l!"

Every mile or two we came to a small farm-house, commonly of logs, near
which there was usually a small crop of corn growing.

"Every man after he got home, after the fall of Richmond, put in to
raise a little somethin' to eat. Some o' the corn looks poo'ly, but it
beats no corn at all, all to pieces."

We came to one field which Elijah pronounced a "monstrous fine crap."
But he added,--

"I've got thirty acres to home not a bit sorrier'n that. Ye see, that
mule of mine," etc.

I noticed--what I never saw in the latitude of New England--that the
fodder had been pulled below the ears and tied in little bundles on the
stalks to cure. Ingenious shifts for fences had been resorted to by the
farmers. In some places the planks of the worn-out plank road had been
staked and lashed together to form a temporary inclosure. But the most
common fence was what Elijah called "bresh wattlin'." Stakes were first
driven into the ground, then pine or cedar brush bent in between them
and beaten down with a maul.

"Ye kin build a wattlin' fence that way so tight a rabbit can't git
through."

On making inquiries, I found that farms of fine land could be had all
through this region for ten dollars an acre.

Elijah hoped that men from the North would come in and settle.

"But," said he, "'twould be dangerous for any one to take possession of
a confiscated farm. He wouldn't live a month."

The larger land-owners are now more willing to sell.

"Right smart o' their property was in niggers; they're pore now, and
have to raise money.

"The emancipation of slavery," added Elijah, "is wo'kin' right for the
country mo'e ways 'an one. The' a'n't two men in twenty, in middlin'
sarcumstances, but that's beginnin' to see it. I'm no friend to the
niggers, though. They ought all to be druv out of the country. They
won't wo'k as long as they can steal. I have my little crap o' corn, and
wheat, and po'k; when night comes, I must sleep; then the niggers come
and steal all I've got."

I pressed him to give an instance of the negroes' stealing his property.
He could not say that they had taken anything from him lately, but they
"used to" rob his corn-fields and hen-roosts, and "they would again."
Had he ever caught them at it? No, he could not say that he ever had.
Then how did he know that the thieves were negroes? He knew it, because
"niggers would steal."

"Won't white folks steal, too, sometimes?"

"Yes," said Elijah, "some o' the