SOS 
JULY 29 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE STOKY OF STONY BEOOK FARM. 
HENRY STEWART. 
CHAPTER VI. 
(Cot) tinned from page 1S9.) 
This work was done in the deep forest, be¬ 
cause it was easier to draw the lighter coal to 
the furnace than the heavier wood, and the 
men employed at the work lived in camps of 
bark or rough logs in the most primitive fash¬ 
ion. One coal-burner could attend to several 
pits, and the colliers were thus left very much 
alone in solitary employment. 
A residence of this sort in the deep primeval 
forest is a lonely one; and sometimes, when 
the rising wind which precedes a storm moans 
through the branches, and the trees, chafing 
and clashing under the pressure, groan and 
shriek with a sound like that of terrified or 
despairing human beings, intensified a hundred 
times, a stout heart may be startled or even 
appalled. And when the storm comes in 
gusts constantly increasing in violence, the 
crashing of broken limbs torn from the trunks 
and the thundering sounds of great giants 
overturned by their roots on every hand, and 
far and near, and the screaming of the wind 
over all, then the lonely inmate of a bark 
cabin, without a soul within call, may well 
feel bis Insignificance, while nature shows her 
power. At such times, the howl of a wolf, the 
scream of a wild cat, more like that of a 
woman in terror than anything else; or the 
rush and snort of a startled deer alarmed at 
the gleam of a camp fire, adds greatly to the 
disagreeable, if not terrifying incidents of 
this sort of life in the woods, to one whose 
nerves are not braced by fortitude or steadied 
by familiarity. 
But there are other times, when the gentle 
zephyrs rustle through the leaves, all aglow 
with the brilliant coloring of the early Pall, 
and the soft haze of the Indian Summer en¬ 
velopes everything in a tender and gentle em¬ 
brace. Then at such a time one feels drawn 
away from the earth and raised into a higher 
sphere; where the companionship of the In¬ 
finite is not far off, if not near at hand. Then 
gentle emotions fill the breast and a man feels 
purer and better because he loses something 
of humanity and gains something of the 
divinity which is ever present in undefiled 
nature in its peaceful moods and glorious 
appearauces. It is then, more than at any 
other time, that a man may feel that he is 
part and parcel of the universe, that his mor¬ 
tal part may, like a dead tree lying at his 
feet, decay and dissolve, but that his soul im¬ 
mortal aud indestructible and ever-living, 
springs from the ruins of his mortality just as 
a noble tree is ruined upon and succeeds the 
ruius of its predecessor; or as it may awaken 
into life and spring into verdure after the cold 
aud silent embrace of a Winter's death. “ It 
is not dead but sleepeth.” Oue hears much 
of the restless ocean, with its ever changing 
phases; but the deep woods and forests are 
still more restless; still more changeful, and 
have gentler and more terrible moods than the 
ocean. And many a rough man has there 
been moved to sympathetic tears, as he has 
lain before his lonely camp fire and has been 
brought uuder the mysterious power of un¬ 
disturbed nature, on the restful hours of a 
calm Sunday morning, when the gentle voices 
murmuring arouud him have brought back to 
his mind the memory of his past life, his child¬ 
hood, and his mother’s gentle and alfectiouate 
influences. 
Through all this experience passed Barley 
Merritt, protected by a pure love for a gentle 
girl and his affection for his mother, from any 
baser thoughts. 
Some mouths went by; the Winter passed 
and Spring had come, and nature was putting 
on her new attire, when an accident occurred 
which suddenly changed, in its effects, the 
relations of all the parties to this little drama. 
It was ou a June day when the Barney fur¬ 
nace was blown out for repairs and work was 
suspended l'or a month. The numerous lakes 
and streams of this region abounded in the 
finest speckled trout, and various fishing par¬ 
ties were made up to spend a portion of the 
time in this recreation. Barley Merritt made 
a party by himself, and set out alone to a lake 
some miles distant where a solitary settler had 
made a farm aud spout his time in growing 
produce for sale in the lumbering camps and 
the miniug villages, aud in trapping and 
trading with the Indians for furs. This man 
came and went, generally in the Winter, with 
his dog-sled and his team of eight huge dogs, 
ou a winding tract through the woods, which 
he had blazed out and cleared of brush. In 
the Summer, only a practiced woodsman 
could follow this blind trail, where no track 
was left of the Winter’s occasional traffic. No 
person kuew this man’s name; his history; 
whence he came or what brought him there. 
He was there when the first survey was made 
20 years before, and his welcome cabin pro¬ 
vided comfortable quarters for the surveying 
and exploring parties who laid out the land 
for settlement. “ Old Crusty,” as the old 
settler was generally called, was morose and 
taciturn, and although hospitable to chance 
visitors, rarely spoke to them but left them to 
make themselves at home and went about his 
business as if they were not there. Sometimes 
he would leave his camp entirely to them and 
his dogs, and po off alone on his expeditions, 
his dogs sagaciously taking care of his prop¬ 
erty and resenting any improper liberties 
which might be taken with it by the strangers. 
The old man, as he had passed through Barley 
Merritt’s coal camp, had spent a night or two 
with him at times, and had evinced more 
friendliness for him than he had done for any 
other person, and had even invited him to 
visit him, declaring that the trout of Wild 
Goose Lake were finer and larger than any 
other. 
“ Come out, boy, and fish a bit. The trail 
starts from the sou’west corner of 16, and goes 
along the line to the corner of Township 47; 
then you cross the Escanaby, on a pine log, 
and go down the river till you strike a big 
beaver meddler. Thar’s a camp of mine there. 
Then you strike direct south along the section 
line till you come to a beaver dam; you cross 
that and cross the burnt plains, goin’ straight 
for a big dead pine with one big limb pintin’ 
to the west. Then you go up the mountain 
just afore you, and on the top you’ll find a lot 
of flue iron ore; that’s mine; the surveyors 
put that down on the map as “ Old Man’s 
Knob." Then you see the lake. You go right 
down to the lake shore and you’ll find a canoe. 
Go right across to three yaller pines and you’ll 
hear the dogs; they’ll fetch you up, now they 
know ye.” 
Following these directions, which were plain 
enough to a woodsman, Barley Merritt set out 
to visit Wild Goose Lake and Old Crusty. The 
day was close and sultry and it was afternoon 
when he reached the beaver meadow, which 
was half way to the old man’s camp. Here 
he rested and cooked a dinner with the uten¬ 
sils hanging in the camp and the provisions 
he brought in his pack, strapped to his shoul¬ 
ders in the usual fashion. He crossed the 
desolate burnt plains where the most magnif¬ 
icent pine forest lay stretched for miles on 
the ground, scorched and blackened : having 
been first laid low by a tornado and then half 
consumed by a sweeping fire, leaving only 
the bare trunks—and had reached the verge 
of the woods again near the foot of the moun¬ 
tain, when a noise like the growl of distant 
thunder reached his ears. A wind storm was 
approaching. Already the tree tops swayed in 
the rising breeze, and here and there a limb 
was broken off and dashed to the ground. In 
a few moments the storm broke loose all 
around him ; the sky grew dark and the for¬ 
est seemed to be going to pieces. Falling 
limbs literally filled the air. Great tree tops, 
broken short off, fell here and there crashing 
around him. Sheltering behind some large 
tree on the lee side, he watched the turmoil 
and dodged any stray limb that threatened 
him. As the protecting tree gave way before 
the storm and fell with upturned roots or 
broken short off at the stem, he sped to the 
next nearest one, and there waited its faff in 
its turn. In this way he bad escaped narrowly 
several times, when one mighty blast whirled 
over the pine tree against which he stood, 
broke it short off, with several others close to 
it, at the same moment, and tore the huge 
tops to fragments. Hastening from the ruins 
he was caught in them. A noise as of crash¬ 
ing thunder; a fierce blaze as of lightning; a 
deathly sickening; a dead numbness; then 
blind darkness; and Barley lay buried in the 
mass of limbs and branches. 
The night passed; mild, serene. The gentle 
moon looked down over the ruin wrought by 
the storm and tbe shattered giants of the for¬ 
est gleamed here and there in the full moon¬ 
light, more conspicuously because of the deuse 
shade low down beneath them. At daybreak 
Old Crusty was alarmed by the baying of his 
dogs which dashed against the door and rushed 
away aud returned in a most excited manner. 
“ Sutthins up, that’s a fact,” said the old man. 
Putting on his licit in which was slung a small 
ax, his huntiug knifeand revolver aud aspirit 
flask, and shouldering his rifle, he sallied out. 
The dogs fairly leaped over him, and then 
rushed off over the mountain on the trail. 
“ What’s up, I wonder ? Mebbe a bar in the 
trap; or mebbe caught in some trash.” 
He followed the dogs, or rather their bay- 
iug, which became more distant as they de¬ 
scended the other side of the hill. In time he 
reached the place where the dogs were bark¬ 
ing aud sniffing about the tops of the pine 
under which Barley could be seen lying 
crushed and bleeding and still insensible, but 
not dead. 
" Some poor fellow’s in a mighty poor case 
there, I guess,” said the old man. “I must 
get him out, anyhow.” 
Without delay he cut away the ruins, re¬ 
moved as tenderly as possible the great limb 
which crushed the sufferer to the ground, 
turned over the body gently and gazed upon 
the face. 
“ My God,” he exclaimed, “ it’s Barley Mer¬ 
ritt; Mary Merritt’s boy! Mary’s face to a 
line when I courted her years and years ago, 
and she turned me off and took John Merritt. 
How well I knew him when I saw him first. 
Poor Mary, this’ll be a hard blow for her, and 
no one to tell her of it but me.” Stooping 
down to the supposed dead man, he felt the 
wrist and then placed bis hand over the heart." 
Why, the boy's alive; mebbe he’s as good as 
ten dead men yet.” 
He dropped a little whisky into the half- 
opened lips, and with fleet and agile steps he 
hastened with his dogs to his camp, harnessed 
them to his sled, placed a birch canoe upon it, 
piled into it his blankets and returned. To 
lift the injured man into the canoe, bed him 
softly in the blankets and order his sagacious 
dogs to march was the work of a few moments. 
“ March don c ;” "doncevient ;" “s acre co¬ 
chon ! n “Bill!” “ Doncement!” he called to 
the leader, which seemed instinctively to pick 
its steps over tbe smooth-worn trail and go so 
gently up and down the hill that the canoe 
was scarcely shaken. Four dogs iu single file, 
harnessed with raw deer-hide thongs to a sled 
made of a light white ash slab, hewed down 
to the thinness of a shell and covered with 
raw-hide, and about- eight feet long, aud a 
small birch canoe no longer, bound to the 
rings in the sides of the sled, and held behind 
by Old Crusty, formed the procession of which 
Barley Merritt, insensible, with a bruised and 
crushed body and a battered head, covered 
with blood which had clotted and matted his 
long light brown hair, was a part and the 
occasion. And here for the present we must 
leave him.—[To be continued.] 
NOTES FROM AN OLD CORRESPOND¬ 
ENT. 
A wanderer from the valley of the Genes- 
see and from near where the Rural passed 
its youth, returns with a different nom de 
plume from the one which he first employed 
years ago as a contributor to its columns. 
My footprints have been left in imperial Bra¬ 
zil and quite all the Republics of South and 
Central America. Also my travel has taken 
me into and through every State of the 
United States of Mexico and its one territory 
—Lower California. Both interest aud curi¬ 
osity have propelled me through the years 
necessary to make such journeys over the 
wide domain upon which Cortez and Pizarro 
and their lieutenants unfurled the banner of 
Old Castile. The most lofty ranges of the 
Andes, the Sierra Madre aud Cordilleras had 
attractions, their everlastingly snow-crowned 
peaks their allurements, and their slopes so 
thoroughly netted with veins of gold, silver 
and copper, such temptations, that they held 
me twenty years. During the last live the 
golden-laced hills of Georgia, North Carolina 
and Virginia have bad my time. Still, as the 
yeans and the work that they brought, the 
scenes of travel that they presented, war, 
society, pleasures, gains, all have not obliter¬ 
ated the picture of the old farm birthplace, its 
orchards, maple and beech, birch and bass¬ 
wood, oak and hickory woods. The brook 
that coursed through tbe Timothy meadows 
and sped on to the Genessee, the old, wide- 
spreading elms, left standing for shade for the 
horses and cattle; the old barn and sheds, the 
corn-crib, the lane to the road with cherry 
trees on each side; the lines of currant, goose¬ 
berry, raspberry and quince bushes, the beds 
of strawberries, the rows of rose bushes and 
lilacs, the pear trees that shaded the home and 
well—all have been unveiled before this wan¬ 
derer many and many a time. Strangely to 
me, too, the panorama of that old farm near 
the Wadsworth estate and all associated 
therewith, have grown more clear, vivid and 
sweetly remembered as age has grown along 
my ways. The first time l met the editor of 
the Rural, timidly handed him my MS., 
fumbled my Winter cap and half way backed 
out of his august sanctum; then the two weeks 
of suspense before it really appeared, are as a 
dream of yesterday. The great sitting-room 
where one cold January night, the mail came 
from Rochester, tbe Rural among it, and 
parents, brothers and sisters, and, too, the 
good old scboolmarm (who boarded around 
and advised me to offer you my MS.), were 
present; apples, eider, walnuts and doughnuts 
on the table—Watch, the great yellow dog 
near the fireplace—witnessed the triumph I so 
anxiously hoped for aud achieved. Your 
paper, which was before me in that fond old 
home for years, from and including its first 
publication, grew to manhood in years and, 
too, like thousands of its youthful readers of 
those days, has, 1 see, moved—gone into the 
Metropolis of the nation. 
For this space in which to write my partial 
retrospection and remembrance of a spot I 
have never returned to see, I no doubt should 
repay with something of a newsy character 
from this Switzerland region of Georgia and 
the sunny South. The county from which I 
write is the axis of the fifty-six counties, of 
tbe one hundred and forty-three which make 
up this flourishing State, which yield gold, 
silver, copper, iron, mica, asbestos, graphite, 
marble, coal, limestone, lead, slate, diamonds, 
sapphires, rubies, emeralds, opals, topaz, onyx, 
sardonyx, agates, jaspar, jacinth, tourmaline, 
carnelian, and one hundred and sixty three 
other minerals. There are seventy odd gold 
mills at work. There are 600 State convicts 
working in coal mines northeast of here in the 
set of metalliferous counties. Fully three 
thousand miners are employed in gold raining 
throughout the region, and there is room for 
two hundred more, which number could be 
profitably employed in delving for the tempt¬ 
ing metal. And over the same gold-bearing 
area are 600,000 people living in city, town 
and country. They have as magnificent and 
health giving climate as the world affords. 
Wells and springs of curative mineral waters 
are near every home. Hence the race is 
strong, hardy, splendid in form, fair in com¬ 
plexion and happy in their varied pursuits. 
Cotton is a success on this soil. Grains are 
growing in favor. More coru, oats, barley, 
peas, beans, vegetables and grasses were 
grown last year than for any other preceding 
five years in the history of this region. A 
full one hundred per cent more area was sown 
and planted the past season than last. 
These people have realized that raising cot¬ 
ton only and exchanging it for pork, flour 
and vegetables grown in the North was stead¬ 
ily and surely bringing them to bankruptcy. 
They have opened their eyes to the fact that 
they had to vary their industry or see all 
they have brought under the sheriff’s ham¬ 
mer. They have, even in so brief a time as 
they have been experimenting, discovered 
that four acres of oats are better than seven 
of cotton, and that they can make bacon for 
three cents per pound, which heretofore cost 
them 12 to 25 cents. They have erected scores 
of cotton mills which are returning their 
owners an average of 22 per cent, per annnm 
on the capital invested and still allow a lower 
price on the produet of those mills than can 
be extended them by the mill-owners of New 
England. 
Every town of a thousand or more inhabi¬ 
tants in Northern Georgia has a college, acad¬ 
emy or seminary. Many of the cities classed 
as fourth or fifth rate, as Rome, Columbus, 
La Grange, Canton, C-artersville, Marietta, 
Gainesville and others, have two to five of 
these educational institutions. Still, there 
are hundreds of thousands of acres or “wild 
lands” as called here, meaning land covered 
with timber and unbroken, which can be pur¬ 
chased for one and one-half to three dollars 
per acre. Amctag these quite ail have mineral 
veins or deposits beneath a single acre of 
which, if explored, might be treasures of 
greater value than the income of the average 
banking institutions. 
Roots, as beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, 
potatoes, Irish and sweet, yield prodigiously. 
Fifteen different kinds of beans grow here 
and yield a bountiful crop. Peas are a most 
profitable crop. One agent of a New Orleans 
commission house purchased 7,500 bushels in 
Northeastern Georgia during last December 
and January at an average cost of $1.10 per 
bushel. These are sent to Louisiana and sold 
to sugar cane planters, who sow them very 
early and allow them to grow until the vine 
has reached its growth; then they are rolled 
down and plowed under. This supplies a most 
superior fertilizer for sugar cane. 
Two crops of potatoes are grown each year. 
One crop of oats is growu and ripened, and is 
followed the same season by another crop 
which, when headed, is harvested for hay. 
Many planters are preparing to make ensi- 
lage this season. Iu this, as in many other 
things agricultural, rapid progress is being 
made. As for wild fruits, blackberries and 
strawberries are so plentiful in thri hilly and 
rolling country that they are sold at from 
three to five cents per quart. Wild grapes of 
these varieties are likewise exceedingly abun¬ 
dant. They grow to unusual size and make 
most luscious wines and preserves. Wild 
plums and crab apples abound All these are 
finding more aud more buyers annually. 
Summer resorts by mineral springs, cascades 
and waterfalls, high upon the mountains, 
number hundreds. They are crowded from 
May till November, as fast as they multiply, 
by planters, merchants and others from 
Southern Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and 
Florida. Many Northern people were here 
from Toceoa Falls, Gainesville Mount Airy, 
Tallulah Falls, White Sulphur Springs, 
Pater’s Springs, Raven’s Gap, Bellton, Clarks¬ 
ville aud other resorts last year. 
Thus has an old love, so to say, returned to 
the Rural with a “hop skip and a jump” 
from old Genessee Associations, over Spanish 
America and into the realms of natural 
wealth, magnificent scenery and pastoral 
outlines of this vast mineral belt of South¬ 
land. If welcomed as a long-away pro • 
igal, I will promise to endeavor to make 
