a coon skin or two, but these I didn't want, and
there being no other small change about the farm, the matter was
dropped, I thought, for good, and I had quite forgotten it, when later
in the evening I was electrified by his offering to carry a letter for
us which we wished posted, some seven miles away, and call it "square,"
against the twenty cents of the morning's transaction. The letter went,
and in due course of time we got an answer.

I do not say that we stuck strictly to the twenty-cent transaction, but
I fear that not enough was paid to fair-dealing Anderson. However, all
were at last satisfied and warming into conversation, a log fire was
improvised and social chat went round.

These good people could hardly understand how it was, as I explained,
that the Brazilians had freed the slaves and had no war, Mr. Anderson
often exclaiming, "Well, well, I d'clar. Freed the niggers, and had no
wah. Mister," said he, turning to me after a long pause, "mister, d'ye
know the South were foolish? They had a wah, and they had to free the
niggers, too."

"Oh, yes, mister, I was thar! Over thar beyond them oaks was my house."

"Yes, mister, I fought, too, and fought hard, but it warn't no use."

Like many a hard fighter, Anderson, too, was a pious man, living in a
state of resignation to be envied. His years of experience on the new
island farm had been hard and trying in the extreme. My own misfortunes
passed into shade as the harder luck of the Andersons came before my
mind, and the resolution which I had made to buy a farm was now shaken
and finally dissolved into doubts of the wisdom of such a course. On
this farm they had first "started in to raise pork," but found that it
"didn't pay, for the pigs got wild and had to be gathered with the
dogs," and by the time they were "gathered and then toted, salt would
hardly cure them, and they most generally tainted." The enterprise was
therefore abandoned, for that of tilling the soil, and a crop was put
in, but "the few pigs which the dogs had not gathered came in at night
and rooted out all the taters." It then appeared that a fence should be
built. "Accordingly," said he, "the boys and I made one which kept out
the stock, but, sir, the rats could get in! They took every tater out of
the ground! From all that I put in, and my principal work was thar, I
didn't see a sprout." How it happened that the rats had left the crop
the year before for their relations--the pigs--was wh