THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
]'J02 
24i 
A Trek to the South. 
Part VIII. 
One night, as we were nearing Staun¬ 
ton, it was so lovely, and we were on 
such a good road that we decided to 
drive until late, instead of making our 
camp early, as we usually did. We had 
a beautiful ride, passing through ham¬ 
lets and farming lands where they were 
getting in grain by moonlight At last 
we reached a small stream. Fred went 
off along the bank to find a camping 
place and I soon lost sight of him and 
sat there alone and watched and waited. 
By and by I heard a splash in the 
water and then silence again. I called, 
“Fred, Fred, Fred!” just as if he could 
have answered if he was drowned. Final¬ 
ly I got out and went to the bank. It 
was very high and the water looked 
dark and deep. I called again. Finally 
he answered from away up the road, and 
when he came in sight if ever I was glad 
to see anyone it was him. This hap¬ 
pened after 11 o’clock at night and in a 
very lpnely spot. Though our ride and 
our camp were fine—strange as it may 
seem—moonlight drives lost their fasci¬ 
nation for me. I was frightened through 
and through. 
We have passed the Shenandoah Val¬ 
ley now and have seen part of its best 
and part of its poorest land. To me 
it has been a grand sight. As we left 
it and turned easterly to cross the Blue 
Ridge we wound up and up and up. The 
air was lovely, and the view fine; it did 
not seem far to Lexington, and passing 
through it we drove quickly to our great 
treat, the Natural Bridge. It was beauti¬ 
ful sunshine when we reached there, and 
we left Kin in charge of the horses and 
walked and admired it from different 
points. We have not, either of us, in all 
our lives met anything so beautiful. The 
sky, the foliage, the wonderful grace and 
strength of it all are quite beyond de¬ 
scription. I told Fred that I would have 
liked to stay there a week and a man 
who had lived there all his life told us 
that every time he went that way he 
turned aside to look at it, and always 
found some new beauty. Our road took 
us right over the top of it, and we were 
then on the Blue Ridge and our route 
was south to Buchanan and then for the 
Peaks of Otter! That day we were 
caught in a hard rain and drove into a 
barn for shelter. The people who own¬ 
ed the place were very polite and invited 
us to stay and take dinner with them, 
and if you could have seen me eating 
hot biscuits while a darkey kept the flies 
off me, you would know that I was 
south for sure. 
That night, while Fred took care of 
the horses and I was getting supper, I 
heard a funny little song in the tree 
near me. I looked up and there was 
a little bird, and it kept saying what 
seemed to me: “I’m sick of you!” It 
kept it up, and when Fred came I told 
him what I thought it said. After a 
while Fred looked up at the bird and 
said, “Well, I’m sick of you!” We found 
afterwards that it was the mocking bird! 
Next day we reached Buchanan and 
then we took the trip of our lives. Wo 
climbed and climbed and climbed, and 
when I looked on every side it was won¬ 
derful. We were right up among the 
mountain tops, and they were grand. 
We could look down hundreds of feet. 
After a while we turned into the road 
leading to the Peaks of Otter; the very 
worst one, everybody says, in all Vir¬ 
ginia. We did not pass a team; but 
finally, three men in a lumber wagon 
overtook us, and Fred, in asking them 
about'the way, remarked that he had 
never been there before. The man 
looked at Fred a minute and then said: 
“Well, I guess you never want to again, 
do you?” They went with us a long 
way before they could pass our carriage. 
We had to cross streams, and at every 
MOTHERS.—Be sure to use“Mrs.Wins- 
low’s Soothing Syrup” for your children 
while Teething. It is the Best.— Adv , 
one I thought something would break. 
We expected to reach a hotel before 
dark, but went on and on, and no sign 
of one, or of our reaching the top. We 
saw distant houses, built on the steep 
hillsides, and I told Fred I did not see 
how they stuck on. We went up, up; 
then wound around and down, down. 
Sometimes the road was so narrow that 
much slipping from the horses would 
have sent us down the mountain side. 
Finally, at six o’clock we came to a 
darky’s cabin. It was on the moun¬ 
tainside. When I found it was two 
miles to the next place I wanted to stop 
all night right there in the road, but 
Fred was afraid of a smashup, if a team 
came to pass in the darK. I told him 
that in all the afternoon we only met 
one team. But on we went, and it grew 
dusk, then dark, and then the stars came 
out. Finally we saw a house and I don’t 
think in all my life anything was more 
welcome. The place was vacant and we 
drove up out of the road and by the 
gate. While Fred attended to his work 
I got a good, hot supper and fixed things 
for the night, and then I stood and 
watched the moon rise between those 
two tall peaks. It was lovely, and after¬ 
wards I watched it with Fred. 
The next day we still had bad roads, 
and after going a few miles we came to 
the one heading up direct to the Peak. 
We did not take it, for it required over 
a day to go to the top of it and return 
to civilization; but we felt we had seen 
in Virginia all the things we cared for 
most—Winchester, nie Pike road, the 
Natural Bridge, and the Peaks of Otter. 
We took as direct a route as we could, 
down the other side of the mountain 
to Lynchburg and passed through pine 
woods—some beautiful spots. The roads 
grew better, and towards night we 
reached a lovely camp in the woods with 
a darky’s cabin near. It was a lonely 
place, and Kin growled viciously at 
everyone. I am not afraid of sleeping 
anywhere now, and Fred has such a big 
and butter and peaches we made a good 
lunch. The woman waited for her tray 
and while we ate she chatted with us. 
“You are from the No’th?” 
“Yes.” 
“I knew you were. I went up No’th 
years ago and worked there a long time, 
but I had to come home to see my poor 
old mother and I met this old nigger. 
A widder with five children. I married 
him and done fix myself so I couldn’t 
go No’th no more! I like the No’th and 
they call me now ‘Yankee nigger.’” 
f. e. w. 
Economy in Baking. 
There is more dependent upon the 
baking powder, so far as economy in 
making biscuit and cake is concerned, 
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The cheap alum baking powders aver¬ 
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Therefore it will take three times as 
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powder, for instance, which is a cream 
of tartar powder with three times the 
leavening strength, so the actual cost 
with the alum powder is the greatest. 
Further than this, however, the cream of 
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fail when all the eggs, flour and butter 
used are wasted. 
The greatest economy in the use of a 
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healthfulness of the food it makes. It 
saves in doctor’s bills many times its 
cost over alum powders. 
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time with his pistol. He puts it under 
his pillow at night. The Hawk would 
be so glad to know the comfort he takes 
in it. He told a man the other night: 
“I am not afraid. I have our dog 
under the wagon and one that barks five 
times in the wagon.” 
That evening a man visited us and 
he asked Fred if he knew that we were 
on Free Land. Fred said “No; what do 
you mean?” He told him that quite a 
long time before the War a wealthy 
man, named Haines, set all his negroes 
free. There were a good many of 
them, and he gave them 200 acres of 
land. He said that the white men got 
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most of it away from them for almost 
nothing, but the land we camped on had 
been kept by the same family of negroes 
all these years, and they call themselves 
Haines. The next night we put up with 
nice people, and owing to a bad storm 
staid with them till the middle of the 
week. An old couple were there, at 
their son’s for a time, because their 
house had burnt down. They started 
on a visit to Lynchburg. The man had 
several hundred dollars in his desk and 
his son told him he would better take 
his money with him, so he went back 
and got it. When they returned from 
their visit the house was burnt to the 
ground. 
When we left the roads were almost 
impassable with mud, and going up a 
hill we broke another whiffletree. Fred 
put on the brake and made a new one; 
but it took so long that noon found us 
near a colored home, so Fred watered 
and fed the horses and the colored wo¬ 
man brought us some coffee on a neat 
little tray, and with our cold ham, bread 
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