The wagon drew up quickly and the driver—who showed at nearer view to be a dirty, red-bearded farmer of the poorer class—stared at him with an expression which settled into suspicion before it had time to denote surprise.
"Bernardsville! Why, you've come a good forty miles out of your road. That thar's Tappahannock."
"Tappahannock? I hadn't heard of it."
"Mebbe you ain't, but it never knowed it."
"Anything going on there? Work, I mean?"
"The biggest shippin' of tobaccy this side o' Danville is goin' on thar. Ever heard o' Danville?"
"I know the name, but the tobacco market is about closed now, isn't it? The season's over."
The man's laugh startled the waiting horses, and lifting their heads from a budding bush by the roadside, they moved patiently toward Tappahannock.
"Closed? Bless you, it never closes—Whoa! thar, won't you, darn you? To be sure sales ain't so brisk to-day as they war a month back, but I'm jest carryin' in my leetle crop to Baxter's warehouse."
"It isn't manufactured, then—only bought and sold?"