old vimes fum de noo ones; but wid strangers dey ain' no tellin' w'at
mought happen. I would n' 'vise yer ter buy dis vimya'd."

I bought the vineyard, nevertheless, and it has been for a long time in
a thriving condition, and is often referred to by the local press as a
striking illustration of the opportunities open to Northern capital in
the development of Southern industries. The luscious scuppernong holds
first rank among our grapes, though we cultivate a great many other
varieties, and our income from grapes packed and shipped to the Northern
markets is quite considerable. I have not noticed any developments of
the goopher in the vineyard, although I have a mild suspicion that our
colored assistants do not suffer from want of grapes during the season.

I found, when I bought the vineyard, that Uncle Julius had occupied a
cabin on the place for many years, and derived a respectable revenue
from the product of the neglected grapevines. This, doubtless, accounted
for his advice to me not to buy the vineyard, though whether it inspired
the goopher story I am unable to state. I believe, however, that the
wages I paid him for his services as coachman, for I gave him employment
in that capacity, were more than an equivalent for anything he lost by
the sale of the vineyard.

PO' SANDY

On the northeast corner of my vineyard in central North Carolina, and
fronting on the Lumberton plank-road, there stood a small frame house,
of the simplest construction. It was built of pine lumber, and contained
but one room, to which one window gave light and one door admission. Its
weatherbeaten sides revealed a virgin innocence of paint. Against one
end of the house, and occupying half its width, there stood a huge brick
chimney: the crumbling mortar had left large cracks between the bricks;
the bricks themselves had begun to scale off in large flakes, leaving
the chimney sprinkled with unsightly blotches. These evidences of decay
were but partially concealed by a creeping vine, which extended its
slender branches hither and thither in an ambitious but futile attempt
to cover the whole chimney. The wooden shutter, which had once protected
the unglazed window, had fallen from its hinges, and lay rotting in the
rank grass and jimson-weeds beneath. This building, I learned when I
bought the place, had been used as a schoolhouse for several years prior
to the breaking out of the war, since which time it had remained
unoccupied, s