74 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
water dropping from the broad paddles in a miniature 
cascade. The miller in the smaller mills is sometimes 
a woman in a sunbonnet, but running the mill is 
not very hard work, since it often consists in pouring 
the corn into the hopper, then going away for a few 
hours or all day, and coming back in the fullness of 
time to take the sweet meal from the box below the 
leisurely stones. 
Besides the cornfields there are those frequent 
fields of something that "imitates corn a right 
smart," as the people say, but which is only sorghum, 
from which in the fall the mountaineer extracts 
molasses for home consumption. Sorghum is a pic- 
turesque crop from first to last. When the slender 
stalks have been cut, the juice is expressed from 
them in sugar-mills simpler even than the corn-mills. 
Between two cogged wheels the long canes are fed 
by a patient man sitting on a log, while the wheels 
are turned by a patient mule at the end of a long 
beam, walking forever round and round and going 
nowhere. During this process the family is generally 
grouped about the mill, while the vat into which the 
sweet juice runs is the scene of tragic deaths, as into 
it crowd bees, flies, and wasps greedy for a share of 
the harvest. Near the cane-mill, and like it standing 
in the open air, is a large pan under which a fire is 
built and in which the juice is boiled — bees and all. 
Standing over the caldron is a man enveloped in 
clouds of steam as with a long pole he stirs the bub- 
bling sweet. In a short time "them molasses" is 
done. Sorghum cannot be reduced to sugar, or, if it 
