stop, and
speaking in an excited manner: "I doant b'lieve it--'taint 't all like
ye--yer a d----d seceshener; thet comes uv yer bringin'-up--but ye've a
soul bigger'n a meetin'-house, and ye cudn't hev put thet slim, weakly
gal inter th' woods, no how!"

The Colonel and I instinctively halted our horses, as the "corn-cracker"
stopped his, and were then standing abreast of him in the road.

"It's true, Barnes," said my host, in a voice that showed deep
dejection; "I _did_ do it!"

"May God Almighty furgive ye, Cunnel," said the native, starting his
horse forward; "_I_ wudn't hev dun it fur all yer niggers, by ----."

The Colonel made no reply, and we rode on the rest of the way in
silence.

The road was a mere wagon-track through the trees, and it being but
little travelled, and encumbered with the roots and stumps of the pine,
our progress was slow, and we were nearly two hours in reaching the
plantation of the native.

The corn-cracker's house--a low, unpainted wooden building--stood near
the little stream, and in the centre of a cleared plot of some ten
acres. This plot was surrounded by a post-and-rail fence, and in its
front portion was a garden, which grew a sufficient supply of vegetables
to serve a family of twenty persons. In the rear, and at the sides of
the dwelling, were about seven acres, devoted mainly to corn and
potatoes. In one corner of the lot were three tidy-looking negro-houses,
and close beside them I noticed a low shed, near which a large quantity
of the stalks of the tall, white corn, common to that section, was
stacked in the New England fashion. Browsing on the corn-stalks were
three sleek, well-kept milch cows, and a goat.

About four hundred yards from the farmer's house, and on the bank of the
little run, which there was quite wide and deep, stood a turpentine
distillery; and around it were scattered a large number of rosin and
turpentine barrels, some filled and some empty. A short distance higher
up, and far enough from the "still" to be safe in the event of a fire,
was a long, low, wooden shed, covered with rough, unjointed boards,
placed upright, and unbattened. This was the "spirit-house," used for
the storage of the spirits of turpentine when barrelled for market, and
awaiting shipment. In the creek, and filling nearly one-half of the
channel in front of the spirit-shed, was a raft of pine timber, on which
were laden some two hundred barrels of rosin. On such rude conveyances
t