a 
A Thousand-Mile W alk 
halted me at the door and called out his wife, 
a fine-looking woman, who also questioned me 
narrowly as to my object in coming so far down 
through the South, so soon after the war. She 
said to her husband that she thought they could, 
perhaps, give me a place to sleep. 
After supper, as we sat by the fire talking 
on my favorite subject of botany, I described 
the country I had passed through, its botani- 
cal character, etc. Then, evidently, all doubt 
as to my being a decent man vanished, and 
they both said that they would n’t for any- 
thing have turned me away; but I must excuse 
their caution, for perhaps fewer than one in a 
hundred, who passed through this unfrequented 
part of the country, were to be relied upon. 
“Only a short time ago we entertained a man 
who was well spoken and well dressed, and he 
vanished some time during the night with some 
valuable silverware.” 
Mr. Cameron told me that when I arrived 
he tried me for a Mason, and finding that I was 
not a Mason he wondered still more that I 
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