806 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec. 17, 1904. 
Under the Tall Pine Tree. 
If 'tis ever your lot, dear friends, to wander down 
to sunny Dixie in the bleak and barren snow time of 
the North, I hope you will chance upon the "happy 
hunting grounds" in and about Moss Neck, North 
Carolina, where there seems to be a perpetual ever- 
greenness, and you walk upon pine needles and breathe 
the life-giving, aromatic odor of the pines. There 
the noble partridge whirs away from beneath your very 
feet, and you dream the long days away in a sort of 
perpetual, glorified October. 
There is the Lodge, the dear, bright Lodge, where 
you are welcomed on the night of your arrival by the 
courteous General and his charming wife, and as you 
gaze about you upon the cheery interior with its wide, 
bright windows, hunting trophies, its many guns and 
hunting pictures, and best of all, upon its glorious 
open fires of the famous "light 'ood," dancing up its 
wide chimneys and sending out its crimson glow upon 
all around; you register a solemn vow that noth- 
ing short of absolute duty will tear you away from 
this enchanted spot in oh! so long a time 
Are you a sportsman? Then what keen delight to 
start out bright and early for an all day tramp. To 
wander through large forests of pines and beautiful 
bright holly with its glassy leaves and scarlet berries, 
to hear the whir of the partridge and see large coveys 
rise before you, on the wings of the* winds and off to 
the thicket — and to see the rabbits scud away from 
beneath your feet; but last, and best of all, to come 
home heavily laden with many braces of the noble 
quail. To come back very late and very tired, but per- 
fectly happy; to tell the deeply interested people of the 
Lodge all about your mighty prowess, and then to dine 
on quail and other good things of this earth and to 
sit around a roaring "fat pine" fire and go over again 
your day's work- — the number of doubles you made 
and how you killed that last bird as it whirled and flew 
over your head. All this to the accompaniment of 
some good old Scuppernong wine, with a "night cap" 
after (just to take the chill off and to finish up a good 
day's sport) of a little North Carolina old corn whiskey. 
Among the objects of greatest interest about Moss 
Neck is that mysterious tribe of Indians known as the 
Croatans. And although it may surprise you much to 
know that in this noble, free country of ours there are 
a few people outside of our dusky African brother 
who are free and equal, and that there are some Indians 
who do not live on reservations and have not had their 
land taken away from them — still such is the case. But 
it was an accident and happened in this fashion: 
"Long years ago," as far back as the days of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, that noble gentleman (if I remember 
correctly) came with a colony and settled upon Roan- 
oke Island. There they found a race of friendly In- 
dians with whom they lived on amicable terms. After 
a bit, however, Sir Walter sailed away again, leaving 
about a hundred settlers and the friendly Indians and 
promising soon to return. But all things did not turn 
out as Sir Walter anticipated and he was prevented 
from returning by some slight inconvenience in the 
way of having his head chopped off or some other 
little difference of opinion between himself and the 
good Queen Bess. 
So years passed before anyone again landed on 
Roanoke Island, and when they did they found it de- 
serted alike by white man and Indian, and the only 
sign that it had ever -been inhabited was a piece of 
board stuck up on a pole and upon which was written 
the name Croatan. 
Years after this, when they explored further down, 
they found not far from the coast of North Carolina a 
race of very civilized, friendly Indians — a seemingly 
polyglot race, many of whom had English names and 
spoke English, and yet they lived and looked like In- 
dians, and the name of the tribe was Croatan. And 
that is the worthy, clean and law-abiding race that you 
now see in and about Moss Neck. A race strong in 
their dislikes, but strong in friendship, and if you treat 
them well your good friends forever and ever. 
Should you ever go to Moss Neck or the Lodge, 
there is one person I want you to meet and that is 
Diana Hunter. Diana is a good sportswoman, but 
Diana, like Caesar, was ambitious. Unlike the noble 
Roman, however, it did not bring her to an untimely 
end, but only a partridge died. It was in this fashion: 
Diana had shot many an unsuspecting bird "settin' " (I 
believe sitting is the more polite phrase, but not in 
North Carolina.) Full a score of trusting robins, 
thinking she looked entirely harmless, sat perfectly 
still on a comfortable twig, and met an early death. 
And many an empty shell had Diana nailed, when 
thrown high in the air for her by some of the young 
sports at the Lddge. But, as I say, she was ambitious, 
and kill a bird on the wing she must and would. Twice 
she went out with the General and with no sport what- 
ever beyond a mild question, after the birds rose and 
the shots vollied out, of "Did you shoot that time, 
General?" And the General, being as much like George 
Washington as Diana like Caesar, was obliged to an- 
swer "I shot, Diana." 
But the third time out she made up her mind, and 
then the* quail was as good as dead. After skirting 
about a gtubblefield for a short time good "Tim" mac}? 
a stand and good "Guy" backed him. My! what a 
beautiful covey it was, and the General was so busy 
making doubles and doing other fine "stunts" that he 
never knew what Diana was doing off there on his 
left until he was aroused by a war-whoop that an In- 
dian would have thought undignified, and looking 
around in amazement he saw Diana jumping up and 
clown in her tracks, regardless of mud and water and 
yelling, ''Oh! I killed one," "I killed one," and so she 
had! Killed him neat and clean and going straight 
away like a bullet. After that she killed six more on 
the wing, and now she is looking for more worlds to 
conquer. (But I believe that is like Alexander, not 
Csesar.) Anyhow, my Diana is like the great ones of 
this earth. 
You need not laugh, Madam! For if you think you 
can do better than six birds the first season's shooting 
on the wing, and a new gun to which you are not 
well used, all I have got to say is, I dare you to try! 
And if you are good perhaps Diana will take you 
with us for a drive to Lumberton, eight miles away— 
a quaint, flat little Southern town with its cottage-like 
houses, its old world court house and its many teams 
of mules and bales of cotton. And the ride there is so 
beautiful and unusual. Over long echoing bridges that 
span the creek and the Lumber River, otherwise known 
as Drowning Creek, on account of its treacherous 
sands; through tall clumps of oaks and cypress, hung 
with great bunches of mistletoe and the lovely, feath- 
ery, gray Southern moss; through forests of beauti- 
ful, brilliant holly upon which the sun seems always to 
shine as though it said: "I am with you always to cheer 
you on your way, down here in Dixie." 
And last and most, and best of all— the pine tree — 
the noble, mighty pine, with its long, green "straws," 
its giant trunk, its beautiful evergreen top, waving and 
murmuring and shaking its kingly head to the strong 
breeze, like the sound of many waters. 
Verily, "I love these pines because a voice is theirs 
that ever whispers of the infinite sea." H. M. G. 
Floating Down the Mississippi. 
A Journey Through the Swamps. 
Not far from Casen's there were several "rag houses" 
or tents on the west side of the river, and on the op- 
posite side there were some fires built under long sheet- 
iron boiling pans set in the slope of the river bank. Near 
each pan were two negroes- — man and woman — standing 
at sink-like tables picking over the contents of the sinks 
with rapid motion. The pickers merely glanced at me, 
and then turned to their work. They were engaged in the 
most exciting sure-thing gambling imaginable, and 
gambling has charms for the black man above anything 
else he can do. 
They were picking the meat from shells after having 
boiled them in the vats to kill the mussels. It was "sure- 
thing" gambling, because the shells were worth $10 a ton 
at least, while any one of the shells might contain a pearl 
worth a thousand dollars. Commonly a negro in the bot- 
toms will stop everything to look at a stranger, but these 
did not, and they begrudged the time it took to answer 
the questions I had to ask. They were digging a thousand 
pounds of shells a day per man — and as they worked 25 
days a month, their wages amounted to $125. In lumber 
camps they could earn from $1 to $2 a day, and the best 
they could do in the cotton fields picking would be $2.50. 
In addition to the shells were found "slugs," or rough 
pearls, with a market value of $1.25 per ounce; and pearls 
which would bring from $1 to $5,000. 
The negroes were from White River, where the first 
pearl boom and rush of the lower Mississippi happened 
some years ago. Now that the hordes of fortune 
seekers had depleted the White River beds, they 
were seeking pearls and shells in other streams. Some 
of them came from the valleys of streams whose sand- 
bars were covered with shells, and now that the White 
River excitement had died away, they remembered the 
shells of their home streams, and returned to them with 
their tongs, frequently to discover valuable beds of button 
pearl, and even the "priceless pearls." 
It was a long time before the St. Francis was "mus- 
seled," because it was so nearly inaccessible, and its scant 
population gave few or no recruits to the White River 
rush. But on the lower reaches the sand-bars were seen 
to have "dead shells" on them, and these led to the dis- 
covery of large beds here and there along the river, and 
finally to the advance up stream by the more ambitious. 
On coming into one eddy — Stillwater — I found two 
negroes in johnboats dredging. It was work similar to 
digging oysters. Beds are discovered by treading on the 
river bottom with the tongs back and forth till the crink- 
ling of shells is felt. The tongs are made of two feed- 
forks bent and jointed by a blacksmith. Above the joint 
handles are fixed so that when the handles are opened the 
forks separate. The handles are simply a round pole 
sawed up the middle, and_ when they come together, 
shears-fashion, a good grip is had on the round surface. 
A bed twelve feet under water can be reached with these. 
But in deeper water "crow's feet," a gas pipe with a long 
trail of string and grapples made of twisted telegraph 
wire, is dragged along the river bottom broadside to, the 
mussels cjpsing on the grapples. In very shallow water 
men waded in with feed forks and pitched the shells into 
the boat. Of the workers in the South, the pearl hunters 
were the most eager of any that I saw. 
Soon after I saw the negroes, I drifted around a small 
bend in the river, and there on the sand-bar were wild 
turkeys — lean, sleek, gourd-shaped birds — with the sun 
glinting across their backs, and the large-eyedness 
described so often by hunters. Thirty yards away, feed- 
ing and looking nervously about, they allowed my boat 
to approach much closer. I was in a quandary. I had 
never killed a wild turkey ; my 10-gauge was loaded with 
BBs, and I even looked along the barrel at one particu- 
larly interesting big fellow as they walked into a willow 
maze toward the woods. But I didn't shoot, for it wasn't 
worth while to do so merely to kill. I was less scrupulous 
with ducks, for I needed them to eat, but a turkey is a 
differen proposition, being too fine a bird to take from 
Arkansas neighbors, A few miles below I came to 
Parkins, and mailed letters there. Away back there in the 
swamps, the town looked lonely, more than any place yet 
seen, but the echoing cry of a locomotive awakened one's 
hopes. Parkins is one of the three railroad crossings. 
Below Parkins, at the railroad bridge, is the house of 
the St. Francis Club. An old, gray-haired mammy there 
said none of the members were round, just a visitor from 
Little Rock. "Not many of the club members comes heah 
now. They got to lawing and rowing and fussing, and 
they done fit up and ain't coming no moh." The Arkansas 
non-resident laws pinch harder in some localities than In 
others. As I started to go on down the river a man 
asked would I set him over the river, which I did. But 
when he saw I was going on down river, he came on with 
me for half a mile, and pointed out his tent on the bank ; 
he was a pearler, and wouldn't I come in for the night? 
So I became acquainted with Joe Fondrens. 
Fondrens' wife and two children live with him in his 
big tent. The little tots were rosy-cheeked, plump, and 
as happy as could be. Under the table were two boxes, 
one filled with ginger-snaps, the other with soda crackers, 
and whenever they wanted to, the boy and girl took one 
or a handful to eat. Their appetites for such were no 
longer ravenous. They had had enough. 
_ On the far side of the river were two cows, which some- 
times swam across to the tent to be milked. When they 
didn't swim, Fondrens and his wife crossed in the john- 
boat and milked them. The family drank slightly sour, 
tainted milk by preference; but there was a plenty of 
sweet milk for the stranger when we all gathered round 
for supper. Clear-eyed, open-faced, strong and healthy, 
Fondrens leaned back in his chair or lounged on the cot 
easy before the world, able to make a hundred dollars a 
month without sweating much over it. The cold weather 
which fringed the edge of the stream with glassy ice did 
not trouble him— he would go to town after supplies, or 
sit around and play with the children on such days. With 
the weather right and the water comfortable, he'd lift his 
living— a good one — from the bottom of the stream at the 
foot of the bank. 
The ground in the tent was covered with old carpets, 
and Mrs. Fondrens went over them with a broom just as 
fussily as though it was in a "frame house and not a 
tent," the men folks chuckling about it as usual. Two 
stoves kept the tent more than warm on a cool night, 
good hackberry furnishing the blaze. When the lights 
were out the outdoors seemed closely related to the in- 
doors of the tent. I had never slept in an inclosed tent 
before, save on my boat. It was unlike the lean-to; it 
was not as if housed in by boards; the stillness, light, 
sensation of sleeping under the open sky was there, with- 
out the chill atmosphere. I slept with both eyes shut. 
Fondrens' vat for boiling out holds 500 pounds of 
shells. The vat rests parallel to the bank, or any way so 
that under it can be poked sticks and wood to boil the 
contents. A single length of stove-pipe serves as a chim- 
ney. When the water comes to a boil, or near it, the 
mussels open up, killed. Then they are thrown with a 
fork to the table- — sink — where the musseler plucks out 
the meat and throws it down the bank, where the hogs 
eat it, and the shells to the pile, worth $10 a ton right 
there, or $12 on the cars. 
They dig one day and cook the next ; sometimes, if not 
too tired, digging and cooking on the same day. In 
twenty-five days, in addition to the value of the shells, as 
much as $75 worth of slugs are picked out, and some- 
times a pearl worth from a dollar to : — what one's luck is 
worth. Some men pay little attention to the slugs and 
pearls — the little things are overlooked and go into the 
shell heap or down to the swine, perhaps slipping between 
the cracks of the ill-constructed sink into the mud drips. 
Fondrens' pardner had such a sink, and "never did have 
any luck with the pearls." 
The pearl of high price is round and radiant — the ball 
pearl. There is the button pearl, flat, and biscuit, not so 
flat, and the pear-shaped, the egg-shaped, and capsules; 
Fondrens' best was pear-shaped and brought $60. He 
had one or two little fellows, worth $20 or $30, which he 
showed me. 
But mostly the shells yield "slugs." Why such a name 
was given to pretty trinkets I can't understand. They 
are of all shapes, some of which have names. A rosebud, 
for instance, is flat on one side and crinkled on the other, 
and are worth a dollar to $50. Many are dog-teeth — long, 
pointed, and round or grooved. 
These slugs are sorted by some of the shellers, and 
Unusually large ones bring as much as a few dollars, and 
