red he, "but the old ones
will tell you." A few yards farther I met the "old ones;" they were
both young people, not much more than twenty.

In Mrs. Finn we found a stout and plump farmer's wife, but she was a
lady in her manners. Born in the wilderness, the daughter of one bold
pioneer and married to another, she had never seen anything but woods,
canebrakes, cotton, and negroes, and yet, in her kindness and
hospitality, she displayed a refinement of feeling and good breeding.
She was daughter of the celebrated Daniel Boone, a name which has
acquired a reputation even in Europe. She immediately ransacked her
pantry, her hen-roost, and garden, and when we returned from the
cotton-mill, to which our host, in his farmer's pride, had conducted us,
we found, upon an immense table, a meal which would have satisfied fifty
of those voracious Bostonians whom we had met with the day before at the
_table d'hote_.

Well do I recollect her, as she stood before us on that glorious
evening, her features beaming with pleasure, as she witnessed the
rapidity with which we emptied our plates. How happy she would look when
we praised her chickens, her honey, and her coffee; and then she would
carve and cut, fill again our cups, and press upon us all the delicacies
of the Far West borders, delicacies unknown in the old countries; such
as fried beaver-tail, smoked tongue of the buffalo-calf, and (the
_gourmand's_ dish _par excellence_) the Louisiana gombo. Her coffee,
too, was superb, as she was one of the few upon the continent of America
who knew how to prepare it.

After our supper, the captain conducted us under the piazza attached to
the building, where we found eight hammocks suspended, as white as snow.
There our host disinterred from a large bucket of ice several bottles of
Madeira, which we sipped with great delight: the more so as, for our
cane pipes and cheap Cavendish, Finn substituted a box of genuine
Havanna cazadores. After our fatigues and starvation, it was more than
comfortable--it was delightful. The doctor vowed he would become a
planter, the parson asked if there were any widows in the neighbourhood,
and the lawyers inquired if the planters of the vicinity were any way
litigious. By the bye, I have observed that Captain Finn was a
celebrated character. As we warmed with the _Madere frappe a glace_, we
pressed him to relate some of his wild adventures, with which request he
readily complied; for he loved to rehearse h