"On the contrary, I think you act very properly in keeping him at a distance."
"I wish brother Henry would do the same."
"What reason have you for thinking he does not?"
"Oh! plenty of reason. Henry receives him at his house, and he has even the impudence to talk to 'Corneel,' as you have heard him call my sister. Down in Mississippi State they have queer ways. As you may know, most of the Choctaw lands there, were settled by 'speculators,' and they're not very particular as to what a man is, so long as he makes money. Brother's an easy sort of fellow, and don't much mind what kind he goes with, if he can only get his fill of hunting. It was nothing else he moved to the Mississippi for; though he don't like to own to it. We see only a stray bear upon Duck, and deer are getting scarce, while both are still plenty in the canebrakes of the Mississippi bottom. But come, sir, you'll no doubt think me an inhospitable traveling companion; and our horses will have a sorry opinion of both of us. Here's old Spicer's tavern, where we stand some chance of getting a dinner, and in the cool of the evening we can ride on to Columbia."
We dismounted under the swing sign of the "Lafayette Hotel;" and, after a little "sweetening," prevailed upon Major Spicer—a Tennessee tavern-keeper would not be of inferior grade—to consent that one of his darkies should take care of our horses, and that we ourselves might partake of the hospitality of the Lafayette Hotel—consisting of sweet potatoes and "pone" bread—fried pork and apple "sass," with a stirrup cup of peach-brandy, to strengthen us for continuing our journey.
CHAPTER V.
PLANTATION LIFE.
There are not many chapters in my life's experience that I can look back upon with more satisfaction than that which records my stay upon a Tennessee cotton plantation. With me it has ever been a pleasure to study the ways and sources of production, more especially those relating to the great staples, that not only interest, but influence the conduct of mankind. And perhaps none to a greater extent than that which, when fabricated, forms one of the most important items of our clothing—the plant Gossypium, lately relied upon to control a great national revolution.
I was shown its glaucous wool-covered seeds, the mode of sowing it, the way by which its young shoots were kept clear of weeds—the plant as it appeared in its snow-white flower, and afterward, when the bursting capsule displays the equally white staple, giving still greater delight to the planter's eye—then the gathering, the "picking" of those seeds, so tenacious as to require the machinery of the "gin;" and, lastly, the packing and "pressing" of the bales, which makes them ready for the dray, the flat, the steamboat, or the ship—ready for transport to the remotest parts of the earth.