IN THE FLAT-WOODS. BB 
in “edication ;” but when I asked if he 
thought the blacks were better off in slavery 
times, he answered quickly, “I’d rather be 
a free man, J had.” He wasn’t married ; 
he had plenty to do to take care of himself. 
We separated, he going one way and I the 
other; but he turned to ask, with much 
seriousness (the reader must remember that 
this was only three months after a national 
election), “Do you think they ll get free 
trade?” “Truly,” said I to myself, “ ‘the 
world is too much with us.’ Even in the 
flat-woods there is no escaping the tariff ques- 
tion.” But I answered, in what was meant 
to be a reassuring tone, “ Not yet awhile. 
Some time.” “I hope not,” he said, —as if 
liberty to buy and sell would be a dreadful 
blow to a man living in ashanty in a Florida 
pine barren! He was taking the matter 
rather too much to heart, perhaps; but 
surely it was encouraging to see such a man 
interested in broad economical questions, and 
I realized as never before the truth of what 
the newspapers so continually tell us, that 
political campaigns are educational. 
