"Aw, dis bill, y' see, 'us a secret. Dey wa'nt but three people knowed 'bout it. 'N' dey was du editor and du president—'n'—," he was thoughtful now, as he meditated for a moment, and then said, "Roosevelt!"
By this time the train had gotten under way, and it thundered on its way southward, down among the scrub pines that stood back from the single track. Croppings of iron, Wyeth observed, reached far to the south of Effingham, while the country, as far as soil was concerned, was a desolate lot of red clay and rock. The train tore through numerous little towns, consisting of a number of shacks, built mostly of plain boards, standing straight up and down, with smaller boards nailed on the cracks. Before some of these shanties played white children, whose appearance showed the life they lived, which was apparently that of poverty; while at some distance, he also observed were other houses, not as respectable as those behind which white children played, and occupied by Negroes. Little patches of cleared land that was scratched over, denoted that agriculture was attempted in even this poor soil. By the slenderness of the dead stalks, he could see that it would take many acres to produce a bale of cotton.
On to the south the train hurried, and as they neared the capital of the state, he observed, with some encouragement, that the soil grew a little deeper; but, at the best, would have been laughed at back in the Rosebud Country. And the same sight met his gaze all along. This had once been a proud, aristocratic state; but, he wondered if it became so by the returns of crops from such poor land. Yet he was seeing only a small part of it from the car window.
A cotton gin greeted the traveler at almost every station; while everywhere the scrub pines and rocks were largely in evidence. If all the state was like what he saw from the car window, with the exception of that which lay about the capital for a distance of fifteen or twenty miles, he scarcely wondered that so many Negroes preferred the city, where wages were sufficient to give them something in life.
It was a cold, disagreeable day in the beginning; but, as afternoon wore on, he was cheered to see the elements clear, and the air become warmer.
The highlands were behind them now, and had given place to great trees, while back from the track log houses interspersed the forest here and there. The further south the train pulled, the deeper became the swamp, while the trees towered to heights that could not be fully estimated from the car window. The atmosphere, which had before been dry, was now charged with a peculiar dampness, that seemed to rise from the earth, which melted away from the tracks.
After many miles, in which the afternoon sun barely penetrated the deep forest, the train passed through another pine district. The trees were slender and scattered, while thousands of stumps stood lowly and darkly about. As he looked closer, he saw that among the standing timber, at the base, were little buckets. He made inquiries and was told that this was where turpentine came from. He laughed then at his ignorance. He had forgotten entirely that it was the south which produced the greatest amount of this article.
"And when they have tapped the tree for such a purpose, I suppose it is of no further good but to be cut down?"
"They cut them down at once, and make most of them into cord wood," replied the person of whom he asked.
"Now these people," said Wyeth, pointing to the black people, "they attend to the most of it?"