Time, with colonies settling in the new South, will yet bring back prosperity without the old taint, and keep step with all that is good in the nation. It cannot be done at once. I knew an energetic American who had built a town, and thought he would go South, and at least start another; but, said he, "I had not been there a week when I felt, as I rocked to and fro, listening to the music of the birds, and catching the fragrance of the jessamine, that I did not care whether school kept or not."
There is no great virtue in the activity that walks fast to keep from freezing. We owe a large portion of our goodness to Jack Frost.
Dr. Ryder tells a story of one of our commercial travellers who had been overtaken by night, and had slept in the home of a poor white. In the morning he naturally asked whether he could wash. "Ye can, I reckon, down to the branch." A little boy belonging to the house followed him; for such clothes and jewellery the lad had never before seen. After seeing the man wash, shave, and clean his teeth, he could hold in no longer, and said,—
"Mister, do you wash every day?"
"Yep."
"And scrape yer face with that knife?"
"Yep."
"And rub yer teeth too?"
"Yep."
"Wal, yer must be an awful lot of trouble to yerself."