table, though the two negro boys stood at the head and foot, nominally waiters, but always anticipated by the Cinderella, when anything was wanted.
A big lout of a youth who came from the field with the negroes, looked in, but seeing me, retired. His father called, but his mother said, "'t wouldn't do no good—he was so bashful."
Speaking of the climate of the country, I was informed that a majority of the folks went barefoot all winter, though they had snow much of the time four or five inches deep, and the man said he didn't think most of the men about here had more than one coat, and they never wore any in winter except on holidays. "That was the healthiest way," he reckoned, "just to toughen yourself and not wear no coat; no matter how cold it was, he didn't wear no coat."
The master held a candle for me while I undressed, in a large room above stairs; and gave me my choice of the four beds in it. I found one straw bed (with, as usual, but one sheet), on which I slept comfortably. At midnight I was awakened by some one coming in. I rustled my straw, and a voice said, "Who is there in this room?"
"A stranger passing the night; who are you?"
"All right; I belong here. I've been away and have just come home."
He did not take his clothes off to sleep. He turned out to be an older son who had been fifty miles away, looking after a stray horse. When I went down stairs in the morning, having been wakened early by flies, and the dawn of day through an open window, I saw the master lying on his bed in the "parlour," still asleep in the clothes he wore at supper. His wife was washing her face on the gallery, being already dressed for the day; after using the family towel, she went into the kitchen, but soon returned, smoking a pipe, to her chair in the doorway.
