44 NORTH CAROLINA 



dens and taken off his hat, he talked in a 

 cheerful, honest voice, most agreeable to lis- 

 ten to. Life was still a pleasant experience 

 to him, as it seemed. I doubt whether he 

 had ever tired of it for a day. He would 

 sell the turkey and the chicken, buy a little 

 tobacco and perhaps one or two other neces- 

 saries, and then trudge the ten miles home 

 again. It is a great thing to have a market 

 for one's produce, and a greater thing to be 

 contented with one's lot. 



Not far beyond this favorite resting-place 

 — tempting even in the retrospect, as the 

 reader perceives — is a house with a good- 

 sized clearing, through which meanders a 

 trout-stream, to the endless comfort of one 

 of the younger boys of the family. I saw 

 him angling there, one day, with shining 

 success. What a good time he was having ! 

 He could hardly bait the hook fast enough. 

 I leaned over the fence and watched him 

 out of pure sympathy (he did not see me, I 

 think, though there was nothing in the world 

 between us — except the fish), and after- 

 ward I mentioned the circumstance to his 

 father. *' Oh, he is a great fisherman," was 

 the proud response. For a boy that is a 



