The Complete Writings-4 [51]
No sooner is the land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins to wash. We saw more of this later, especially in North Carolina, where we encountered no stream of water that was not muddy, and saw no cultivated ground that was not washed. The process of denudation is going on rapidly wherever the original forests are girdled (a common way of preparing for crops), or cut away.
As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question became a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen. No sign of it there. No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of course. Mrs. Egger and her comely young barefooted daughter had still the milking to attend to, and supper must wait for the other chores. It seemed easier to be Mr. Egger, in this state of existence, and sit on the front porch and meditate on the price of mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger, whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious meeting once a fortnight. Good, honest people these, not unduly puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in and year out. Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party, now and then, in the winter. What a price to pay for mere life!
Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this time a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed, an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a rich flavor of cattle, and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it, says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it also, but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even the Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee (so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two thick slabs of dough, with a squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper staggered the novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking were a common occurrence) and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet, and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to taste, we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned encounters of the drovers' herd.
We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of the supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for the entertainment of two
As the time passed and there was no sign of supper, the question became a burning one, and we went to explore the kitchen. No sign of it there. No fire in the stove, nothing cooked in the house, of course. Mrs. Egger and her comely young barefooted daughter had still the milking to attend to, and supper must wait for the other chores. It seemed easier to be Mr. Egger, in this state of existence, and sit on the front porch and meditate on the price of mules and the prospect of a crop, than to be Mrs. Egger, whose work was not limited from sun to sun; who had, in fact, a day's work to do after the men-folks had knocked off; whose chances of neighborhood gossip were scanty, whose amusements were confined to a religious meeting once a fortnight. Good, honest people these, not unduly puffed up by the brick house, grubbing away year in and year out. Yes, the young girl said, there was a neighborhood party, now and then, in the winter. What a price to pay for mere life!
Long before supper was ready, nearly nine o'clock, we had almost lost interest in it. Meantime two other guests had arrived, a couple of drovers from North Carolina, who brought into the circle--by this time a wood-fire had been kindled in the sitting-room, which contained a bed, an almanac, and some old copies of a newspaper--a rich flavor of cattle, and talk of the price of steers. As to politics, although a presidential campaign was raging, there was scarcely an echo of it here. This was Johnson County, Tennessee, a strong Republican county but dog-gone it, says Mr. Egger, it's no use to vote; our votes are overborne by the rest of the State. Yes, they'd got a Republican member of Congress,--he'd heard his name, but he'd forgotten it. The drover said he'd heard it also, but he didn't take much interest in such things, though he wasn't any Republican. Parties is pretty much all for office, both agreed. Even the Professor, who was traveling in the interest of Reform, couldn't wake up a discussion out of such a state of mind.
Alas! the supper, served in a room dimly lighted with a smoky lamp, on a long table covered with oilcloth, was not of the sort to arouse the delayed and now gone appetite of a Reformer, and yet it did not lack variety: cornpone (Indian meal stirred up with water and heated through), hot biscuit, slack-baked and livid, fried salt-pork swimming in grease, apple-butter, pickled beets, onions and cucumbers raw, coffee (so-called), buttermilk, and sweet milk when specially asked for (the correct taste, however, is for buttermilk), and pie. This was not the pie of commerce, but the pie of the country,--two thick slabs of dough, with a squeezing of apple between. The profusion of this supper staggered the novices, but the drovers attacked it as if such cooking were a common occurrence) and did justice to the weary labors of Mrs. Egger.
Egger is well prepared to entertain strangers, having several rooms and several beds in each room. Upon consultation with the drovers, they said they'd just as soon occupy an apartment by themselves, and we gave up their society for the night. The beds in our chamber had each one sheet, and the room otherwise gave evidence of the modern spirit; for in one corner stood the fashionable aesthetic decoration of our Queen Anne drawing-rooms,--the spinning-wheel. Soothed by this concession to taste, we crowded in between the straw and the home-made blanket and sheet, and soon ceased to hear the barking of dogs and the horned encounters of the drovers' herd.
We parted with Mr. Egger after breakfast (which was a close copy of the supper) with more respect than regret. His total charge for the entertainment of two