sity in supplying cabbage and fish, in part upon the
thoughtlessness of his neighbor in supplying chickens and eggs.

Yet--so powerful is result of habit; on so much foundation of nature is
based the Scythian fable--the negroes of the South, immediately
succeeding the surrender, used the new greatness thrust upon them with
surprising innocence. Laziness, liquor and loud asseverations of
freedom and equality were its only blessings claimed; and the
commission of overt acts, beyond those named, were rare enough to prove
the rule of force of habit. Lured from old service for a time, most of
them followed not far the gaudy and shining Will-o'-the-Wisp; and
almost all--especially the household and personal servants--soon
returned to "Ole Mas'r" once more, sadder and wiser for the futile
chase after freedom's joys. But, even these were partly spoiled and
rendered of far less practical use to themselves, or to their
employers.

The "negro question" to-day is made merely a matter of politics, rather
than one of political economy. At the date of the Confederacy's death,
it is a matter of history.

Gradually--by very slow degrees--people in Richmond--as elsewhere in
the South, further removed from victor's contact--began to grow so far
accustomed to the chains imposed upon them, that they seemed less
unbearably galling. Little by little--forced by the necessities of
themselves and of those still dearer--men went to work at new and
strange occupations; doing not what they would, but what they could, in
the bitter struggle with want for their daily bread. But, spite of
earnest resolve and steady exertion,

"There was little to earn and many to keep--"

and every month it seemed to grow harder and harder to make the bare
means of life. And not alone did the men work--hard and steadily, early
and late. As the women of the South had been the counsellors, the
comforters, the very life of the soldiers when the dark hour was
threatened; so they proved themselves worthy helpmeets now that it had
come.

No privation was too great, no work too unaccustomed for them to
undergo. Little hands that had never held even a needle until the war,
now wrought laboriously at the varied--sometimes even menial--occupations
that the hour demanded. And they worked, as they had borne the war--with
never a murmur; with ever a cheering word for the fellow-laborer beside
them--with a bright trust in the future and that each one's particular
"King