ALABAMA. 127 



quill, and are incomparably more at home in * twisting ' a 

 rabbit or treeing a 'possum, than in conjugating a verb." 

 But they proved to be decent lads, and a great affection 

 sprang up in time between them and their strange, insect- 

 collecting, animal-loving master. They grew in time to 

 form a volunteer corps of collectors, and their sharp eyes 

 to be most useful to the naturalist. 



The school-house was situated in a very romantic spot. 

 A space of about a hundred yards square had been cleared, 

 w^ith the exception of one or two noble oaks, which had 

 been preserved for shade. "On every side we are shut in 

 by a dense wall of towering forest trees, rising to the 

 height of a hundred feet or more. Oaks, hickories, and 

 pines of different species extend for miles on every hand, 

 for this little clearing is made two or three miles from 

 any human habitation, with the exception of one house 

 about three-quarters of a mile distant. Its loneliness, 

 however," Philip Gosse writes, "is no objection with me, 

 as it necessarily throws me more into the presence of 

 free and wild nature. At one corner a narrow bridle- 

 path leads out of this 'yard/ and winds through the 

 sombre forest to the distant high-road. A nice spring, 

 cool in the hottest of these summer days, rises in another 

 corner, and is protected and accumulated by being en- 

 closed in four sides of a box, over the edges of which the 

 superfluous water escapes, and, running off in a gurgling 

 brook, is lost in the shade of the woods. To this ' lodge 

 in the vast wilderness,' this ' boundless contiguity of shade,' 

 I wend my lonely way every morning, rising to an early 

 breakfast, and arriving in time to open school by eight 

 o'clock." 



It is possible to recover something of a record of his 

 typical day in Alabama. It opens with breakfast at six 

 o'clock ; the " nigger wenches " bringing in the grilled 



