I overtook upon the road, to-day, three young men of the poorest class. Speaking of the price of land and the profit of farming, one of them said, believing me to be a southerner—
“We are all poor folks here; don’t hardly make enough to keep us in liquor. Anybody can raise as much corn and hogs on the mountains as he’ll want to live on, but there ain’t no rich people here. Nobody’s got any black ones—only three or four; no one’s got fifty or a hundred, like as they have down in the East.” “It would be better,” interrupted another, somewhat fiercely, “there warn’t any at all; that’s my mind about it; they’re no business here; they ought to be in their own country and take care of themselves, that’s what I believe, and I don’t care who hears it.” But let the reader not be deceived by these expressions; they indicate simply the weakness and cowardice of the class represented by these men. It is not slavery they detest; it is simply the negro competition, and the monopoly of the opportunities to make money by negro owners, which they feel and but dimly comprehend.
If you meet a man without stopping, the salutation here always is, “How d’ye do, sir?” never “Good morning;” and on parting it is, “I wish you well, sir,” more frequently than “Good-bye.” You are always commanded to appear at the table, as elsewhere throughout the South, in a rough, peremptory tone, as if your host feared you would try to excuse yourself.
“Come in to supper.” “Take a seat.” “Some of the fry?” “Help yourself to anything you see that you can eat.”
They ask your name, but do not often call you by it, but hail you “Stranger,” or “Friend.”
Texas is always spoken of in the plural—“the Texies.” “Bean’t the Texies powerful sickly?”
“Ill” is used for “vicious.” “Is your horse ill?” “Not that I am aware of. Does he appear so?” “No; but some horses will bite a stranger if he goes to handling on ’em.”
“Is your horse ill?” “No, I believe not.” “I see he kind o’ drapt his ears when I came up, ’zif he was playful.”
Everybody I’ve met in the last three counties—after ascertaining what parts I came from, and which parts I’m going to, where I got my horse, what he cost, and of what breed he is, what breed the dog is, and whether she’s followed me all the way from the Texies, if her feet ain’t worn out, and if I don’t think I’ll have to tote her if I go much further, and if I don’t want to give her away, how I like the Texies, etc.—has asked me whether I didn’t see a man by the name of Baker in the Texies, who was sheriff of —— county, and didn’t behave exactly the gentleman, or another fellow by the name of ——, who ran away from the same county, and cut to the Texies. I’ve been asked if they had done fighting yet in the Texies, referring to the war with Mexico, which was ended ten years ago. Indeed the ignorance with regard to everything transpiring in the world outside, and the absurd ideas and reports I hear, are quite incredible. It cannot be supposed that having been at home in New York, there should be any one there whom I do not personally know, or that, having passed through Texas, I should be unable to speak from personal knowledge of the welfare of every one in that State.