his whole
attention was required to guide the restive mule through a labyrinth
of stumps and ruts and horrible muddy holes, which he called "hog
wallows;" my own endeavors were addressed to "holding on," and
devising means to ease the horrible joltings which racked me from head
to foot. After riding about two miles we came to a small clearing, and
were informed that the road for ten miles was "tolerbal clar" and
pretty thickly settled. So after partaking of an early country dinner,
also obtaining a small amount of eggs, chickens, etc., at exorbitant
prices, we resumed our ride. That expedition will never be forgotten
by me. At its close, I felt that my powers of diplomacy were quite
equal to any emergency. Oh, the sullen, sour-looking women that I
sweetly smiled upon, and flattered into good humor, praising their
homes, the cloth upon the loom, the truck-patch (often a mass of
weeds), the tow-headed babies (whom I caressed and admired), never
hinting at my object until the innocent victims offered of their own
accord to "show me round." At the spring-house I praised the new
country butter, which "looked so very good that I must have a pound or
two," and then skilfully leading the conversation to the subject of
chickens and eggs, carelessly displaying a few crisp Confederate
bills, I at least became the happy possessor of a few dozens of eggs
and a chicken or two, at a price which only their destination
reconciled me to.

At one house, approached by a road so tortuous and full of stumps that
we were some time before reaching it, I distinctly heard a dreadful
squawking among the fowls, but when we arrived at the gate, not one
was to be seen, and the mistress declared she hadn't a "_one_: hadn't
saw a chicken for a _coon's_ age." Pleading excessive fatigue, I
begged the privilege of resting within the cabin. An apparently
unwilling assent was given. In I walked, and, occupying one of those
splint chairs which so irresistibly invite one to commit a breach of
good manners by "tipping back," I sat in the door-way, comfortably
swaying backward and forward. Every once in a while the faces of
children, either black or white, would peer at me round the corner of
the house, then the sound of scampering bare feet would betray their
sudden flight. Suddenly I caught sight of a pair of bare, black feet
protruding from under the bed. Presently an unmistakable squawk arose,
instantly smothered, but followed by a fluttering of wings and