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"Three or four niggers is too much money for a pore man to invest in that way: they may lie down and die, and then whur's yer money? Thar was five niggers owned in Middle Tennessy," he added, "to one in this part of the State."

Speaking of his farm, he said it was mighty good land till it wore out. He had raised two bales of cotton on three and

a half acres, the past season. It was equally good for other crops. "I make some corn, some pork, some cotton, and a mule or two, every year: I never resk all on one thing."

Looking at the open outside doors and the great roaring fires, I said I should think wood must be a very important item with Tennessee farmers.

"Yes, I reckon we burn two cords a week, such weather as this, just for fire, and as much more in the kitchen. We've wood enough. As we turn out old land, we must cle'r new; then we have the advantage of the ashes for ley and soap. "But the labor of chopping so much wood must be considerable."

"Oh, I can chop enough in a day, or a day and a half, to last a week. Winters, farmers don't do much else but feed and get wood."

I said I thought they would some day regret not having kept up their cleared fields by proper cultivation, and preserved their forests.

"I allow we shall. I've just returned from a trip up into Middle Tennessy" (accented on the first syllable), "whur I used to live; they burnt up their timber thar, just as we 're doing hyere, and now they 're setting down and grieving because they've no wood. They save everything thar, to the trunks and crotches. We just leave them to rot, or log 'em up in heaps and burn 'em, whur the land's to be cle'red; and use only the clean limbs, that chop easy and don't require much splitting." He broke forth in praise of a good warm fire. "Put on a big green back-log and build agin it,

our fashion."

that's

Zeek's mother came to announce our dinner. I crossed the open space, pausing only to wash my hands and face in a tin

basin half filled with water and pieces of ice, and entered the kitchen. It was a less pretentious apartment than the sittingroom. There was no window in it; but wide chinks between the logs, and two open doors, let in a sufficiency of daylight, and more than a sufficiency of cold wind. There was a bed in one corner, and a little square pine table set in the centre of the room. A gourd of salt hung by the chimney, and a homemade broom leaned beside it. I noticed a scanty supply of crockery and kitchen utensils on pegs and shelves.

The table was neatly set, with a goodly variety of dishes for a late dinner in a back-country farm-house. I remember a plate of fried pork; fricaseed gray squirrel (cold); boiled "back of hog" (warmed up); a pitcher of milk; cold biscuit, cold corn bread, and "sweet bread" (a name given to a plain sort of cake).

We could have dined very comfortably but for the open doors. Blowing in at one and out at the other, and circu lating through numberless cracks between the logs, the gale frisked at will about our legs, and made our very hands numb and noses cold while we ate. The fire was of no more use to us than one built out-of-doors. The victuals that had come upon the table warm were cold before they reached our mouths. The river of pork-fat which the kind lady poured over my plate, congealed at once into a brownish-gray deposit, like a spreading sand-bar. I enjoyed an advantage over Zeek, for I had taken the precaution to put on my overcoat and to secure a back seat. He sat opposite me, with his back towards the windward door, where the blast, pouncing in upon him, pierced and pinched him without mercy. He had not yet recovered from the chill of his long winter-day's ride; and his lank, shivering frame, and blue, narrow, puckered face under its thin thatch of tow (combed straight down, and cut square and short across his forehead from ear to ear), presented a picture at once astonishing and ludicrous.

"Have you got warm yet, Zeek?" I cheerfully inquired. "No!"-- shuddering. "I'm plumb chilly! I'm so kule I kain't eat."

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"I should think you would be more comfortable with that door closed," I mildly suggested.

He slowly turned his head half round, and as slowly turned it back again, with another shiver. The possibility of actually shutting the door seemed scarcely to penetrate the tow-thatch. I suppose such an act would have been unprecedented in that country, one which all conservative persons would have shaken their heads at as a dangerous innovation.

Zeek begged to be excused, he was so kule; and taking a piece of squirrel in one hand, and a biscuit in the other, went and stood by the fire. I found that he was averse to going out again that day: it was now late in the afternoon, and our poor animals had not yet been fed, or even taken in from where they stood curled up with the cold by the gate: I accordingly proposed to the old folks to spend the night with them, and to take Zeek with me over the battle-field in the morning. This being agreed upon, the father invited me to go out and see his stock, and his two bags of cotton.

In the yard near the house was the smoke-house, or meathouse, a blind hut built of small logs, answering the purpose of a cellar, for in that country cellars are unknown. In it the family provisions were stored. Under an improvised shelter at one corner was the cotton, neatly packed in two bales of five hundred pounds each, and looking handsome as a lady in its brown sacking and new hoops. The hoops were a sort of experiment, which it was thought would prove successful. Usually the sacking and ropes about a bale of cotton cost as much by the pound as the cotton itself; and, to economize that expense, planters were beginning to substitute hickory hoops for ropes. The owner was very proud of those two bales, picked by his own hands and his children's, and prepared for market at a gin and press in the neighborhood; and he hoped to realize five hundred dollars for them when thrown upon the market. A planter of a thousand bales, made by the hands of slaves he was supposed to own, and ginned and pressed on his own plantation, could not have contemplated his crop with greater satisfaction, in King Cotton's haughtiest days.

Near the meat-house was a huge ash-leach. Then there was a simple horse-mill for crushing sorghum,- for Mr., like most Southern farmers, made sufficient syrup for home consumption, besides a little for market. Under a beech-tree was a beautiful spring of water. A rail-fence separated the dooryard from the cattle-yard, where were flocks of hens, geese, ducks, and turkeys, cackling, quacking, and gobbling in such old familiar fashion that I was made to feel strangely at home in their company. There were bleating, hungry calves, and good-natured surly bulls, and patient cows waiting to be milked and fed, and a family of uncurried colts and young mules, and beautiful spotted goats, with their kids, and near by a hog-lot full of lean and squealing swine. Speaking of the goats, Mr. said there was no money in them, but that he kept them for the curiosity of the thing.

There was no barn on the place. The nearest approach to it was the stable, or "mule-pen," constructed of logs with liberal openings between them, through one of which my lonesome iron-gray put his nose as I came near, and whinnied his humble petition for fodder. There he was, stabled with mules, unblanketed, and scarcely better off than when tied to the gate-post, for the wind circulated almost as freely through the rude enclosure as it did in Mrs. 's kitchen. Such hossoothe the feelings of a

pitalities were scarcely calculated to

proud and well-bred horse; but the iron-gray accepted them philosophically.

"Where is your hay?" I inquired.

"We make no hay in this country. Our stock feeds out on the hills, or browses in the woods or cane-brakes, all winter. When we have to feed 'em, we throw out a little corn, fodder, and shucks."

A loft over the mule-pen was filled with stalks and unhusked corn. Zeek went up into it, and threw down bundles of the former, and filled baskets of the latter, for his father to feed out to the multitude of waiting mouths.

I inquired particularly regarding the large quantities of nat ural manures which ought to accumulate in such a farm-yard.

"We just throw them out, and let them get trampled and washed away. We can't haul out and spread. It's the hardest work we ever did, and Tennesseans can't get used to it."

The yard was on a side hill, where every rain must wash it, and the mule-pen was conveniently situated near the brink of a gully, from which every freshet would sweep what was thrown into it. In vain I remonstrated against this system of farming: Mr. replied that he was brought up to it, and

could not learn another.