hospitality of the backwoods knows no bounds short of sickness in
the family or downright destitution. Travelers often innocently impose
on poor people, and even criticise the scanty fare, when they may be
getting a lion's share of the last loaf in the house. And few of them
realize the actual cost of entertaining company in a home that is long
mountain miles from any market. Fancy yourself making a twenty-mile
round trip over awful roads to carry back a sack of flour on your
shoulder and a can of oil in your hand; then figure what the
transportation is worth.

Once when I was trying a short-cut through the forest by following vague
directions I swerved to the wrong trail. Sunset found me on the summit
of an unfamiliar mountain, with cold rain setting in, and below me lay
the impenetrable laurel of Huggins's Hell. I turned back to the head of
the nearest water course, not knowing whither it led, fought my way
through thicket and darkness to the nearest house, and asked for
lodging. The man was just coming in from work. He betrayed some anxiety
but admitted me with grave politeness. Then he departed on an errand,
leaving his wife to hear the story of my wanderings.

I was eager for supper; but madame made no move toward the kitchen. An
hour passed. A little child whimpered with hunger. The mother, flushing,
soothed it on her breast.

It was well on in the night when her husband returned, bearing a little
"poke" of cornmeal. Then the woman flew to her post. Soon we had hot
bread, three or four slices of pork, and black coffee unsweetened--all
there was in the house.

It developed that when I arrived there was barely enough meal for the
family's supper and breakfast. My host had to shell some corn, go in
almost pitch darkness, without a lantern, to a tub-mill far down the
branch, wait while it ground out a few spoonfuls to the minute and bring
the meal back.

Next morning, when I offered pay for my entertainment, he waved it
aside. "I ain't never tuk money from company," he said, "and this ain't
no time to begin."

Laughing, I slipped some silver into the hand of the eldest child. "This
is not pay; it's a present." The girl was awed into speechlessness at
sight of money of her own, and the parents did not know how to thank me
for her, but bade me "Stay on, stranger; pore folks has a pore way, but
you're welcome to what we got."

This incident is a little out of the common, nowadays; but it is typical
of what was c