Sometimes he “took up bee-huntin’ for a spell,” and made money by collecting wild honey. He described his manner of finding the hives and securing the honey, and, with a hushed voice, told me a “secret,” which was, that if you carried three leaves, each of a different tree (?) in your hand, there was never a bee would dare to sting you.
I asked about his children. He had one grown-up son, who was doing very well; he was hired by the gentleman who owned the forge, to cart ore. He had nothing to do but to drive a team; he didn’t have to load, and he had a nigger to take care of the horses when his day’s teaming was done.
His wages were seven dollars a month, and board for himself and wife. They ate at the same table with the gentleman, and had good living, beside having something out of the store, “tobacco and so on—tobacco for both on ’em, and two people uses a good deal of tobacco you know; so that’s pretty good wages—seven dollars a month besides their keep and tobacco.” Irishmen, he informed me, had been employed occasionally at the forge. “They do well at first, only they is apt to get into fights all the time; but after they’ve been here a year or two, they get to feel so independent and keerless-like, you can’t get along with ’em.” He remained about half an hour, and not till he returned did I hear again the noise of picking and shovelling, and cutting timber.
At the forges, I was told, slave labour is mainly employed—the slaves being owned by the proprietors of the forges.
I spent that night at a large inn in a village. In the morning as I sat waiting in my room, a boy opened the door. Without looking up I asked, “Well?”
“I didn’t say nuthin’, sar,” with a great grin.
“What are you waiting there for?” “Please, massa, I b’leve yours owin’ me suthin’, sar.” “Owing you something? What do you mean?” “For drying yer clothes for yer, sar, last night.” I had ordered him immediately after tea to go up stairs and get my clothes, which had been drenched in a shower, and hang them by the kitchen fire, that they might be dry if I should wish to leave early in the morning. When I went to my bedroom at nine o’clock I found the clothes where I had left them. I went down and reported it to the landlord, who directly sent the boy for them. In the morning, when I got them again I found they were not dry except where they were burned. I told him to be gone; but with the door half open, he stood putting in his head, bowing and grinning. “Please, sar, massa sent me out of an errand, and I was afeard you would be gone before I got back; dat’s the reason why I mention it, sar; dat’s all, sar; I hope you’ll skuse me, sar.”
During the afternoon I rode on through a valley, narrow and apparently fertile, but the crops indifferent. The general social characteristics were the same that I met with yesterday.
At night I stopped at a large house having an unusual number of negro cabins and stables about it. The proprietor, a hearty old farmer, boasted much of his pack of hounds, saying they had pulled down five deer before he had had a shot at them. He was much interested to hear about Texas, the Indians and the game. He reckoned there was “a heap of big varmint out thar.”
His crop of cotton did not average two bales to the hand, and corn not twenty bushels to the acre.