in the region, and on the stony margin of
the stream was set up the big caldron for the family washing; and
here, paddling in the shallow stream, while dinner was preparing, we
established an intimacy with the children and exchanged philosophical
observations on life with the old negress who was dabbling the clothes.
What impressed this woman was the inequality in life. She jumped to the
unwarranted conclusion that the Professor and the Friend were very rich,
and spoke with asperity of the difficulty she experienced in getting
shoes and tobacco. It was useless to point out to her that her alfresco
life was singularly blessed and free from care, and the happy lot of
any one who could loiter all day by this laughing stream, undisturbed by
debt or ambition. Everybody about the place was barefooted, except the
mistress, including the comely daughter of eighteen, who served our
dinner in the kitchen. The dinner was abundant, and though it seemed
to us incongruous at the time, we were not twelve hours older when we
looked back upon it with longing. On the table were hot biscuit, ham,
pork, and green beans, apple-sauce, blackberry preserves, cucumbers,
coffee, plenty of milk, honey, and apple and blackberry pie. Here we had
our first experience, and I may say new sensation, of "honey on pie." It
has a cloying sound as it is written, but the handmaiden recommended it
with enthusiasm, and we evidently fell in her esteem, as persons from
an uncultivated society, when we declared our inexperience of "honey on
pie." "Where be you from?" It turned out to be very good, and we have
tried to introduce it in families since our return, with indifferent
success. There did not seem to be in this family much curiosity about
the world at large, nor much stir of social life. The gayety of madame
appeared to consist in an occasional visit to paw and maw and grandmaw,
up the river a few miles, where she was raised.

Refreshed by the honey and fodder at Ramsey's, the pilgrims went gayly
along the musical Laurel, in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun,
which played upon the rapids and illumined all the woody way. Inspired
by the misapprehension of the colored philosopher and the dainties of
the dinner, the Professor soliloquized:

"So am I as the rich, whose blessed key
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so