AMONG THE SANDHILLS. 



JOHN MC NEIL. 



From Virginia to Mississippi runs a 

 ridge of sandhills, between the red clay 

 of the foot hills and the peaty loam of the 

 Atlantic slope. The soil is poor, except 

 for grapes, and the pine forest and wire- 

 grass hold their ground with little of 

 human interference. 



The Seaboard railway, however, rides 

 the backbone of this ridge, from a point 

 near Raleigh to Hamlet, and has induced 

 the growth of villages along its line pop- 

 ulated chiefly by section hands and grape 

 farmers. Except for such oases, the sand- 

 hills will probably remain a perpetual wil- 

 derness, an asylum for deer, turkeys and 

 foxes, so rapidly disappearing elsewhere. 



One afternoon, half an hour before sun- 

 set, I left the train at Keyser, expecting to 

 be met by a flat country farmer, to whose 

 home I was bent on business. My letter 

 had miscarried and no farmer was there. 



"Ten miles to Aberdeen," said the sta- 

 tion agent in answer to my question. 

 'That's the closest place to git a boss." 



"How far to Major Tillman's?" I in- 

 quired. 



"Sixteen miles f'om heah and 20 f'om 

 Aberdeen. Sorry, but you can't git out 

 o' footin' 10 miles at least." 



"Well," I sighed, "I prefer to foot 16 

 to footing 10 and riding 20; so good luck 

 to you !" and with my small grip slung 

 lightly over my shoulder I set out, ac- 

 cording to directions, to the Southward. 



The sun was half hidden behind the blue 

 bank of cloud that skirted the horizon, and 

 a thousand locusts were rasping the air 

 with their harsh voices. The pure breath 

 of the pine woods exhilarated me. As 

 twilight died into dusk, the katydids suc- 

 ceeded the locust choir ; the pines moaned 

 in solemn monotone, so that I felt as if 

 I were among the pillars of some great 

 cathedral ; and when the big, yellow moon, 

 like a forest fire, kindled the Eastern tree 

 tops, a whippoorwill in the next valley be- 

 gan telling his pathetic experiences to a 

 listening world. 



Those who understand such things say 

 that poetry is that which awakens within 

 us when we hear sweet sounds, feast our 

 eyes on the beautiful, or feel, from any 

 other cause, lofty emotions. I was then 

 full of poetry, awakened by this commun- 

 ion with the soul of nature; but when my 

 legs began to ache with fatigue, and every 

 hill I came to was an exact counterpart 

 of the one I had just crossed, I felt more 

 like composing an ode on the blessedness 

 of sleep than I had ever felt before. 



Why not play the role of a hale and 

 hearty huntsman and sleep romantically 

 in the woods, on the lap of my mother, 

 under the eye of my stars and of the pa- 

 troness of hunters, Diana the chaste, and 

 so on? Accommodations so bountiful and 

 guests so rare, I was sure of my welcome. 

 On the matted wiregrass, with my grip for 

 a pillow, I stretched my listless length. 



"How hospitable," I thought, with a 

 sigh, "is nature. She turns her all into 

 your hands. No begrudging, no insistence. 

 She allows you really to feel at home, the 

 last and best accomplishment of a host." 



I was half inclined that in the morning 

 I should scatter what money I had on 

 the grass, after the fashion of Stevenson, 

 in order to settle with my invisible land- 

 lord. Before I had srared an hour at the 

 moon, however, I decided that Stevenson's 

 night in the woods was of a different color 

 from this one. Time dragged with leaden 

 feet. The fever and fret of that night, with 

 its dews, its mosquitoes, and its chill, called 

 to my mind again and again the stern phil- 

 osophy of Emerson : "Nature is no senti- 

 mentalist. She does not cosset or pamper 

 us. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, 

 tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, 

 freezes a man like a dewdrop. Providence 

 has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its 

 end, and it is of no use to try to white- 

 wash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or 

 to dress up that terrific benefactor in the 

 clean shirt and white neckcloth of a stu- 

 dent in divinity." 



I smoked and smoked, saturated the 

 grass on all sides with the aroma of to- 

 bacco; but the unconquerable bloodsuck- 

 ers returned in ever increasing numbers 

 until I was forced to break a tuft of dog 

 fennel and lay about me like Macbeth 

 after Banquo's ghost. The memory of 

 that night, to this day, makes me long for 

 3 things : all the mosquitoes in a big bag ; 

 an idle afternoon, and a blackgum maul. 



Though unconscious of having slept at 

 all, I was startled as if from sleep by the 

 uncanny sensation of something cold and 

 moist wrigggling over my face. I sprang 

 up and shook myself. It was not a lizard 

 nor a snail, however, but the nose of a 

 bird dog. This herald of humanity was 

 standing near, a picture of penitence, his 

 eyes were full of the "world sorrow" and 

 his tail drooped with expression. I seized 

 him and awaited developments. 



Gray morning was beginning to creep 

 out. A few quails, scattered overnight, 

 were calling one another. The crows were 



187 



