54 THE GENIE OF OLD. 



same time, got down slowly and heavily from his seat, and comin^ 

 around to the window by which I sat, he said, pointing with his 

 whip, down the road, "Yon's Shepherdstown." I looked in the 

 direction he pointed, and there, sure enough lay the dear old town, 

 [it became dear to me, afterwards, but this afternoon, with the well 

 known though unreasonable feeling which every homesick person 

 must have experienced, it was not very "dear"]. From the height 

 on which we had stopped we could even see, shimmering in the 

 afternoon sunshine, the River that separated it from Maryland. 

 The driver stood there for a few minutes, partly to rest his horses, 

 and partly with a good natured wish to give me a longer view, and 

 perhaps time for any exclamations of wonder or admiration to which 

 I might want to give vent; then lowering his whip, he lumbered 

 away again, slowly disappearing from my view, as he climbed back to 

 his perch and started on his way again. 



But my time for observation was past In about ten minutes, 

 down came the driver again, back to my window, and pointing, this 

 time to the left, "Ton's Forest Grove," he said. A little bare-foot- 

 ed, bare-legged, I might almost say bare-bodied, "nigger," [as he is 

 called by refined and unrefined alike] sprang from somewhere, out 

 of a tree apparently, waved his brimless straw hat, — the last article 

 of clothing which he parts with — and opened the large, rickety 

 gates, and the driver, after resting his horses, preparatory to "gittin' 

 up that thar cussed ole hill," walks them leisurely upward. 



