458 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Now I think I hear some of my eastern fair readers 

 exclaim, "Well now, I do wish he would tell us what sort 

 of a house this Mississippi nabob lives in? — very splen- 

 did, I dare say. Oh, I wish I could see it." Well, madam, 

 it is a common double log cabin, with a hall between. 

 "Why, you don't mean to say, that a man with such a 

 farm, and so many negroes, lives in such a house as 

 that?" 



Oh yes I do, and very comfortably and nicely he does 

 live too, for he has a wife — ah, a wife, madam : not a 

 mere piece of household furniture, such as your boarding 

 school bred farmer's daughter will make — totally unfit 

 for a farmer's wife. "Well now, do tell me where they 

 all stay in such a house as that?" Why, madam, there 

 is another cabin back in the yard — that is the kitchen — 

 no matter that it is so far off the eating room — it is 

 Mississippi fashion; and there are plenty of negroes to 

 run back and forth; and here is another building — that 

 is the smoke house ; and there is another, that is the store 

 room ; and there are two or three more, those are lodging 

 rooms. No matter that they are ten rods from the 

 house — it is the fashion — and as for that, convenience 

 and comfort is ten times worse sacrificed every day, than 

 it is in these household arrangements. True, such ar- 

 rangements would not suit us at the north, but here use 

 and negro labor make the difference. I have seen in 

 more than one instance, the wood pile more than 40 rods 

 from the house, and "the spring" twice that distance — 

 two inconveniences that a yankee could never put up 

 with. He would sooner have "the well," as well as the 

 wood pile, both in the road, right in front of the door of 

 the house, that almost stands in the road too, to say 

 nothing of all the carts, plows, and sleds, also in the 

 road, "between the house and barn," it is so convenient. 



But we have much more yet to see of Mississippi life ; 

 and circumstances compel me to take a hasty leave of 

 this fine family — this "fine old Virginia gentleman," — 

 and now for a little season I again bid you a kind adieu. 



Solon Robinson. 



