r mail we saw this peremptory
sign displayed:

When the window is down don't bang around and ask for a stamp or
two.

--J.L. CALLAWAY, Postmaster.

As the window was down we tiptoed out and went upon our way, driving
through Oxford before going to the plantation. This town was named for
Oxford, England, and is, like its namesake, a college town. A small and
very old Methodist educational institution, with a pretty though ragged
campus and fine trees, is all there is to Oxford, save a row of
ante-bellum houses. One of them, a pleasant white mansion, half
concealed by the huge magnolias which stand in its front yard, was at
one time the residence of General Longstreet. The old front gate,
hanging on a stone post, was made by the general with his own hands--and
well made, for it is to-day as good a gate as ever. Corra Harris lived
at one time in Oxford; her husband, Rev. Lundy H. Harris, having been a
professor at the college.

* * * * *

Though plantation life has necessarily changed since the war, I do not
believe that there is in the whole South a plantation where it has
changed less than on the Burge plantation. In appearance the place is
not as Sherman's men found it, for they tore down the fences and ruined
the beautiful old-fashioned garden, and neither has been replaced; nor,
of course, is it run, so far as practical affairs are concerned, as it
was before the War; that is to say, instead of being operated as a unit
of nine-hundred acres, it is now worked chiefly on shares, and is
divided up into "one mule farms" and "two mule farms," these being
tracts of about thirty and sixty acres, respectively, thirty acres being
approximately the area which can be worked by a man and a mule.

Practically all the negroes on the place--perhaps a hundred in
number--are either former slaves of the Burge family, or the children,
grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of slaves who lived on the
plantation. That is one reason why the plantation is less changed in
spirit than are many others. The Burges were religious people, used
their slaves kindly, and brought them up well, so that the negroes on
the plantation to-day are respectable, and in some instances, exemplary
people, very different from the vagrant negro type which has developed
since the War, making labor conditions in some parts of the South
uncertain, and plantation life, in some sections, not safe for
unprotected wo