The Days of a Man 1878 



about his mother and sister and show their pictures, 

 while she listened with womanly sympathy. But 

 one day when her brother, a Confederate officer, 

 was in the house, she heard him and his companions 

 laying a plan to entrap the little company. By 

 and by the young Northerner appeared for his 

 usual visit; her mind was now torn as to her duty. 

 Could or should she warn the boy? Would not that 

 be disloyalty to the Confederate Cause? Finally 

 she let him go without a word. Afterward her 

 brother's men brought him back to the house to 

 die ; and the question as to whether or not she should 

 have spoken had ever since tortured her days. 

 Change At Crab Orchard Springs, Kentucky, I met a 

 y un S fellow who told me of a "freak" in his town, 

 a chap who never touched whisky. "Whisky was 

 good if you didn't take too much of it ; everybody 

 knew that." And yet thirty years later Lincoln 

 County went "dry" by its own vote. The rest of 

 Kentucky and the rest of the country have now gone 

 with it. They say that "human nature does not 

 change." True, but the angle of vision may change 

 relatively quickly and mightily. 



After various other experiences in the Kentucky 

 upland we reached the French Broad. Duplicat- 

 ing now the trip of the previous summer, including 

 a stay at Alexander's charming farm on the river, 

 and another night on Mount Mitchell, we again 

 followed the Swannanoa back to Asheville. Thence 

 we continued our walk southward and westward, 

 past Brevard and Hendersonville, along the upper 

 French Broad nearly to its sources in the Blue 

 Ridge and Nantahala. 



The mountain wall of the Blue Ridge is par- 

 C 166] 



