Here are the
remnants of the vast plantations of the Sheldons, the Pellots,
and the Rensons; but the souls of them are passed. The
houses lie in half ruin, or have wholly disappeared; the fences
have flown, and the families are wandering in the world.
Strange vicissitudes have met these whilom masters. Yonder
stretch the wide acres of Bildad Reasor; he died in war-time,
but the upstart overseer hastened to wed the widow. Then he
went, and his neighbors too, and now only the black tenant
remains; but the shadow-hand of the master's grand-nephew
or cousin or creditor stretches out of the gray distance to
collect the rack-rent remorselessly, and so the land is uncared-
for and poor. Only black tenants can stand such a system, and
they only because they must. Ten miles we have ridden
to-day and have seen no white face.
A resistless feeling of depression falls slowly upon us,
despite the gaudy sunshine and the green cottonfields. This,
then, is the Cotton Kingdom,--the shadow of a marvellous
dream. And where is the King? Perhaps this is he,--the
sweating ploughman, tilling his eighty acres with two lean
mules, and fighting a hard battle with debt.
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