ure
had been tried. I wrote to a cousin who had gone into the turpentine
business in central North Carolina. He assured me, in response to my
inquiries, that no better place could be found in the South than the
State and neighborhood where he lived; the climate was perfect for
health, and, in conjunction with the soil, ideal for grape-culture;
labor was cheap, and land could be bought for a mere song. He gave us a
cordial invitation to come and visit him while we looked into the
matter. We accepted the invitation, and after several days of leisurely
travel, the last hundred miles of which were up a river on a sidewheel
steamer, we reached our destination, a quaint old town, which I shall
call Patesville, because, for one reason, that is not its name. There
was a red brick market-house in the public square, with a tall tower,
which held a four-faced clock that struck the hours, and from which
there pealed out a curfew at nine o'clock. There were two or three
hotels, a court-house, a jail, stores, offices, and all the
appurtenances of a county seat and a commercial emporium; for while
Patesville numbered only four or five thousand inhabitants, of all
shades of complexion, it was one of the principal towns in North
Carolina, and had a considerable trade in cotton and naval stores. This
business activity was not immediately apparent to my unaccustomed eyes.
Indeed, when I first saw the town, there brooded over it a calm that
seemed almost sabbatic in its restfulness, though I learned later on
that underneath its somnolent exterior the deeper currents of life--love
and hatred, joy and despair, ambition and avarice, faith and
friendship--flowed not less steadily than in livelier latitudes.

We found the weather delightful at that season, the end of summer, and
were hospitably entertained. Our host was a man of means and evidently
regarded our visit as a pleasure, and we were therefore correspondingly
at our ease, and in a position to act with the coolness of judgment
desirable in making so radical a change in our lives. My cousin placed a
horse and buggy at our disposal, and himself acted as our guide until I
became somewhat familiar with the country.

I found that grape-culture, while it had never been carried on to any
great extent, was not entirely unknown in the neighborhood. Several
planters thereabouts had attempted it on a commercial scale, in former
years, with greater or less success; but like most Southern industri