t, impudently:

"If I could have two horses I'd buy a better hat!"

Milburn did not answer, but marked the poor, small corn ears ungathered
on the fodderless stalks, the shrubs of peach-trees, of which the
largest grew on his ancestors' graves, the little cart for one horse or
ox, which was at once family carriage and farm wagon, and the few pigs
and chickens of stunted breeds around the woman's feet.

"Drive on, boy," he exclaimed; "the worst of all is that these people
are happy!"

"Dat's a fack, marster," laughed Samson Hat. "Dey wouldn't speak to you
in Princess Anne. Dey think everybody's proud and rich dar."

"Here the sea once dashed its billows on a bar," said Meshach Milburn,
reflectively. "That geology book relates it! From the North the hummocks
recede in waves, where successive beaches were formed as the sea slowly
retreated. Hardly deeper than a human grave they strike water, below the
sand and gravel. Below the water they drink is nothing but black mud,
made of coarse, decayed grass. No lime is in the soil. Not a mineral
exists in all this low, wave-made peninsula, where my people were
shipwrecked--except the wonderful bog ores."

The negro's genial, wondering nature broke out with comfortable
assurance.

"Dat must be in de Bible," he said. "Marster, de Milburns been heah so
long, dey must hab got shipwrecked wid ole Noah!"

"All families are shipwrecked," absently replied Meshach, "who cast
their lot upon an unrewarding land, and growing poorer, darker, down,
from generation to generation, can never leave it, and, at last, can
never desire to go."

"Marster, dar is one got to go some ob dese days. It's me--pore ole
Samson!"

"Ha! has some one set you on to demand your wages?"

"No, marster, I am old. It's you dat I'm troubled about! Dar's none to
mend for you, cook for you, cure yo' sickness, or lay you in de grave."

No more was said until they passed the settled part of the forest and
entered one of the many straight aisles of sky and sand among the pines,
which had been opened on the great furnace tract of Judge Custis. He had
here several thousand acres, and for miles the roadways were cleft
towards the horizon. The moon rose behind them as they entered the
furnace village, and they saw the lights twinkle through the open doors
of many cottages and the furnace flames dart over the forbidding
mill-pond, where in the depths grew the iron ore, like a vegetable
creation, and above the surfa