32 IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 



baina. Everybody in eastern Florida came 

 from somewhere, as well as I could make out. 



" Oh, from B ," said I. " Did you know 



Mr. W , of the Iron Works?" 



He smiled again. " Yes, sah ; I used to 

 work for him. He 's a nice man." He spoke 

 the truth that time beyond a peradventure. 

 He was healthier here than in the other 

 place, he thought, and wages were higher ; 

 but he liked the other place better " for 

 pleasure." It was an odd coincidence, was 

 it not, that I should meet in this solitude a 

 man who knew the only citizen of Alabama 

 with whom I was ever acquainted. 



At another time I fell in with an oldish 

 colored man, who, like myself, had taken to 

 the woods for a quiet Sunday stroll. He was 

 from Mississippi, he told me. Oh, yes, he 

 remembered the war ; he was a slave, twenty- 

 one years old, when it broke out. To his 

 mind, the present generation of " niggers " 

 were a pretty poor lot, for all their " edica- 

 tion." He had seen them crowding folks off 

 the sidewalk, and puffing smoke in their 

 faces. All of which was nothing new ; I had 

 found that story more or less common among 

 negroes of his age. He did n't believe much 



