328 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
boon it was to come upon one of these cases of 
books when storm-bound in some otherwise bookless 
place! One remembers whiling away several stormy 
days reading Froude's "Essays" from one of these 
libraries, which among more popular reading al- 
ways contained a lure for the more sober-minded. 
In the home at Ledger the housework was done 
by mountain girls trained by the genial hostess, 
who loved her girl charges and taught them every- 
thing they might need to know in making a home for 
themselves. One remembers the pretty sewing-room 
in a cabin in the woods, with its sewing-machine and 
work-table where the girls went afternoons to chat- 
ter together and sew for themselves, with an occa- 
sional visit from the beloved lady who dropped in to 
advise or praise. 
We accused the Professor and his wife of ruining 
the picturesqueness of the country for a radius of 
miles about their place, for paint and upright fences 
and buildings, tidy yards and farms, with every- 
where signs of modern methods of life, had somehow 
followed their coming. But there were still left 
plenty of log houses to repay one's wanderings along 
the shady roads where the picturesque foliage of the 
buckeye mingled so prettily with the leaves of the 
other hardwood trees, and where wild plums offered 
you high-flavored fruits in the summer, and chinka- 
pins showered bright brown nuts about you in the 
fall. 
Is it Uncle Remus with his Brer Rabbit who has 
cast such a glamour over the chinkapin — that mini- 
