154 Musings by Camp- Fire and Wayside 



men. But the old masters are dying, and the new 

 Pharaoh knows not Joseph. 



I said that I had been among the Appalachian 

 Highlanders, and found myself among my racial 

 kindred. "Among the moonshiners?" he said. 

 "Yes, among the moonshiners, and really I do 

 not blame them so much. They are living in the 

 period in which I lived when a boy, when there 

 were more little still-houses around us than school- 

 houses, and nobody ever thought of attaching 

 wrong to the business." 



"I would not want that fire under my boiler in 

 the next world." 



My ministerial chance acquaintance further 

 asked: "Do you know what the negroes want? 

 They want social equality," and he looked at me 

 with wide-eyed horror. I had to be polite, and not 

 tell him what amused me. It was the spectacle, a 

 fancy, of a man who had to call in his neighbors, 

 with shot-guns, to keep him from marrying a colored 

 individual. 



"There is that negro, Booker Washington," he 

 said; "now if you were going to a hotel and had 

 to choose between him and a white man for a room- 

 mate, which would you choose?" 



I replied that I would choose neither, but if it 

 were a matter of compulsion, I could not decide the 

 question on general principles. It would be a ques- 

 tion to be decided on sanitary inspection. This 

 matter came up in a conversation with Mr, Washing- 



