lowed soil you hear a darky cry, a melodious "Oh-_oh_-oh!" as wild
and musical as the cries of the south-Italian olive gatherers. The
planters cease their work, mules stand still, traces are unhooked from
singletrees, and chain-ends thrown over the mules' backs; then the men
mount the animals and ride in to the midday meal, the women trudging
after. Those who rent land, or work on shares, go to their own cabins,
while those employed by the hour or by the day (the rate of pay is ten
cents an hour or seventy-five cents a day) come to the kitchen to be
fed. Nor is it customary to stop there at feeding negroes. As in the old
days, any negro who has come upon an errand or who has "stopped by" to
sell supplies, or for whatever purpose, expects to stay for "dinner,"
and makes it a point to arrive about noon. Thus from sixteen to twenty
negroes are fed daily at the Burge plantation house.

The old Christmas traditions are likewise kept up. On Christmas day the
negroes come flocking up to the house for their gifts. Their first
concern is to attempt to cry "Christmas gift!" to others, before it can
be said to them--for according to ancient custom the one who says the
words first must have a gift from the other.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A YOUNG METROPOLIS

An observer approaching a strange city should be "neutral even in
thought." He may listen to what is said of the city, but he must not
permit his opinions to take form in advance; for, like other gossip,
gossip about cities is unreliable, and the casual stranger's estimate of
cities is not always founded upon broad appreciations. But though it is
unwise to judge of cities by what is said of them, it is perhaps worth
remarking that one may often judge of men by what they say of cities.

I remember an American manufacturer, broken down by overwork, who, when
he looked at Pompeii, could think only of the wasted possibilities of
Vesuvius as a power plant, and I remember two traveling salesmen on a
southern railroad train who expressed scorn for the exquisite city of
Charleston because--they said--it is but a poor market place for
suspenders and barbers' supplies. There are those who think of Boston
only as headquarters of the shoe trade, others who think of it only in
the terms of culture, and still others who regard it solely as an abode
of negrophiles.

In the case of the chief city of Alabama, however, my companion and I
noticed, as we journeyed through the South, that repo