12 4 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



no answer at all. At length, after a prodigious waste of 



time, and as the soft daylight began to flood the air, a 



little white boy of twelve years of age appeared at the 



door. This was Master James, the son of the manager, 



who rubbed his eyes, stated that the negro woman and 



himself were the only persons on the premises, and 



tumbled back into bed. The woman then raked in the 



ashes and prepared Gosse some breakfast, his luggage all 



this while remaining on the lowest step at the margin of 



the river. But before the meal was over. Master James 



strolled to the threshold, blew a long blast upon a conch, 



and, on the simultaneous appearance of a dozen negroes 



out of the woods, sent some of them down for the visitor's 



trunks. While Philip Gosse waited for them to reappear, 



in the balmy air of the wood-yard, several fox-squirrels 



descended and chased one another from bough to bough 



of the nearest oaks, a pair of summer redbirds {Tanagra 



cestivd) were flirting almost within reach of his hand, and a 



flock of those delicate butterflies, the hairstreaks {Thecla), 



came dancing to him down a glade in the forest. Under 



these picturesque conditions he gained his first impressions 



of Southern life. 



At the pace of one mile an hour he spent the remainder 

 of the day in reaching Dallas. The road lay through 

 the romantic forest, descended into cool glens, where 

 hidden rivulets ran brawling under bowers of the profuse 

 scarlet woodbine, emerged in high clearings where brilliant 

 flowers, in veritable bouquets, thronged the angles of the 

 fences. He passed fields where negro slaves, the first he 

 had seen at work, were ploughing between rows of cotton ; 

 he hurried through neglected pastures where turkey 

 buzzards were performing, none too soon, their scaven- 

 ger's duty on a too-odorous carcase ; he feasted upon wild 

 raspberries and luscious Virginian strawberries ; and, at 



