ound. The largest mills in Virginia, where the finest sumac grows--or
at least a very fine article--are at Richmond; but at Winchester, in the
lower part of the Shenandoah Valley, toward the Potomac, there is a big
mill, where great quantities are purchased, and prepared for the use of
the dyers. The leaves and small twigs are pounded and reduced to a fine
dust, and then it is ready to be sent away. When it reaches the
manufactories where it is to be used as a dye for leather, calico, etc.,
it is mixed with what are called _mordants_, certain substances that
make it _bite in_, as the word means, and take fast hold of the material
to be dyed; and then there is the pretty calico with its bright colors,
which can not be washed out.

It is only of late years that much attention has been paid to it in
Virginia. People thought more about raising corn and wheat than of
gathering sumac; but in twenty years they have learned a great deal, and
now begin to understand that "every little helps," and that if they can
go with their wives and children and pull sumac, and then sell it, they
can take their money and buy sugar and coffee, and perhaps some of the
very calico for their little girls' dresses which the red leaves of the
sumac make so pretty.

The children like the "camping out" on the mountain in the pleasant
summer and fall nights very much. It is a sort of frolic, and it is a
very good thing to mix up pleasure with work: it makes the work much
easier. The tents are very simple little affairs--only a breadth of
canvas stretched across a ridge-pole, like the "comb" of a house, held
up by forked sticks set in the ground. In this are spread what in
Virginia are called "pine tags," that is, the tassels, or needles, of
the pine-trees, which are dry and brown, and by spreading a blanket or
old comforter on these you have an excellent soft bed. In front of the
tent a fire is built to cook by, and by means of forked sticks a pot can
be hung above the fire for making soup, boiling meat, etc. By this fire,
as I have told you, the sumac hunters gather in the evening, after work,
and laugh and talk and sing, and eat their suppers; or perhaps some one
of them can play the fiddle, and he strikes up a dancing tune, and the
girls and boys dance on the grass, and laugh and enjoy themselves much
more than if they were in fine drawing-rooms. After a while the long
day's work makes them sleepy, and they lie down on the fresh pine tags
in the