
 "Well, write to them to come along," she said with a sigh. "I expect 
 their children are tired of that hot city, and would be happy to get 
 up here and play in the branch. Their poor mother has had a time 
 of it just like I have — a thousand children and no negroes. Born 
 rich and had to live hard, and will die poor I reckon. But write to 
 them to come along and enjoy the air and the water, for there is not 
 much else here now." 
 
 **But, my dear," said I, "there isent anything else, and I don't see 
 how we can take them. The truth is I am plum out of money and I 
 am ashamed to go to town and ask for any more credit. Two months 
 ago when our company began to come we had 3 or 4 hundred chickens 
 running around the lot, and before the company left I was buying 
 
226 The Faem and The Fireside. 
 
 twenty a day. It is just awful, and we can't get another cook any- 
 where." 
 
 ''"Well, it don't matter," said she, *'we can't refuse them — it would 
 be bad manners. AVrite to them to come along, and we will do the 
 best we can. You can pick up something, I know ; I never knew you 
 to fail." 
 
 So under conjugal pressure I indited the following reply : 
 
 My dear Cousin : Your letter delighted us beyond expression. 
 Our end of the line is all fixed up, and when you telegraph us that 
 you are coming we will meet you at the depot. We have a double 
 buggy and a farm wagon, and if they will not hold all and the bag- 
 gage and livestock, the boys and the dog and the goats can walk out 
 and peruse the country. It is only 5 miles, so come along and be 
 happy and enjoy the air and the water. There is plenty of room now, 
 for we shipped the last of 18 visitors yesterday. They have run us 
 down to air and water, but there is still abundance of that and you 
 are welcome to it. We don't care anything about your dog, but we 
 have one here that I am afraid will eat his ears off in two minutes. 
 Country dogs never did have much consideration for a town dog. The 
 only trouble is about feeding your dog with palatable food, for we 
 have no scraps left from our table now, and our dog has got to eating 
 crawfish. This kind of food makes a dog hold on when he bites. 
 
 I think you had better bring the goats, for we would like to have a 
 barbacue while you are here, and we are just out of goats. You 
 needent bring your fishing tackle as we have plenty, but fish are 
 awful scarce in our creek since the mill pond was drawn off. Could- 
 ent you bring some salt-water fish as a rarity to our children. Huckle- 
 berries are ripe now and your children will enjoy picking them. 
 Ticks and red bugs are ripe, too, and your children will enjoy picking 
 them about bed time. Scratching is a healthy business in the country 
 and is tlie poor man's medicine. Town folks can take Cuticura and 
 Sarsaparilla and S S S and B B B but a poor man just has to scratch 
 — that's all. 
 
 I wouldent mention it to my wife, but it has occurred to me that as 
 you are about to break up for a season you might just as w^ell bring 
 your cow along, for ours are about played out. It would do your cow 
 good to enjoy the air and the water. And this reminds me that my 
 "wife scraped the bottom of the sugar barrel yesterday. It does take 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 227 
 
 a power of sweetniDg for these country berries. A hundred pounds 
 or so from your store wouldent come amiss. I suppose your nurse 
 wouldent mind sleeping in the potato shed. It is a good cool place to 
 roost at night. We have no musketoes but snakes are alarmingly fre- 
 quent in these parts. Carl killed a rattle snake in the garden yester- 
 day but he had only six rattles and we think w^e can soon train your 
 children to dodge them. So come along and enjoy the air and the 
 water. It is well worth a visit up here to see the blue mountains 
 and watch the young cyclones meander around. A cyclone came in 
 sight of us last spring and unroofed nabor Munford's house and killed 
 seven mules and three negro children and went on. It is a grand and 
 inspiring sight to see a cyclone on an excursion. Our crab apples are 
 ripe now. I read the other day a very sad account about three chil- 
 dren dying of crab apple colic in one family. Our cook has given us 
 notice that she will leave us next Sunday and my wife says she has 
 tried all over the naborhood to secure another but failed. May be 
 you had better bring up a cook with you but if you cant why then we 
 will all try and get along on the air and the water. I can cook pretty 
 well myself on an emergency but don't fancy it as a regular job. But 
 the greatest trouble now is that we have nothing to cook. But come 
 along and enjoy the air and the water. Your cousin 
 
 • William. 
 Well he dident come. The next time I saw him he said he was 
 just a joking, and I told him I was too. 
 
228 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 The Old Tavern. 
 
 Some time ago my business called me to an old venerable town that 
 is still a score of miles from a railroad, and consequently has not made 
 much progress in its business or its architecture. Forty years had 
 passed since I visited the place, and there was but little change. The 
 same old hotel was there, one of those big old-fashioned barns that 
 used to prevail in almost every town, and had a swinging sign-board 
 that creaked and swayed with the wind and said, "Entertainment for 
 Man and Beast," They used to have a plantation bell swung up on a 
 frame close by, and a rope attached to ring the guests to fried chicken 
 and ham and eggs and beat biscuit and bacon and greens and sausage 
 and lye hominy and cracklin' bread. The judge and the bar rode the 
 circuit then — not in railroads nor one at a time, but all together in 
 buggies and gigs and sulkies. It was quite a cavalcade, and attracted 
 wonder and awe and attention like a travelling circus. The judge's 
 room was always the biggest and best, and every night the lawyers 
 would gather there and talk and tell anecdotes and exchange their 
 genial wit and humor, and it was a rare treat to a young man to be 
 admitted to a corner and listen to them. It was a feast to me I know, 
 and I still treasure the memory of those delightful evenings at Gaines- 
 ville and Jefferson and Monroe and Watkinsville and Clarkesville, 
 when Howell Cobb and Tom Cobb and Hillyer and Dougherty and 
 Overby and Hutchins and Peeples and Jackson and Hull and Under- 
 wood were the luminaries of the western circuit. What a galaxy was 
 there — all notable men in their day, and all honorable. There was 
 no trickery in their practice, for they scorned it, and they loved to 
 meet each other on these semi-annual ridings, and each one was 
 expected so come laden with a new batch of anecdotes wherewith to 
 cheer the night. Book agents were unknown ; newspapers were neither 
 numerous nor newsy, and hence it was a great comfort to the people 
 to catch the sparks of genius as they scintilated from the lawyers and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 229 
 
 the politicians on the stump and in the forum. Stump politics were 
 a big thing with the people. The two great parties of whigs and 
 democrats were pretty equally divided. Sometimes one was in power 
 and sometimes the other, and the contest went on from year to year 
 and never ceased to create excitement. It is not so now at the South, 
 for there is practically but one party and it takes two to get up a fight. 
 
 But this venerable town had memories and its moss covered hotel 
 with its steep stairs and narrow passages carried me back to those 
 good old primitive times, and I felt like painting a head board and 
 nailing it up somewhere with the inscription "Sacred to the memory 
 of" 
 
 A friend said that it was a pity the old house would not catch fire 
 and burn up. But no. I wouldent have it so. Let it stand if it 
 will stand. It will never rot for the timbers are all heart and hewed 
 and honest. I felt like taking ofi* my hat to it and saying 
 
 Good friend, let's spare that barn, 
 
 Touch not its mossy roof — 
 Its walls heard many a yarn 
 
 In its historic youth. 
 
 Under the weight of years 
 
 Its back has crooked grown; 
 Look at the creaking doors, 
 
 See how the stairs are worn. 
 
 Oft in each hall and room, 
 
 Lye-soap and sand were thrown, 
 And many a home-made broom 
 
 And many a shuck have gone. 
 
 Full many a chick was killed. 
 
 And died without a tear, 
 And many a guest was filled 
 
 With comfort and good cheer. 
 
 No, no; let's keep the inn, 
 
 Though it has lost the sign — 
 Keep it for what it's been — 
 
 Keep it for auld lang syne. 
 
 A good old matron is keeping it now, and her table abounds in 
 generous old-fashioned fare. 
 
 The other day Judge Milner and Col. McCamy and I were lament- 
 ing that Judge Underwood, the last of that splendid galaxy of lawyers 
 
230 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 liad passed over the river, and we exchanged many delightful recol- 
 lections of him, for he was a genial gentleman, and his presence 
 always brought sunshine. He was a notable man — notable as a judge, 
 as a lawyer, as congressman, and as a wit. We recall the famous Cal- 
 houn convention, when Judge Wright and General Young and 
 General Wofford and Lewis Tumlin and some others were candidates 
 for the nomination to congress, and no man had enough votes to elect, 
 and all were stubborn, and the balloting went on all day and part of 
 the night, and the delegates were getting mad and furious and were 
 about to break up in a row, and Judge Underwood, who was not a 
 candidate, volunteered to make a conciliatory, harmonizing speech, 
 and he did it in such a delightful affectionate manner, and praised up 
 all the candidates in such eloquent tributes that when he closed one 
 man got up and waved his hat and moved for three cheers to Judge 
 Underwood, and they were given with wild enthusiasm, and right on 
 top of it another delegate moved that he be nominated for congress 
 by acclamation, and he was. Never was there such a surprise to 
 everybody except to the judge, though he always denied that it was 
 a preconcerted scheme. 
 
 **0h, rare Judge Underwood! Colonel McCamy remarked that the 
 judge did not have a very high r.egard for that picture of justice 
 which makes her blindfolded and holding the scales equally balanced 
 in her hand. So far as crime w^as concerned he claimed the right to 
 see, and he did see the criminal with open, unfriendly eyes, and he 
 sought to convict him and gave the solicitor general so much aid and 
 co-operation that the lawyers used to say the judge and the solicitor 
 were in partnership. His charge to the jury in a criminal case was 
 always fair and strictly legal, for he was a great lawyer ; but woe be 
 unto the lawyer who asked for more than he was entitled to. On one 
 occasion a big rough, malicious, young man was indicted for strik- 
 ing a smaller youth with a brickbat and inflicting a terrible wound. 
 The small boy had been imposed upon by him, and seizing a stick he 
 struck him and ran. Bill Glenn was defending the young man who 
 used the brick, and after the judge had given a very fair charge to the 
 jury, he said: "Now, gentlemen, if I have omitted anything that you 
 think should be given in the charge, I will be glad to be reminded of 
 it." Bill Glenn rose forward and said, "I believe your honor omitted 
 to charge the jury that a man may strike another in self-defense." 
 
The Farm and The FiREsroE. 231 
 
 "'Yes, gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, with great sarcasm, 
 '^es, there is such a provision in the law, and if you believe from 
 the evidence that this great big, double-jointed, long-armed, big-fisted 
 young gentleman was running after that puny, pale-faced boy with 
 that brickbat, and because he couldent catch him threw it at him with 
 all his force, and struck him on the back of the head and knocked 
 him senseless, and that he did all this in self-defense, then you can 
 find the defendant not guilty. Is there anything else. Brother 
 Glenn?" 
 
 * 'Nothing, I believe, sir. Your honor has covered the ground,'' 
 said Glenn, biting his lips. 
 
 "I was always afraid," said McCamy, *'to ask the judge to charge 
 anything more than he chose to — especially in a criminal case." 
 
232 The Farx and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVL 
 
 The Old-Time Darkeys. 
 
 A merchant or a lawyer or any outsider who never farmed any has 
 got an idea that farming is a mighty simple, and easy, and innocent 
 sort of business. They think there is nothing to do but plow and hoe 
 and gather the crop, and there is no worry or complication about it, 
 except you can't get a rain every time you want it, and the crop is 
 short in consequence. I had pretty much that sort of a notion myself, 
 but I know better now. Pve been farming for five years, and I like 
 it better and better; I like the freedom of it, its latitude and longi- 
 tude and its variety; but there is a power of little worries, and not a 
 few big ones, that a man has to encounter and provide for that these 
 outsiders never dreamed of. AVhen a man is running hired labor it 
 takes about half his time to watch 'em and keep 'em from wasting 
 things, and losing things, and doing things wrong. I went down in 
 the field yesterday and stumbled on the monkey-wrench in the grass by 
 the turn row, and it had been there for a month, and I had hunted for 
 it all over the premises, and nobody could tell anything about it; but 
 now the darkey "members takin' it down dar to screw up de taps on 
 de cultivator." Not long ago I found the hatchet in the edge of the 
 bushes where one of the boys had cut poles to lay off by. I can pick 
 up scooters and dull plows all about the farm, in the corners of the 
 panels and on the stumps where they put 'em when they changed 'em. 
 My log chain is missing now, and the little crow-bar and one of the 
 hammers, for sometimes I have to leave home for a few days, and 
 although these niggers and my yearlin' boys do their level best to sur- 
 prise me with doin' a power of work while I was gone, they don't notice 
 little things; they lose at the bung-hole while stopping up the spigot, 
 or vice varcy, as the saying is. They bore the auger bit against a nail, 
 or dull the saw in the same way, and let the old cow get into the orchard, 
 or the hogs into the tater patch. I've got good workin' boys and right 
 industrious darkeys, but it takes a man with a head on and his eyes 
 
How THE Cyclone Done Htm. 
 
The Farm and The FiREsmE. 23S 
 
 ^ell open to keep up with 'em and watch out for little things — little 
 damages that aggravate a man and keep him in a fret, that is if he 
 is but human and can't help fretting when things go wrong. A nabor 
 borrowed my brace and bit, and the bit came back with one corner off; 
 another one borrowed my cross-cut saw, and it came back awful dull, 
 and will cost me a new file. They don't like it if I don't lend them 
 my mower to cut their clover, though they never have cleaned up the 
 rocks in their field. 
 
 A darkey will work a mule sometimes for two hours with the hames 
 out of the collar and never see it, and he thinks it mighty hard if you 
 won't lend him a mule to ride to meetin' of a Sunday. But I won't 
 do that. They beg me out of a heap of things but they shan't ride 
 my stock of Sundays, for I hate to do it myself, and when a darkey 
 gets on a mule and out of sight he is like a beggar on horseback, he'll 
 ride him and run him as long as he can stand up. I like the darkeys, 
 I do, but I haven't got much hope of 'em ever being anything but 
 the same old careless, contented, thoughtless creatures they always 
 were. I've got one who took a notion he would lay up half of his 
 wages in spite of himself, and he told me to put it in the contract that 
 I wasn't to pay him but five dollars a month and keep the other half 
 till the end of the year. And now he tries to beg me out of the 
 other five at the end of every month, but I won't pay it, and he goes 
 off satisfied. Nabor Freeman came home the other day and found 
 his nigger tenants right smart behind with their crops, and they had 
 all been off to a three days meeting and an excursion besides, and so 
 he got mad and hauled up Bob, and says he: "Bob, what in the 
 dickens are you all goin' to so much meetin' for? What is the matter, 
 is the devil after you with a sharp stick, and a bug on the end of it?" 
 
 *' Well now. Boss," says Bob, ''I'll tell you how it is. We niggers 
 have been seein' for a long time da,t you white folks done got dis world, 
 and so we is gwine to meetin' and fixin' up to get de next one as soon 
 as we git dar; dat's all;" and Bob stretched his mouth and showed his 
 pearly teeth, and laughed loud at his own wit. 
 
 I love to hear these old time good natured darkeys talk. John 
 Thomas was in the ragged edge of a cyclone the other day, and said I, 
 *'John what did you darkeys do when the cyclone struck you?" "Good 
 gracious, boss, I tell you — dem niggers just frow themselves down 
 on de groun', sir, and holler *'0h, Lordy — good Lord hab mercy on a 
 
234 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 poor nigger. Nebber be a bad nigger any more, oh Lordy, good 
 Lordy" — and de old elycoon pay no tention at all, but jes' lif *em up 
 and twis 'em all roun and roun and toss 'em ober de fence into de red 
 mud hole, and Gim, my soul I wish you could hab seen Gim, for as 
 he was gwine ober de fence he ptruck a postis that was stickin up, 
 and he gethered it wid both arms and held on and hollerd wus than 
 eber, *'0h, Lordy — oh my good Lord. Bless de Lord, hab mercy on 
 a poor nigger;" and about that time the old slycoon twis he tail aroun 
 and lif Gim's feet way up over he's head and his holt broke and he 
 bounced off on the grouu and den took another bounce off on the 
 grouu and den took anoder bounce into the mud hold, and dar de con- 
 sarn lef him. 
 
 Atter de slycoon gone clean away I run up to Gim, and says I, 
 *'Gim, is you dead or no." Gim lyin dar in de mud hole wid nuffin 
 but his head out. Gim neber spoke nary word, and his eyes was 
 swelled like a dead steer, and says I agin, *'I say Gim, is you done 
 gone clean dead," for you see I thought if Gim dead no use in my 
 wading in de mud after him, and Gim he grunt and wall one eye at me 
 and whisper *'wha is he." *'Whar's who," said L *'De debbil," said 
 he. * 'Done gone," said I — "gon clean away." *' Git up from dar — 
 git up, I say." Gim gib a groan and say, " I can't, I'm done dead." 
 **Git up I tell you," said I, but Gim neber move. 
 
 Bymeby I frow up my hands and look down de big road and say, 
 **my good Lord Almighty, ef dat old slycoon aint a comin right hack here" 
 Neber see a nigger come to life like Gim. He bounced outen dat 
 mud hole and start off up de road a runnin' and hollerin' for a quarter 
 of a mile. White folks come along and stop him and look all ober 
 him and nebber find a scratch. When he got back we was all cuttin' 
 away de timbers from offen de mules, and it was a half an hour before 
 we could git Gim to strike ary lick. Tell you what boss, we was all 
 mighty bad skeered, but I neber see a nigger as onready for judgment 
 as dat same nigger, Gim. When de old debil do git him he raise a 
 rumpus down in dem settlements, shore." 
 
 ''Dident the cyclone take of the roof of your cabin, John?" 
 
 *'0f course he did, boss. He take de roof off along ebery where he 
 go. Look like ebery house he come to he dip down and say take your 
 hat off, don't you see me comin', and aint you got no manners, and 
 zip he strike 'em and take it off hisself He take de roof offen de col- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 235 
 
 ored school and offen de white school all de same. He no respekter 
 of pussons, bless God. Tell you, boss, what I tink about dis old sly- 
 coon, I tink he nuffin but de old debil on a scursion, yah, yah, 
 yah," and John cackled at his own ideas. 
 
 Bob came over last Sunday to see us. He used to be a tenant o4 
 mine, and we liked him because he had a big mouth and was always 
 happy. He was a good worker and not afraid of the weather, but he 
 was careless and left his tools most anywhere and barked my young 
 apple trees when plowing the orchard. I loaned him a new shovel 
 to work the road and he lost it, but I couldn't stay mad with Bob 
 long at a time. We never supposed that he could get mad enough to 
 have a fight with anybody, but he was not on good terms with a neigh- 
 boring darkey, and so one Saturday when they both came from town 
 and had taken a drink or two of red eye they undertook to settle the 
 old feud and Bob killed him. It was a willing fight and a bad case 
 all round and Bob got two years and would have got ten but for his 
 good character, all his previous life. He has served out his term, and 
 honestly feels that he has paid the debt, if he ever owed it. 
 
 "How did they treat you, Bob ?" 
 
 ** Well, sir, dey treat me purty well, purty well; I can't complain. 
 No, sir, I can't complain. For de fust six mont I didn't like it very 
 well, for, you see, me and de gyards hadn't got 'quainted. Bimeby, 
 when we all got 'quainted, dey took a liken to me and tell de 
 capen to take off my shackles, and he. take 'em off. De best way 
 is to make friens wid de gyard fust, jes like when a man wants to 
 make a frien of another man he muches up de chillun fust, and dat 
 gits de old man and de old 'oman, too. Den de next bes way is ter 
 pervide hj de laws as nigh as you kin. De capen tell us dat de fust 
 day — sez he, boys, you must pervide by de laws. Den he tell us de 
 laws. Dere wasent but three or four of 'em, and I lissen wid both 
 years wide open, and I say to myself. Bob Smith, you mus pervide by 
 de laws, and shore enuf I did, and atter we git 'quainted like, we gits 
 sorter intimat and I never had any trouble. Dey like me so well dey 
 shorten my term three months and three days, and when I cum away 
 de capen say * Bob, I am sorry to see you go — can't you finish out 
 your visit?' And I say ' capen, I likes you mighty well, but dis is de 
 longest visit I eber made anybody in my life, and if we ever meet 
 again, you will hare to come to my house.' 
 
236 The Farm axd The Fireside. 
 
 "Did they work you very hard, Bob?" 
 
 **No, sir, not overly hard — got to do a full day's work, though^ 
 and dey knows prezactly what dat is. Can't fool 'em, and can't 
 play sick unless you is sick, and hardly den. I neber lose but four 
 days in all my time. Heap times I thought I was sick, and if I 
 had been home I would have laid up shore, but dey said I wasent, 
 and dey looked like dey knowed and I didn't know and so I went 
 to work, and shore enuf I was all right agin by dinner. Colonel Tow- 
 ers he come along every week or so and look roun, and he ax me if I 
 had any complaint, and I say *no, sir, sepen I would like some poun 
 cake,' and he say he forgot to bring it. I tell you what. Boss, de 
 very best thing for a man to do when he gets dar is not to go dar 
 — not to do nuffin to go dar for, and den when he gets dar de nex 
 bes thing is to pervide by de laws. Dere is some folks in dar jes as 
 mean an no count as folks outen dar. Dere is mean niggers and mean 
 white folks everywhere you go. Some folks cum in de worl mean and 
 dey stays mean all de time; but I say dis, dat if a man, when he 
 goes dar, will haive hissef and pervide by de laws he kin git along 
 and hav a tolable easy time. 
 
 *'De last iix mont I stay dar I dident have to work any. Dey 
 made me a trusty and I have charge of de dogs — de track dogs — 
 and when de niggers get away de boss he holler for Bob mighty quick. 
 We had two track dogs ; one of 'em was a big, long-eared houn dog — 
 could track mighty fast — de oder was a small dog, sorter like a fice, 
 but he mighty shore on de scent of a run-away. One mornin' about 
 daybreak de boss holler, * Git up, Bob, git up quick, bring de dogs, 
 two niggers got away.' So I brings de dogs and we put 'em on de 
 track, and away dey went cross an old field and into de woods and 
 was barkiu' every step. I throws de saddles on de mules in a hurry, 
 and I got on one and de boss on toder and away we went after de 
 dogs. De run-aways dident have more'n half an hour start and de 
 track was powerful warm. And so de dogs run and de niggers run 
 and we run, and bimeby after we gone about four miles we hear de 
 old houn change his tune like he treed sumfin, and de boss say, *Bob, 
 old Sheriff have got 'em.' And shore enuf when we got dar de run- 
 aways was up in a white oak tree a settin on a limb, and de old houn 
 dog was a settin on de groun wid his head up a lookin' at 'em and a 
 barkin', and every time he open his mouf he say, *Too-ooo of 'em, 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 237 
 
 too-ooo of 'em, too-ooo of 'em.' And de little dog was a settin' back 
 on his tail and he say, *dats a fak, dats a fak, dats a fak.' Yah, yah, 
 yah. Boss make dem niggers come down from dar quick and march 
 'em back to de stockade and give 'em forty lashes apiece, cos you see 
 dey dident pervide by de laws." 
 
 Bob asked me one day if a man's soul could be split in two. "What 
 do you mean," said I, *' What kind of a fool question is that?" Bob 
 spread his big mouth and said: "My boss was tryin' to devil me one 
 day 'bout gwine to meetin* so much and he say: 'Bob, don't you 
 know dat a nigger ain't got no soul ? ' And den I ax him if a white 
 man got a soul, and he say, 'of corse he had.' And den I say, 
 * 'Sposin' a colored man is a mellater and is jes half and half, how's 
 dat? " He study awhile and say he 'low a mellater have jes half a 
 soul. And den I say, 'Look a here. Boss, what kind of a thing is 
 dat, dat half of a soul ? Can you split a soul in two?' He turn o3 
 and laugh and say, 'Damfino,'and I tell him I's gwine to ax you 
 about it." And Bob showed his pearly teeth and laughed tumultu- 
 ously. 
 
 When the prohibition election came off in our county the negroes 
 were generally on the side of whiskey, more whiskey and better 
 whiskey, but Bob came up as a temperance darkey and made a speech 
 to the darkeys of his church. A whiskey man in the crowd inter- 
 rupted him and said, "Shoasyou are borud. Bob Smith, effen you 
 vote whiskey outen Cartersville de grass will grow waist high in dem 
 streets." '"Sposin it do?" said Bob, "'Sposin' it do? Den we'll 
 raise more hay and less hell, and dats what's de matter wid Hannah. 
 Yah! Yah!" 
 
238 The Farm and The FiREsmE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 Owls, Snakes and Whang-Doodles. 
 
 Most every night about half-past eight, 
 
 A screech owl mourneth at the outside gate. 
 
 The Bweet little katydids sing all the day long. Earlier in the sea- 
 son they were happy only at night, but now the woods are full of their 
 music by day. It is not a song from the mouth, but they rub the bars 
 of their wings together apd puiF out their bodies for sounding boards, 
 and if a man could sing as loud in proportion to size, I suppose he 
 could be heard across the Atlantic ocean, and his voice would make 
 an earthquake and shake down the stars, and so that wouldn't do at 
 all, and he wasn't made that way. But these little screech owls are a 
 nuisance, and are enough to make a nervous woman have fits or hys- 
 terics or something. I shot one on the gate post one night while he 
 was complaining about something we had done to him, but another 
 one came back and set up his mournful wails. I wonder what makes 
 'em stay away off in the woods all day and come screeching around 
 the house at night like they wanted to haunt us. There is some excuse 
 for superstition about owls, for they love darkness rather than light, 
 and the ancient philosophers said they were the sentinels and forerun- 
 ners of evil spirits, and the scriptures classed 'em with demons and all 
 sorts of trouble and misery. The Prophet Isaiah cursed Babylon and 
 said the owl should dwell there, and satyrs should dance there. .. And 
 then they look so wise out of their big eyes and twist their heads 
 'round and 'round watching you, and you can't scare 'em nor tame 'em. 
 Well, they were made for something; but I don't know what it is, and 
 I have frequently thought that when the flood covered the earth 
 it was a mighty good time for Father Noah to have left out of the ark 
 all such disagreeable varmints as owls, and snakes, and whang- doodles 
 that mourn for their first born. 
 
 Gen. Black told me th^^t if I wanted to get rid of screech owls to 
 put the shovel in the fire when one of 'em was a screechin* and he 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 239 
 
 ^o uld leave forthwith. The general said the fire contracted with the 
 oxide in the iron and deluminated an odoriferous that was disagree- 
 able to the delicate oil factories of the bird. Jesso ! Well, I tried it, 
 and he dident leave worth a cent. 
 
 That screech owl is sitting on the gate-post singing a funeral dirge. 
 It's a bird of bad omen, and I would shoot him, but my wife says an 
 old African witch told her grandmother there would be a death in the 
 family if you killed one of 'em, shore. It always seemed to me that 
 in the fitness of things they belonged to a graveyard or a haunted , 
 house or a dismal swamp or a country meetin* house that the hogs 
 slept under and nobody preached in. I don't like 'em, especially at 
 this juncture of home concerns, for my wife saw the last new moon 
 through a bushy tree-top right over her left shoulder, which she dident 
 mean to do by no means. Things don't move on serenely, and the 
 old horse-shoe over the kitchen door has lost its influence. I havent 
 seen a pin on the floor that dident pint away from me, and the other 
 day a rabbit run across the road right before me, and soon after I 
 come to a snake track, which they say is mighty bad if you don't rub 
 it out with your face towards the snake, but I couldn't tell whether 
 the snake that made the track was going north or coming back, and 
 so had to rub out by guess, and now while I'm a-writin' Mrs. Arp has 
 got a hummin' in her right ear, and she says it sounds like an Eolean 
 harp, or a musketer away off*, and that's another funeral sign — and 
 last night a black pet chicken came in the famil}' room while we 
 was at supper, and went to roost on top of a picture that hung over 
 the clock on the mantel-piece, and nobody knowd it until we had put 
 the light out and went to bed, when it chuckled a little and Mrs. Arp 
 chuckled a good deal until I struck a light, and now she says Mr. Poe 
 had a raven that done the same thing and he died soon after. 
 
 The weather is sad. It mists and weeps and stays cloudy all the 
 time, and that makes everybody gloomy. There hasent been a dry 
 day in three weeks that we can plow. The grass grows as fast as the 
 cotton and the seed will scatter all over the open bolls and the cotton- 
 buyers will dock us a cent for trash. Things are not working right 
 for us farmers, but we can't help it. The flies take shelter in the 
 liouse and so do the bugs and the grand-daddies and the bats. 
 
 Here, William, quick, I say — here's a grand-daddy on me ; don't 
 
240 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 you Bee ; why don't you take him off. Lord a mercy, did I ever see 
 a man as slow as your are. Do please take the thing off." 
 
 "Well, you see it takes a long time to find the thing, and when you 
 do he's a crawlin' on the floor a gettin away as fast as he can, and she 
 declares that's another one and I have to hunt all over her for five 
 minutes. 
 
 * 'There's one of those contemptible bats in here again. Get the 
 broom, William, I wouldn't have it to get on me for a thousand dol- 
 lars. Mercy on me ! I do believe the house will be run over with 
 vermin. Don't break the bureau glass. Why don't you stand on the 
 table? Why, you don't come in a yard of him! It does seem to me 
 if I was a man I could knock a bat down." 
 
 "He has gone out," said I, meekly. 
 
 * 'How do you know — did you see him? Bet anything its on my 
 bed somewhere. Move the pillows and bolster. I'll dream about the 
 thing all night." 
 
 It looks like I'll perish to death for want of some good warm vittels. 
 I'm juicin' away. You see when Mrs. Arp was a cookin' the other day 
 in the basement an innocent chicken-snake crawled out from behind 
 the meal-chest. Such a scream was never heard since the Injuns 
 scalped my great uncle. I run for my life and was pickin* her up in 
 my arms when she rallied and said, *'kill the snake first;" and I killed 
 it. He was a lovely snake— all speckled with dark green and white 
 and had just swallowed a mouse. But, alas! the kitchen is purty 
 much deserted and all regular cooking abandoned. When they cook 
 now I have to take a gun and stand guard. I march forrerds and 
 backwards like a sentinel. I've had to move the meal tub and the 
 stove wood, and everything else fourteen times, for she declares its got 
 a mate, and the mate is there somewhere. ''Maybe its a bachelor 
 snake," said I. 
 
 "Oh, of course, you don't believe there's another snake in the wide 
 Avorld — and I've found out you killed one last week under the hearth 
 and you told the children not to let me know anything about it; didn't 
 you?" 
 
 "It was a very little one," said I, "and I dident want you troubled 
 about it." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it was a little one, but snakes are snakes, and where 
 there's little ones there's big ones. I do believe the whole plantation 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 241 
 
 is haunted with 'em, and everywhere else, for I can't take up a news" 
 paper without seeing where somebody was bitten." 
 
 "Men and boys," says I; *'I havent seen any mention of a woman 
 being bitten nowhere — fact is, I don't believe they bite females. You 
 know that old mother Eve was mighty friendly with 'em." 
 
 *'Yes, that's always the way — you turn everything into ridicule. 
 Well, you may hire a cook; I'm not going to risk my life nor the 
 children's in this old haunted kitchen." 
 
 But I think she is getting over it, and with a little encouragement 
 things will resume their natural condition in a few days. The greatest 
 trouble I have in this connection is Freeman — my nabor Freeman. 
 I reckon he don't mean any harm by it; but just as soon as my wife, 
 Mrs. Arp, told him about the snake, he up and told her about killia 
 one over in his field as long as a fence rail, and how it had its den in 
 a rock pile, and would run out after him and the niggers, and then 
 retreat; and they were all fightin' and runnin' and runnin' and fightin 
 for two hours, until they wore him out; and he brung down the 
 rattles of a rattlesnake and rattled 'em around, and told about finding 
 a spring lizzard in the water pail, and had like to have swallered him 
 alive in the gourd. And now my wife, Mrs. Arp, won't drink out of 
 anything but a glass goblet; and when she walks out in the front 
 yard she has one eye for flowers and the other for snakes and lizzards, 
 and shakes her clothes tremendious when she comes back. I wish 
 that one would bite Freeman. 
 
242 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 The Autumn Leaves. 
 
 The earliest fires of the fall 
 
 Have brightened up the room, 
 The cat and dog and children all 
 
 Have hid old winter come. 
 
 The wind is running at the nose, 
 
 The clouds are in a shiver; 
 By day we want more warmer clothes, 
 
 At night we want more kiver. 
 
 When a farmer has laid by his crop and the seasons have beerr 
 kind and the corn and cotton are maturing, and the sweet potato 
 vines have covered the ground, what an innocent luxury it is to set in 
 the piazza in the shade of evening with one's feet on the banisters, and 
 contemplate the beauty and bounty of nature and the hopeful pros- 
 pect of another year's support. It looks like that even^n Ishmaelite 
 might then feel calm and serene, and if he is still ungrateful for his 
 abundant blessings he is worse than a heathen, and ought to be run 
 out of a Christian's country. Every year brings toil and trouble and 
 apprehension, but there always comes along rest and peace and the 
 ripe fruits of one's labors. 
 
 Persimmons and 'possums are getting ripe. The May-pops have 
 dropped from the vines. Chestnuts and chinkapins are opening, and 
 walnuts are covering the ground. Crawfish and frogs have gone into 
 winter quarters — snakes and lizzards have bid us adieu. All nature 
 is preparing for a winter's sleep — sleep for the trees, and grass and 
 flowers. I like winter; no£ six long months of snow and ice and 
 howling winds, but three months interspersed with sunny days and 
 Indian summers. The Sunny South is the place for me, the region of 
 mild and temperate climate, of lofty mountains and beautiful valleys, 
 and fast-flowing streams. The region where the simoon nor the 
 hurricane ever comes, and the streams do not become stagnant, nor the 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 243 
 
 mosquito to sing his little song. I don't want to be snow-bound in 
 winter, nor to fly from a fiery hurricane in summer; and it's curious 
 to me that our Northern brethren don't bid farewell, a long farewell, 
 to such a country and settle down in this pleasant land. 
 
 " The cricket chirrups on the hearth 
 The crackling fagot flies." 
 
 The air is cool and lively. The family have peartined up, and 
 everything is lovely around the farmer's comfortable fire. How invig- 
 orating is the first chilling breeze of coming winter. The hungry 
 horses nicker for their corn ; the cattle follow you around ; the pesky 
 pigs squeal at your feet, and this dependence of the brutes upon us 
 for their daily food makes a man feel his consequence as he struts 
 among them like a little king. The love of dominion is very natural. 
 It provokes a kindliness of heart, and if a man hasn't got anything 
 else to lord it over it's some comfort to love and holler at his dog. I've 
 seen the day when I strutted around among my darkies like a patri- 
 arch. I felt like I was running au unlimited monarchy on a limited 
 scale. And Mrs. Arp felt that way too. Sometimes in my dreams I 
 still hear the music of her familiar call, "Becky, why don't you come 
 along with that coal-hod ? '* " I'se a comin', mam." " Eosanna, what 
 in the world are you doing; havent you found that needle yet?" 
 "Fse most found it, mam." Poor thing; patient and proud, she 
 hunts her own needles now, and the coal-hod falls to me. 
 
 But we still live, thank the good Lord, and are worrying through 
 the checkered life as gracefully as possible. What's the use of brood- 
 ing over trouble when you can't help it? Sometimes, when a rainy 
 day comes and all out-doors is wet and sloppy, and the dogs track mud 
 in the piazza, and the children have to be penned up in the house, 
 and everything is gloomy, we get sad and look on the dark side, and 
 long for things we havent got. When the little chaps play hide and 
 seek till they get tired, and shove the chairs around for cars and 
 engines, and look at all the pictures, and cut up all the newspapers, 
 and turn summersets on their little bed, and then get restless and 
 whine around for freedom, Mrs. Arp opens her school and stands 'em 
 up by the buro to say their lessons. 
 
 ''Now, Carl, let me see if you can say your psalm. Put your 
 hands down and hold up your head." 
 
244 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 * * The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He — he — he — " 
 
 "Let that fly alone, and put your hands down. He maketh me to 
 lie down — " 
 
 "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He, he." 
 
 "Quit pulling at that curtain. He leadeth me — " 
 
 "He leadeth me. La, mamma, yonder comes a covered wagon. I 
 speck it's got apples." 
 
 "Carl, stand away from that window. If I take a switch to you 
 Pll make you look after apple wagons. He leadeth me." 
 "He leadeth me — in the houee of the Lord forever." 
 
 "Bless my soul, if he hasn't skipped over to the very end. Where 
 are you going no\N ?" 
 
 "Mamma, I want a drink of water — mamma, please give me and 
 Jessie an apple." 
 
 "No, sir, you shan't smell of an apple. Every time I try to teach 
 you something you want water, or an apple, or go to catching flies. 
 I w^ish I had that switch that's up on the clock." 
 
 "I'll get it for you," said I. 
 
 "K"o you needent, either. Just go on with your writing. I wish 
 you would let me manage the children. All the learning they ever 
 get I have to ding dong it into 'em. When I want, the switch I can 
 get it. Here, Jessie, come and say your verses." 
 
 And Jessie goes through with "Let dogs delight" like a daisy. 
 
 Oh, she's smart as a steel trap — just like her mother. I wish you 
 could see Mrs. Arp's smile when some other woman comes along and 
 norates the smart sayings of her juvenile. 
 
 " Aint it strange," says she to me, "how blinded most mothers are 
 about their children. Mrs. Trotter thinks her Julia a world's wonder, 
 but Jessie says things every day a heap smarter, and I never thought 
 anything about it." 
 
 " Jesso," says I; "children are shore to be smart when they have a 
 smart mother. Their meanness all comes from the old man." 
 
 But the rainy days don't last forever. Sunshine follows cloud and 
 storm and darkness. In the journey of life the mountains loom up 
 before us, and they look high and steep and rugged, but somehow 
 they always disappear just before we get to them, and then we can 
 look back and feel ashamed that we borrowed so much trouble and had 
 so much anxiety for nothing. What a great pile of miserable fears 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 245 
 
 -we build up every day. It's good for a man to ruminate over it and 
 Tesolve to have more faith in providence, and I am ruminating now, 
 for I went to town to-day to attend a little court that had my tenant's 
 cotton money all tangled up by the lawyers, and I never expected to 
 get my share, but I did and I feel happy. Mrs. Arp had told the chil- 
 dren she would like to go and do some shopping for them but she 
 knew that I was so poor and they would have to do without. 
 
 So when I came home and found her stitching away with a sad 
 -expression on her countenance, I pulled out the 22 dollars of cotton 
 money, and assuming a pathetic attitude exclaimed : 
 
 "Turn, Angelina, ever dear, 
 My charmer, turn to see 
 Thine own, thy long-lost William here, 
 Kestored to Heaven and thee." 
 
 And I laid the shining silver in her lap. In about two minutes 
 everything was calm and serene, and we had music that night and 
 Mrs. Arp played on the piano and sang some of the songs of her girl- 
 hood. It's most astounding what a little money can do. 
 
246 The Farm and The FiREtitDE. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 Uncle Tom Barker. 
 
 Uncle Tom Barker was much of a man. He had been wild and 
 reckless, and feared not God nor regarded man, but one day at a 
 camp-meeting, while Bishop Gaston was shaking up the sinners and 
 scorching them over the infernal pit, Tom got alarmed, and before the 
 meeting was over he professed religion and became a zealous, outspokea 
 convert, and declared his intention of going forth into the world and 
 preaching the gospel. He was terribly in earnest, for he said he had 
 lost a power of time and must make it up. Tom was a rough talker, 
 but he was a good one, and knew right smart of *' scripter," and a good 
 many of the old-fashioned hymns by heart. The conference thought 
 he was a pretty good fellow to send out into the border country among 
 the settlers, and so Tom straddled his old flea-bitten gray, and in due 
 time was circuit riding in North Mississippi. 
 
 In course of time Tom acquired notoriety, and from his strong- 
 language and stronger gestures, and his muscular eloquence, they 
 called him old "Sledge Hammer," and after awhile, "Old Sledge," for 
 short. Away down in one corner of his territory there was a black- 
 smith shop and a wagon shop and a whisky shop and a post-office at 
 Bill Jones's crossroads; and Bill kept all of them, and was known far 
 and wide as "Devil Bill Jones," so as to distinguish him from 'Squire 
 Bill the magistrate. Devil Bill had sworn that no preacher should 
 ever toot a horn or sing a hymn in the settlement, and if any of the 
 cussed hypocrites ever dared to stop at the crossroads, he'd make him 
 dance a hornpipe and sing a hymn, and whip him besides. And Bill 
 Jones meant just what he said, for he had a mortal hate for the men 
 of God. It was reasonably supposed that Bill could and would do 
 what he said, for his trade at the anvil had made him strong, and 
 everybody knew that he had as much brute courage as was necessary. 
 And so Uncle Tom was advised to take roundance and never tackle 
 the crossroads. He accepted this for a time, and left the people to 
 
I See Tom Barker Risin' of the Hill. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 247 
 
 the bad influence of Devil Bill; but it seemed to him he was not doing 
 the Lord's will, and whenever he thought of the women and children 
 living in darkness and growing up in infidelity, he would groan. 
 
 One night he prayed over it with great earnestness, and vowed to 
 do the Lord's will if the Lord would give him light, and it seemed to 
 him as he rose from his knees that there was no longer any doubt — he 
 must go. Uncle Tom never dallied about anything when his mind 
 was made up. He went right at it like killing snakes ; and so next 
 morning as a "nabor" passed on his way to Bill's shop, Uncle Tom 
 said: 
 
 "My friend, will you please carry a message to Bill Jones for me? 
 Do you tell him that if the Lord is willin', I will be at the crossroads 
 to preach next Saturday at eleven o'clock, and I am shore the Lord 
 is willin'. Tell him to please 'norate' it in the settlement about, 
 and ax the women and children to come. Tell Bill Jones I will stay 
 at his house, God willin', and I'm shore he's willin' and I'll preach 
 Sunday, too, if things git along harmonious." 
 
 When Bill Jones got the message he was amazed, astounded, and 
 his indignation knew no bounds. He raved and cursed at the ' 'onsult," 
 as he called it — the *'onsulting message of 'Old Sledge'" — and he 
 swore that he would hunt him up, and whip him, for he knowed that 
 he wouldn't dare to come to the crossroads. 
 
 But the "nabors" whispered it around that "Old Sledge" would 
 come, for he was never known to make an appointment and break it; 
 and there was an old horse-thief who used to run with Murrel's gang, 
 who said he used to know Tom Barker when he was a sinner and had 
 seen him fight, and he was much of a man. 
 
 So it spread like wild-fire that "Old Sledge" was coming, and Devil 
 Bill was "gwine" to whip him and make him dance and sing a "hime," 
 and treat to a gallon of peach brandy besides. 
 
 Devil Bill had his enemies, of course, for he was a hard man, and 
 one way or another had gobbled up all the surplus of the "nabor- 
 hood" and had given nothing in exchange but whiskey, and these 
 enemies had long hoped for somebody to come and turn him down. 
 They, too, circulated the astounding news, and, without committing 
 themselves to either party, said that h — 11 would break loose on Satur- 
 day at the crossroads, and that "Old Sledge" or the devil would have 
 to go under. 
 
248 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 On Friday, the settlers began to drop into the crossroads under pre- 
 tense of business, but really to get the bottom facts of the rumors that 
 were afloat. 
 
 Devil Bill knew full well what they came for, and he talked and 
 cursed more furiously than usual, and swore that anybody who would 
 come expecting to see *'01d Sledge" tomorrow was an infernal fool, for 
 he wasn't a-coming. He laid bare his strong arms and shook his long 
 hair and said he wished the lying, deceiving hypocrite would come for 
 it had been nigh on to fourteen years since he had made a preacher 
 dance. 
 
 Saturday morning by nine o'clock the settlers began to gather. 
 They came on foot and on horseback, and in carts — men, women and 
 children, and before eleven o'clock there were more people at the 
 crossroads than had ever been there before. Bill Jones was mad at 
 their credulity, but he had an eye to business, and kept behind his 
 counter and sold more whiskey in an hour than he had sold in a 
 month. As the appointed hour drew near the settlers began to look 
 down the long, straight road that **01d Sledge" would come, if he 
 came at all, and every man whose head came in sight just over the 
 rise of the distant hill was closely scrutinized. 
 
 More than once they said, "Yonder he comes — that's him, shore." 
 But no, it wasn't him. 
 
 Some half a dozen had old bull's-eye silver watches, and they com- 
 pared time, and just at 10:55 o'clock the old horse thief exclaimed : 
 
 **I see Tom Barker a risin' of the hill. I hain't seed him for eleven 
 years, but, gintlemen, that ar' him, or I'm a liar." 
 
 And it was him. 
 
 As he got nearer and nearer, a voice seemed to be coming with him, 
 and some said, "He's talkin' to himself," another said. He's a talkin* 
 to God Almighty," and another said, "I'll be durned if he ain't a 
 praying," but very soon it was decided that he was "singin' of a 
 hirae." 
 
 Bill Jones was soon advised of all this, and, coming up to the front, 
 said: "Darned if he ain't singing before I axed him, but I'll make 
 him sing another tune till he is tired. I'll pay him for his onsulting 
 message. I'm not a-gwine to kill him boys. I'll leave life in his rot- 
 ton old carcass, but that's all. If any of you'ens want to hear 'Old 
 Sledge' preach, you'll have to go ten miles from the road to do it." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 249 
 
 Slowly and solemnly the preacher came. As he drew near he nar- 
 rowed down his tune and looked kindly upon the crowd. He was 
 a massive man in frame, and had a heavy suit of bark brown hair; 
 but his face was clean shaved, and showed a nose and lips and chin 
 of firmness and great determination. 
 
 **Look at him, boys, and mind your eye," said the horse thief. 
 
 ''Where will I find my friend, Bill Jones?" inquired *'01d Sledge." 
 
 All round they pointed him to the man. 
 
 Riding up close he said: **My friend and brother, the good Lord 
 has sent me to you, and I ask your hospitality for myself and ray 
 beast," and he slowly dismounted and faced his foe as though expect- 
 ing a kind reply. 
 
 The crisis had come and Bill Jones met it. 
 
 *'You infernal old hypocrite; you cussed old shaved-faced scoun- 
 drel ; didn't you know that I had swored an oath that I would make 
 you sing and dance, and whip you besides if you ever dared to pizen 
 these crossroads with your shoe-tracks? Now sing, d — n you, sing 
 and dance as you sing," and he emphasized his command with a ring- 
 ing slap with his open hand upon the parson's face. 
 
 "Old Sledge" recoiled with pain and surprise. 
 
 Recovering in a moment, he said : 
 
 "Well, Brother Jones, I did not expect so warm a welcome, but if 
 this be your crossroads manners, I suppose I must sing;" and as Devil 
 Bill gave him another slap on his other jaw he began with : 
 "My soul, be on thy guard." 
 
 And with his long arm suddenly and swiftly gave Devil Bill an 
 open hander that nearly knocked him ofi" his feet, while the parson 
 continued to sing in a splendid tenor voice: 
 "Ten thousand foes arise." 
 
 Never was a lion more aroused to frenzy than was Bill J ones. 
 
 With his powerful arm he made at "Old Sledge" as if to annihilate him 
 
 with one blow, and many horrid oaths, but the parson fended off the 
 
 stroke as easily as a practised boxer, and with his left hand dealt Bill 
 
 a settler on his peepers as he continued to sing : 
 
 "Oh, watch, and fight, and pray, 
 The battle ne'er give o'er." 
 
 But Jones was plucky to desperation, and the settlers were watch- 
 ing with bated breath. The crisis was at hand, and he squared him- 
 
250 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 self, and his clenched fists flew thick and fast upon the parson's frame,. 
 
 and for awhile disturbed his equilibrium and his song. But he rallied 
 
 quickly and began the offensive, as he sang : 
 
 ♦' Ne'er think the victory won, 
 Nor lay thine armor down — " 
 
 He backed his adversary squarely to the wall of his shop, and 
 seized him by the throat, and mauled him as he sang: 
 ♦' Fight on, my soul, till death — " 
 
 Well, the long and the short of it was, that "Old Sledge" whipped 
 him and humbled him to the ground, and then lifted him up and 
 helped to restore him, and begged a thousand pardons. 
 
 When Devil Bill had retired to his house and was being cared for 
 by his wife, ''Old Sledge" mounted a box in front of the grocery and 
 preached righteousness and temperance, and judgment to come, to 
 that people. 
 
 He closed his solemn discourse with a brief history of his own sin- 
 ful life before his conversion and his humble work for the Lord ever 
 since, and he besought his hearers to stop and think — *' Stop, poor 
 sinner, stop and think," he cried in alarming tones. 
 
 There were a few men and many women in that crowd whose eyes, 
 long unused to the melting mood, dropped tears of repentance at the 
 preacher's kind and tender exhortation. Bill Jones's wife, poor 
 woman, had crept humbly into the outskirts of the crowd, for she had 
 long treasured the memories of her childhood, when she, too, had 
 gone with her good mother to hear preaching. In secret she had pined 
 and lamented her husband's hatred for religion and for preachers. 
 After she had washed the blood from his swollen face and dressed his 
 wounds she asked him if she might go down and hear the preacher. 
 For a minute he was silent and seemed to be dumb with amazement. 
 He had never been whipped before and had suddenly lost confidence 
 in himself and his infidelity. 
 
 *'Go 'long, Sally," he answered, "if he can talk like he can fight 
 and sing, maybe the Lord did send him. It's all mighty strange to 
 me," and he groaned in anguish. His animosity seemed to have 
 changed into an anxious, wondering curiosity, and after Sally had 
 gone, he left his bed and drew near to the window where he could hear. 
 
 " Old Sledge" made an earnest, soul-reaching prayer, and his plead- 
 ing with the Lord for Bill Jones's salvation and that of his wife and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 251 
 
 children reached the window where Bill was sitting, and he heard it. 
 His wife returned in tears and took a seat beside him, and sobbed her 
 heart's distress, but said nothing. Bill bore it for awhile in thought- 
 ful silence, and then putting his bruised and trembling hand in hers, 
 said: ''Sally, if the Lord sent 'Old Sledge' here, and maybe he 
 did, I reckon you had better look after his horse." And sure enough 
 * ' Old Sledge " stayed there that night and held family prayer, and 
 the next day he preached from the piazza to a great multitude, and 
 sang his favorite hymn : 
 
 " Am I a soldier of the Cross ?" 
 
 And when he got to the third verse his untutored but musical voice 
 seemed to be lifted a little higher as he sang: 
 
 "Sure I must fight if I would reign, 
 Increase my courage, Lord." 
 
 Devil Bill was converted and became a changed man. He joined 
 the church, and closed his grocery and helped to build a meeting 
 house, and it was always said and believed that *' Old Sledge" mauled 
 the grace into his unbelieving soul, and it never would have got in any 
 other way. 
 
252 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 Bill Arp on Josh Billings. 
 
 Josh Billings is dead, and the world will miss him. He was a suc- 
 cess in his way, and it was not a bad way. He did no harm. He 
 did much good, for he gave a passing pleasure and gave it frequently, 
 and left the odor of good precepts that lingered with us. He was 
 ^sop and Ben Franklin, condensed and abridged. His quaint-phonetic 
 spelling spiced his maxims and proverbs, and made them attractive. 
 It is curious how we are attracted by the wise, pithy sayings of an 
 unlettered man. It is the contrast between his mind and his culture. 
 We like contrasts and we like metaphors and striking comparisons. 
 The more they are according to nature and everyday life, the better 
 they please the masses. The cultured scholar will try to impress us 
 by saying ''facilis decensus averni" but Billings brings the same idea 
 nearer home when he says, ''when a man starts down hill, it looks like 
 everything is greased for the occasion." We can almost see the fellow 
 eliding down. It is an old thought that has been dressed up fine for 
 centuries, and suddenly appears in every day clothes. Wise men tell 
 us that the people do not think for themselves, but follow their leaders 
 in politics and religion. That is true, and it is tame and old. But 
 when I asked the original Bill Arp how he was going to vote he said 
 he couldn't tell me until he saw Colonel Johnson, and Colonel John- 
 eon wouldn't know until he talked to Judge Underwood, and Judge 
 Underwood wouldn't know until he heard from Aleck Stephens. ''But 
 who tells Aleck Stephens how to vote?" "I'll be dogged if I know." 
 Well, that was the same old truth, but it was undressed, and therefore 
 more forcible. The philosophic theory has come down to a homely 
 fact. 
 
 Some years ago I met Mr. Shaw in New York, at Carleton's book 
 store. I did not know that he was Josh Billings. In fact I had for- 
 gotten Billings' real name, and I thought this man was a Methodist 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 253- 
 
 preacher. He looked like one, a very solemn one. His long hair 
 was parted in the middle and silvered with gray. His face was heavily 
 bearded, his eyes well set and his mouth drooped at the corners. We 
 sat facing each other for a few moments, when suddenly he leaned for- 
 ward and said: ''Friend Arp, say something." I knew then that 
 Mr. Carleton had surprised me and that this was Billings, for he had 
 told me that his friend Billings was going to call. We soon got 
 friendly and familliar, and suddenly he inquired, **how is my friend 
 Big John?" "Dead," said I. ''And how is that faithful steer?" 
 said he. "Dead," I replied. With a mock sorrow he wiped his eyes 
 and remarked, "hence these tears." (Steers.) 
 
 While we were talking, a lad of the house came back and said there 
 was a man in a balloon and we could see him from the front. We all 
 went forward and we watched the daring aeronaut soar away until he 
 was out of sight and we took seats near the door. Billings heaved a 
 sigh and said, "I feel very bad, my friends. That sight distresses 
 me." We asked him why, and he said, "It carries me back to the 
 scenes of my early youth, and reminds me of a sad event." We 
 waited a moment for him to recover from his depression, and he said : 
 "I was an indolent, trifling boy. I wouldn't work and I wouldn't 
 study at school. I had a longing to get away from home and go 
 West. Most everybody was going West, and so one morning my father 
 said to me: "Henry, I reckon you had better go. You are not 
 doing any good here." And so he gave me ten dollars and a whole 
 lot of advice, and my mother fixed me up a little bundle of clothes 
 and I started. That money lasted me until I got away out to Illinois, 
 for I worked a little along the way to pay for lodging and vittels, but 
 at last it was all gone, and my shoes were worn out, and when I got 
 to a little village one afternoon I was homesick and friendless, and I 
 didn't know what to do next. I noticed that the people were all going 
 one way, and they told me they were going out to the suburbs to see a 
 man go up in a balloon. So I followed the crowd and when I got 
 there I saw a little dirty Italian sitting down on an old dingy balloon, 
 and there was a fellow going around with a hat in his hand trying to 
 make up ten dollars. The little Italian said he would go up for that 
 money. But the fellow couldn't make it. He counted the money 
 and had only six dollars and a half, and so he gave it up, and was 
 about to give the money back when I thought I saw my opportunity. 
 
254 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 I was sorry for the Italian and sorry for myself, and so I whispered to 
 him and asked him if he would give me all over ten dollars that I 
 could make up and he said 'yes, all over eight dollars.' Well, I had 
 the gift of speech pretty lively, and I went round and round among 
 the folks and told them how this poor, little, sunburnt son of Italy came 
 three thousand miles from his home to minister to their pleasure and 
 put his life in peril, and it was a shame that we couldn't make him up 
 the pitiful sum of ten dollars. I soon got the crowd in good humor, and 
 in about five minutes I had made up eighteen dollars. I felt proud 
 and happy, and said: *Xow, my friend, fire up,' and I helped him to 
 fire up. The old balloon was patched and leaky, and I thought it 
 would burst before we got ready, for we piled the gas in heavy. 
 Before long the little chap was in the basket, and we cut the ropes and 
 away she went. It was a calm, still day in June — not a breath of air 
 to drift the balloon from a perpendicular. Up, up, she went, grow- 
 ing smaller and smaller, until finally she was but a tiny speck in the 
 zenith. We nearly broke our necks looking at it, and sure enough, 
 in a few minutes more she was gone. Not a spy-glass could find it. 
 We watched all the evening for the little fellow to come back in sight, 
 but he never came. The shades of night come over us but no Italian. 
 The crowd dispersed one by one until all were gone but me, for I was 
 his friend and treasurer, you know. Next morning he still was miss- 
 ing and all that day we made inquiries from the surrounding country, 
 but no Italian and no balloon, and from that day to this good hour he 
 has never been heard from. I have felt a heavy weight of responsi- 
 bility about him, for I fear I put in too much gas. My hope is that 
 he went dead straight to heaven. I have his money in my bank, and 
 it is drawing interest." 
 
 And Josh wiped away another pretended tear of grief. 
 
 He was a companionable man and talked without a strain. When 
 he visited our little city of Rome our people gave him glad welcome, 
 for he had been long ministering to their pleasure and in all his great 
 and curious utterances he had never written a line that showed preju- 
 dice or malignity to our people or our section. 
 
 Peace be to his ashes and honor to his memory. 
 
The Farm and The Fuieside. 255 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 The Code Duello. 
 
 They are the funniest things — these duels. They are both funny 
 and fantastic. They beat a circus — that is to say the newspaper 
 pictures of them beat the circus pictures, and it is reasonable to sup- 
 pose that the antics of the performers are more ludicrous than the 
 clown and the monkeys and the trick horse combined. I would like 
 to be up in a tree and see a duel — no I wouldent either. It would be 
 safer to be in front of one of the performers. Sometimes I think 
 that these little affairs of honor are just gotten up to amuse the pub- 
 lic, and they are a success in that way. They beat Sullivan and 
 Kilrain in the wind up, and the only objection is we don't know about 
 it until the show is all over. Vie don't have a chance to take sides 
 and bet on anybody, and if we did we wouldent win or lose, for it is 
 always a draw — nobody hurt, wonderful pluck, amazing heroism, 
 magnanimous conduct, noble bearing, amicable adjustment, but 
 nobody hurt; that's what's the matter. When it leaks out that a 
 great show is coming, the people want it to come. If a hanging is 
 advertised, it is an outrage if somebody don't hang. If a duel has to 
 be fought to preserve honor, the public want some blood. Honor or 
 death, honor or crippled, honor or hit somewhere. But this side wiping 
 around and fixing up the thing on a wood-pile, or, *' I'll retreat if 
 you'll retreat," or, *' I dident mean what you thought I meant," don't 
 satisfy the public. 
 
 Some years ago one of our notable men called another notable man 
 a thief and he got challenged for it, and we thought there was blood 
 on the moon, but mutual friends interposed and he retracted by saying 
 he dident mean that he was a personal thief but an official thief, and 
 that was satisfactory and the affair was honorably adjusted. 
 
 When an affair of honor is settled now-a-days we can't find out who 
 whipped the fight — who was right and who was wrong. The whole 
 matter is left so mystified that the stakeholders won't pay the money. 
 
256 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 In fact it is sometimes hard to tell from the newspapers who were 
 
 doing the fighting, the principals or the seconds, or an amateur 
 
 performer who recklessly rushed in where angels feared to tread. 
 
 " The combat thickens — on ye brave, 
 Who rush to glory or the grave." 
 
 Awful scene — terrific beyond expression. It reminds me of a little 
 Frenchman who was prancing around the hotel in St. Louis and had 
 a little impudent terrier dog following him about. The dog gave just 
 cause of ofiense to a big whiskered Kentuckian who was talking to a 
 friend, and with a sudden swing of his boot he sent the animal a rod 
 or two out in the street. Quick as lightning the Frenchman danced 
 up to Kentuck, and with violent gesticulations exclaimed: ** Vat for 
 you keek mon leetle tog? Vot for me say? Here is mine card. I 
 demand de sateesfacsheon of de shenteel mon." The Kentuckian 
 seized him gently by the nap of the neck and lifted him bodily to the 
 door and gave him a kick outward, and then walked back and 
 resumed his conversation. 
 
 The Frenchman spied an acquaintance who was passing, and rush- 
 ing up to him poured out this history: *' Vot you call des American 
 honeur. He keek mon leetel tog and I geeve heem mine card and 
 demond de sateesfacshun of de genteelhomme, de sateesfacshun of de 
 sword or de peestole — dear to de Frenchman's heart. You tinks he 
 geeve him to me. No sare — no time, but mon Dieu he leef me up by 
 de collare — he speen me roun and roun like I was von tom top and 
 keek me more hardf r than de leetle tog. Vot you calls dot, American 
 honeur? Bah! I go pack to La belle France and hoonts up some 
 American and fights him. I will have de satisfacshun — begor." 
 
 If retractions are to be made they should be very explicit. It is 
 related of John Randolph that he expressed his contempt of a man by 
 saying of him that he wasn't fit to carry — ofiid to a bear. A retraxit 
 was demanded or a fight, and he promptly responded that he would 
 now say that the gentleman was fit to carry — ofi^al to a bear. This 
 proved satisfactory and goes to show how small a retraxit will satisfy 
 wounded honor. But it seems to be a matter of great nicety as to the 
 time when the retraxit shall be made. Among all gentlemen it is 
 admitted that an apology should be made just as soon as the gentle- 
 man has discovered he has done another gentleman an injury or has, 
 without just cause, wounded his feelings; but these mysterious affairs 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 257 
 
 of honor are very slow about such things, and the retraxits are not 
 allowed to be made until a challenge has passed and the seconds chosen 
 and the pistols loaded and everything got in readiness for a fight. 
 Then the retraxit is in order and the honorable adjustment. The 
 whole thing is methodical, to say the least of it. It is like a bill in 
 equity that has nine parts, and there is the accusation and the rejoin- 
 der and the surrejoinder and other mysteries. The fact is, considering 
 the funny and fantastic and harmless character of most of the modern 
 duels, I think that justice's court would be the best tribunal wherein 
 to settle such matters. The first case I ever had, was a case in justice's 
 court, where I was employed to defend a man who was sued for thirty 
 dollars worth of slander because he had accused his nabor of stealing 
 his hog and changing the mark from an underbit in the right ear to a 
 swallow fork in the left. After the joinder and the rejoinder and the 
 surrejoinder the jury retired to a log and eventually brought in this 
 verdict: "We, the jury, find for the plaintifi* two dollars and fifty 
 cents unless the defendant will take back what he said." I have always 
 thought that was a just verdict, and if ever any fool sends me a chal- 
 lenge I shall propose to leave the matter to a jury in a justice court. 
 They always give a man a chance without his having to practice with 
 pistols on a tree. It is a strange thing how a man can hit the bull's 
 eye on a tree every pop but can't hit a man one time in five, and yet 
 be perfectly cool and calm and serene aU the time. 
 
 The books say that duelling originated in the superstitious ages 
 when it was believed that the fates or the ^ods were on the side of 
 truth and justice, and always avenged the man who had been wronged. 
 The philosophers declared that there was a mysterious connection 
 between honor and courage and between courage and the nervous 
 system, and that when a man was in the wrong his courage wavered, 
 and his nerves became unsteady, and so he couldn't fight to advantage 
 and was easily overcome by his adversary. There may be something 
 in this, but not a great deal, for we do know that the professional 
 duelist is generally in the wrong and generally whips the fight. In 
 fact, the wrong man has most generally been killed in all the fatal 
 duels of modern times. During the past century duelling has had 
 its chief support from the army and the navy where chivalry seems to 
 have centered. They talk about chivalry as though they belonged to 
 some knightly order like unto the olden times when Don Quixote 
 
258 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 mounted his flea-bitten gray and sallied forth and charged a windmill 
 with a lance about twenty feet long. The word chivalry comes from 
 * cheval," a horse, and so if a man was not mounted there was no 
 chance to be chivalrous. A seat in a buggy won't do at all. It won't 
 churn up heroism like the canter of a horse. That was called the 
 ** fantastic age of famished honor," for honor was said to be always 
 hungry for a fight with somebody, and the knights started out period 
 ically to provoke difiiculties. Happy for us that this age has passed- 
 away and the knights are unhorsed, but unhappily for us, like the 
 comet, a portion of its tail still lingers in the land, and ever and anon 
 some valiant knight shows up and strikes his breast and exclaims: 
 "Mine honor, sir, mine honor!" Eight then I want to rush to his 
 relief and give him a sharpened pole and mount him on some "Rosi- 
 nante' and escort him to one of these modern windmills that are 
 built to pump water and tell him to charge it until his honor is satis- 
 fied. Most of these chivalric gentlemen have a very vague, indefinite 
 idea of what honor is and where it is located. Hudibras throws some 
 light upon the seat of honor when he tells of a man who was "kicked 
 in the place where honor is lodged," and he says : 
 
 " A kick right there hurts honor more 
 Than deeper wounds when kicked before. 
 
 This locates honor in the back ground where we will leave it. 
 
 Honor is like the chamelion. It takes any color that suits its sur- 
 roundings. Aaron Burr challenged Hamilton in order to preserve his 
 honor, and yet he was ^ traitor, an enemy of Washington, a libertine 
 and boasted of his amours and his intrigues. If a man is going to 
 fight for his honor he should be sure that he has not tarnished it by his 
 own dishonorable conduct. If a man is a thief or a swindler or an 
 extortioner or a libertine or a black mailer, he has no right to chal- 
 lenge a man for calling him a liar. Honor is a very broad quality 
 and does not split up in parts. It makes up the complete gentleman 
 in all his conduct, though a man may not have told a lie, yet he may 
 have no honor to defend, for he had lost it all in other vices. When 
 a man can look his fellow-men in the face and say, "Whom have I 
 defrauded or whom have I wronged or from whom have I taken a 
 bribe?" then lot him fijrht for his honor if he wants to. 
 
 But the average man who has made his money by ways that are 
 dark and tricks that are vain or wlio has used deceit, dishonesty, hypoc- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 259 
 
 risy or oppression in gaining his ends, has no right to send or accept a 
 challenge to mortal combat. He must stand fair and square before 
 the people if he expects their sympathy. If he fights of course 
 it is out of respect to public opinion, for no two men would fight if 
 they were on an island by themselves. And this proves the duelist a 
 coward, the worst kind of a coward, for he has more regard for pub- 
 lic opinion than he has for himself or his family or his friends or his 
 Maker. He knows that a duel proves nothing and settles nothing 
 and yet he deliberately lets public opinion outweigh his wife and his 
 children and worse than all he puts his soul in reach of the devil. 
 From every morg,l standpoint he is a fool and a coward and could 
 be convicted of lunacy in any court, and ought to be. Lord, help us 
 all — when will this foolishness stop? The law is against it. Public 
 opinion is against it. Common sense is against it and so is humanity 
 and morality. Public opinion says that every such case lowers our 
 moral standard at home and belittles us abroad. Public opinion 
 •doesn't care a snap for che duel or the duelist. Duels prove noth- 
 ing. They establish no man's character for truth or integrity. 
 They give him no better credit in bank, no more friends in busi- 
 ness. Among decent peaceable people he is looked upon as a partial 
 outlaw, and they shrink from his society for fear of offending him. 
 His code of morals and his peculiar sense of honor is a silent insult 
 to them as though he had said: *' I move in a higher plane 
 than you common folks. I am a man of honor— a gentleman." 
 He has been engaged in a dishonorable business and he knows it, 
 for he has had to skulk around in the night and hide and dodge 
 like a thief. He does not dare to fight on the genial, loving soil 
 of his own State, for that would disfranchise him and so he seeks 
 some other. In fact, the whole thing would be as funny as a farce if 
 nobody was concerned but the principals and their seconds. But 
 there are parents and wives and children and friends and hence the 
 <leep concern. Then let us have more peace and less foolishness. Let 
 a man take part in no show that he has to keep secret from his wife 
 or his children. Let him undertake no peril that his preacher couldn't 
 approve with a parting prayer and benediction. In fact, I have 
 always wondered why the preacher was not taken along as well as the 
 surgeon, for where the devil is, the man of God ought to have an equal 
 chance to capture an immortal soul. 
 
260 The Fakm and The FmEsiDE. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 "Billy in the Low Grounds." 
 
 Write, my child — write something to The Constitution. I don't 
 care what. I am too nervous. I can't think my own thoughts. It 
 is perfectly horrible — awful, but I reckon it's all right. I reckon so. 
 I wish there was not a tooth in my head. When they come, they 
 come with pain and peril, and keep the poor child miserable, and 
 when they go they go with a torture that no philosophy can endure. 
 Oh, my poor jaw — just look how it is swollen. I am a sight. A 
 pitiful prospect. I look like a bloated bond-holder on one side of my 
 face and no bonds to comfort me. I wonder what would comfort a 
 man in my fix. I have suffered more mortal agony from my teeth 
 than from everything else put together. Samson couldn't pull them, 
 hardly, for they are all riveted to the jawbone. I have been living 
 in dread for a month, for I knew that eyetooth was fixing up trouble ; 
 and so yesterday morning it sprung a leak at the breakfast table, and 
 I jumped out of my chair. The shell caved in, the nerve was 
 touched, and in my agony I gave one groan and retired like I was a 
 funeral. Five miles from town and no doctor. Don't put down 
 what I suffered all that day, and the night following, for you can't. 
 Mush poultices and camphor and paregoric and bromide and chloro- 
 form and still the procession moved on, and the jumping, throbbing 
 agony sent no flag of truce — no cessation of hostilities. AVTiat do I 
 care for anything ? Don't tell me about Hendricks being in Atlanta. 
 I don't care where he is. Yes, I do. He is a good man, but I've got 
 no time to think about him now. Please give me some more of that 
 camphor. I've burned all the skin off my mouth now but it is a 
 counter-irritant and sorter scatters the pain around. If I had some 
 morphine I would take it for I want rest. I am tired. Oh, for one 
 short hour of rest. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 261 
 
 Write something, my daughter — write to The Constitution and 
 explain. Tell them I am *' Billy in the low grounds." I am suffer- 
 ing and want sympathy. Write a note to the doctor, and tell him to 
 come, come quick. I can't go through another night. Oh, my coun- 
 try. Let me try that hot iron again. I'll cook this old fat jaw out- 
 side and inside. I wish I had no tongue, for I can't keep it from 
 touching the plagued tooth. Just look at my gums, they have swelled 
 up so you can hardly see the old tooth. Give me a knife and a hand 
 glass. I'll see if I can't let some blood out of these strutting gums. 
 I am so nervous I can't hardly hold the knife, but here she goes. Oh, 
 my country, now give me the camphor and I'll let it burn in a new 
 place. 
 
 Just write a line to The Constitution^ I don't care what — say I am 
 sick. I wonder if the doctor will come. He will kill me I know. It 
 is awful to think of cold steel clamping this tooth and being jammed 
 away up on these gums. I'll take chloroform, I reckon, for I can't 
 stand it. I am afraid he will come. I want him and I don't want him. 
 The last tooth I had pulled I went to the dentist's office like a hero 
 and I was glad he wasn't in — glad his door was locked — and for two 
 more days I endured my agony, and then had to have it pulled at last. 
 And he pulled me all to pieces, and the chloroform left me before he 
 got done, and I had an awful time. The memory of it is excruciat- 
 ing, and yet I have got to go through the same thing again. "Oh, 
 the pity of it, lago, the pity of it." What has a man got teeth for, I 
 would like to know. It is the brute that is in him, the dog, or the 
 old Adam that evoluted from the monkeys. There is nothing God- 
 like about teeth. They bite, that is all. They are called "canines.'' 
 I saw a man bite another man's nose off*, once — the teeth did it. The 
 eye is God-like, angelic, beautiful, harmless. The ear is a good thing, 
 too, for it takes in the harmonies of nature, and makes music sweet 
 — music, that is the only thing common to angels and to men. The 
 nose is gentle and ornamental, but is not of much consequence except 
 to blow off a bad cold, and tell the difference between cologne and 
 codfish. But, the teeth — well, I think that false ones are better than 
 the genuine, for they never ache. I don't care for any now. I am 
 tired. These women can have eight or ten pulled at one time — just to 
 get a new set. How in the world do they stand it? Pride, I reckon ; 
 womanly pride, womanly nature. Her love of the beautiful. But 
 
262 The Farm and The FmEsmE. 
 
 we men can wear a moustache, and hide a whole set of rotten snags. 
 If women had beard, the dentists would perish. 
 
 There she goes again, and then boom! Let me try some more par- 
 egoric and camphor. Maybe I can go to sleep, after a while, if I will 
 keep dosing. I wish I had just a small grain of dynamite behind 
 that tooth, just at the end of the roots; I would explode it if it 
 killed me. 
 
 The doctor coming, you say! Merciful heavens! Well, let him 
 come. In the language of Patrick Henry, '*I repeat it sir, let him 
 come." ''Lay on, McDuff" — cold steel forceps, wrenching, twisting, 
 crushing, gouging. I don't believe I have got a friend in the world. 
 I almost wish I was dead. Teeth are a humbug — a grand mistake — a, 
 blunder — an eye-tooth, especially, that sends its root away up under 
 the eye and makes an abscess there. They say a child is smart when 
 it cuts the eye-tooth. I believe I had rather do without and be a fool. 
 I have had rheumatism, anii all sorts of pains, but I will compromise 
 on anything but the toothache. I've a great respect for dentists, for 
 they do the best they can to relieve mankind from this most misera- 
 ble agony. 
 
 *' Good morning, doctor. I suppose I am the unfortunate individual 
 you have come to doctor. I am ready for the rack. Get out your 
 chloroform, and your steel-jawed grabs ; I am ready for the sacrifice. 
 Is that a dagger that I see before me ? " 
 
 Father is in his little bed. He is asleep, now. The long agony is 
 over. For nearly one hour we all wrestled with him, for the chloro- 
 form gave out. He had taken so many things before the doctor came 
 that chloroform failed to subdue him. It only made him delirious, 
 and when we could not hold him we called in our blacksmith, and 
 even then he pulled us all over the room, and the doctor had to take 
 him on the wing. The old shell crushed and the roots had to be dug 
 out in fragments. It was pitiful to hear him beg to go home. He 
 has morphine now, and will be all right in the morning. He told me 
 to write you something, and I have written. Bill Arp, Per M. 
 
 Just now he waked up and wanted to know who whipped that fight 
 — the parrot or the monkey. M. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 263 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 William Gets Left. 
 
 It is home where the heart is, and we are all happy now. Here is 
 the big old family room and the spacious fireplace is crowded with the 
 big back logs and the front logs and the top logs, and the cheerful, 
 genial blaze leaps out at every opening and makes us all sit back in 
 the family circle. I sit near the good old window and look out upon 
 the same pleasing prospect ot fields and distant hills and am com- 
 forted. The dogs are in the family ring and the canaries are singing 
 in their cage, and the maltese cat is purring in Jessie's lap. There is 
 a lively chattering of happy voices all around me, for the long spell is 
 broken and the broken family almost united. I say almost, for the 
 sick boy and his mother are in town at his sister's, and these children 
 have not yet seen them. It was too cold to bring him five miles over 
 a frozen road, and so I came out alone to give them pleasure in broken 
 doses. I hoped to surprise them and peep in at the window, but they 
 were on the look out down the road, and have nearly looked a hole 
 through the window pane in anxious expectation. With a scream 
 and a shout they all came flying down the hill to meet me, and such 
 a time as we all had, hugging and kissing and dancing around with 
 joy. They loaded me down and I could hardly wag along for their 
 embraces. I don't believe that folks are any happier in heaven, and 
 I don't know that I wish to be. 
 
 We left Sanford last Tuesday, took the boy on a cot over the long 
 wharf that stretches away out into the lake and put him aboard the 
 beautiful steamer, the ''City of Jacksonville." We set him down in an 
 easy chair, and when the warning bell was rung we bade a sweet good- 
 by to kindred and friends and soon the engines were unloosed and the 
 big wheels turned and the boat moved down the lake with quivering 
 throbs. The anxious mother watched her boy with watery eyes as he 
 looked out greedily upon the bright waters and feasted his eyes once 
 
264 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 more upon scenes outside of a sick chamber. The boy has no use of 
 his lower limbs and has to be carried in arms from place to place, and 
 it was no small trouble to get him through narrow doors and up and 
 down the stairs and into the cars, but next morning we got him safely 
 on a sleeper at Jacksonville and then breathed easier, for it was the 
 last transfer until we got to Macon. 
 
 Waycross. I see Waycross now. I expect to see Waycross in 
 visions by day and in dreams by night for years to come. I have 
 memories of Waycross. I like Waycross, for it is a bright and pleas- 
 ant town, and has good hotels and pleasant homes, and is kept lively 
 with moving trains, but I had an awful time at Waycross. Our train 
 stopped there and had to wait for a train on another road, they said, 
 and I got out with other passengers and walked the broad platform, 
 but keeping an eye upon our sleeper and within easy reach of it. 
 There were two sleepers behind ours that belonged to the train, and so 
 I meandered along down to where a newsboy was selling Savannah 
 morning papers. I gave him a quarter and was quietly waiting for 
 the change when suddenly I heard a darkey say: "Macon is just 
 a slippin' and a slidin' oft." I looked around instantly to see what he 
 meant, and sure enough she was already a hundred yards away moving 
 like a black snake over the ground and getting faster with every 
 moment. The two rear sleepers had been cut off and I did not know 
 it. I will never forget the concentrated misery of that moment when 
 I realized that my wife and helpless boy were gone and I was left. 
 My heart sank down, my voice left me, and all my philosophy was 
 gone. I grew weak and faintish, and sat down on a bench to collect 
 myself and consider the awful situation. Whatwill they do? Wl^en 
 will they find out that I am not somewhere on the train? The boy 
 will soon want me, I know, and his mother wdll send the porter to 
 hunt me up. The conductor will soon call for our fare, and I have 
 the passes, and my wife no money. By and by she will learn that I 
 am not on the train, and then, ah! then. I could see the tears in her 
 eyes and the quivering lips, and the nervous restlessness of the boy, 
 and there was no help. Arousing myself, I hurried to the telegraph 
 that was clicking near by and asked hurriedly for a dispatch to be sent 
 to Jesup so that the operator there might tell the conductor or my 
 wife that I was safe, and would overtake them at Macon. My anxiety 
 was intense, but I got no sympathy. The youth said all right, and I 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 265 
 
 waited for an assurance from the operator at Jesup that he would 
 attend to it. I called three times for an answer from him, but got 
 none. When, for the third time, I asked and almost begged for him 
 to ask for a reply, he said with uncivil indifference: ''I have got no 
 time, sir; I am busy." Well, he was very busy — smoking a cigar and 
 chatting with a friend. He was not at the instrument. A gentleman 
 near by noted the incivility and told me I had better go up to the 
 Western Union if I wanted attention. This was news to me, for I 
 had thought all the time that this was the Western Union, but sud- 
 denly found that it was only a railroad office. I had paid him for a 
 dispatch to Mr. Brown, of Macon, that called for an answer, and two 
 hours had passed and none had come. So I went to the Western 
 tJnion and repeated to Mr. Brown and soon had a reply that he would 
 meet my wife and boy and take care of them. Her desolation and 
 distress was complete when she learned that I was missing — nobody 
 called on her or the conductor at Jesup. The train rolled on and 
 passed Eastman before her fears began, and from there to Macon she 
 imagined I had fallen from the platform or in some way had met my 
 death, and when at last she reached Macon, and Mr. Brown came in 
 the sleeper and told her I was all right, she and the boy both cried 
 with joy. The Brown house gave them kind welcome and every atten- 
 tion. They had a good night's rest and were only aroused by a vigor- 
 ous knock at the door at four o'clock next morning. That was me. 
 The poet says: 
 
 ** One glorious hour of crowded life 
 Is worth an age without a name." 
 
 And just so ^e can sometimes live longer and live more in a minute 
 than at any other time in a month. I dident blame her for slipping 
 off and leaving me, and she didn't blame me for stopping at Way cross, 
 but now that the long agony is over, we can smile at our mutual woes 
 and fears. My kind and considerate wife has not told told it on me 
 but fourteen times up to this date, and I don't expect to hear of it 
 any longer than I live. She gently hinted yesterday that she didn't 
 suppose that I would ever mention Waycross in my Sunday letter, for 
 it was most too personal and was not of a character to interest the 
 public. So you perceive I have taken the hint and told it all just as 
 it was. As General Lee said at the battle of Gettysburgh : * * It was 
 all my fault. It was all my fault." 
 
266 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 I shall step oflf no more trains to buy a paper, and I now warn all 
 travelers to stand by the car the wife is in and not go fooling down the 
 line. Dick Hargis hollers "All aboard" like a fog horn when his 
 train is ready to move, and you can hear him a quarter of a mile, but 
 Dick can't run all the trains and so ever and anon some poor fellow 
 like me is bound to be left. 
 
 Farewell, Waycross. •! found some pleasant friends there before I 
 left, and they comforted me, especially the host of the Grand Central, 
 who was an old Gwinnett boy, and we revived many recollections of 
 of our youthful days. But still when I think of Waycross, it is with 
 feelings somewhat like those we have when we visit an old-time battle- 
 field, where we fought, bled and died for liberty. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 267 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 Pleasures of Hope and Memory. 
 
 We see that Dr. Curry, that great and good man, is writing the 
 reminiscences of his youth. How lovingly he proceeds with his work! 
 How gushingly he tells of his old school days, and the halos and rain- 
 bows that gilded his childhood! How reverently he writes of the 
 grand old men of the olden time, for there were giants in those days! 
 How feelingly he records his companionship with the family negroes 
 — the servants of the household who were contented and happy and 
 trusting, and who loved and honored every member of their master's 
 family, and were loved by them! Oh, the tender and tcary recollec- 
 tions of 'possum hunts and coon hunts and rabbit hunts and corn 
 shuckings, and eating watermelons in the cotton patch and sometimes 
 finding them while pulling fodder in the hot and sultry cornfield! 
 What frolics in going to mill and going in washing and jumping from 
 the springboard into ten-foot water! What glorious sport in playing 
 town-ball and bull-pen and cat and roily-hole and knucks and sweep- 
 stakes. Base-ball has grown out of town-ball; it is no improvement. 
 The pitcher used to belong to the ins and threw the best ball he could, 
 for he wanted it hit, and knocked as far away as possible, but now he 
 belongs to the outs and wants it missed. We used to throw at a boy 
 to stop him running to another base, and we hit him if we could, but 
 these modern balls are hard and heavy and dangerous, and many a 
 boy goes home with a bruised face or a broken finger. We used to 
 take an old rubber shoe and cut it into strings and wind it tight into a 
 ball until it was half grown, and then finish it with yarn that was un- 
 raveled from an old woolen sock. Our good mothers furnished every- 
 thing and then made a buckskin cover and stitched it over so nice. 
 Oh, my, how those balls would bounce, and yet they didn't hurt very 
 bad when hit by them. They were sweet to throw and sweet to catch. 
 I heard lying Tom Turner say he had one that bounced so high it 
 
'26S The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 never came down till next day, and then his little dog grabbed it, and 
 it took the dog up, and he had never seen the dog nor the ball since. 
 I used to believe that but I don't now. When we played town-ball 
 some of the outs would circle away ofi 200 yards, and it was glorious 
 to see them catch a ball that had nearly reached the sky as it grace- 
 fully curved from the stroke of the bat. We had an hour and a half 
 for recess, and most of it was spent in town-ball or bull-pen. Bull- 
 pen was no bad game, especially when the ins got down to two and 
 the juggling began. I used to be so proud because I could stand in 
 the middle of the pen and defy the jugglers to hit me for I was 
 slender and active and could bend in or bend out or squat down or 
 jump up and dodge every ball that came, but I couldn't do it now, 
 not much I couldn't, for alas! I can neither squat nor jump and a 
 boy could hit my corporosity as easy as a barn door. Oh these mem- 
 orys, how sweet they haunt us. 
 
 " I remember, I remember 
 The house where I was born; 
 The little window where the sun 
 Came peeping in at morn." 
 
 Of course I do — everybody does. The other night there were ten 
 of our school board in session, and the special business was whether to 
 give a longer recess at noon or not, and it was curious to hear the 
 various opinions on the subject. Our president listened patiently to 
 aU and then made a speech for himself, and said that the children 
 should have more time to go home and get a good warm dinner. 
 "Cold dinners," he said, " are unhealthy. The laws of hygiene teach 
 us that the processes of digestion are much more easily carried on 
 when the food is warm and fresh from the oven. More than half of 
 the pupils take their dinners to school shut up in tin buckets or 
 wrapped up in baskets, and they get cold and clammy, and are 
 crammed into the stomach in a hurry, and the children go to playing 
 before digestion begins, and of course the stomach rebels and won't do its 
 work, and after school is out they go home and cram in a lot of cake 
 and jelly and pickle on top of the cold, undigested dinner, and the 
 first thing you know the boy or the girl is sick and has to stay at home 
 a day or two to recuperate. I am decidedly ia favor of a longer 
 recess and warm dinners." 
 
The Farm and The FmEsroE. 269 
 
 That was a good speech and a sensible argument, but it hurt my 
 :feelmgs so bad that I rose forward and in trembling accents told how 
 I went to school three miles from home for three long and happy- 
 years, and carried my dinner in a bucket, and how I enjoyed those 
 cold dinners that my good mother so carefully prepared and how I 
 had often tried to write a poem to that little tin bucket — such a poem 
 as Wordsworth wrote about * ' The old oaken bucket that hung in the 
 well." My poem began just like his, 'but always ended with, 
 
 That dear little bucket, 
 
 That bright, shining bucket, 
 
 That little tin bucket I carried to school. 
 
 Oh those delightful cold dinners that were so nicely arranged ! The 
 tender and luscious fried chicken, with the liver and gizzard and all; 
 the hard-boiled eggs, with the little paper of pepper and salt close by ; 
 the home-made sausages, linked sausages, that, in the language of 
 .Milton, were *' linked sweetness — long drawn out;'' the little bottle 
 of syrup and the round, hand-made biscuit that were beaten from the 
 dough and had no soda in them — and last of all, the good, old- 
 fashioned ginger cakes and the turn-over pies. Ah, those rights and 
 lefts, those delicious juicy pies that were made of peaches that my 
 mother dried. 
 
 Just then there was a racket behind me and Will Howard was seen 
 falling over in his chair, with his hands clasped below the belt and his 
 eyes rolled up to heaven. He gasped piteously as he whispered : 
 *'Hush, Major, hush, for heaven's sake." Martin Collins shouted, 
 " Glory !" and Judge Milner heaved a troubled sigh and murmured, 
 **0h, would I were a boy again." 
 
 For fear of a scene I suspended my broken remarks, and our wor- 
 thy president gracefully subsided. Major Foute wiped his eyes with 
 his empty sleeve and moved for an adjournment, and so the recess 
 hour remains unchanged. 
 
 I believe it is best for children to walk a mile or two to school, 
 especially if there are other children to walk with them a part of the 
 way. Every step of that three-mile way is dear to me now, and I 
 love to recall the boyish frolics as morning and evening we meandered 
 along, playing tag or mad dog, or running foot races, or jumping 
 half-hammond, or stopping at the half-way branch to wade in the 
 water, or dam it up, or catch the tadpoles, or drive the little min- 
 
270 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 nows into their holes. It was there that I saw for the first time a 
 tadpole turning to a frog, and it was there we killed a water mocca- 
 sin, with a frog in his throat, and saw his frogship kick out backwards 
 and hop away. I can go now to the very gully that had a vein of red 
 chalk, and another one that had white. I know every persimmon 
 tree and chestnut and hickory, and where the red haws were, and the 
 black haws and the fruitful walnut that we climbed in its season and 
 rattled the nuts to the ground and stained our hands and clothes in 
 hulling them. All such things are around me now, not far away, but 
 there is no charm, no fond memory about them, for they were not 
 mine. All these are for another generation — another set of boys and 
 girls. By and by they will be looking back at theirs as I am looking 
 back at mine. In a few more years they will reverse the telescope; 
 Until I was past thirty I looked through the little end and saw life 
 expanded and magnified before me, while the distant things were 
 brought almost within reach, and I was nearing the goal with my hope 
 and my ambition, but alas! I havn't reached it, and by degrees hope 
 weakened and ambition became chilled, and with a sad humility I 
 began to look backwards — I reversed the telescope and saw my life 
 away back in the distant past. The picture was far — very far away, 
 but it was beautiful, and now as the years grow short, I find myself 
 looking through the large end almost altogether. The memories of 
 the past grow sweeter as the years roll on. The capital stock of the 
 young is hope — but the treasure of age is memory. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 271 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 Arp's Reminiscences of Fifty Years. 
 
 A sweet little girl from Marietta writes me a nice letter and begs 
 me to write something for the children — just for the children. 
 
 I never look upon a flock of happy, well-raised children without 
 wondering if they Snow how well off they are — how much better off 
 than their grandparents were some fifty or sixty years ago. I would 
 like to see old Father Time set his clock back a half a century just for 
 a week and put everything like it was then, and I would walk around 
 and have lots of fun out of those little folks. I don't believe they 
 could stand it a whole week, but it would do them good to try. In 
 the first place, they would have to get out of their comfortable houses 
 with plastered walls and large glass windows and coal grates, and get 
 into smaller houses with about two rooms in front and a back shed 
 room, that had no fireplace and no ceiling and a window with a 
 wooden shutter, and in that shed room they would have to sleep, 
 and the wind would come clipping in all night and kiss their faces 
 ever so nice. They would have to take off all their pretty clothes, 
 and wear country jeans and linsey, and they would have to go 
 to the shoemakers and have some coarse, rough shoes made of country 
 leather and no high heels nor box toes nor buttons. But they would 
 be good and strong, and two pairs would last any boy or girl a whole 
 year — one pair would do them if they greased them now and then and 
 went barefooted during summer as we used to do. All the store 
 stockings would have to be dispensed with, and the elastic too, and 
 they would put on some good warm ones that were knit by hand, and 
 be tied up with a rag. No nice hats from the milliners, with pretty 
 flowers and ribbons gay flying, but the girls would have to put on 
 home-made bonnets, nicely quilted, and the boys have to wear home- 
 made wool hats or seal-skin caps that would last two or three years, 
 and stretch bigger as the heads grew bigger. There would not be found 
 
272 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 a store in the whole State where ready-made clothing could be found — 
 not a coat nor a pair of pants, nor a shirt, nor a skirt, nor a doll, nor 
 hardly a toy of any kind. I suppose that some few things for chil- 
 dren might be found in Augusta, or Savannah, or Macon; but the 
 country stores wouldent have anything, not even candy or oranges or 
 a box of raisins. A boy could find a dog knife or a barlow, and be 
 allowed about one a year, but the little girls couldent even find a 
 thimble small enough nor a pair of scissors. Children were not of 
 much consequence then, especially girls. 
 
 I would like to see the clock set back for one week and see the boys 
 cutting wood and making fires, cutting wood half the day Saturday 
 for Sunday, and Sunday morning sitting down to learn some more of 
 the shorter catechism about justification, and sanotification, and adop- 
 tion and some more verses in the Bible, and that poetry in the prim- 
 mer about — • 
 
 " In Adam's fall 
 
 We sinned all. 
 
 The cat doth play 
 
 And after slay. 
 
 Xerxes must die 
 
 And so must I. 
 
 Zacheus, he 
 
 Did climh a tree 
 
 His Lord to see." 
 
 I would like to see one of these boys wake up some cold mornings 
 and when he tried to make a fire and stirred around among the ashes 
 to find a coal, he couldent find one, and what then? Not a match in 
 the wide, wide world, for there was none invented. Wouldent he be 
 in a fix! Well, he would have to run over to the nabors, if he was a 
 town boy, and borrow a chunk. If he was a country boy he would 
 have to walk a mile or so, maybe, and nearly freeze to death before 
 he got back, and if it was raining his chunk would be apt to go out 
 on the way. I would like to see these boys and girls studying their 
 lessons by the light of one tallow candle. No gas, no kerosene, no 
 oil of any sort — only one flickering light of a candle, or maybe only 
 a lightwood blaze in the fireplace. I reckon they would study hard 
 and study fast and go to bed soon and get up early in the morning 
 and try it again. I would like to see them sit down to write a letter 
 and find nothing but an old goose quill for a pen — not a steel pen ia 
 
The Farm and The Fieesede. 273 
 
 in the world. I would watch the poor fellow as he tried to make a 
 pen out of a quill, and after he had cut it to a point see him try to 
 split it in the middle with his knife, and split too far or not far 
 enough, or on one side and then throw it away in despair. 
 
 It would all Ke fun to us old folks, but it wouldent be fun for the 
 boys or the girls to be set back. But there are old people living now 
 who do the same old things and live the same old way. Colonel Camp- 
 bell Wallace still uses the quill pens and makes them himself, and I 
 wish you could see how nicely and how quickly he can do it. Our 
 school teachers had to make the pens for all their scholars, and it took 
 about half their time, for they had to mend them oftener than make 
 them. When the first split wore out he had to split it again and trim 
 it down to a new point. His knife was always open and ready. 
 Poor man ! He died before the steel pens were invented and never 
 got the good of them. 
 
 But we were used to these ways and never thought hard of them. 
 Judge Lester used to run over to our house of a cold morning and say 
 to my mother: "Please mam, lend me a chunk of fire," and I used 
 to go over to his house and do the same thing. But we didn't let it 
 go out often. We knew how to cover up fire in the ashes so as to keep 
 it till morning. I remember going over to Forsyth county once 
 when an old Indian lived there by the name of Sawnee. He didn't 
 go off with the rest of the Indians, but lived on a mountain called 
 Sawnee's mountain, and he had some grandsons about our age. 
 George Lester and Cicero Strong were with me, and we gave an 
 Indian boy some money to show us how they got fire when their fire 
 went out. He took two dry hickory sticks about a foot long and as 
 large as my thumb and a little bunch of dry grass, and started off on 
 a run, and rubbed the sticks together so rapidly that you could hardly 
 see them, and the friction made fire and caught the grass, and he 
 came back in half a minute with a blaze in his hand. I used to go 
 down to the store at night with my fiither, and he had a tinder box 
 nailed up by the door and would strike the steel with the flint and 
 make a spark and let it fall on a piece of punk and light it, and then 
 he would light his candle from the punk. But matches came along 
 after awhile and stopped all that. I remember the first matches that 
 came to our town. They were called Lucifer matches for some folks 
 thought that the ''old boy" had something to do with them and 
 
274 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 wouldent use them. They smelled strong of brimstone and were sold 
 at twenty-five cents a box. Now ten times as many bcII for a nickle. 
 But about lights. Dipping the candles was one of the notable events 
 of the year. It was almost as big a thing as hog killing. The boys 
 prepared the canes or reeds, about sixty in number, as large as the 
 little finger and nearly a yard long. They were smoothed at the 
 joints and put away in a bundle to dry. When the time come, the 
 first cold weather in the fall, our mother would get out the candle 
 wick and wind it around a pair of cotton cards, end ways, and after 
 a good deal was wound would cut one end with the scissors and that 
 made the wicks when doubled just long enough for a candle. Three 
 or four canes were then interlaced through the back of an old-fash- 
 ioned chair to keep them steady while she looped the wicks around 
 them and twisted their ends together. Seven wicks were put on each 
 cane and when the cane was taken out and held horizontal the wicks 
 hung down and were about two inches apart. When all the canes 
 were full they were laid upon a table ready for dipping. The tallow 
 was melted in a big wash pot. Some beeswax was added and a little 
 alum. Old plank were placed on the floor where the dipping and 
 dripping w^as to be. Two long poles or quilting frames were placed 
 parallel on the backs of chairs and were wide enough apart to let the 
 candles between and hold up the canes. The big pot had to be kept 
 nearly full all the time. A cane of wicks was let down slowly in the 
 pot, until the cane rested on its edges. Then it was lifted up and 
 allowed to drip awhile and then placed as number one between the 
 long poles where, if it dripped any more it was on the old plank. The 
 first course was long and tedious, for it took the loose cotton wick 
 some time to absorbe the tallow. After that the process was rapid. 
 Tallow would harden on tallow quickly, and at every dipping the lit- 
 tle candles got larger until after awhile they were large enough at the 
 bottom ends to fill a candlestick, and that ended the job. They were 
 left on the poles over night and then slipped off the rods and placed 
 in the candlebox or an old trunk. , 
 
 Seven times sixty made 420 candles, and that was the year's sup- 
 ply. Only one candle was usual for the table in the family room. 
 The reading and sewing was all done by that. The boys were allowed 
 a piece of one to go to bed by. Nobody sat up until midnight then. 
 The night was believed to be created for sleep and rest, and the day 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 275 
 
 for work. There were no theaters nor skating rinks — no reading nov- 
 els half the night and lying in bed until breakfast next morning. 
 The rule was to go to bed at nine o'clock and get up with the chick- 
 ens. But now we couldn't read by candle light. It takes at least 
 two lamps, and one lamp is equal to ten candles. But we got along 
 pretty well. All the substantial things were as good as they are 
 now. Good water, good air, good sunshine and shower, good health, 
 good warm clothes, good bread and meat and milk and butter, good 
 peaches and apples, good horses to ride, good fishing and swimming 
 and hunting. We dident have railroads and telegraphs and tele- 
 phones and sewing machines, and so forth, but we didn't need them. 
 We need them now, for the world is so full of people that the old 
 ways wouldent feed and clothe them. The right thing always comes 
 along at the right time. If the clock was set back I wonder how this 
 generation would manage about the cooking business. Fifty years 
 ugo there were no cooking-stoves. The ovens and skillets and spiders 
 were big heavy things that had to be lifted on and off the fire with a 
 pair of pot-hooks. They had heavy lids, and the cooking was done 
 by putting coals underneath and coals on top. It took bark and chips 
 to make coals quickly, and our old cook used to say, *'Now git me 
 some bark, little master, and I gib you a bikket when he done." 
 There was no soda, or tartaric acid, or baking powder. The biscuit 
 were made by main strength. The dough was kneaded by strong 
 arras, and sometimes it was beaten with the rolling pin until it blis- 
 tered. When the dough blistered it was' good and made good bis- 
 cuit. I can't say that we have any better cooking now than we had 
 then ; but the stove makes it a great deal easier to cook. 
 
 The boys had no baseball, but they had bullpen and cat and town- 
 bail and roley hole and tag and sweepstakes and pull over the mark 
 and foot races and so forth, and they thought there was nothing bet- 
 ter. They had the best rubber balls in the world, and made them 
 themselves. Some of them could bounce thirty feet high. They 
 were made by cutting an old rubber shoe into strings and winding the 
 strings into a ball and covering it with buckskin. But after awhile 
 the rubber shoes were not made of all rubber. They were mixed with 
 something that took some of the bounce out, and our balls degener- 
 ated. There was an old man living near us who was called "Lying 
 Tom Turner," aud he told us boys one day that when he was a boy 
 
276 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 he had a rubber ball that he was afraid to bounce hard for fear it 
 would go up out of sight and he would lose it. We asked him what 
 became of his ball, and he said he bounced it one day most too hard 
 and it went up into the clouds and was gone half an hour, and whea 
 it came down his little dog grabbed it in his mouth, and it rebounced 
 and carried the dog up with it out of sight, and he had never seen the 
 ball nor the little dog since. 
 
 Well, I don't know which times are the best — the old times or the 
 new. It is very nice to have a nice house and nice furniture and nice 
 clothes and lots of nice story books and to ride on the cars, but in ,the 
 old times people didn't hanker after such things, and they were easy 
 to please, and were in no hurry to get through life, and there were no 
 suicides, and very few crazy folks, and no pistols to carry in the hip- 
 pockets. Nowadays there is a skeleton in most every house. I don't 
 mean a real skeleton, but some great big trouble that throws a dark 
 shadow over the family. There were not any exciting books to read — 
 no sensation novels that poison the mind, just like bad food poisons 
 the body. There were but half a dozen newspapers in the whole 
 State, and they didn't have whole columns full of murders and sui- 
 cides and robberies and awful fires that burned up poor lunatics and 
 all other horrid things to make a tender heart feel bad. There was 
 nobody very rich and nobody very poor, and we had as great men 
 then as we have now. 
 
 If the clock was set back, and the little girl who wrote to me 
 wanted to go to Augusta wdth her grandpa to visit her kinfolks, she 
 would have to get in the mail coach and jog along all day and all 
 night at four miles an hour and pay ten cents a mile, and it would 
 take two days and nights, and she would be tired almost to death and 
 80 would her grandpa. Well, they just couldn't go. But now they 
 can go as cheap as to stay at home, and do it iu less time, as the Irish- 
 man said. 
 
 But the clock will not be set back, and so we must all be content 
 with things as they are, and make them better if we can. 
 
The Farm and The FmEsn)E. 277 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 WiixLiAM AND His Wife Visit the City. 
 
 The old carpet in the family room has been down and up and up 
 and down for seventeen years. It has been the best carpet we ever 
 had. It used to be the parlor carpet, but was reduced to a lower rank 
 a long time ago. Time and children and dogs and cats and brooms 
 have worked on it until it is faded and slick and threadbare. The 
 colors are gone and so are the figures and the fuz and the nap, but it 
 is a carpet still. It has been taken up and hung on the fence and 
 beaten with thrash poles about seventeen times, and yet there is not a 
 hole in it. In its aristocratic days it bore the burden of aristocratic 
 shoes and fancy slippers, and music and song and love making, and 
 the parlor dance, and the family weddings. Its downy flowers treas- 
 ured many a secret and many a joy. But in course of time it ceased 
 to be the pride of the family, and became its servant. We have 
 raised children on that carpet — rough boys and romping girls. We 
 have raised dogs and cats. It has been the mudsills of a nursery and 
 a menagerie and a schoolroom and a circus. As its colors disappeared 
 in the middle and around the hearthstone Mrs. Arp would take it up 
 and change corners and bring to the front a brighter portion that lay 
 hidden under the bed and the bureau and the sofa. She has done 
 this so often that there is little difference now. Every part has trav- 
 eled the grand rounds over and over again. 
 
 Mrs. Arp has been hinting about a new carpet for some time. 
 **We could do without it if I couldn't afford it," she said, " and I 
 must have a talma cloak anyhow, and the children needed so many 
 things, but she didn't want anything for herself" Of course she 
 didn't. I didn't give her a chance. I keep her supplied. I never 
 said anything — I just looked into the fire and ruminated. She knows 
 my weakness. It's all honey and sugar and a little flattery thrown 
 in. When it comes to driving and bulldozing I am an austere man. 
 
278 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 I am, and she knows it. She said last week that she had promised 
 Ralph to go down to Atlanta and see him, and while there she could 
 get a cloak and some little things for the children for Christmas. 
 " I'll go with you," said I. ''I wish to see Ralph, too, and keep him 
 encouraged. I think he will make a pretty good doctor in ten or 
 fifteen years, if he keeps on studying and cutting up stiffs and holding 
 the candle for Dr. Westmoreland. He uses powerful big words now 
 for a boy of his size. He talks about anesthetics and antiskeptics, and 
 the like." It wasn't much trouble to get her off*, and she never said 
 nary time that she had nothing to wear. She has got past that at last. 
 We took one of the girls along as a chaperone, for my wife and I 
 haven't kept up with city style and street behavior and how to shop 
 and look at fine things like we were used to them. We had hardly 
 got off* the cars when she met an old friend and hugged and kissed her, 
 and they got to talking about old times and somebody that was dead, 
 and my wife she got' full in the throat and watery in the eyes, and 
 they blocked up the sidewalk and everybody had to walk around 
 them, and so to prevent a scene our chaperone dissolved the interview 
 and we hurried on to Whitehall. It has been built up wonderfully 
 since Mrs. Arp was there, and the show windows are just beautiful 
 beyond description. She stopped squarely before the first jewelry 
 store and feasted her hazel eyes in rapturous amazement. "Did you 
 ever in your life? Isen't that perfectly lovely? Do look at that lit- 
 tle cherub swinging to that clock for a pendulum. I wonder if those 
 are real diamonds in those brooches. Oh my! see that beautiful 
 breastpin. Wouldent Jessie love to wear that. Poor thing, she has 
 never had a nice pin." The chaperone began to take on a little, too, and 
 the passsing crowd had to go round us again, and some of them looked 
 back and smiled, and that made me mad, and so I took my women 
 folks away from there and remarked : * ' I wouldn't stop to look at 
 everything. People will think you never saw anything pretty or fine* 
 in your life." Mrs. Arp prouded up her head and said: *' What do 
 I care for people. The merchants put their finest things in the win- 
 dows to be looked at, and I am going to look just as much as I please,'' 
 and she stopped squarely against another window and began the inspec- 
 tion of those lovely ladies' shoes. Mrs. Arp goes perfectly daft on fine 
 shoes — No. 2s. Daft is the word she uses on me sometimes, but I don't 
 know what it means. She says I promised her thirteen pair a year 
 
The Farm and The FmEsroE. 219 
 
 before she married me. One pair a month and one pair over. Maybe 
 I did, but I've forgotten all those things. Tliej were not said in a 
 lucid interval. ''Now buy your shoes," said I, ''and let us move on 
 to the carpet store; it will be dinner time directly." She looked at 
 me in sweet surprise and followed me like a lamb, for I hadent men- 
 tioned the carpet before. We went to the carpet store, and there 
 were so many beautiful patterns that she couldent decide on any. The 
 carpet men unrolled piece after piece, and sent the rolls whirling away 
 down the room and then back again, and they kept getting lovelier 
 and lovelier, and the price higher and higher, until my wife sighed, 
 and said: "Well, let us go now; we will come back again after 
 awhile." I followed them around meekly, and, as we passed a French 
 clock, I pointed to the hour, and it was 2 o'clock p. m. "Only an 
 hour and a half longer to stay," said I, "and we have had no dinner." 
 They didn't seem to be worried about the dinner, and made a final 
 assault upon another carpet store, and I had to settle it at last and 
 make a choice for them. I always do. I used to be a merchant, and 
 kept the finest and prettiest goods in town. I used to sell Mrs. Arp 
 fine dressing when she was a miss, and she wouldn't trade anywhere 
 else, and it took her a long time to make up her mind, and I had to 
 make it up for her just as I do now. She never traded much at any 
 other store, and, to my opinion, there is about as much courting done 
 over the counter by day as in the parlor by night. After we were 
 married she traded with me altogether. Thirty-six yards of carpeting 
 was all that I had bargained for when I left home, but there was a 
 rug and a hassock and two pairs of shoes and some sylabub stuff for 
 ruffles and flounces and a few Christmas things, and by the time we 
 got to Durand's we had only twenty minutes far dinner. We were all 
 happy and hungry, too, and the dinner was splendid, and my wife 
 brought home a basket of fruit for the children, and she told them all 
 about the big day's work, and the beautiful things, and whom she saw, 
 and I reckon it was worth the money that was spent and more too. 
 The carpet came along in due time all ready made, and three of the 
 children were at school, and dident know it, and we hurried up and 
 took everything out of the room and bid farewell to the old one, and 
 cleaned up the straw and the dust, and washed up the floor and the 
 windows, and put down the paper, and the carpet on top of it, 
 and pulled, and stretched, and tugged and tacked until it was all 
 
280 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 right. Then we put the furniture all back just like it was, and sat 
 down before the fire just like nothing had happened, and in about ten 
 minutes the school chaps came singing up to the back door and walked 
 in upon us before they had time to look down, and it was worth $5 
 more to hear the raptures and adjectives and adverbs and exclama- 
 tion points and other parts of speech that they indulged in when their 
 wondering eyes feasted upon the rich brown colors under their feet. If 
 I was rich I would buy another carpet right away just to have another 
 good time with Mrs. Arp and the children. 
 
 But we didn't have the pleasure of Ralph's company at last. I 
 found him at Dr. Westmoreland's with his sleeves rolled up, helping 
 the doctor to mend a man's broken arm. They had a little tub half 
 full of plaster paris in solution, and a lot of bandage rolls in it, get- 
 ting saturated. They set the bones and kept the arm pulled straight, 
 while the bandages were wrapped from wrist to elbow, and elbow to 
 wrist, and wrapped again and again, and the plaster hardened as fast 
 as it was rolled on, and in a few minutes it was hard as chalk and 
 nearly half an inch thick, and the man's arm was in a vice. He was 
 was soon dismissed, and the doctor said "next." Then there was a 
 man whose hand was crushed between the cars, and another who had 
 an awful splinter thrust into his stomach, and a child with a grain of 
 coffee in her lungs, and her throat had to be cut open. It is cutting 
 and mending and sewing up human flesh and bones all the day long, 
 and blood is as common as water. There is no time for sympathy or 
 tender words. It is business- — hard, stern business, and the signal 
 word is **next." May the Lord keep us all and preserve us from such 
 calamities. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 281 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 The Buzzard Lope. 
 
 Fm going to quit thinking about the race problem, and the tariff, 
 and Speaker Reed, and John Wanamaker, and everything else of a 
 turbulent and transitory nature. Fm going to boycott everything 
 now except domestic affairs. Fm going to attend to my own 
 business. I'm going to stay at home and work, and if I read a paper 
 at all it will be with one eye on the head lines and nothing else. 
 
 They say that exercise is a remedy for trouble — trouble of mind or 
 trouble of body. Get up and move around lively. My old father 
 was afflicted with rheumatism, and when the sharp pains began to 
 worry him he would take his long stick and start out over the farm 
 and limp, and grunt, and drag himself along until he got warmed up, 
 and in an hour or so would come back feeling better. A man can 
 mope and brood over his troubles until, as Cobe says, "they get more 
 thicker and more aggrevatiner." He told me that he had tried liver 
 medicine and corn juice and various ** anecdotes" for disease, but that 
 a right good sweat of perspiration was the best thing for a man or a 
 beast. He used to cure mules of the colic by trotting them around 
 until the sweat come. 
 
 I haven't got the colic nor the rheumatism, but I feel such a con- 
 stant uxorial goneness that I have to step around lively to forget 
 myself. I feel just like I had lost my tobacco. The sparrows are 
 regailing on my strawberries. The happy mocking birds are singing 
 their tee diddle and too doodle, and the lordly peacock screams and 
 struts and spreads his magnificent tail, and all nature seems gay and 
 joyous, but how can the lord of creation sing a glad song when his 
 lady is far away in a strange land. A letter from there says: 
 ** Mamma is having a good time and behaving so nice to everybody." 
 Of course, of course. And Fm nice to everybody here — especially 
 the ladies. Some of them come every day — come to comfort me, they 
 say. I'm having a pretty good time considering. We had some fine 
 
282 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 music last night — some of the boys came home with Carl to practice 
 for a serenade to the spring chickens. They had a guitar and some 
 harps and a triangle, and were right good singers besides, and I enjoyed 
 it immensely. Jessie is a musician, too, and when she struck the 
 ivory key with some saltatory notes like, "Oh Jinny is your Ash-cake 
 Done," and ''The Highland Fling" and "Run Nigger Run," accom- 
 panied by the sweet harmonicas and the guitar, I just couldent keep 
 my old extremities subdued, and they got me up and toted me around 
 on light fantastic toes amazing. I was all by myself in the next 
 room, but I had lots of fun. It does a man good sometimes to unbend 
 himself and forget his antiquity. I like a little hornpipe or a pigeon 
 wing on the sly sometimes. It may be original sin, or it may be that 
 there is a time to dance, as Solomon says, but I like it. My beard is 
 growing gray, and there's not many hairs between my head and the 
 cerulean heavens, but I'm obliged to have some recreation, especially 
 when Mrs. Arp is away. You ought to see me caper around to the 
 music with a little grand-child, a three-year-old who chooses me for a 
 partner whenever the music begins. She knows the dancing tunes as 
 well as I do, bless her little heart. My boys have got a new step now 
 that they call the "buzzard lope," that is grand, lively and peculiar. 
 The story goes that an old darkey lost his aged mule, and found him 
 one Sunday evening lying dead in the woods and forty-nine buzzards 
 feasting upon his carcass. Forty-eight of them flew away, but the 
 forty-ninth, whose feathers were gray with age, declined to retire. 
 Looking straight at the darkey, he spread his wings about half-and- 
 half, like the American eagle on a silver dollar, and tucked his tail 
 under his body and drew in his chin and pulled down his vast and 
 began to lope around the dead mule in a saltatory manner. He was 
 a greedy bird and liked his meat served rare, and rejoiced that he now 
 had the carcass all to himself, and so he loped around with alacrity. 
 The old darkey was a fiddler and dancer by instinct and inspiration. 
 He had danced all the dances and pranced all the prances of his 
 naborhood for half a century. He had played prompter for the 
 white folks at a thousand frolics, and knew every step and turn and 
 fling of the heel-tap and the toe, but he had never seen such a peculiar 
 double demi-semi-quiver shuffle as that old buzzard loped around that 
 mule. He stood aghagt. He spread his arms just half-and-half, and 
 bent his back in the middle, unlimbered his ankle joints, stiffened his 
 
The Farm and The FiPwEside. 283 
 
 elbows, and forgetting both the day and the place, he followed that 
 bird around that mule for four solid hours and caught the exquisite 
 lope exactly. At dusk the tired buzzard souzed his beak into one of 
 dead mule's eyes and bore it away to his roost, while the old darkey 
 loped all the way home to his cabin door, feeling ten years younger 
 for his masterpiece. The buzzard lope suits an old man splendid, for 
 it is best performed with rheumatism in one leg and St. Vitus dance 
 in the other, and it is said to be a sovereign remedy for both. 
 
 Some folks don't care much about music — some don't care anything 
 about dancing, but some folks like both because it is their nature and 
 they can't help it. It is just as natural for children to love to dance 
 to the harmony of sweet sounds as it is for them to love to play mar- 
 bles or jump the rope, or any other innocent sport. The church 
 allows its members to pat the foot to music, but condemns dancing 
 because it leads to dissipation and bad company ; but we shouldn't let 
 it lead the young folks that way. The church condemns minstrel 
 shows and minstrel songs, but has lately stolen from them some ot 
 their sweetest tunes, and set them to sacred verse, and is all the better 
 for it. Who does not appreciate the ' ' Lilly of the Valley" that is now 
 sung to the ** Cabin in the Lane?" Puritanism, and penance, and 
 long faces, and assumed distress are passing away. The Methodist 
 discipline that forbade jewelry, and ornaments, and fine dressing has 
 become obsolete, for it was against nature. What our creator has 
 given us to enjoy, let us enjoy in reason and in season and be all the 
 more thankful for His goodness. 
 
 I believe in music. Joseph Henry Lumpkin, our great chief jus- 
 tice, said there was music in all things except the braying of an ass 
 or the tongue of a scold. I believe in the refining infiuences of music 
 over the young, and if an occasional dance at home or in the parlor 
 of a friend will make the young folks happy, let them be happy. I 
 read Dr. Calhoun's beautiful lecture that he delivered before the 
 Atlanta Medical college— a lecture on the human throat as a musical 
 instrument — and I was charmed with its science, its instruction, and 
 its literary beauty. I read part of it to those boys who were practic- 
 ing for the serenade — about the wonders of the human larynx, that in 
 ordinary singers could produce 120 different sounds, and fine singers 
 like Jenny Lind could produce a thousand, and Madam Mora, whose 
 voice compassed three octaves, could produce 2,100 different notes; 
 
284 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 and about Farinelli, who cured Phillip V., king of Spain, of a dread- 
 ful malady by singing to him, and after he was fully restored he waa 
 afraid of a relapse and hired Farinelli to sing to him every night at a 
 salary of fifty thousand francs, and he sang to him as David harped 
 for Saul. Music fills up so many gaps in the family. The young 
 people can't work and read and study all the time. They must have 
 recreation, and it is better to have it at home than hunt for it else- 
 where. If the old folks mope and grunt and complain around the 
 house, it is no wonder that the children try to get away. And they 
 will get away if they have to marry to do it. I have known girls to 
 marry very trifling lovers because they were tired of home. This 
 reminds me of a poor fellow who was hard pressed by a creditor to 
 whom he owed forty dollars. He came to employ us to get a home- 
 stead for him so as to save his little farm. *'Are you a married 
 man?" said I. *'No, I aint," said he. ''Well, you will have to get 
 married before you can take a homestead. Is there no clever girl in 
 your naborhood whom you have a liking for ?" He looked straight in 
 the fire for a minute or more, and then rose up and shook his long, 
 sandy hair, and said; ''Gentlemen, the jig are up. I'll have to 
 shindig around and get that money, for I'll be dogond if I'll get mar- 
 ried for forty dollars. Good mornin'." 
 
 We are working hard, now, renovating and repairing the home 
 inside and outside. We have whitewashed the fence all round, and 
 the barn and coal-house, and chicken house, and all. We have paint- 
 the gates a lovely red, and striped the greenhouse, and Carl wanted to 
 stripe the calf with the same color, as a meandering ornament to the 
 lawn, but he couldn't catch him. I have planted out Madeira vines 
 and Virginia creepers and tomato plants, and we have declared war 
 against the English sparrows that destroy more strawberries than we^ 
 get. We will have things fixed up when the maternal comes home. 
 I reckon she will come sometime — come home spoiled like I do as 
 when I take a trip off and am petted up by genial friends. It will 
 take us a week to get her back in the harness, but it won't take her 
 half that long to get us back. We've got two picnics on hand, and a 
 fishing frolic, and there are five pretty girls from Cement coming here 
 tonight, and on the whole I don't think I am as lonesome as I think 
 I am. 
 
 "So here's a health to her who's away." 
 
The Farm and The Fhieside. 285 
 
 CHATPER LVIII. 
 
 Up Among Tiie Stars. 
 
 I was talking to the children the other night about astronomy, and I 
 said: **I am a traveler — a great traveler. I have traveled forty 
 thousand million of miles in my life. I was born traveling. I can 
 beat railroads and telegraphs. When I travel I make 68,000 miles an 
 hour, and don't exert myself a bit. I can make over 1,500,000 miles 
 in a day, and turn a summerset 8,000 miles high in the bargain — 
 I turn one every day when I am on the road. I traveled nearly 600,- 
 000,000 miles last year." 
 
 And so I made the children figure it all up so as to impress upon 
 them ihe immensity of space and the mighty power of God. I know 
 an old man — a lawyer — who didn't believe in any of these things. 
 He said it was not according to scripture. He didn't believe the earth 
 was round or that it turned over. He said the scriptures spoke of the 
 ends of the earth, and the four corners of the earth, and that Joshua 
 commanded the sun to stand still just like he did the moon, and they 
 both stood still. We used to argue with him, and tell him that nav- 
 igators had sailed all around the earth, but it was no use, and we gave 
 him up. 
 
 I know lots of sensible people who don't believe that astronomers 
 know anything about these immense distances and orbits and weights 
 of the planets. They say it is all guess work, pretty much, and that 
 it is impossible to tell how far it is from one place to another, or one 
 planet to another without measuring it with a chain or a rod-pole or 
 a string or something. And here is where a higher education comes 
 in and broadens the mind and elevates it to a higher plane. There is 
 no science so exact and so fully established as astronomy. The dis- 
 tance from here to Atlanta is not so. accurately known as the earth's 
 orbit around the sun. A great astronomer like Herschel or Newton 
 or La Place can look through the telescope at Jupiter's moons when 
 
286 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 they are in an eclipse, and then mix up a few logorithms and fluxions 
 and parallaxes and tell how fast light travels and how far it is to the 
 remotest planet in the universe. 
 
 The children wanted to know why the new year began with Janu- 
 ary, and I couldent tell them. Christmas would have been a better 
 day. The new era should have begun with the birth of Christ 
 instead of a week later ; or the year should begin with the birth of 
 "spring — the 21st of March — when nature is putting on new garments. 
 Those old philosophers got things awfully mixed up anyhow. Their 
 years used to be measured by the moon, and they had thirteen 
 months, but that dident fit, and so they fell back to ten months of 
 thirty-six days each, and that dident fit, and next they put in two 
 more months and had no leap year, and at last Pope Gregory fixed 
 the measure all right — just as we have it now. It was only in the 
 last century that the civilized nations adopted the new time. Russia 
 hasent adopted it yet; but I don't know whether she is civilized 
 or not. 
 
 January was a right good name for the first month. He was a 
 watchful old fellow and had two faces, and could look before him and 
 behind him at the same time. It is a good idea for a man to look 
 back over the year that has gone and review his conduct, and then 
 look forward and promise to do better. But most of the months were 
 named for heathen gods who never existed, and so were the days of 
 the week. I wish the school children would read about them and be 
 able to answer what March means, and April and Wednesday and 
 Thursday, and the other names. Gather knowledge as you go along 
 — useful knowledge — and store it away. If you havent got the books 
 borrow them from somebody and read. I asked two young men yes- 
 terday how far it was to the sun, and they had no idea. 
 
 1891! There is a meaning in those figures. Every time they are 
 written on a letter head or a ledger or a bank check or a note or a 
 hotel register, or printed on a newspaper, they mean something. The 
 pens of Christians and infidels and skeptics and agnostics and Jews 
 and Gentiles are all writing it visible and indelible upon the paper. 
 Every day, every hour, every minute, it is being written all over the 
 world, and every mark establishes a fact — a great fact — that 1891 
 years ago there was a birth — a notable birth — and old Father Time 
 began a new count and called it Anno Domini. What a wonderful 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 287 
 
 •event it must have been that closed the record of the agres and started 
 time on a new cycle. How in the world did it happen ? The Greeks 
 had their calendar and the Romans had theirs, and the Jews had one 
 that was handed down by Moses, but all of them were overshadowed 
 by the one that a handful of Christians set up, and for 1400 years the 
 Anno Domini has given a date to every birth and death and event in 
 the civilized world. It seems to me that if I was an infidel I would 
 not place these figures at the top of my letters. I would not dignify 
 the birth of a child that way ; I would rather write 5894 as the date 
 of the creation. But, no, if I did not credit Moses and the prophets, 
 I couldent choose that date, and so I would have no date — no era to 
 begin with. The Greeks had their Olympiads to date from, and the 
 Romans the birth of their ancient city, and the Mohammedans the 
 flight of Mohamet, but a modern agnostic has nothing. If he was an 
 American, I suppose he might begin with the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and say January 114. The Jew is better off, for he has a faith 
 — a faith as strong as the ages — and his era goes back to Moses and 
 the prophets, but even he has to conform to the Anno Domini of the 
 Christian in all his business relations with mankind. If he was to 
 date a business letter or make out a bill of goods according to his faith 
 it would be returned to him for explanations. What a wonderful 
 thing is this date — these four simple figures. We write them and write 
 them, but we seldom ponder on what they prove. 
 
 On New Year's night I was talking to the children about these 
 things, and about the long journey we had taken since the last New 
 Year. We have gotten back to the same place in the universe and 
 have traveled nearly three hundred million of miles. Talk about 
 your cannon ball trains and your lightning express ! Why, we have 
 been ru^ining a schedule of thirty thousand miles an hour and never 
 stopped for coal or water, and never had a jostle nor put on a brake 
 nor greased a wheel. Other trains have crossed our track, and we 
 have crossed theirs, but there was no danger signal, no sign board, no 
 red flag, no watchman. Was there ever an engineer so reckless of 
 human life? Fifteen hundred millions of passengers aboard, and 
 they sleep half the time. Did ever passengers ride so trustingly? 
 And what is more wonderful still, our train has a little fun on the 
 way, and every day turns a summersault twenty-five thousand miles 
 round just for the enjoyment and health of the passengers. Turns 
 
288 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 over as it goes, turns at a speed of a thousand miles an hour and never 
 loses an inch of space or a moment of time. Wouldn't it be big fua 
 if we could stand off away from the train and see it roll on and turn 
 as it rolled and see the passengers all calm and serene? It seems to 
 me that if I was an infidel or an agnostic I would want to get oft this 
 train — a train without an engineer — a train that has got loose from 
 somewhere and is running wild at the rate of 500 miles a minute. Talk 
 about your Pullman sleepers and vestibule and dining-room cars ! 
 Why, this train carries houses and gardens and fruit trees and every- 
 thing good to eat. It is a family train, and the family goes along 
 with their nabors and the preacher and the doctor and the graveyard 
 is carried along, too, so that if anybody dies on the way the train 
 don't have to stop for a funeral. It is well that it don't, for the 
 passengers are dying at the rate of a hundred a minute, and the traia 
 would never get anywhere if it had to stop to bury the dead. 
 
 Then we children got to talking about the centuries away back, 
 when the months and the years were unsettled, and nobody seemed to 
 know how long a year was or how to divide it ; when the changes of 
 the moon were a bigger thing than going round the sun; when there 
 were only ten months in a year, and a year was only 360 days, and so 
 January kept falling back until it got to be summer instead of winter ; 
 when there were no weeks, except among the Jews, and the month 
 was divided by the Greeks and Romans into three decades of ten days 
 each ; when Julius Cissar tried to regulate the calendar and made' 
 the year 365 days and gave a leap year of 366. But that didn't work 
 exactly right, for it made leap year eleven minutes too long, and so, 
 as the centuries rolled on, it was found in 1582 that old Father Time 
 had gained twelve days on himself, or on the sun or something else, 
 and Pope Gregory concluded to set the old fellow back a peg or two, 
 and he did. If a pope could make us all twelve days younger when 
 he pleased to do it he would be a very popular man, I reckon. But 
 the calendar is all right now, and the civilized world has adopted it. 
 It is eleven minutes fast every four years, but as the year 1900 is not 
 to be a leap year the gain will be canceled when that year comes Leap 
 year used to double the sixth day of March instead of adding a day 
 to February, and so it was called the bis-sextile year. It is well for 
 the children to know these things for they are worth knowing. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 289 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 Oh! These Wome?j! 
 
 Oh, these women, these women — they make me so tired. But it is 
 a sweet service. Here I've been working in the harness for forty 
 years, and I don't reckon I would be happy if the harness was off. I 
 I know I wouldn't for sometimes when Mrs. Arp goes off to spend the 
 day I don't feel natural about the house. I want somebody to order 
 me around in a sweet, feminine way: "William, that stick that was 
 between the sash has fallen out and is down there on the ground — 
 don't you feel the cool air coming in ? William, the clock needs clean- 
 ing very bad — it stopped twice yesterday — hadn't you better take it 
 down to Mr. Baker's ? William, I wish you would get a little paint 
 and give the old mantlepiece a coat — you have scraped so many 
 matches on it to light your old pipe that it is a sight. A little can of 
 prepared paint won't cost much. And that old grate needs a coat of 
 polish — oh ! I did see some of the loveliest grates down at the exposi- 
 tion, and those tiles for hearths were exquisite. I don't mean for you 
 to buy any, but I am just telling you. Somehow, whenever I tell you 
 about the beautiful things I see, you look like you didn't have a. friend 
 in the world. Of course I don't mean that I want you to buy them. 
 William, what am I do with the flowers — the geraniums, and ver- 
 benas, and all the potted plants ? The winter is coming on, and I do 
 wish we had a little pit somewhere. It will be a pity to lose them. 
 Hattie has had a pit dug, and says it didn't cost but two dollars — and 
 she is going to cover it with a cloth frame. Sam Pitts digs pits," 
 she continued — "Sam Pitts digs pits," said I. And so I sent for 
 Uncle Sam and marked off the place, six by ten, and squared it 
 according to rule, and he had been digging a few minutes when Mrs. 
 Arp raised the window and said she thought it was a little too far that 
 way, and so I moved the marks a couple of feet and began to dig 
 again. In a little while she came out and said it was too far this way, 
 
290 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 and 80 I moved it back where it was at first, and she said it was about 
 right now. She thinks that I split the difference, but I didn't. The 
 next day she asked me in a gentle voice how much a brick wall around 
 the top would cost — a brick wall about three feet high on one side and 
 a foot high on the other. ** And sash- with glass for a cover," said I, 
 for I knew she was thinking about it. She smiled sweetly and said : 
 "Yes." I scratched a match on the mantle and lit my pipe and 
 ruminated. That was yesterday. Mr. White is making those sash today, 
 and the brick mason is building the wall, and I am still in the harness. 
 Alek Stephens said he wanted to die in the harness, and he did ; but he 
 never knew anything about matrimonial breeching, or he would have 
 wanted to live and not die at all. What would become of a man if 
 he didn't have a woman to keep him lively? When we were in 
 Atlanta the other day, my wife asked me for five dollars to buy a pair 
 of shoes. "Have shoes gone up ?" said I, as I handed her the money. 
 No, but I have," she said — "I want a fine pair — shoes that are as soft 
 as kid gloves ; you owe me lots of shoe money ; you promised me before 
 we were married that you would give me thirteen pair a year — don't 
 you remember?" "Yes," said I, "and you have had them and more 
 too. How can a woman raise ten children on less than thirteen pair a 
 year ? But I would have promised you anything then. I would have 
 climed the Chamborazo mountains and fought a tiger for you then — a 
 small tiger — but I would fight a big one now. Here, take another 
 five and buy you some fine stockings to go with the shoes, but don't 
 buy black ones. I despise to see a white woman wear black stockings. 
 It is like a heathen Chinee blacking his teeth." I wish I had the 
 making of the fashions. I see that the bustles have gone out at last, 
 and I am glad of it — I never did like these unnatural humps on a 
 woman's back. They have been in and out a dozen times since I was 
 a boy, and so have hoop-skirts. It is funny to see a new fashion come 
 in and go out. There are women in my town still wearing bustles. 
 They feel sorter shamed to leave them off all of a sudden. But they 
 will fall into line and slim down before long. They have done 
 slimmed at my house. They keep up pretty well. I saw lots of nice 
 ladies at the fair who were behind, and so were their bustles, but they 
 were from the country and little towns, and hadent caught up. It is 
 a good deal of trouble to alter a bustle-dress to a no-bustle-dress, and 
 all the mysterious garments underneath have to be altered, too, and 
 
The Farm and The FmESiDE. 291 
 
 that is why it takes a fashion so long to run out. It costs money and 
 work. Now, if the ladies will cut off about four inches of their skirts 
 and keep out of the winter's mud, they will be all right. Let them 
 show their ankles if they want to. There is nothing prettier than the 
 poetry of motion that is in a lady's foot and ankle when she walks. 
 It pleases an old man mightily. 
 
 But the men have passed through some very ridiculous fashions, 
 too. When I was in my teens and had begun to notice the girls and 
 put oil on my hair and cinnamon drops on my handkerchief, the fash- 
 ion was to wear short pants and straps — leather straps about an iuch 
 wide that came under the shoe and fastened to buttons sewed on the 
 inside of the pants. When a feller sat down the whole concern was 
 drawn as tight as an eelskin, and there was a continual strain on the 
 straps at the bottom and the suspenders at the top. Sometimes 
 a button broke or a strap bursted under peculiar circumstances, and 
 then the pants crawled up amazingly. One day I was riding out with 
 my sweetheart and the catastrophe happened as we were running a 
 galloping race up a long hill, and my pants crawled up to my knees 
 and carried the undergarments along, and it was on her side of the 
 horse, and she laughed and laughed until she liked to have fell off, 
 and I had to get down and cut a skewer off of a rail and fasten the 
 strap on again. The mischievous thing told it on me, and I never got 
 even with her until one day her bustle came untied and dropped off 
 as she was passing my store, and I picked it up and handed it to her 
 with a bow as polite as a Frenchman, and said: Miss Mary, 
 your shoe-strap is broken." The bustles of that day were shaped like 
 a new moon and stuffed with bran. They were generally about as large 
 as a hoe-handle and tapered out to a point at each end, but the more 
 style the bigger the bustle. They were all home-made and were con- 
 sidered a very sacred and mysterious article of feminine furniture. 
 Sometimes one of these big ones would rip from long wear and tear, 
 and the bran would leak out as the woman wiggled along, and you 
 could track her all the way home just like the hogs would track a 
 mill boy when there was a hole in his corn sack. I remember when 
 the hoop-skirt of a high-flying woman was three feet across at the bot- 
 tom, and when she stood up close ♦against the counter, her dress didn't 
 need any shortening behind. It was a sight of trouble to squeeze 
 them in the pews of the churches, and sometimes they behaved in a 
 
292 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 very unseemly manner when the wind was blowing in a shifty way, 
 I remember when the college boys wore boots according to their poli- 
 tics. The toes were shaped like a duck's bill, and were turned up and 
 over on top of the foot like a skate, and if the boy was a whig he had 
 Clay printed on the toes in large letters, and if he was a democrat he 
 had Polk printed there, and so they walked about sticking their poli- 
 tics into everybody's faces. 
 
 But after all, I believe the women of this generation are more 
 reasonable in their dress than for many generations past. Three 
 thousand years ago they were fast, very fast, for Josiah tells about 
 *Hhe bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet and their 
 cauls and their round tires like the moon (bustles, I reckon), their 
 chains and bracelets and mufflers, the bonnets and ornaments of the 
 legs and headbands, and tablets and earrings, and nose jewels and 
 changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles and wimples, and crisp- 
 ing pins and hoods and vails." Oh, it took a sight to set up one of 
 those high-flying Hebrew women, and the prophet went for them as 
 fiercely as old Allen Turner used to go for our women a half century 
 ago. "If that young woman with the green bonnet on the back of 
 her head and the devil's martingales around her neck and his stirrups on 
 her ears don't quit her giggling, I'll point her out to the congrega- 
 tion." Yes, we are all doing better — except some. But I must stop; 
 Mrs. Arp is calling me to come and put out some more chrysanthe- 
 mums, and I'm so tired. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 293 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 The Mischievous Little Ones. 
 
 There is a wide difference between mischief and meanness. But 
 mischief is close akin to it, when it injures anybody or hurts their 
 feelings, or breaks the rules or the laws. Most all boys love a little 
 mischief. I used to love a good deal. I remember when we thought 
 it ever so smart to slip around at night and change the gates and the 
 signs, or stretch a rope across the sidewalk, or tie a goat in the school 
 house, or put one man's horse in another man's stable. I have worked 
 mighty hard at such things, and I did think it was just as funny as it 
 could be, but somehow or other I don't see a bit of fun in it now. I 
 wonder what is the matter with me. My children inherited mischief, 
 I reckon, and so I have to excuse them, but when my little girl 
 thoughtlessly pulled the chair away just as I was about to sit down, 
 and I came down with a shock that jarred the house, and my feet flew 
 up and knocked the lamp off^ the table, I was mad, very mad, until 
 I looked at her and saw how frightened she was, for she hadn't counted 
 on such a catastrophe. So I tempered down and picked up the broken 
 fragments and never said a word, and it was a minute before anybody 
 spoke. Mrs. Arp was the first to break the awful silence with an 
 explosion of laughter, and that started the children, of course — all 
 but Jessie, poor little little thing, who come to me and said: "Papa, 
 I didn't mean to do it." I knew that she didn't, but my offended 
 dignity was at stake, and I got me another lamp and went to writing. 
 1 wanted to laugh as much as they did, but I wouldn't. That was 
 four years ago, and Mrs. Arp is not done laughing at it yet whenever 
 it is alluded to. I believe it would do her good to see me bump the 
 floor and kick over a lamp about once a week. 
 
 I was ruminating about this because my boy came home from school 
 ahead of time and sat down ^efore the fire looking solemn and sad. I 
 was writing by the window and wondered what was the matter. For ' 
 
294 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 awhile he never moved or spoke, but suddenly he looked up at me 
 and said, in a pitiful voice: *'Papa, was you ever suspended?" 
 ''Suspended?" said I. "I don't understand you — suspended how?" 
 ''Suspended from school," said he. ''Why, no," said I. "What 
 makes you ask that question?" He choked up, and said: "Well, 
 I'm suspended, and so is Tom Milner." "Is it possible?" said I, as I 
 laid down my pen. "What have you been doing?" 
 
 Then he told as how he and Tom had got to throwing water at each 
 other while the professor was in the other room, and how he missed 
 Tom and the whole dipper full struck the blackboard and put out the 
 sum and ran down upon the floor, and the professor came in just at 
 the wrong time and asked who did it, and suspended him and Tom 
 and told them to take their books and go home. I felt greatly 
 relieved, of course, for I saw that it was mischief and not meanness, 
 but I never said anything and looked solemn and resumed my writing. 
 Now, it distresses my children to see me distressed, and that is a good 
 sign. As long as a boy loves his parents, and is troubled when they 
 are troubled, there is hope of that boy. After awhile he said : "Papa, 
 what must I do about it?" "I don't know," said I, "until I see the 
 professor. Not long ago we had up a case of suspension, and the 
 board refused to take the boy back. I don't know what they 
 will do with you and Tom. I expect you have been trying the pro- 
 fessor's patience for some time. You are not bad boys and are very 
 good scholars, but your disposition to mischief has troubled him and 
 set a bad example. The other boys are talking about you, and say 
 that the professor is partial to you and Tom, and I'm afraid that he is; 
 I am glad that he has stopped your mischief." 
 
 But it came out all right. The boys were not suspended, and they 
 went back the next morning and apologized, and now everything is 
 calm and serene. The boys must conform to the rules. If one boy 
 throws water, all the boys have the right to throw water, and that 
 wouldent do, and a sensible boy knows it. Let every boy act upon 
 principle. They may be tempted to tell a story to get out of a little 
 scrape. But it is better to tell the truth. The truth is the thing — 
 the biggest thing I know ot If I had a great business that would 
 give employment to a thousand boys, and I had to go about and select 
 them, the first question I would ask woi|ld be, "Does he always tell 
 the truth ?" I wish the boys and girls could realize how much anxiety 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 295 
 
 \ 
 
 they give us. Here are 400 going to school iu our little town, and in 
 a few years they have got to take our places and make the laws and 
 do the business and make up society and establish the morals of the 
 community, and upon their conduct the happiness and good name of 
 the people will depend. The young men of this generation will have 
 to solve the race problem and all the other problems, and upon them, 
 will depend the existence of the government. We think about this a 
 good deal for it effects our children and grandchildren. It troubles us 
 to think about wars and anarchy and revolution, and about tyrants and 
 bad men getting into power, and about the rich getting richer and the 
 poor poorer. I know that it will be all right if the people will do 
 right — ^if the children grow up with good morals and good principles. 
 We have got good schools almost everywhere in the South. I know 
 we have in Cartersville. I am proud of the professors and the teach- 
 ers and the pupils. We are a long ways ahead of Boston. There are 
 no . hip pockets in our schools, no kicking of teachers, no bands of 
 forty thieves. We have Christian teachers and the moral training 
 goes right along with the school books. The boy or girl who gets no 
 more education than can be had in our schools has the foundation laid 
 for any beginner iu life. 
 
 St. Valentine's day has come again and the good old fellow does 
 seem to have some influence upon the bipeds, for our young people 
 are mating and marrying all around us. That is all right, and we 
 love to see it going on, for it is according to nature. Most everybody 
 takes some stock in the marriages of the young folks. Even the old 
 bachelors and old maids wake up and smile and bid them good speed. 
 They are taking a great risk, we know, but it is best to take it, even 
 if the venture is a failure. If it is a failure, it is their fault. I never 
 knew an unhappy marriage that was not made so by one or both of 
 the parties. It is a sad thing to marry in haste and repent at leisure. 
 It don't pay to marry by the month. I never hear of hasty and 
 inconsiderate marriages but what I think of those sad and serioup 
 lines of Tom Hood: 
 
 " Oh very, very dreary is the room 
 
 Where love, domestic love, no longer nestles; 
 But smitten by the common stroke of doom, 
 The corpse lies on the trestles." 
 
296 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 / 
 
 The corpse of conjugal love is an awful corpse. Not long ago a 
 married woman asked me for $10. She said her husband had money, 
 but she wouldn't ask him for a dollar if she never got any. There is 
 a corpse in that house. The husband is stingy and tyranical — the 
 wife is proud and sensitive, and so love got sick soon after the mar- 
 riage and lingered and languished and died. A man ought not to 
 force his wife to ask him for money. It does humiliate a woman. It 
 makes her feel her helplessness, her dependence, and smothers her 
 equality. The husband ought to anticipate her wants if he is able. 
 The money or the bank account ought to be at her disposal at all 
 times, for she will spend less of it foolishly than he will. A very con- 
 siderate wife told me that it was her greatest trial to ask her husband 
 for money, though he was always kind and never refused. And I sus- 
 pect there is many a good wife who is humiliated in the same way. It 
 is St. Valentine's season now, and a fit time for the married folks to 
 mate again and renew their promises. What a pity that love should 
 get sick so soon and turn into a corpse — a corpse that cannot be 
 buried but stays in the house by day and by night. From such a 
 corpse, good Lord deliver us. 
 
The Fakm and The Fireside. 297 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 Thoughts on Spring and Love. 
 
 *'Hail, gentle spring!" saith the poet. She didn't hail Lut she 
 snowed and sleeted a little. Another poet says: ** Winter lingers in 
 the lap of spring." The old rascal keeps on lingering there — he likes 
 the place. I wish the gentle maiden would shove him off and tell 
 him to go. She seems to like his caresses — I haven't seen an alder tag 
 nor red maple ear drop this year. It is time for the dogwood to bloom 
 and the wild violets to peep out from their wintry beds, and the min- 
 nows to play in the branches, and the lambs to shake their new-born 
 tails. Every few days the robins come and the bluebirds sit longingly 
 on the broken cornstalks, but they don't stay long. The plum-tree blooms 
 look sickly, and the peach bud don't know whether to venture out or 
 not. Spring poets are languishing and, languishing do live, and all 
 nature seems waiting and wishing for the grass to spring, and the flow- 
 ers tu bloom, and the birds to sing, and the voice of the turtle dove to 
 be heard in the land. 
 
 It is now five long weeks since the good St. Valentine told the birds 
 to mate and the girls and boys to go wooing. St. Patrick has been 
 out and shook his shelalah at the snakes, but still gentle Spring keeps 
 on flirting and fooling with old man Winter and makes him believe 
 she is in love with him. But she isent. May and December never 
 mate, nor March and November. It is against the order of nature. 
 We old people can look and linger and admire, but that is all. We 
 have sailed down the river and encountered its perils, its reefs and 
 rocks and shoals and quicksands, but, strange to say, we give no warn- 
 ing. Maybe it is because we know that warning will do no good; 
 maybe, because misery loves company; maybe, because it is the order 
 of nature, the fiat of the Almighty. Verily, the young people would 
 mate and marry and launch their boat and sail down that river if they 
 knew there was a Scylla and Charybdis at every bend and leviathans 
 
298 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 and malestroms and cataracts all the way down. Poor, trusting, suf-- 
 fering woman. What perils, what trials, what afflictions does the 
 maternal instinct bring upon you! Close by us, while I write, is a 
 beautiful young mother lingering in the grasp of death — dying that 
 her first-born child may live. There is nothing more touching, more 
 pitiful, more heroic in nature. There is nothing that a man is called 
 upon to endure that compares with the death of a mother in child- 
 birth. 
 
 But there is a brighter side — a more charming, comforting picture 
 of life — married life, domestic life — when the good mother is a 
 matron, and looks with pride upon her children and grandchildren as 
 they come and go lovingly before her. What calm serenity hovers 
 over her matronly face. What sweet content, what grateful rest — 
 rest from her labors, her pains, her care and anxiety. Well may she 
 exclaim with Paul : ' ' I have fought a good fight ; I have kept the 
 faith; I have finished my course. Henceforth there is laid up for me 
 a crown of righteousness." 
 
 To every lad and lassie there is a period of life not always thrilling 
 or tragical, but highly emotional and sensational. Of course, I mean 
 the period of love — young love — or loves young dream, which some- 
 times runs smooth and sometimes don't. What a luxury it would be 
 to look behind the curtain and see just what love has felt and suffered 
 and enjoyed. Such a kaleidoscope would have a world of eager lookers, 
 for the old are as fascinated with stories of love and courtship as the 
 middle-aged and young. In looking over the daily or weekly paper 
 we may skip the displayed headings of war in Bulgaria or riots in 
 London or murders in Wyoming, but any little paragraph that has 
 love in it, arrests the eye and demands attention. Children go to school 
 to study books, but by the time they are in their teens they begin to 
 mix a little timid, cautious love with their other studies. A sweet- 
 heart is a blessed thing for a boy. It straightens him up and washes 
 his face and greases his hair and brushes his teeth and stimulates his 
 ambition to excel and be somebody. Jerusalem! How I did luxuriate 
 and palpitate and concentrate towards the first little school girl I ever 
 loved. She was as pretty as a pink and as sweet as a daisy, and one 
 day at recess, when nobody was looking, I caught her on the stairs 
 and kissed her. She was dreadfully frightened, but not mad. Oh no, 
 not mad. She ran away with blushes on her cheek, and more than 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 299 
 
 once that evening I saw her glance at me from behind her book and 
 wondering if I would ever be so rash again. 
 
 And now, Mr. Editor, if a thousand of your patrons peruse these 
 random memories, nine hundred of them can finish up the chapter 
 from their own unwritten book. Who has not loved, who has not 
 stolen a kiss, who has not caught its palpitating thrill and felt like 
 Jacob when he lifted up his voice and wept. Oh, Rachel, beautiful 
 and well favored, no wonder that Jacob watered thy sheep and then 
 kissed thee, for there was no one to molest or make thee afraid. That 
 memorable kiss is now 4,000 years old, and has passed into history as 
 classic and pure, but I have had them, and so have you, dear reader, 
 just as sweet and soul-inspiring, and never said anything about it to 
 anybody. Ours' was a mixed school, and every Friday the larger boys 
 and girls had to stand up in a line and spell and define. My sweet- 
 heart stood head most generally, and so I was stimulated to get next 
 to her, and I did, and my right hand slyly found her left, and we both 
 were happy. But time and circumstances separated us, and we both 
 found new loves — she married another feller and was content, and so 
 did I, but neither of us have forgotten the stolen kiss or that tender 
 childish love that made our school-days happy. But love becomes 
 more earnest after awhile — more intense, more frantic — the young 
 man means business and so does the maiden. Like the turtle-doves 
 in the spring of the year, they are looking around for a mate. This is 
 nature, and it is right. God said, "It is not good for man to be 
 alone; I will make a helpmeet for him." And so he made Eve to 
 help meet the expenses, and that is what a wife ought to do now, but 
 a good many of them don't. They help make them, but they don't 
 help meet them, and that is why the young men have almost quit 
 marrying. The rich girls won't have them, and the poor girls are 
 trying to keep up with the rich, and so the turtle-doves mate slowly 
 now-a-days. Folks need to love and court and marry with more alac- 
 rity than they do now. It is not vanity to say that I could have 
 married half a dozen nice girls, and my wife could have had choice 
 of a dozen clever, prosperous youths as likely as myself. Cupid just 
 roosted all around those woods and shot his arrows right and left. 
 Sometimes he shoots a young man and then waits days and weeks 
 before he shoots the girl he is after. This keeps the poor fellow on 
 the warpath, and frantic and rampant, and Cupid laughs. But he 
 
300 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 was clever to me, for as near as I can judge, he let fly both arrows at 
 once and plugged my girl and me simultaneously, and with a center 
 shot. My wife denies this, but I have told it so often I believe it. 
 There was no skirmishing on my part. I never did shoot with a scat- 
 tering gun. Marrying was cheap in those days. My recollection is 
 that it cost me only about forty-five dollars — twenty-five for clothes, 
 ten for a ring and ten more to the preacher. It didn't cost anybody 
 else anything to speak of, for there were no wedding presents. That 
 tomfoolery wasent invented. We didn't go to Niagara, or anywhere 
 right away, but we went to work. A month or so later, we did take a 
 little trip to Tallulah Falls and look at the water tumble over the 
 rocks, but that didn't cost but a few dollars and made no sensation 
 outside the family. My thoughtful wife had enough nice clothes to 
 last her two years when I married her, and they were long afterwards 
 cut up and cut down for the children and there are some precious frag- 
 ments hid away in the old trunk now. The old trunk, and of com- 
 mon size, was sufficient then for a traveling wardrobe for a lady of the 
 land. My father and mother and two children made a journey by sea 
 to Boston with one trunk and a valise, and came back to Georgia by 
 land, in a carriage; but not long since I saw a delicate female travel- 
 ing with two trunks four times as large, and ribbed with iron, and 
 fastened with three massive locks, and still she was not happy. Oh, 
 my country! That girl was too much in love with her clothes to love 
 a man, and nobody but a fortune-hunter would dare to marry her. 
 Young man, beware of trunks! 
 
The Farm and The Fuieside. 301 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 Bill Arp Plays Ringmaster. 
 
 Mrs. Arp was quietly reading The Constitution yesterday while 
 the children were out doors. After awhile she paused, and looking 
 over her spectacles at me, remarked : '' I thought that maybe you would 
 have mentioned that little circumstance about the buggy and the ring- 
 master in one of your letters, but I suppose it does not seem to you to 
 be very interesting matter to write about. Probably if the horse had 
 run away with me, the public would have heard of it." And with that 
 she resumed her reading. Well, that's a fact. I was thinking that 
 the less said about some things the better ; and besides, as I told her, 
 I didn't want to make a hero of myself in such a small transaction. 
 She quietly replied: *'0h, no, of course not; but I didn't think 
 there was very much hero about it, and thought you could mention 
 it in a small way without any particular peril — just to fill up, you 
 know." So I reckon I had better tell it. 
 
 It was her buggy. One of her boys bought it and gave it to her. 
 It had a nice top, and a phaeton shaped body that she could get into 
 so easy, and the harness were hers, and the whip. Everything was 
 new and nice, and she had taken but two rides in it, and so one day I 
 hinted that I would like to see how it meandered over the country, 
 and as it was all agreeable, I had my young horse hitched in, and sailed 
 around smartly. We had worked that horse in the wagon and in the 
 plow, and considered him pretty well broke, for he came from gentle 
 stock, and we had raised him and petted him, and so had no fears 
 about his behavior. One of the girls had been riding with me, and I 
 let her get out at the front gate and drove on up to the big farm gate 
 at the top of the hill, and opened it and led the black rascal through, 
 and I thought he was serene, and knew he was tired, and so I just stepped 
 back for a moment to shut the gate, and away he went like he was 
 shot out of a gun. He run down to the horse lot gate all right, and I 
 
302 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 thought would surely stop there; but finding the gate shut, he took a. 
 little roundance and went sailing down towards the spring, and jumped 
 over a big log, and the buggy jumped too, for it was doing its level 
 best to keep up, and then he took the grand rounds of the hillside 
 grove, and every time I tried to head and catch him he dodged me, 
 and kept on with the buggy, sometimes on four wheels and sometimes 
 on two. I had the whip in my hand, and Mrs. Arp, my wife, says 
 that when she came to the back door to see what was the racket, I was 
 standing there with the whip a- waving, and looked for all the world 
 like a ring master in a circus, and she actually thought I was making 
 the colt run round just for my own amusement. Well, there's no use 
 in making a long story of it now, for what's done can't be helped. 
 That colt tore that buggy all to pieces, and got away from it b sfore he 
 quit trying. He run it against three trees and over four logs, and left 
 the beautiful top in one place and the wheels in another, and the 
 shafts got bent backwards underneath the running gear, and I can't 
 tell to this day how they got there. 
 
 I walked into the house and said nothing for ten minutes, and I 
 didn't want anybody to say anything to me. Mrs. Arp never said 
 nothing, either, but set down to her sewing just as natural, and sorter 
 hummed a piece of a tune. After a spell she looked over at my side 
 of the house, and remarked : 
 
 *'It was a very pleasant evening for your ride." 
 
 *' Uncommon," said I. 
 
 "I expect it will be good for your rheumatism for you to take a 
 ride every evening," said she. 
 
 "They say that walking is better for rheumatism than riding,' 
 said I. 
 
 "Well, you will have a good chance for that now," said she; and 
 she laid down her work and laughed at me — and that's the way she 
 broke me of the pouting melancholy. And that's always the way. 
 AVhen I am distressed and low down, she is all serene and lively and 
 cheers me up. Fact is, she gave me such comfort about that buggy 
 business that I am almost glad it happened. But still I am sorter 
 sore about that ring master part of it, and then again, I overheard the 
 children asking Ralph if he wasn't glad that it wasn't him. And 
 Ralph said, "Goodness gracious! I wouldn't have had it happened to 
 me for a hundred dollars." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 303 
 
 Well, it is not so bad as it might have been, for I might have been 
 in it and had my wheels and my body and springs all tore up. It 
 will cost about twenty dollars to repair the damage, and she says she 
 will pick it up in the road, or get it somehow, and that I mustn't be 
 bothered. 
 
 I was telling my nabor Buford about it yesterday as a great calamity, 
 and he laughed and said: *' All we country folks are used to those 
 things and a heap worse. Why," says he, *'it was only yesterday 
 morning that I and my brother Alf concluded to go to town, creek or 
 no creek, for we knew it was up mighty high, and so weiook round- 
 ance for a shallower ford up at Bradley's, and in we went all right till 
 we got to the little deep swimming place, and the horse gave a lunge 
 to jump that and popped the single-tree, and away he went out of the 
 shafts and broke loose the hip straps and got to bank; but me and Alf 
 was in the buggy trying to hold it down, and as I leaned over to catch 
 my overcoat that was floating away, the buggy just careened over and 
 spilt us both in the water, and it turned over on us, and Alf grabbed holt 
 of one wheel and I of another, and we tried to hold it, but we had got 
 into a sort of a whirlpool that was over our heads, and the box body 
 just turned round and round and over and under, and sometimes we 
 were on top and sometimes the buggy was on top, and we see-sawed 
 that way and thingemajigged down the creek for a hundred and fifty 
 yards, and had finally to let go and swim for the bank. If you ever 
 saw drowned rats we were them, and we were so tired and so surprised 
 we just set there on the bank and looked at one another and smiled, 
 but the smiles were faint and sickly. I followed on down the creek 
 and found my overcoat hung on a haw bush, and had to swim in to get 
 it, but my best shoes were gone for good, and my shawl and some other 
 things that were upon the seat and under it. Well, now, you see, the 
 body got broke aloose and went off, and the wheels and running gear 
 are down in Bishop's mill pond. But we got the horse home, and no 
 lives lost or limbs broken, and are thankful. Alf and I walked home 
 bare headed, and we went a half mile out of the way to keep anybody 
 from seeing us. Our clothes weighed mighty nigh a hundred pounds, 
 besides the overcoat, and we left a wet track behind us. Alf smiled 
 again on the way, and says he: ' Oliver, I tell you what's a fact, folks 
 oughtent to be e-xpecting too much good luck in this sm-struck world 
 nohow, but there is always something good mixed up with the bad.' 
 
304 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 'Well, J should like to know what good there is about- this?' said I. 
 * Why, said he, ' we got such a good washing ; I reckon we are? about 
 the cleanest folks in the settlement.' After while he smiled again, and 
 looked at me and said: 'Well, the cyclone struck us and tore us up, 
 and our fall oats are all killed, and now the high waters have over- 
 flowed us. I wonder what is to be the next dispensation of Provi- 
 dence. I reckon it's a good time to sing : 
 
 * How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord.' " 
 
 What a good thing it is to have on hand at all times a stock of 
 resignation. How comforting is adversity. An old Latin poet tries 
 to describe a perfect man, and says, among other things, that he must 
 never get out of temper, nor live above or below a certain line of calm 
 serenity. That will do pretty w ell for a man, I reckon, but it wouldent 
 suit a woman at all. I heard a smart old man say once that a woman 
 who didn't have temper, and show it now and then, was no account, for 
 while a man ought to be a philosopher and go according to reason, a 
 woman wasent made that way. She is full of emotions, and is bound 
 to show them. She is up and down — now calm and now excited — 
 according to circumstances. Her love is stronger, and her dislike more 
 intense. She has more wonder and curiosity, more tenderness and 
 tears, more sympathy and reverence and hope. In fact, she is a purer, 
 better creation, and was made so because she was to be a mother and 
 the nurse of children. 
 
 "Her prentice hand she tried on man 
 And then she made the lasses." 
 
 I was talking to a nice lady one day about woman's rights, and she 
 said that men and women both had too many rights now, and indulged 
 themselves in some that dident belong to them. **For instance," said 
 she, a * ' man has no right to be a fool, and no woman a right to be 
 homely." "But how can she help it?" said I. **If a woman is born 
 'ugly,' as we call it, it surely is not her fault." "Of course not," said 
 she, "but if she is born that way, she mussent stay that way. She 
 can be good if she wants to be, and she can be kind and entertaining, 
 and that will make any woman pretty on intimate acquaintance. The 
 homeliest woman I ever knew was the most fascinating and attractive. 
 And just so the biggest dunce of a man can keep from being a fool if 
 he tries to; at least he can be a silent one, and then folks wouldent 
 find out he was a fool." 
 
The Farm and The FmEsmE. 305 
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 Doctors Turned Loose. 
 
 Over 200 new doctors turned loose upon the country — 200 from 
 Atlanta alone, and a big lot from Augusta, besides. I went down on 
 Monday to see our boy graduate. His mother went, too, for she 
 believes he is a natural-born doctor and can cure anybody of any- 
 thing, whether he has got it or not. When he comes home she will 
 get sick just for him to have a patient. Old Uncle Sam was com- 
 plaining, and she told him to wait until her doctor came. She has 
 confidence in his technical words, all mixed up with Latin and Greek 
 and other foreign languages. And then, there is his diploma that is 
 in Latin, and it was presented by Col. Hammond in a Latin speech. 
 I suppose this dead language is used as a symbol of the doctor's work. 
 Col. Hammond spoke in a grave tone of voice. He said that the 
 prophet Jeremiah exclaimed, "Is there no balm in Gilead — is there 
 no physician there ! " If he had lived in our day and witnessed the 
 scene before us, he would not have asked that question concerning 
 Atlanta. Here are eighty-six just made from one college. And he 
 advised them all to emulate St. Luke, whom Paul called the beloved 
 physician. Col. Hammond knows a power of Scripture, but he 
 didn't mention King Asa, "who was diseased in his feet, and his 
 disease was exceding great, yet he sought not the Lord, but sought 
 physicians, and he slept with his fathers." Nor did he mention that 
 "certain woman which had an issue of blood for twelve years, and 
 had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that 
 she had, and was nothing better, but rather grew worse." Col. Ham- 
 mond is an optimist, and looks on the bright side, and encouraged the 
 young doctors. He looked at the beautiful bouquets that were sent 
 upon the stage, and said: "Young gentlemen, these flowers are very 
 beautiful and very appropriate for the occasion, but they are before 
 you. Let your zeal, your study, your skill so inspire your professional 
 life that you can look back and see flowers behind you. Flowers of 
 praise and confidence from your patients and your patrons." 
 
306 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 He then presented the doctors with their sheepskins and called each 
 one by his Latin name, and some of them were so peculiar and 
 unique they brought down the house, for John was Johannes, and 
 William was Gulielmus, and Ralph was Radulphus. It reminded me 
 of a lawsuit in a justice's court that happened a long time ago when 
 Mark Blandford, who recently resigned from the bench of the 
 Supreme Court, was a devilish young lawyer. A doctor sued a man for 
 his medical bill of $15, and the man employed Mark to fight the case, 
 for he said the doctor was no account and he discharged him. The 
 doctor swore to his account, and Mark called for his license, or his 
 diploma, and made the point that no doctor had a right to practice 
 without one, and he read the law to the 'squire. And so the old 
 'squire told the doctor to show his sheepskin. He said he had one at 
 home, and asked for leave to go after it, It was just six miles to town, 
 and he rode in a hurry, and returned all in a sweat of perspiration. 
 With an air of triumph he handed it over to Mark and said: "Now, 
 what have you got to say? " Mark unrolled it and saw that it was in 
 Latin. The doctor's name was John Williamson Head, but the Latin 
 made it Johannes Gulielmus, filius. Caput. That was enough for 
 Mark. He made the point that it was not a diploma, but was an old 
 land grant that was issued in old colony times to a man by the name 
 of Caput. He said he had read about the Caputs, and one of their 
 ancestors whose name was John Sebastian Caput, discovered America, 
 and this land grant was a bounty from the king of Spain. The doc- 
 tor raved furiously, but Mark stuck to it that there was no mention in 
 the document of John William Head — that it was issued to one 
 Johannes Gulielmus, filius. Caput — a very different person — and he 
 asked the doctor to please to read the thing to the court. Of course 
 the doctor couldn't do it and he lost his case. The old 'squire said that 
 he didn't know whether it was a land grant or a diploma or a patent 
 for some machine, and if the doctor couldn't read it, he wasent fitten to 
 use it. And so I think those eighty -six doctors had better get Col. 
 Hammond to translate their diplomas, and then learn the English by 
 heart. 
 
 Professor Lane gave the large audience a rare treat — a combination 
 of wit and wisdom that only Charley Lane can make up. He rested 
 his manuscript on an hour glass about four feet high, and all his seri- 
 ous, scholarly thoughts were there, but ever and anon he stepped to 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 307 
 
 the front and illustrated his wisdom with humorous anecdotes that 
 kept his hearers' eyes open, and their mouths too. He was hard down 
 upon patent medicines, and told how Yacob Straus got up a nostrum 
 and hired a fellow to certify: "This is to certify that I lost one of 
 my eyes and two of my legs in the late war, and after using six bot- 
 tles of Yacob Straus's medicine, my blind eye come again, and so did 
 my legs." Openheimer had a drug store, too, and a patent medicine, 
 and when he saw the certificate that Straus had gotten up, he hired a 
 fellow to certify some, too: **I certify that I was unfortunately born 
 without a liver or lights, and suffered untold miseries until I took four 
 bottles of Openheimer's medicine, and now I have as good a liver as 
 anybody and electric lights." 
 
 Professor Lane advised the doctors to use common sense in their 
 practice, and said it was not called common sense because it was com- 
 mon, but because it was commonly needed. 
 
 Then we had a beautiful valedictory by Dr. Park, and the presen- 
 tation of medals by Rev. Dr. Anderson, and last of all the boys 
 caned Dr. Johnston, and then the benediction closed the entertaining 
 exercises. I was ruminating about these doctors — how many would 
 succeed and how many wouldn't ; how many would take to drink and 
 go to the bad ; how many would drift away from parental moorings 
 and become agnostics, or skeptics, or infidels. I thought how much 
 depended on their skill and kindness, and how the loves and hopes of 
 fathers and mothers were centered in what the doctor could do for the 
 child or some loved member of the family. They say that doctors 
 get hardened to suffering. Maybe they do, but they ought not to. 
 If I was a doctor, I would make a show of tenderness and sympathy 
 whether I felt it or not. It goes a long ways with the sick and the 
 suffering, and with the family. 
 
 How much dejDCuds upon the doctor's skill in saving life can never 
 be known, but a friend of mine in New York told me that a very 
 eminent surgeon said to him some years ago : "lam responsible for 
 Grover Cleveland's election. If it had not been for me he would have 
 been defeated. That man Burchard who made the speech about 'Rum, 
 Romanism and Rebellion,' was about to die from kidney disease. He 
 sent for me as a last resort. I cut him open in the back and took his 
 old republican kidney out and cleaned it and put it back again and 
 sewed him up, and he got well and made that speech that drove the 
 
308 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 Roman Catholics away from Blaine and elected Cleveland. Don't you 
 see that if I had made a mistake in my diagnosis, or a mis-cut with 
 my knife, Burchard would have died and Grover would have got 
 left? Eh?" 
 
 And there was that poor man Garfield, the President, whom the 
 doctors killed. An eminent surgeon told me that he was probed to 
 death. They hunted for the ball for three days, and bored new holes 
 with their probes until he was lacerated all through, and for no good. 
 He said that pistol balls did no harm to stay in a man ; that they 
 became incysted, and it was better to let them alone than probe for 
 them, and that the present practice in London and Paris was never to 
 probe, but let nature go to work at once to heal the wound. Garfield 
 would probably have lived if they hadn't probed him, and if he had 
 lived Harrison wouldent have been president, don't you see? But we 
 can't get along without the doctors. They are our comfort and our 
 security by day and by night. They are our hope and our trust in 
 times of afiiiction and peril. Then, hurrah for the new doctors! 
 May they live long and prosper! It is a long ways to the goal of 
 their ambition, but they must have patience if they would have 
 patients. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 309 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 On Hailstorms, Etc. 
 
 When all goes well humaDity is mightily inclined to be stuck up 
 and consequential. Folks strut around aud put on airs as though 
 they had created something, and were the lords of the land, aud dident 
 ask favors of anything or anybody. I've seen rich folks sailing about 
 in phaetons and looking serene and complacent and self-satisfied, and 
 they seemed to have an idea that they made the gold and the silver 
 and the bonds and the stocks, when the truth was they got it all by 
 gouging and fudging and taking underholt; not all of them, but a 
 good many. I've noticed that the rich men who made their money 
 honestly are not the proudest folks in the world. It is generally the 
 men who inherit riches who are the proudest ; folks who never 
 earned an honest dollar in their lives. 
 
 But I was thinking how brave and independent we all feel when 
 there is nothing to scare us. Most anybody will talk big about ghosts 
 and graveyards in the day time, or even at night when sitting by the 
 family fireside. Most men are brave according to circumstances; 
 they are brave when they have a chance for life, and they are 
 brave when they have good backers. They are brave when they 
 have time enough to see the danger beforehand and prepare 
 for it. But they are all cowards when taken by surprise or over- 
 whelmed all of a sudden by some terrible unusual thing, especially 
 some power of nature that no man can contend with — cyclones and 
 storms and earthquakes and thunder and lightning subdues a poor 
 mortal quick and takes all the stiffning out of him. It was only yes- 
 terday when the elements were on a rampage at my house, and the 
 thunder pealed and the lightning played around, and black and angry 
 clouds gathered over us, and darkness came before its time, aud the 
 children all huddled up around us and looked wild, and the dogs came 
 running from the field, and the first thing we knew somebody threw a 
 white rock on the roof of the house and I saw it bounce and roll off 
 
310 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 in the front yard, and while we were all wondering who did it a 
 shower of them came down with a crashing noise, and we saw they 
 were hail stones — stones sure enough — none of your coriander seed, 
 but stones as large as walnuts, and some as large as guinea eggs, and 
 they fell as thick and fast as rain drops on a mill pond. It wasent two 
 minutes before the ground was as white as snow and the hail was 
 bank'id up in piles in all the corners and low places. The sheep came 
 running and bleating from the meadow, the horses made tracks for 
 the stable, the chickens and ducks run under the house. Down, 
 down it came stripping the fruit trees of their blooms and tearing the 
 leaves off the euonimous bushes and mashing down the peas and 
 onions and last, but not least, smashing through every pane of glass on 
 the flower pit. The flowers were about half killed before, and now 
 the wreck is all complete, and I've got work to do before Mrs. Arp 
 comes home, so as to keep domestic affairs all calm and serene. The 
 glass may go until next fall, for the plants needed ventilation anyhow, 
 but I must get some more flowers and fill up the pots anew. 
 
 Just about the time when the storm subsided and the children had 
 begun to run about and gather the big round hail, I observed a way- 
 faring man driving slowly down the hill and stop at my gate. He 
 was humped over nearly double and had a long grizzly grey beard 
 that looked demoralized, and his big broad-brimmed hat was all in a 
 flop and hung down in wet scollops over his face and ears and the 
 back of his neck. He stopped, but never said anything and looked 
 like he didn't know where he come from nor whither he was going. 
 After a minute, he ventured to raise one flop of his hat brim and 
 looked up at me as I stood wondering on the piazza. He never called 
 nor said good morning, but raised one arm and in a beseeching manner 
 motioned me to come. I hurried down to his relief, and found it was 
 my old friend, Col. Hutchinson, and as he looked piteously at me from 
 under the flops, said: ** Major, I'm a ruined man, I'm beat all into 
 doll rags, and there's a thousand bumps on my poor head as big as 
 turkey eggs. My back and my neck have been through a threshing 
 machine. I'm as humble as a dead nigger. I'm the rise of sixty years 
 old, and never was whipped before. Major, I want somebody to pray 
 for me. I prayed for myself awhile ago. I prayed more in two min- 
 utes than I ever did in all my life, and I prayed harder, and if the 
 good Lord spares me, I'm going to be a better man." 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 311 
 
 ''Why, Colonel, " said I, "where were you? Did your horse cut 
 up ? Have you been in all that hail ? " 
 
 "I have, Major," said he, and the tears came in his eyes. "It took 
 me all unawares and my horse got to raring and pitching, and I 
 couldn't get out of the buggy, and so I run him up against your nabor 
 Freeman's fence, a^nd he danced and he pranced and squatted and 
 trembled, and I held him and honied him and prayed all the time as 
 hard as I could pray, and the hail-stones popped me until they mashed 
 my hat down over my ears, and then my skull cotch it hot and heavy, 
 and my head is swelled up so big now I can't get my hat off." 
 
 "Mighty bad. Colonel," said I, "awful bad for an old man like you." 
 
 "Yes," said he, "and it seemed tome that every time a big old 
 sockdolager struck me I could hear somebody say, 'Oh, you old sinner, 
 you time honored sinner, I'll maul the grace into your unbelieving 
 soul.'" 
 
 I tried to get the injured man to get out and come in, but he 
 mournfully said "no," for he must get out o' town and see a doctor 
 and a preacher. 
 
 But how long the colonel will remain humble I don't know, for as 
 a general thing a man's repentance and humility passes away with his 
 trouble and his danger. 
 
 " The devil was sick, the devil a saint would be. 
 The devil got well, the devil a saint was he." 
 
 Well, the equinox has come and gone, and maybe the spring will 
 open now and let us farm in earnest; all we could do the last two 
 months was to repair damages after the freshets and stay in the house 
 and read. I took a notion the other day to thin out my shade trees 
 in the grove, for they were too thick and were so crowded the limbs of 
 some of them were dying. I've been wanting to do it for a long 
 time, but my wife, Mrs. Arp, thinks nearly as much of a tree as she 
 does of me, and whenever I mentioned the subject there was a veto, 
 and I couldn't pass the bill over it by the proper majority. So while 
 she was away looking -after her new grand children, I cut two of the 
 trees down and made firewood of them, and cleaned up every chip and 
 fragment, and put old dirt where the stumps were, and the children 
 have all agreed to make no sign, and they have got up a bet or two as 
 to whether their maternal ancestor will miss the tree or not, and little 
 Jessie has bet her doU against a nickel that her ma will say something 
 
312 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 about the trees before she gets out of the buggy. But she will get 
 reconciled after awhile, especially if I get some more flowers. And 
 besides, there is a surprise for her in the house, for the girls have 
 painted the dining-room floor and the doors and windows and mantle- 
 piece, and whitewashed the walls a pretty straw color, and painted the 
 ceiling overhead a lovely brown to hide fly specks, and now they are 
 at work on another room ; and we boys are building a new front fence 
 and making another terrace, and so, take it all in all, I reckon we will 
 all harmonize and everything be calm and serene. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 313 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 Runaway Negroes, Ghosts and Old-Time Darkies. 
 
 "Papa, please tell us a story. Tell us something about runaway 
 niggers." 
 
 I had almost forgotten that there ever was a runaway nigger. 
 Good gracious ! What a long time ago it was. Here is a whole gener- 
 ation of people under thirty years of age who know nothing about 
 slavery. It is seldom that we old folks talk about it to our children. 
 We tell them frequently of our frolics with the little darkies, and how 
 good old Aunt Peggy was to us, and how we used to hunt with Big 
 Ben and Virgil and Uncle Sam, and we repeat some of the ghost 
 stories they used to tell us and all that, but the idea of slavery hardly 
 ever comes in. These darkies all belonged to the family and just 
 lived with us. That is all. We were all bunched together, and it 
 was understood that when one of the boys got married and set up for 
 himself he was to have little Dave and Buck and black Dap and Aunt 
 Sally, for he had always claimed these and they had always claimed 
 him. And Miss Tavy had picked out her vassals in her early child- 
 hood and nobody need lay any claim or expectation to Tip or Sinda 
 or Beck, for they were to be hers and they knew it and were proud of 
 it, and took a peculiar interest in the young man who ''come flying 
 around Miss Tavy." They even dared to venture their counsel and 
 were loud in their praise of their favorite. This was right, and it 
 was natural, for while she was choosing her lord they were choosing a 
 master, and a harmonious choice w^as a good thing all around. Old 
 Aunt Peggy was an oracle in her way. She was little and old and 
 wrinkled, and smoked her pipe in the chimney corner, and never 
 talked much. But she sat and swayed backward and forward and 
 listened to the children — the black and the white. She called them 
 all children if they were under fifty. But ever and anon she would 
 give a grunt or shake her head and say "dat won't do, my child. Bet- 
 ter mine how you talk, now; better mine. I hear de screech owl last 
 
314 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 night and he talk to me, he did," and she would make up some mys 
 terious words that the screech owl said. Aunt Peggy believed in 
 frogs and lizzards and owls and bats and cats and snakes and jack 
 o'lanterns and charms and cunjuring. There were secret mysteries 
 about them all, and they had to be propitiated and kept amiable or 
 some great harm would come upon the household. Where the old 
 negroes got all this superstitious lore nobody knows exactly, but it is 
 not confined to them. There have been just such superstitions in all 
 ages and countries. Macbeth consulted the witches and they made 
 their charms by seething that horrible gruel made of frogs and lizzards 
 and owls and bats and and adders' tongues and goats' gall and a 
 Turk's nose and a Tartar's lips and other unpalatable things, and then 
 cooled it down and settled it with a baboon's blood. Those old-time 
 negroes would have made splendid witches if there had been any 
 witch school to go to. It suited their nature, and it suits it yet. As 
 a race, they delight in the marvelous when it is mixed up with the 
 horrible. Old Uncle Sam was a good old darkey and the children 
 loved him. He was familiar with spirits and graveyards, and had 
 shook hands with Rawhead and Bloodybones, and when freedom came 
 he gave full play to his fancies and got him a little long-eared donkey 
 and a pair of spectacles and rode from cabin to cabin by day and by 
 night, calling himself "Doctor Sam," and professing to cure all diseases 
 of his race by the mysterious art of »cunjuring. He carried his profes- 
 sional outfit in an old greasy sack before him, and he was the most 
 ludicrous burlesque upon the medical profession ever seen, I reckon. 
 I would give five dollars for a photograph of the whole concern as it 
 used to slowlj perambulate the Chattahoochee region of old Gwinnett 
 some twenty years ago. I prevailed on the old gentleman once to let 
 me see the inside of that bag and take an inventory. Besides nearly 
 everything that Shakespeare named, he had every curious bug he 
 could find. Betty bugs and June bugs and tumble bugs, and the 
 devil's riding horse, and the devil's darning needle, and a green snake, 
 and a thousandleg, and a lot of herbs, such as hemlock and jimpson 
 weed and snake root. He assured me that he had to use all these 
 things in the very bad cases he came across in his extensive practice. 
 But the children wanted a story about runaway niggers. Well, I 
 never saw a runaway nigger. That is, while he was a runaway. I 
 have seen them after they were caught or come in of their own 
 
The Farm and The FiPwEside. 315 
 
 accord. We boys and girls used to be awfully afraid of them. They 
 were classed among our very worst boogers, such as bears and pan- 
 thers and Indians and ghosts. Children were always on the lookout 
 for one when they were going through lonely woods. Sometimes we 
 found a hogbed where an old sow had littered her pigs, and we pro- 
 nounced it a runaway's bed, and got away from there with celerity. 
 They were very scarce in that region. I do not remember but one 
 and he was suddenly cured of his propensity, for when he came back 
 home his master run him off again and made him stay in the woods 
 until he was properly humbled and begged to stay at home. I never 
 thought that I should have a runaway nigger, but I did. Our col- 
 ored household were, as I thought, devoted to us, and I knew that we 
 were devoted to them. Our maid-servant, Mary, had nursed all our 
 first children, and they loved her. A neighboring gentleman owned 
 her husband, and as he was a high-strung darkey, they did not get along 
 harmoniously. One night he took to the woods, or somewhere else 
 unknown, and he stayed there. In course of time his master got tired 
 of this and offered a reward, but the reward did not seem to catch 
 him. The police frequented my premises by night, for they suspected 
 that Mary harbored him, and so did I, but still Anderson could not 
 be found. I didn't like the darkey, but Mary was faithful and kind, 
 and she begged me with tears to buy Anderson. So I interviewed his 
 master and bought him — bought him in the woods, and that night 
 when I went home and told Mary that Anderson was mine she clapped 
 her hands with joy, and went out hurridly and in ten minutes came 
 back with Anderson, who was smiling and fat with his long rest under 
 the fodder in my stable loft. 
 
 It was about two months after this that the foul invaders run us 
 out of Rome. It was about midnight when I aroused the servants 
 and told them that I was going, and their mistress was going, and the 
 children were going, and they could all do as they pleased. With one 
 accord they declared they would follow us to the end of the earth, and 
 so we fled together and camped out together, and Mary had our baby 
 in her arms, and when we reached Atlanta our teams and servants 
 camped on the suburbs while we went into the city to more friendly 
 quarters. Next morning Mary and Anderson were gone. They had 
 run away in the night and returned to Rome. Well, I couldn't blame 
 them, for Anderson was not attached to me, and he longed for free- 
 
316 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 dom, and he persuaded Mary to go. That was all of it — no, not all, 
 for when we got back to Rome, in 1865, they were there, and Mary 
 was repentant and came to us for protection again. Her husband had 
 joined the army, and when the army left he ran away from them and 
 lost his pension and his bounty, and later on he ran away from Mary 
 and I don't know where he is now. But Tip, the faithful Tippecanoe, 
 would not leave me. I did not own his family, but he left them on that 
 dark, unhappy night and followed us to Atlanta, and in a few days I 
 made him go back to take care of things and see after the welfare of 
 his wife and children. To keep from being suspected as a spy he, too, 
 joined the colored regiment as a cook and stayed a few days, and one 
 dark night he swam the Oustanaula river and went down the western 
 bank of the Coosa about ten miles and swam that river, and by a cir- 
 cuitous route reached Atlanta in safety and followed our fortunes until 
 the war was over. Well, those were the only runaways I ever had. 
 Two ran away from me to the yankees, and one ran away from the 
 yankees to get to me. Mr. Lincoln's proclamation was nothing to 
 Tip. Tip was with me in Virginia. Tip was always faithful and 
 affectionate. Tip deserves a pension from somebody, and I wish I 
 was able to give him one. But Tip knows there is a home for him at 
 my house whenever he is homeless. There are thousands of white 
 men whose chances for heaven are not so good as Tip's. 
 "Kun, nigger, run, de * pat-roller' catch you; 
 Run, nigger, run, you better get away." 
 
 They used to sing that song and pick the music on the banjo. They 
 used to dodge and flank the patrol like the smugglers or the moon- 
 shiners dodge the revenue laws. They enjoyed the peril of it, and 
 sometimes would go on a night excursion without a pass rather than 
 ask for one. If they planned to rob a hen-roost or an orchard or a 
 watermelon patch, it was better to have no pass, so as to prove an 
 alibi. *' Let Dick pass to his wife's house at Jim Dunlap's and stay 
 till Monday morning." That was Dick's passport and protection, but 
 Dick must keep in the road, and not go skylarking over the settle- 
 ment. Nevertheless, the petty stealing would happen, and so a law 
 was passed making it a crime for a white man to buy chickens or pro- 
 duce from a negro without an order from his master. My uncle 
 bought ten chickens from a darkey one Saturday night and they hap- 
 pened to be stolen, and the fellow who lost them reported it to the 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 317 
 
 grand jury, and those chickens cost my uncle twenty-five dollars. If 
 they had not been stolen it would have been all right and no harm 
 done. The negroes stole little things then just like they do now. 
 They enjoyed it. It was their nature. They were not hungry. I 
 have known them to rob an orchard and give the fruit away. The 
 best negro would carry something contraband to his wife's house Sat- 
 urday night if he could get it. But the clever, industrious negroes 
 had no fear of the patrol. The patrol knew all in their beat and 
 never asked a good negro for his pass. The patrol was made up of 
 the best citizens in the naborhood, and they took it time about in 
 doing night duty in their own vicinity. When thieving got bad they 
 went out frequently and raised a big racket and the mean darkies 
 caught it bad. But when everything was quiet they would not go out 
 once a month. Sometimes the darkies made narrow escapes and would 
 jump the back window when they spied the patrol coming, and then 
 the race was to the swift, sure enough, and the old song came in: 
 " Run, nigger, run, de * pat-roller ' catch you ! " 
 Many a good story have they told us boys how they fooled the 
 patrol and got away. It was more of a frolic than a fear, and one 
 success made them bold and ready for another. Such was negro life 
 in our young days; and it wasn't so bad, so very bad, after all. 
 
318 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 The Candy-Pulling. 
 
 "What's all this rumpus about?" I came home to dinner and 
 found the house full and yard full of children, grandchildren and 
 other children. ''Oh, nothing much," said Mrs. Arp. ''I prom- 
 ised them a little party and they have come over to spend the day, 
 and brought some little friends with them." 
 
 "Well, but these door-knobs are all stuck up with candy." "Yes, 
 they had a candy pulling, and, I expect, have messed up things just 
 like children will. I will wipe off the door-knobs." 
 
 ' ' Well, but here Pve gone and set down on a lump of it in this 
 chair." 
 
 Mrs. Arp smiled and said: "Well, there's the washbowl and 
 a rag." 
 
 I meandered out in the piazza and found candy knee deep in every- 
 thing. The chaps were in the back yard cooking dinner on a little 
 brick furnace they had built. Some were toting water and some 
 bringing wood, and they had potatoes and rice and eggs and butter 
 and pepper and everything they could beg from the cook. The 
 waterspout was running all over everything. I stopped that part of 
 it and surrendered to the rest, and retired to my accustomed seat at 
 my desk. 
 
 "Who has been here projecting with my pens and letter pads, and 
 turned over my inkstand and messed up my papers ? " 
 
 "Oh, I don't reckon they have hurt anything. Rosa wanted to 
 show me how she was learning to write. There was very little ink in 
 the stand. I wiped off all she spilt." 
 
 I got up and walked in the garden, as King Ahasuerus did, to let 
 my choler down, and I found where they had been picking peas and 
 broke the twine that held the vines up, (I always stick my peas with 
 twine), and so I came out of the garden to let my choler down some- 
 where else. I looked all round for. the children to give them a bless- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 319 
 
 ing, but they had become alarmed, for Mrs. Arp had told them to 
 run and hide. 'Til wear them out," said I. "Fll wear them out, 
 big and little, old and young. Fm awful mad. Fm as mad as a 
 mad bull. Broke down my pea vines ! " And I mocked a bull and 
 pawed dirt. The chaps had run up the ladder and got on the shed 
 roof of the house, and as I pranced and bellowed around they smoth- 
 ered their laughter until I was out of sight, and then they turned 
 loose in full chorus. I found the buggy pulled out of the shed and 
 the whip gone, and the calf was tied up in the back lot with a saddle 
 on, so I took my seat in the front piazza and put my feet on the rail- 
 ing and ruminated. My thoughts carried me away back to my child- 
 hood when I took delight in such things, and the whole picture came 
 before me like the turning of a kaleidoscope. What a pity that folks 
 can't be as happy as when they are children. About this time Mrs. 
 Arp came out with a bundle of stuff and remarked that she brought 
 home some pinks and chrysanthemums that must be planted out. 
 "Are you doing anything?" said she. *'I am ruminating," said I, 
 solemnly. ''Well, you had better ruminate around for the garden 
 hoe, and Fll help you put them out — your back needs exercise." 
 
 I was picking peas the other morning, and as they were of the low 
 kind, I had to bend over smartly, and by and by when I tried to 
 straighten up, I couldn't straighten. There was a hitch and a pain in 
 my veins — the same old trouble I had once before when I worked in 
 the water half a day damming up the branch to make a wash hole for 
 t^e children — so I hurried from the garden to the house half bent and 
 made my usual fuss for help and sympathy. I was down for two days, 
 and took medicine and chicken soup, and they put a bellydona plaster 
 on my back as big as a letter pad, and it is there yet, and Fm not 
 well, by a long shot but my folks seem to think I am. If I get up 
 and creep to town, they put me to work aa soon as I get back. I 
 used to have boys of all sorts and sizes to wait upon me and do my 
 bidding, but they have all grown up and left me but one, and he is 
 at school, and when he isn't, he is off somewhere at baseball or tennis 
 or picnicing around. I am the boy now — the waiting boy. 
 
 I was ruminating, but I found the hoe and dug around according to 
 orders. Last night at the supper table Mrs. Arp remarked, as she was 
 making the coffee, that to-day was another anniversary. I thought she 
 meant a birthday, for they seem to come about once a week in the 
 
320 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 family, and she always wants to make a little present of some sort — 
 a spoon, or napkin ring, or sleeve buttons, or something. I tell you 
 what is a fact — where there are ten or a dozen children in a family to 
 start on and they grow up and get married and multiply and replen- 
 ish, and the posterity keeps on getting "more thicker, more denser," 
 as Cobe says, and the maternal ancestor is a large-hearted woman, 
 these birthday gifts and wedding presents will keep the old man^s sur- 
 plus down as effectually as the Republican party keeps it down in the 
 United States Treasury. It is the easiest thing in the world. I never 
 saw a mother with a numerous flock of lovely offspring but what she 
 wanted a big house and a bushel of money. My wife is always scratch- 
 ing around hunting up something for the children. She reminds me 
 of an old hen with a brood of young chickens, always a-clucking and 
 scratching — and she says that I remind her of the old rooster who 
 every now and then finds a bug or a worm and makes a big fuss and 
 calls up the little chicks, and just before they get there he gobbles it 
 up himself. 
 
 No, she didn't mean a birthday. She said that twenty-seven years 
 ago to-day we were running from the foul invader as fast as our 
 good horse and a rockaway could carry us. "Just about this time,"" 
 said she, "we were hurrying across Euharlee bridge and I trembled 
 all over for fear it would break in two, for it vibrated up and down to 
 old Buckner's heavy trot, but you never slackened up a bit, and we 
 fairly flew through old Van Wert, and took the mountain road until 
 we got to Mr. Whitehead's, about dark." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "and we stayed all night there, and they did the 
 best they could for all the runnagees, but they dident have room for. 
 the men folks, and we slept out doors under the wagon shed, and the 
 fleas kept us so lively that we got up in the night and run through the 
 bushes to brush them off, just like cattle do when the flies are after 
 them." 
 
 "And the next morniug about daylight," said she, "the news came 
 that the yankees were coming, and we started up that long mountain, 
 and it did seem to me that we never would get to the top. It must 
 have been three or four miles up, and we felt pretty safe then and 
 stopped awhile to rest, and then we scooted away to Dallas and rested 
 there for dinner, and that night we camped out somewhere near Pow- 
 der Springs. The wagon and our tent and baggage kept up pretty 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 321 
 
 well, but we found out we dident have anything to cook in except a 
 coffee pot." 
 
 *' Yes, I remember," said I, *'and we sent Tip off to a little farm 
 house to borrow a skillet, and he came back without it and said the 
 old woman told him the old man was washin' his feet in it, and we 
 would have to wait until he got through. She said his feet had sores 
 on 'em, and the dishwater was powerful good for sores. Tip tried 
 another place and got a skillet that wasn't so popular." 
 
 ''And next morning," said Mrs. Arp, "we stopped to get some 
 water at a house, and the well was in the front yard, and it was 
 locked with a chain and a padlock, and they wouldn't let us have a 
 drop, ahd you gave the woman 10 cents for a cupful for the baby. 
 Oh, it was just awful." 
 
 "I believe," said I, "that we had about seven children then." 
 
 "Yes," said she, wuth a sigh, "poor little half-starved things." 
 
 "Why, they enjoyed it," said I. "They thought it was a big frolic, 
 and that we were running a race with Joe Johnston, trying to see who 
 would beat to Atlanta." 
 
 "Stella was the baby then," said my wife, looking at her earnestly, 
 "a little fretful, black-eyed baby, and now she is sitting here, a mother, 
 with a child of her own that is so much like what she was then that 
 sometimes I imagine the child is mine, and I am getting ready to make 
 a new run from the yankees." 
 
 "May the foul invaders live long, when the devil gets them," said 
 I. "They kept you trotting, and you bore it like a heroine; you have 
 seen a good deal of troublous life, and I'm thankful that now your 
 days are calm and serene." 
 
322 The Farm and The FiEEsmE. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 Family Reform. 
 
 Nature can beat art sometimes. I've been to the theatre afore now, 
 and the players acted the play so natural and sympathetic that I got 
 all tangled up and excited, and would cry or laugh just as they did; 
 but nature can beat art sometimes. Just about sundown, the other 
 evening, while we were all sitting in the piazza, calm and serene, 
 there was a wild shriek down at the corner of the garden, and it was 
 Carl calling, and he said: **Run here to Linton! Linton is killed! 
 Run, papa; run, somebody;" and we did run, and Mrs. Arp and the 
 girls cried, "Oh, mercy! Oh, good Lord!" and all sorts of interjec- 
 tions and conjunctions at every step, and there was a wild and fearful 
 panic when we got to the boy, and he was lying pale and senseless on 
 the rocky ground, with a big limb across his breast. He had fallen 
 about twelve feet from the top of a venerable apple tree that they 
 say was planted by the Indians about sixty years ago. I heaved the 
 old broken limb off of the boy and took him in my arms, and then up 
 the hill to the house, and my escort, oh, my escort! with then- cries 
 and screams, demoralized me fearfully. He was a stout lad of thir- 
 teen, this grandson of ours, and as tough as a pine-knot, and I knew 
 he was hurt, badly hurt, but I can always keep calm and serene on 
 such occasions, if the women will let me. Laying him gently on the 
 bed, Mrs. Arp ripped his garments with trembling hands and moth- 
 erly sobbings to find the flowing blood and the gaping wounds and 
 the broken limbs, but they were not there. He was shocked and 
 senseless, and breathed hard and gurgled in his throat, and groaned 
 and sighed, but I had seen those isigns before with the other boys, and 
 had faith. And sure enough, m about an hour he came to himself, 
 and looking around upon the excited family, asked what was the mat- 
 ter, and said: ''Grandma, I dreamed I was falling from the apple 
 tree." The doctor came about that time and found his arm and 
 shoulder badly bruised and one rib hurt, perhaps fractured, and said 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 323 
 
 be would be awful sore for a day or two, and tben get well and be 
 ready for tbe next skirmish. But Mrs. Arp was not satisfied, and 
 watched him all night, and as he slept she listened to his breathing 
 and felt his pulse and imagined that something was internally wrong. 
 The boy carries his arm in a handkerchief now, and can't go in a 
 washing nor shoot a sling nor climb a tree, and he and Carl have to 
 stay in the house and read story books and look at the pictures. But 
 the like of this has to happen. It is part of a boy's raising. I 
 wasent much account until I fell down a ladder head foremost and 
 was picked up for dead. I told my wife I wouldent give a cent for a 
 boy who had never fell out of an apple, tree or got his arm broke, or 
 his head gashed, or something of the kind. If a man has never had 
 any narrow escapes, or any wounds, or any broken bones, or been 
 thrown from a horse and picked up for dead, what kind of a father 
 will he be? What has he got to tell his little boy, and excite his won- 
 der and admiration? I had lots of mishaps myself, and as I grow 
 older Mrs. Arp says they grow bigger and more numerous. Well, of 
 course ! Nobody wants to tell the same old thing the same old way a 
 thousand times. Amplification is a sign of genius. Being knocked 
 down and addled is a big thing ; but to be picked up for dead is 
 heroic. 
 
 I've got these children to watch now. Mrs. Arp has gone to 
 visit her old home in Gwinnett, and she gave me a whole cata- 
 logue of admonitions and ordinations and recapitulations, which I've 
 forgotten already. She has gone to see her brothers and their wives 
 and children, and the dear old home where her father and mother 
 used to wear the parental crown, and had more love and more power 
 than a king. What a sacred temple was that old family room. It 
 was the court where she brought all her childish troubles and got 
 comfort. She remembers every nail in the floor, every brick in the 
 hearth, every knot in the ceiling overhead. She wanted to see the 
 big old oaks in the back yard, under whose shades she played and 
 fiwung and had her playhouse of broken china. The cooing pigeons 
 made love upon their spreading limbs by day, and the noisy katydids 
 by night. She wanted to see the big old spring at the foot of the 
 hill, for she knew there was no change, no decay, no mortality there. 
 The water is still running, and though the frog and the craw-fish and 
 the spring-lizzard that used to excite her youthful fears, have departed 
 
324 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 this life intestate, they left children to inherit and enjoy that peaceful^ 
 shady spring. The little branch still flows on over its gravelly bed 
 and down into the little fish pond below, and the ripple of its water* 
 Btfll sings that same old song — 
 
 " For men may come and men may go, 
 But I go on forever." 
 
 I know that her memory will linger there sweetly, for she used to 
 wade in that branch, and she would like to wade in it again if nobody 
 was looking, but I reckon she won't. There is a 'simmon tree on the 
 hill close by that she used to climb in the fall of the year, for she was 
 as fond of 'simmons as a 'possum, but she will never clinb it any more; 
 I reckon she won't. The grape vine swing at the back of the gardea 
 and the saplings she used to bend down and ride are gone — all gone; 
 but she doesn't want to ride saplings now. Old Aunt Peggy has 
 gone, too ; gone where the good darkies go. She was always old and 
 wrinkled and dried up, but she was faithful unto death, and the 
 children loved her. Nobody knew how old she was. For forty con- 
 secutive years she said she was a hundred — no more, no less — always 
 a hundred. But, dearest of all, is the old grave-yard, where *Hhe 
 rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." I know she will linger there 
 with sweet and sad emotions, for there sleep her nearest and dearest 
 ones — father and mother and brothers and an only sister, and, sweetest 
 of all, a dear little babe of her own. How surely does life and love 
 repeat the scenes of our youth. Hers were fond parents, and there 
 was a flock of children, fair children, all hopeful and happy and 
 loving, and they were ten— just ten. She and I have succeeded 
 them, and we have ten — just ten. We, too, have a cottage home and 
 a spring at the foot of the hill, and a branch for the children to play 
 in, and a fish pond, and big oaks with pigeons cooing on the limbs. 
 Just as they had, we have pea-fowls to scream, and ducks and 
 chickens, and sheep, and cattle, and dogs' bark and cats' purr, and 
 our children and grandchildren come and go; and by and by we 
 will go to sleep and leave them all alone, just as we were left. 
 
 And this is right — all right. When we have served our day and 
 generation, then let us go. Let us marshal them the way of life, and 
 give good counsel, and retire in peace and Christian hope of a reunion. 
 Not a reunion like the soldiers have — that comes every year, with 
 diminished numbers — but a reunion in a better land that grows and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 325 
 
 grows to countless legions, and every year brings new recruits from 
 kindred and from friends. How often do I sit in reverie when I hear 
 of a good parent's, death and dream I hear the glad voices of those 
 who have gone before, as they bring tidings of each other and say, 
 "Our father has come," "Our mother has come at last." What a 
 welcome to the orphan when the angel mother gives the warm 
 embrace and says, "My child, my child! God bless my child!' 
 Some folks don't believe in this, but I do. 
 
 I'm going to wallop these boys if they don't mind. I've humored 
 and indulged them until they think there is no willipus wallipus on 
 the plantation. They slipped off and went in a-washing this evening 
 about four o'clock, when the sun was as hot as blazes. I had promised 
 them they might go in late, when the shadows of the willows had 
 covered the pond, and now they say they misunderstood me. Their 
 backs are nearly blistered, and I've a good mind to blister them a 
 little lower down. I would have done it, but Linton has a lame arm 
 and Carl was running at the nose. I see a lame guinea hopping 
 around, and it hops very like a slingshot struck it. They killed a 
 pigeon not long ago, and said they didn't mean to hit it, but was just 
 trying to see how close they could miss it. I found my first and big- 
 gest melon plugged in the patch, and, though I didn't believe they 
 would do me that mean, I held a courtmartial and took testimony and 
 looked as fierce and majestic as possible. They declared their inno- 
 cence and showed a heap of wounded feelings and told how they 
 found our little darkey's knife in the melon patch, and so the little 
 darkey surrendered and confessed, which never was done by a darkey 
 before, and his mother whipped him from Dan to Beersheba, and my 
 boys were discharged with honor and the commendation of the court. 
 Carl is a very good boy by himself, and Linton is good by himself. 
 Each of them work well in single harness, but hitch them together to 
 a wagon and they are bound to break something. I'm going for these 
 chaps while Mrs. Arp is away. I'm for civil service reform now. 
 Their mothers are afar off and I'm the autocrat. I'll teach them how 
 to grabble the goobers before they are ripe. 
 
 No, I won't, either, and they know I won't. These boys are 
 mighty good to me. They bring me fresh water from the spring 
 without being told. They black my shoes when I am going to town. 
 They follow me around the farm and help me get roasting ears. They 
 
326 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 listen to my marvelous stories with an affectionate wonder that flatters 
 my vanity. They borrow my pocket-knife. They find my hat and 
 my walking-stick, and help me dig the potatoes for dinner. They are 
 good company, these boys, now that Jessie has gone. I miss "Jessie, 
 the flower of Dumblane." She is my special comfort when I am 
 ailing or have the blues. She rubs my head and brushes my back 
 hair and talks so loving and kind, and always kisses me good-night 
 after she has said her prayers. 
 
 Mrs. Arp will go to meeting Sunday. The same old church is 
 there close by her old home — the church she was raised in and where 
 she went to class-meeting, and heard old Fathers Murphey and Ivy 
 and Norton talk. The church where Judge Longstieet used to preach 
 at quarterly meetings — Judge Longstreet who used to distress old 
 Uncle Allan Turner, a good old man, because the judge would play 
 on the fiddle and flute, and wrote some unheavenly stories in the 
 Georgia Scenes. Both of these notable men always found welcome at 
 her father's house, and while the judge was discoursing sweet music 
 in the parlor, old father Turner was walking the piazza, interceding in 
 silent prayer for his forgiveness and reform. There were never two 
 Christian men more unlike than they, but they are both in heaven 
 now, and maybe Uncle Allan has got reconciled to music. We are 
 all a bundle of prejudices, as well as habits, and I am glad to know 
 that the age in which we live to-day is more tolerant that the last. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 327 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 Music. 
 
 Music is the only employment that is innocent and refining, and that 
 cannot be indulged in to excess. It stands by itself as the peculiar 
 gift of God. It is the only art that is alike common to angels and to 
 men. It has a wonderful compass and variety, and yet from the 
 grandest to the simplest, it is all pleasing and all innocent. Every 
 other pleasure can be carried to dissipation, but not music. 
 
 The highest order of music is that which we never hear, but only 
 read about and wonder. It is called the music of the spheres — the 
 grand symphony that is made by the planets and other heavenly bodies 
 coursing around the sun, and which Milton says is heard only by God 
 and the angels. I don't suppose that such creatures as we are, afflicted 
 and limited with original sin, could bear that kind of music. The child 
 that is charmed with a lullaby or soothed to sleep with "Hush, my 
 dear, lie still and slumber," would be frightened at an oratorio from 
 Handel. But musical taste is progressive, like every other good thing. 
 
 The time was when I thought "Billy in the low grounds," and 
 "Bonaparte crossing the Rhine," perfectly splendid, but I don't now. 
 I have advanced to a higher grade. By degrees the children have 
 educated me, and as they climb up, I climb a little, too. Time was 
 when I thought "Kathleen Mavourneen" the sweetest song, and my 
 wife, whom I was courting, the sweetest singer in the world. But I 
 don't now — that is, I mean the song. There are sweeter songs. I 
 don't wish to be misunderstood about the singer. No doubt her voice 
 has the same alluring, ensnaring, angelic, elysian sweetness it had forty 
 years ago, more or less, but the fault is in me, for when a man has 
 once been allured, and ensnared, and is getting old and deaf, he loses 
 some of his gushing appreciation. Nevertheless, when her eldest 
 daughter touches the ivory keys and sings Longfellow's beautiful 
 hymn of 
 
 "The day is done, and the darkness 
 Falls from the wings of night," 
 
328 The Farm and The FiREsroE. 
 
 my appreciation seems to come back, and it makes me calm and serene 
 
 There is nothing in all nature that so proves the goodness of God to 
 his creatures as in giving to them the love of music and the faculty to 
 make it. It is the cheapest and the most universal pleasure. Much 
 of it costs nothing, for we hear it in the winds and waves, the trees, 
 the waterfalls, and from the birds and insects. It is of many kinds, 
 from the pealing anthem that swells the note of praise in Westminster 
 Abbey, down to the plantation harmonies of the old-time darkies around 
 the corn-pile. Between these extremes we have the music of the drama, 
 the concert, the nursery, and the drawing-room. 
 
 I was having these thoughts because Mrs. Arp and the children 
 were practicing some church music in the parlor, preparing for Sun- 
 day. Some of the family belong to the choir, and it is a good thing 
 to belong to. Choirs have their little musical fusses sometimes, and 
 get in the pouts; but, nevertheless, it is a good place to raise children. 
 It makes them go to church and to Sunday-school, and go early, and 
 if they are facing the congregation they have to keep awake and 
 behave decently, and they do their best to look pretty and sing 
 sweetly. I used to belong to the choir, and it was there Mrs. Arp 
 saw me, and ever and anon heard the sweet strains of my melodious 
 tenor voice. But, alas! that voice has changed to a bass at one end 
 and a falsetto at the other, and * * there's a melancholly crack in my 
 laugh." 
 
 Young man, young woman, if you have any gifts for music, you 
 had better join the church choir, but if you haven't, don't. 
 
 Sacred music is very much varied according to denominations. The 
 Roman Catholic church is the oldest and the richest and has the most 
 passionate music and the finest organs, and embraces a rendering of 
 such intense words as are found in the ''Agnus Dei," and "Gloria in 
 Excelsis," and the litany and chants of the old masters. The Protest- 
 ant church has rejected the dramatic style and confined its music to 
 hymns and psalms of sober temper, and in the main, has done away 
 with the fugue and galloping style of one part chasing another through 
 the vocal harmonies. 
 
 I remember when it was the fashion, in fashionable choirs, to give 
 one part several feet the start in the race, and the others would start 
 later and overtake it before they all got to the end of the line. There 
 is a hymn beginning, "I love to steal awhile away," and the tenor 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 329 
 
 would start out with "I love to steal" — and then the alto would 
 prance up with "I love to steal," and then the bass confessed the 
 unfortunate frailty, "I love to steal," and hurried on for fear the first 
 man would steal it all before he got there. 
 
 Sacred music is of very ancient origin. Indeed, it is older than the 
 church or the temple, for we find that Mosefe sang a song when he had 
 crossed the Red Sea, and he said, "I will sing a song unto the Lord, 
 for he is my strength and my salvation," and when he finished his 
 song, Miriam took it up, and she and her maidens sang and made 
 music on timbrels. King David sang all through his psalms, and 
 Isaiah not only sang, but wanted everything to sing, for he says: 
 ' * Sing, oh ye heavens, for the Lord hath done it. Break forth into 
 singing, oh ye mountains, and every tree, for the Lord hath redeemed 
 Israel." 
 
 I was looking over this book that we are now using in our church, 
 a new and beautiful book containing 1,200 hymns, and a tune with 
 written music to every hymn. Here are 360 authors of all Christian 
 denominations. Of these, sixty-one are women, seventy are English 
 Episcopalians, twenty are Scotch Presbyterians, and only eight are 
 American Presbyterians. Eight are Methodists, ten are Baptists, 
 fourteen are Congregationalists, and five are Roman Catholics. The 
 rest are Dissenters, Lutherans, Unitarians, Moravians, Quakers and 
 Independents. Only fifty-four are Americans. Leaving out Isaac 
 Watts and Charles Wesley, most of these hymns were composed by 
 English Episcopalians. Isaac Watts was the founder of hymnology. 
 One hundred and twenty-six of his hymns are in this book. He has 
 been dead 142 years, but we are still singing: "Welcome, Sweet 
 Day of Rest," "How Beauteous Are Their Feet," "When I Can 
 Read My Title Clear," "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne," "Am I 
 a Soldier of the Cross?" and many more of his composing. 
 
 He was a very small man with a very large soul. He was only five 
 feet high and weighed less than a hundred pounds, and never married. 
 His hymns are sung all over the Christian world. Our grand-parents 
 and parents, ourselves and our children, have all treasured them and 
 become familiar with them. 
 
 Charles Wesley, a Methodist, has thirty-six hynrns in this book — 
 most of them inspired from his intense, absorbing love of the Savior 
 — such as "Blow Ye the Trumpet, Blow," and "Jesus, Lover of My 
 
330 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 Soul." He was a brother of John AVesley, the founder of Method 
 ism, and came to Georgia with him in 1735. 
 
 Rev. John Newton has twenty-six hymns in this collection. What 
 a strange, eventful life was his. Seized and impressed for a seaman 
 on board a man-of-war when he was only nineteen years of age — 
 deserted — was caught, and flogged, and degraded — deserted again, 
 and hired himself to a slave-trading vessel. Four years afterwards he 
 went back to England and married Mary Catlett, the girl he had been 
 loving for years. He then equipped a slaver of his own, and shipped 
 negroes from Africa to the West Indies, and made a fortune. 
 
 In a few years he became disgusted with the business, and studied 
 mathematics, Latin, Greek and Hebrew without a teacher. About 
 that time Wesley and Whitfield began their great religious uprising, 
 and he was converted and joined them and went to preaching. When 
 eighty years old he preached three times a week, and when urged to 
 stop on account of his feeble health, he replied: "What! Shall the 
 old African negro trader and blasphemer stop while he can speak ? 
 No ! " No wonder that the great change inspired him to write those 
 beautiful hymns: " Amazing Grace ! How Sweet the Sound ; " "One 
 There is Above All Others ; " " Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken ;" 
 "Savior, Visit Thy Plantation." 
 
 And next comes Cowper — the amiable, lovable, miserable Cowper — 
 whose life was spent in alternating between hope and despair, and who 
 was sent several times to the insane asylum. In his lucid intervals of 
 hope he composed such hymns as "Sometimes a Light Surprises," 
 "There is a Fountain Filled With Blood ;" "Oh, For a Closer Walk 
 With God," and many others. 
 
 James Montgomery, a Moravian, has twenty- three hymns in this 
 book. His early life was full of trouble. He was indicted, tried 
 and imprisoned for writing a ballad on the fall of the bastile. Soon 
 after his release he wrote an account of the riot at Sheffield, and was 
 again imprisoned. The press had but little freedom in his day, but 
 his gentle, earnest. Christian character finally won for him the regard 
 of his enemies, and he was granted a pension by the crown. There 
 are no hymns in this book sweeter than his. Such, for instance, as 
 "Oh, Where Shall Rest Be Found?" "Prayer is The Soul's Sincere 
 Desire ;" "People of The Living God," etc. 
 
 Addison, too, that stately, polished writer of essays, found time and 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 331 
 
 inclination to pay poetic tribute to his Maker. There is no poetry 
 more majestic than the hymns beginning, "When All Thy Mercies, 
 Oh, My God," and "The Spacious Firmament On High." And next 
 we have Heber, the gifted bishop of Calcutta, the Christian gentle- 
 man, who never knew a want, but, nevertheless, spent his life in 
 charity and missionary work. His world-renowned hymn would have 
 immortalized him, if he had written nothing else. 
 
 "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" still stands as the chief of all 
 missionary hymns. He wrote others of exquisite beauty, such as 
 "Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning" and "By Cool 
 Siloam's Shady Rill." 
 
 Then there were many other composers who did not write much, 
 but wrote exceeding well. There is: 
 
 "How Firm a Foundation," by George Keith ; "Come Ye Discon- 
 solate," by Thomas Moore, the poet laureate of England; "Awake 
 My Soul," by Medley; "Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing," by 
 Robert Robinson. 
 
 Rev. Augustus Toplady has several beautiful hymns, but none com- 
 pare with his "Rock of Ages Cleft For Me." Sir William Glad- 
 stone, the great premier of England, was so much impressed with 
 this hymn that he has translated it into Latin and other languages. 
 Of a later date we find, "Nearer My God to Thee," by Mrs. Adams, 
 an English lady. 
 
 The oldest hymn in the book was written by Thomas Sternhold, in 
 1549. He was groom to Henry VIII. The next oldest is well worth 
 remembrance, for it was written in 1680 by Thomas Ken, and has but 
 one verse, and that verse is sung oftener than any other verse in the 
 world. Its first line is, "Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow." 
 If Thomas Ken is in the heavenly chou- (and we believe he is), what 
 serene comfort does his translated soul enjoy as it listens every Sabbath 
 to his own doxology as it goes up from a million voices and swells 
 heavenward from thousands of organs all over Christendom! 
 
 Then we have hymns from Richard Baxter, who was chaplain to 
 Charles II, and resisted the usurpation of Cromwell. 
 
 And here we have hymns from Mrs. Charles, the gifted authoress 
 of the Schonberg Cotta stories, and from William Cullen Bryant, our 
 own poet laureate, and Francis S. Key, the author of the "Star 
 Spangled Banner," and from Mrs. Sigourney and John Dryden, 
 
332 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 another poet laureate of England, and Henry Kirk White, who died 
 in his twenty-first year, but left as his monument *'The Star of 
 Bethlehem." Here, too, is the litany by Sir Robert Grant. And 
 here are many hymns from Dr. Muhlenberg, who wrote " I Would 
 IN'otLive Always." 
 
 And now, let me pause to remember that all these men and women 
 are dead. Some have been dead three hundred years, some two 
 hundred and very many one hundred, and some far less, but all are 
 dead. But poetry outlives prose, and a song outlives a sermon. It is 
 a comforting fact that most all of the famous poets have been 
 Christian men and women, and have given to the church some of 
 their sweetest and holiest thoughts in song. 
 
 Dr. Oliver W. Holmes and John G. Whittier are both represented 
 in this collection. 
 
 But hymns w^ithout music lose half their beauty. They are like 
 birds without wings — they cannot fly heavenward. 
 
 And now if the choir and congregation will enter into the spirit of 
 these beautiful hymns and sing them with pure religious feeling, it 
 will be acceptable praise. A song without inspiration is music, but it 
 is not praise. Professional choirs who sing for pay, seem to be singing 
 for men and not for God. Such singing is like the funerals that have 
 hired mourners. When the tune fits the sentiment of the hymn, 
 like it was all one creation of genius, it greatly enhances the beauty of 
 both. The Coronation Hymn would not be half so popular if the cor- 
 onation music were not set to it. And this is one reason why the 
 oratorios of the great masters, such as Handel and Mozart, have never 
 been excelled. They composed both the sentiment and the song. 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 333 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 The Sorrel Hair. 
 
 Benson was his name — Tom Benson. He moved to our county and 
 purchased a snug little farm in the valley, about eight miles from 
 town. He had a wife and three children, and a negro man named 
 Dick. When Benson came into the settlement, there was a little 
 cloud came with him — a cloud over his reputation for honesty. It 
 was whispered around that his nabors, who lived near his old home, 
 were willing for him to go, for they said that his hogs and his sheep 
 increased faster than was natural, and theirs decreased in some mys- 
 terious manner. 
 
 But still, Benson was a member of the church, and, being gifted 
 with language, would sometimes talk and exhort in meeting, and lead 
 in prayer. He was emotional and fervent, and soon made friends in 
 his new home, and the cloud, for a time, dispersed. Mrs. Benson was a 
 woman of good family; she was well mannered and industrious, but 
 had a kind of pleading, pitiful expression, as though she was living 
 under apprehension of trouble. Benson had family prayer night and 
 morning, and always prayed loud, and a good long time; his negro 
 man, Dick, came regularly to prayer, and said amen and amen in 
 good Methodist fashion, but Dick soon got under a cloud, and it got 
 larger and blacker as time rolled on, for the nabors said there was a 
 rogue in the settlement. Chickens were missing, and the mill had 
 been broken open, and Dick had carried chickens to town to sell one 
 Saturday night. The relations between Dick and his master were 
 very confiding — much more so than was usual between master and 
 slave. They were companions, and consulted with each other, and 
 this was after awhile talked about, to Benson's prejudice. If Dick 
 stole chickens and sold them, who had the money? That was the 
 question. Some little debts had followed Benson from his old home, 
 and he had been sued in the Magistrate's Court, and had paid them 
 little by little, and it was a mystery where he got the money, for his 
 
334 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 crop was not harvested, and he had nothing to sell. But still Benson 
 got along, and met the brethren on the Sabbath with a cheerful face, 
 and prayed and exhorted as usual. There is one other fact — an 
 important fact — that must be mentioned. Benson owed a balance of 
 five hundred dollars of purchase money upon his place, and had been 
 sued for it in the Circuit Court. 
 
 Three miles below him, further down in the valley, lived a respect- 
 able old gentleman whose name was Montague. He had raised a 
 numerous family, but five of his sons, and as many daughters, were 
 all married, and most of them had settled in the naborhood and were 
 established and comfortable upon farms the old gentleman had given 
 them, for he was quite wealthy. He was a solid man, of primitive 
 habits, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and exemplary in all 
 his conduct, saving the suspicion that he was a little too fond of gold, 
 and when he loaned it exacted too high a rate of interest. He lived 
 off of his ''intrust," as he called it, and he firmly believed that his 
 gold was his. His loans were generally made to thrifty, prosperous 
 men, but the poor and the distressed were turned away with the asser- 
 tion that he did not have a cent in the world. He called his pocket 
 the world, but his money was kept in an old hair trunk. 
 
 The weight of many years had dimmed the old man's sight, and 
 almost stopped up his ears. His aged wife was also deaf, but other- 
 wise they were in good health ; and almost every Sunday there was a 
 gathering there of children and grandchildren, and the old couple 
 were going down to the grave most happily, considering their wants 
 and their ambition. Sometimes they had one or more of their numer- 
 ous posterity to stay over night with them, but most generally they 
 were alone in the great big house, and the old man's gold was in the 
 old hair trunk under his bed. His numerous slaves and domestic ser- 
 vants occupied the cabins close by. They were faithful and obedient, 
 for most of them had been born in his household, and knew no king 
 but ** master," and no queen but "old mistis," and they were proud 
 of his wealth and his dignity. 
 
 One rainy morning in the spring of the year there was a wild alarm 
 in the Montague household. The old hair trunk was gone. Mr. 
 Montague never failed to give a glance that way when he arose. It 
 was his habit as fixed as putting on his garments. He thought at 
 first that his old eyes deceived him, and he stooped down and felt for 
 
The Farm and The FiREsmE. 335 
 
 it with outstretched hand. Hastily dressing himself he looked around 
 the room again and discovered a window up — a back window that 
 looked upon the garden. It had not been raised for months. His 
 wife had noticed his unusual manner and got up hastily and heard his 
 excited voice and saw his misery as he exclaimed, "Gone — it's gone — 
 the trunk — look at the window!" and he sank down in pitiful despair. 
 The old lady hurried to the open window and looked upon the ground 
 and saw nothing but a box — an old box that the robber had stood 
 upon. Tottering to the door, she screamed to the servants and they 
 came and they screamed, too, and sounded the alarm; then came the 
 negroes generally from out their cabins, for it was not yet sunrise, and 
 the wild panic began. The ball was opened. **Fore God deys stole 
 old master's trunk, fore God dey is — tuck it outen de winder — fore 
 God dey did!" ''Run Bob, run Jesse, run Jake, run children, run 
 for Mas John and Mas Tom and Mas George — run for everybody and 
 tell 'em come quick — run, honey, don't stop nary minit!" And they 
 did run. In less than an hour the children and many nabors came in 
 hot haste; some on foot and some on horseback, and all wild with 
 desperate energy to catch the robbers. It did not take long to track 
 them through the garden and over the garden fence and through the 
 corn patch to the woods that bordered the clearing. And there in the 
 undergrowth of oak and pine bushes was the trunk — the old hair 
 trunk. It was wide open, and there was no more money in it than 
 there was in the old man's ** world." His seven thousand dollars in 
 
 if 
 
 gold was gone. He had counted it all the day before, and the week 
 before, and knew the amount. The old man tottered feebly to the 
 scene and cried. The shock was too much fur him. His daughters 
 led him back sorrowfully to the house, and as he bowed along he 
 shook his head and exclaimed, ''Benson! Tom Benson did it!" and he 
 kept up the refrain, and as the crowd passed to and fro, Benson was 
 on every tongue, and the darkies took it up and cried "Benson," on 
 the run. 
 
 Old Mr. Montague had a reason for suspecting Benson. About 
 two weeks before the robbery Benson called one morning and requested 
 a loan of five hundred dollars, w^herewith to lift that mortgage off his 
 land and save it from sale under the sheriff's hammer. He pleaded 
 his great necessity in touching language, and when the old man 
 declared he did not have a cent in the "world," he grew desperate 
 
336 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 with disappointment, and as he rose to go he pointed his finger at him 
 and said: **I know you have got it, and ten times over, and God 
 Almighty will curse you with it yet before you die," and he left him 
 greatly irritated. 
 
 The old man had known somewhat of Benson long years before 
 when they both lived in the same county, and he did not like him. 
 Benson had served on a jury once when the old man had a case in 
 court, and the jury found against him on a plea of usury, and the old 
 man lost his ''intrust." He did not like his methods nor his Method- 
 ism. He could not think of any other man in all his acquaintance 
 who was mean enough and smart enough to commit the robbery, and 
 outside of this acquaintance it was not possible for any one to know 
 he had any money, or where the trunk was kept. And Dick, the 
 black rascal! Dick had visited Mr. Montague's premises more than 
 once on Sundays, and had come up to the old lady's door and saluted 
 her, and he could have seen the trunk under the bed, and told his 
 master where it was. 
 
 Thus the account stood, and while the more thoughtful nabors were 
 looking around the trunk in the woods, they suddenly discovered 
 tracks — tracks of a horse and a mule. They found where the animals 
 had been hitched while the robbers went after the trunk, and very 
 near by where the mule was tied, there was a small hickory sapling 
 cut off about knee high with a slanting stroke of the axe. It had 
 been long done and the top edge was hard and dry and sharp, and 
 there on the point of it was a little patch of sorrel hair. * The mule 
 had skinned his leg and left the mark behind. This discovery settled 
 it and removed all doubts, for Benson had a bay horse and a sorrel 
 mule. Benson and Dick were the robbers. 
 
 With hurried haste and fierce determination the male members of 
 the Montague household and their resolute nabors mounted their 
 steeds and went galloping up the valley road to Benson's house. 
 Without ceremony or invitation they entered his stable lot and 
 brought out the sorrel mule, and on close inspection found a skinned 
 place on his knee, and the sorrel hair was all of a color. Benson and 
 Dick were there and looked on with amazement, either feigned or 
 real. Poor Mrs. Benson stood in her door with clasped hands, and 
 looked the picture of alarm and despair. The children stood by their 
 mother and clung to her garments as they looked in her face and then 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 337 
 
 at the crowd of desperate men, who had invaded the sacred precincts 
 of their home. 
 
 The leader of the crowd made a motion to his companions and 
 uttered between his teeth, ''Take them." Benson and Dick were 
 seized and tied and carried hastily away. They were mounted upon 
 the mule and the bay, and the party were soon far beyond the cries 
 and shrieks of mother and children. An hour's ride found them in a 
 lonely dell back of the Montague farm, and there they dismounted 
 and prepared their victims for confession and restitution, or otherwise 
 for the scourge. It was in vain that Benson and Dick protested their 
 innocence and plead for mercy. They were stripped and pinioned to 
 two trees not far from each other, and as stroke after stroke brought 
 the warm blood spurting from their veins, they called upon God for 
 mercy, for man had none. "Oh, my God," groaned Benson, as the 
 tears ran down his face. *'0h, Mas Tom, dey is killin' of me," 
 screamed Dick. "Be a man, Dick, for Jesus' sake," replied Benson; 
 and so the scourge went on until the avengers began to fear for the 
 lives of their victims and held a whispered consultation. One of the 
 more considerate walked away quietly, and carelessly took another 
 look at the scar on the mule. Returning to Benson he told him how 
 much better it would be for him to give up the gold, and promised 
 tl^^t he should not be prosecuted if he would do so; but Benson main- 
 tained his innocence with .prayers and tears, and the avengers were 
 outdone. Salt water had been brought to garnish their wounds, and 
 half dead with pain the victims were remounted and allowed to go 
 home. It was a sad return to a sadder hearthstone. During the next 
 few weeks, while Benson and Dick were being tenderly nursed and 
 were slowly recovering, this bold and daring robbery was the all 
 absorbing topic of the country and the town. There were not a few 
 who doubted Benson's guilt, and who openly denounced the brutal 
 whipping, but the Montague family were influential in church and 
 State, and Benson's naborhood was almost solid against him. They 
 believed in his guilt. As soon as he was a^le to ride in a buggy he 
 went to town with his wife and there sent for the sheriff and paid oflf 
 that mortgage with five hundred dollars in gold. This capped the 
 climax. This made the Montagues desperate. The night afterwards 
 fifteen masked and mounted men visited his house again, and seizing 
 Benson and Dick, gagged and tied and blindfolded them and took 
 
338 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 them away to parts unknown, j They were kept hidden for a week, 
 and were alternately whipped and starved, and every day brought 
 new horrors. Benson endured it all with heroism, but Dick gave up 
 repeatedly, and w^hen under the excrutiating lash would promise to 
 tell it all if they would stop. Then he would confess his guilt and 
 declare that *'Mas Tom made him go, and Mas Tom had de money, 
 but he didn't know whar he hid it." ''Now Dick — now Dick," Ben- 
 son would say, ' ' speak' the truth if they kill you — you know that ain't 
 80, is it, Dick? Would you tell a lie on your best friend, Dick?" 
 And Dick would reply: "Oh, Mas Tom, dey will kill me if I don't 
 tell somefin." As a last resort they built up a brush-heap and laid 
 their victims on it and set it on fire. The flames leaped quickly 
 through the dry fagots and licked their clothes, and next their skin, 
 and they were hastily pulled off the heap and their burning garments 
 drenched with water, and still they gave no sign. This was the last, 
 and the victims were still alive. They were kept two more days to 
 recover the life that was nearly gone, and then during the darkness of 
 the following night were returned again to their home. 
 
 Some two months after this the Circuit Court convened in the county 
 town, and certain members of the Montague family attended and 
 went before the Grand Jury. They exhibited the patch of sorrel hair 
 and recited the other evidences of guilt, and procured a true bill for 
 robbery and burglary in the night-time. Benson and Dick were 
 arrested, and for lack of friends were put in jail. In due time Benson 
 was put on trial. An able counselor and eloquent advocate was 
 employed by him — a lawyer who had doubts of his guilt and sympa- 
 thized with his misfortune. The prosecution was vigorously urged 
 and as vigorously defended, and resulted in a verdict of guilty, for 
 the patch of sorrel hair was in the way, and proved fatal to liberty. The 
 case was carried to the Supreme Court of the State, and the verdict 
 affirmed, and Benson was sentenced to the penitentiary for twenty 
 years. Alas for the broken-hearted wife and weeping children ! The 
 little farm was seized and sold for costs of the prosecution. The 
 father went off in chains one way and his wife and children another. 
 They removed to Mississippi where Mrs. Benson had kindred, who 
 though they were poor, gave her a kind and welcome home. 
 
 Benson had served three^ years of his term. He was growing old, 
 and prematurely gray, and was known among the convicts as Jere- 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 339 
 
 miah, for his lamentations were sad and frequent. He grieved most 
 of all because of the taint that his conviction entailed upon his chil- 
 dren, and never failed to assert his innocence to visitors. One day, 
 about this time, his counsel received a letter — a very remarkable let- 
 ter — written and signed by a man whose name is Robinson. It was 
 written in a dungeon — the dungeon of a jail in a distant county in 
 this State. It was well written, and was scholarly in language, and 
 said, in substance, that the writer was charged with robbery and bur- 
 glary, and the evidence was conclusive, and he was only waiting the 
 setting of the court to plead guilty and begin the term of his service 
 of twenty years in the penitentiary. But there was a man there by 
 the name of Benson whom he did not want to meet, for Benson was 
 serving and suffering for a crime he did not commit, and if his coun- 
 sel would visit the writer, sufficient evidence would be furnished to 
 establish his innocence. The letter was of such a character as to 
 merit confidence and demand immediate attention. The counsel lost 
 no time in making the journey. When he arrived and was admitted 
 to the prisoner's cell, he found a gentleman of culture and impressive 
 manner — a man who looked more like a poet than a felon. He was 
 surrounded by many evidences of refinement. Shakspeare and 
 Byron, and various novels were upon his table. His clothing was of 
 fine quality, and sat well upon his well formed person. The coun- 
 sel was not long in receiving his confession, for it was a con- 
 fession of his own guilt in committing the Montague robbery. He 
 was educated as a physician, he said, and received his diploma from a 
 Virginia college. In his youth he had become fascinated with the 
 romances that portrayed a brigand's life, and after removing to St. 
 Louis he was induced by some fellows of kindred minds to join in a 
 series of adventures, whereby the rich and miserly could be made to 
 disgorge, and the poor and needy be lilted up. "We have," said he, 
 "distributed thousands and thousands of dollars in this way and 
 saved but little for ourselves, for we enjoyed the excitement and peril 
 of our calling more than we enjoyed the booty. A few years ago our 
 line of service was from St. Louis to Pensacola, and the old man Mon- 
 tague was directly on the route. We learned that he was a miser and 
 that he hoarded his gold. The week before he was robbed my pal 
 and I stayed over night with him, for he was accustomed to entertain 
 travelers. I was riding a blooded Kentucky mare and m)' compan- 
 
340 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 ion was well mounted on a fine large sorrel mule. That night we 
 made observations of the plan of the house and the surroundings. 
 The next morning after breakfast I gave the old man a twenty-dollar 
 gold piece to pay our bill, and I saw he was pleased to handle it. I 
 saw him go to his bedroom and unlock the old hair trunk and get the 
 change, and he had to untie a bag of coin to get it ; then he produced 
 a small old leather-bound book which he said was his travelers' book. 
 Indeed it had his name rudely written upon the cover. He asked our 
 names, and I gave him mine as William Thompson, of Kentucky. 
 He wrote it down with a pencil at the top of a page, and spelled my 
 name without an **h" or a "p" and marked it ''paid" and left out 
 the *'i" in that word. I remember these things distinctly. We 
 traveled on to a little village a few miles away and remained there 
 until the dark of the moon. We left one evening under pretense of 
 visiting some friends in the country and then continuing our journey 
 southward, but by the time it was dark we reversed our course, and 
 by ten o'clock had passed old Montague's house, and secreted our- 
 selves in the woods a quarter of a mile back. There we waited until 
 the hour when deep sleep falleth upon man. With our dark lantern 
 it was easy to find our way to the house and the window, and still 
 easier in our stockings to take the trunk from under the bed where 
 two old deaf persons were sleeping. Now, in that trunk we found the 
 seven thousand dollars in gold, and we found the two left-hand halves 
 of two one hundred dollar bills on the Bank of the State of Georgia. 
 These two halves I have kept and they will be sent you in a few days. 
 They are marked letter A, and one is numbered 2,096, and the other 
 2,097. I have here the Supreme Court reports of this State that con- 
 tains the sworn testimony of old man Montague, and he does not men- 
 tion these bills. He says he lost nothing but gold; but he did, and 
 he knew he did, and no doubt put the ofiicers of the bank upon 
 notice. I suppose he had sent off the other halves in a letter and was 
 waiting to hear from them before he sent these. Now, my dear sir, 
 what more no you want? Is this not enough to release Benson?" 
 
 It 'surely is, said the counsel. He sent the jailer for a magistrate 
 and had Dr. Robinson sworn to his confession, and was preparing to 
 leave when the doctor arose and said: ''One more thing, my dear sir. 
 I have been here long enough to review my life and consider my great 
 mistake. I have not done bodily harm to any one in pursuing my 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 841 
 
 unlawful avocatioD, but I have brought dishonor upon my only child. 
 She has no mother and is living with her grandmother, and they 
 know nothing of my manner of life. It has been two years since I 
 saw them, but they have not suffered for anything. My gold watch 
 and chain are very valuable, and I will have them sent you so that 
 you may send them to her. I shall never see her again," and his 
 voice trembled and fell as he uttered the last sentence. 
 
 The counsel learned that Robinson had lately robbed an old man in 
 that neighborhood of four thousand dollars, and had blundered in his 
 boldness, for he was pursued, surrounded and caught with the money 
 on his person. The twenty years' sentence would about wind up his 
 life, and he knew it and was resigned to his fate. He had taken his 
 chances and lost. 
 
 In a few days after the attorney had returned to his home, he 
 received a letter enclosing the half bills. The letter was mailed in 
 Louisville, Ky., and said this only: '*By direction of my friend, I 
 enclose you these half bills." There was no signature. He imme- 
 diately interviewed Montague's attorneys and submitted evidence to 
 them. They began the perusal of the long confession with a careless 
 incredulity, but as they read along a change came over them — a 
 change from doubt to conviction — and when the half bills were 
 exhil)ited, the elder attorney said with emotion: ** He is innocent. 
 No man knew of those half bills but Mr. Montague and myself. I 
 charged him to keep it a secret, for I thought the robber would seek 
 to collect them from the bank, and it would give us a clue to the 
 gold." Let it be mentioned here that on the trial of Benson he was 
 unable to prove the fact that Mrs. Benson's father had sent her the five 
 hundred dollars that saved the farm from sale. He was old and bed- 
 ridden, and could not attend court, for he lived a hundred miles 
 away and the friend who brought the money was on his way to the 
 West, and could not be heard from in time. So the gold that he paid 
 the sheriff remained unaccounted for and was a weight in the scale 
 of evidence — a weight not as heavy as the little patch of sorrel hair, 
 but with both together, his conviction was sealed. 
 
 Next morning, which was Sunday, the counsel on both sides went 
 down to Montague's. Sons and sons-in-law had gathered there as 
 usual to spend the day and comfort the aged ancestors. In due time 
 the lawyers made known their mission and exhibited all their proofs. 
 
342 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 The traveler's book was called for, and there at the top of a page was 
 Wm. Thompson's name, and the spelling was just as it was sworn to, 
 and the date was correct, and the .half bills were identified, for the old 
 man had made a cross mark upon the corner of each. The children 
 were all reluctantly convinced, but the old man shook his head 
 solemnly and declared it all a lawyer's trick. * ' If the travelers took 
 my money," said he, *' Benson told them where it was, and Benson 
 helped them." He refused utterly to sign a petition to the governor 
 for Benson's release, but the sons and sons-in-law all signed it after an 
 assurance that Benson's counsel would not advise or take a fee to sue 
 or prosecute them for damages, for by this time it was pretty well 
 known who the masked men were. 
 
 Benson's attorney proceeded next day to Milledgeville, which was 
 then the State capital. Howell Cobb was the Governor — a man of 
 great tenderness of heart — and when the whole case was made fully 
 known to him, he said with much feeling: *'The poor old man; what 
 sufferings of mind and body he has endured. I have noticed him 
 every time I have visited the convicts, and wondered if there was not 
 possibly some mistake. He had a pleading and heart-broken look. 
 Let us go there at once and release him." 
 
 When the warden called Benson to them, it was with a choking 
 utterance that the governor made known their mission. It came upon 
 the poor man with a shock of surprise and joy that sunk him to his 
 knees, and he wept like a child. "The Lord be praised!" he 
 exclaimed. *'I said that though He slay me, yet would I trust in 
 Him. Oh, my wife and my children ! Thank God, thank God, for 
 His mercy endureth forever!" His rhapsody knew no bounds, 
 and his fellow-prisoners stopped their work to listen and to wonder. 
 Benson's striped garments were soon discarded and he was clothed in a 
 decent citizen's dress. With glad emotion he bade good-bye to all, 
 taking each by the hand and telling them to trust in God and do 
 right. On arriving at his county town where he was tried and con- 
 victed, he spent a day in meeting the few friends he had there, and 
 then with the means furnished by the Governor and his counsel, con- 
 tinued his journey to Mississippi in search of his family. 
 
 Some six months afterwards his counsel were surprised by an unex- 
 pected visit from him. He looked once more like a man, and was 
 clean shaved and well dressed and had less stoop in his broad shoulders 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 343 
 
 than when they saw him last. It did not take hira long to disclose his 
 business. He had a letter from an eminent lawyer of Mississippi, 
 advising a suit to be brought in the United States Court against his 
 lynchers, the Montagues and their clan, for damages. His former 
 counsel, of course, declined his case which was no more than he 
 expected, and he went to Marietta, where the Federal Court was held, 
 and there procured the services of an able jurist who at once filed 
 fifteen separate actions against fifteen men, and in each action had the 
 other fourteen summoned as witnesses by the United States Marshal. 
 Each man was sued for ten thousand dollars damages for his arrest and 
 imprisonment and maltreatment while their prisoner. 
 
 What a consternation there was in the Montague settlement when 
 the Marshal served those writs! What a shaking and quaking of dry 
 bones! With what haste and alarm did they hurry to town and seek 
 conference with their lawyers. But they found little comfort. The 
 lawyers seemed helpless, for they knew the power and the rigor of the 
 Federal Court. They knew the inflexible integrity and the stern jus- 
 tice of the old judge who presided, and they knew the ability and 
 vigor of Benson's counsel. After much consultation it was agreed 
 that the Montague lawyers should visit Marietta and, if possible, 
 effect a compromise and take the cases out of court. 
 
 In this they succeeded. Fifteen thousand dollars was paid over to 
 Benson's counsel w^ithout delay. He took one third of it for his fee 
 and Benson returned to his family with ten thousand dollars in his 
 pocket. With this sum he purchased another farm and was living 
 happily with his wife and children when last heard from. And Dick 
 was there — Dick who was released without trial, had followed his mis- 
 tress and was her faithful and trusty friend during his master's impris- 
 onment. We do not know, but can only imagine, how he rejoiced 
 with her and her children when Benson surprised the long bereaved 
 household with his presence. 
 
 But what of Dr. Robinson, the bold and dashing brigand — the 
 dupe of such romances as Jack Sheppherd and the Robber Clifton and 
 the Italian bandit? In due time he was sent to the penitentiary for 
 twenty years. His culture and his bearing and good conduct soon 
 gave him prominence and favor with the warden. He gave the con- 
 victs good advice and set them a good example. He organized a Sab- 
 bath-school and became fond of the Scriptures. He sought to make 
 
344 The Farm and The Fireside. 
 
 amends for Lis past conduct by reclaiming the bad men within the 
 prison walls. Time and again he had opportunities to escape, but he 
 would not use them. He was urged to ask for a pardon from the 
 Governor, but he refused, and even intimated that he w^ould not accept 
 it if offered to him, for he declared he had a mission to accomplish 
 and there was work for him to do that nobody else would do. 
 
 Time rolled on — Kobinson had been in service about three years. 
 He had ministered, like a good Samaritan, among his fellow-prisoners. 
 He nursed them when sick, and though there was a nominal physician 
 who was paid by the Government, Dr. Robinson was the real one who 
 used his professional skill and knowledge among them. 
 
 About this time the war broke out between the States, and when a 
 few years after, Sherman made his march to the sea and was fast 
 approaching Milledgeville, Governor Brown went down to the 
 penitentiary and made the convicts a speech. He told them of the 
 wrongs our people had suffered, and of the invasion of our State by 
 armed forces who were burning and destroying everything in their 
 path. He pictured to them the utter desolation of those whom 
 Sherman left behind him, and how helpless women and children were 
 fleeing for their lives to escape the brutality of foreign hirelings. He 
 told them he was going to discharge them all and turn them out, 
 and that it did not follow that they were not patriots because they 
 were convicts. And he hoped and believed they would stand up, 
 fight for and defend their State and their people and kindred. 
 
 With a wild hurrah, Dr. Robinson threw up his hat and shouted : 
 *'To arms, to arms, ye brave!" He had the kettle-drum beat for vol- 
 unteers, and organized a company of 160 men, and was unanimously 
 elected captain. Their stripes were discarded and soldiers' clothes 
 were furnished and guns placed in their hands, and they marched 
 forth freemen and patriots, and joined the State troops and fought 
 manfully and well, but their efforts were all in vain to arrest the 
 onward march of the foe. When Governor Brown resumed the occu- 
 pation of the State capital, and the war was over, Dr. Robinson 
 returned singly and alone to serve out his sentence, but was refused 
 admittance. ''No, sir," said the Governor, with much feeling. "No, 
 sir, you have no business there, doctor, for your patients are all 
 gone." 
 
 A few years ago the writer of this reminiscence had a letter from a 
 
The Farm and The Fireside. 345 
 
 friend in St. Louis. "My office," said he, *'is next door to that oi 
 Dr. Robinson, well known to you as Montague's robber. He k 
 practicing his profession with success in the city. His daughter is 
 happily married, and he lives with her, and is highly esteemed." 
 
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