He
shows us the farm of the Hills just across the county line in
Baker,--a widow and two strapping sons, who raised ten
bales (one need not add "cotton" down here) last year. There
are fences and pigs and cows, and the soft-voiced, velvet-
skinned young Memnon, who sauntered half-bashfully over
to greet the strangers, is proud of his home. We turn now to
the west along the county line. Great dismantled trunks of
pines tower above the green cottonfields, cracking their na-
ked gnarled fingers toward the border of living forest beyond.
There is little beauty in this region, only a sort of crude
abandon that suggests power,--a naked grandeur, as it were.
The houses are bare and straight; there are no hammocks or
easy-chairs, and few flowers. So when, as here at Rawdon's,
one sees a vine clinging to a little porch, and home-like
windows peeping over the fences, one takes a long breath. I
think I never before quite realized the place of the Fence in
civilization. This is the Land of the Unfenced, where crouch
on either hand scores of ugly one-room cabins, cheerless and
dirty. Here lies the Negro problem in its naked dirt and
penury.
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