176 VIRGINIA 



for the time I somehow allowed the signifi- 

 cance of his words to escape me, else I 

 should, no doubt, have traveled the road 

 again and again. As things were, I spent 

 but a single forenoon upon it, and went 

 only as far as the "height of land." 



The mountain road, as the townspeople 

 call it, rims over the long ridge which fills 

 the horizon east of Pulaski, and down into 

 the valley on the other side. It has its 

 beginning, at least, in a gap similar in all 

 respects to the one, some half a mile to the 

 northward, into which I had so many times 

 followed a footpath, as already fully set 

 forth. The traveler has first to pass half 

 a dozen or more of cabins, where, if he is 

 a stranger, he will probably find himseK 

 watched out of sight with flattering unanim- 

 ity by the curious inmates. In my time, 

 at all events, a solitary foot - passenger 

 seemed to be regarded as nothing short of 

 a phenomenon. What was more agreeable, 

 I met here a little procession of happy-look- 

 ing black children returning to the town 

 loaded with big branches of flowering apple- 

 trees; a sight which for some reason put 

 me in mind of a child, a tiny thing, — a 



