Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/28

 12 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The hospitality of the mountains is proverbial, and, what is more to the purpose, seems still to be offered with genuine good will. To be sure, in the county towns and along the more fre- quented highways there are signs of commercialism and traces

A GRIST-MILL

of cautious suspicion. But in the more remote valleys the trav- eler is received with a welcome in which the " quarter" he pays for his meal and his horse's corn seems to be a small factor. Yet we heard from one or two cynical old people that the times have changed, and that it is no longer an unusual thing to be refused a night's lodging, or even a meal. One of these praisers of the past told of a whole afternoon spent in one valley in a vain attempt to find a place of shelter for the night. Finally, he said, he just stopped asking and got down and went in and stayed. He knew they wouldn't put him out if he once got in.

But we met with almost no rebuffs. Our own sense of delicacy prevented our spendi g one ni;rht in a single-roomed cabin where three persons wrre dc>' i w'th the fever. On another