86 NORTH CAROLINA 



went our different ways, I still pitying the 

 woman, with that heavy bag under her arm, 

 having to make a packhorse of herself on 

 that tiresome mountain road. 



However, it is the mountain woman's way 

 to do her full share of the hard work, as I 

 was soon to see farther exemplified ; for 

 within half a mile I heard in front of me 

 the grating of a saw, and presently came 

 upon another family group, in the woods on 

 the mountain side, — a woman, three chil- 

 dren, and a dog. The woman, no longer 

 young, as we say in the language of compli- 

 ment, was at one end of a cross-cut saw, and 

 the largest boy, ten or eleven years old, was 

 at the other. They were getting to pieces 

 a huge fallen trunk. " Wood ought to be 

 cheap in this country," said I ; and the 

 woman, as she and the boy changed hands to 

 rest themselves, answered that it was. In 

 my heart I thought she was paying dearly 

 for it ; but her voice was cheerful, and the 

 whole company was almost a merry one, the 

 younger children laughing at their play, and 

 the dog capering about them in high spirits. 

 The mountain family may be poor, but not 

 with the degrading, squalid poverty of dwell- 



