Made
nothing for two years, but I reckon I've got a crop now."
The cotton looked tall and rich, and we praised it. He curtsied
low, and then bowed almost to the ground, with an imper-
turbable gravity that seemed almost suspicious. Then he con-
tinued, "My mule died last week,"--a calamity in this land
equal to a devastating fire in town,--"but a white man
loaned me another." Then he added, eyeing us, "Oh, I gets
along with white folks." We turned the conversation. "Bears?
deer?" he answered, "well, I should say there were," and he
let fly a string of brave oaths, as he told hunting-tales of the
swamp. We left him standing still in the middle of the road
looking after us, and yet apparently not noticing us.
The Whistle place, which includes his bit of land, was
bought soon after the war by an English syndicate, the "Dixie
Cotton and Corn Company." A marvellous deal of style their
factor put on, with his servants and coach-and-six; so much
so that the concern soon landed in inextricable bankruptcy.
Nobody lives in the old house now, but a man comes each
winter out of the North and collects his high rents.
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