length,
to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when they are
going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the big yard,
but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the nap rubbed
off; big double log-house for the white folks--hewed logs, with the
chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes been
whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big broad,
open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house back of
the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other side the
smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against the back
fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; ash-hopper and
big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by the kitchen door,
with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there in the sun; more
hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away off in a corner;
some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence;
outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton
fields begins, and after the fields the woods.

I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and
started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum of
a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; and then
I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that IS the lonesomest
sound in the whole world.

I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting
to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for
I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth if
I left it alone.

When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went for
me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And such
another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind of a
hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of dogs--circle of
fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses
stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you
could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres.

A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her
hand, singing out, "Begone YOU Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she
fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling,
and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back,
wagging th