But a pall of debt hangs over
the beautiful land; the merchants are in debt to the wholesal-
ers, the planters are in debt to the merchants, the tenants owe
the planters, and laborers bow and bend beneath the burden
of it all. Here and there a man has raised his head above these
murky waters. We passed one fenced stock-farm with grass
and grazing cattle, that looked very home-like after endless
corn and cotton. Here and there are black free-holders: there
is the gaunt dull-black Jackson, with his hundred acres. "I
says, 'Look up! If you don't look up you can't get up,'"
remarks Jackson, philosophically. And he's gotten up. Dark
Carter's neat barns would do credit to New England. His
master helped him to get a start, but when the black man died
last fall the master's sons immediately laid claim to the
estate. "And them white folks will get it, too," said my
yellow gossip.
I turn from these well-tended acres with a comfortable
feeling that the Negro is rising. Even then, however, the
fields, as we proceed, begin to redden and the trees disap-
pear. Rows of old cabins appear filled with renters and
laborers,--cheerless, bare, and dirty, for the most part, al-
though here and there the very age and decay makes the scene
picturesque.
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