Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/283

Rh rail, whereas he took it by stage, horseback, and foot-back. The Desert and the sage bushes, the sharp air and snow of the Sierra and the sudden transition to perpetual spring on reaching the Valley of Sacramento. All this is more like enchantment than like anything to be looked for in real life. . ..

"Although I have, for the past ten or fifteen years, only given myself three to five years of furlough at a time, I yet live, and with a breathing apparatus and casing as perfect as ever, to all appearance; but yet the vigilant old fellow 'Time' has not slept, but has increased day by day my repugnance to locomotion, making it more agreeable to me to read or talk in an arm-chair than to trundle a wheelbarrow up a steep hill; and it requires so much engineering to pull on my socks, that Sue comes into my room every morning before I am up and shoves them on for me. Some one has to tie my shoes; not that it is impossible to me, but vastly disagreeable. Now, although I have not mentioned either of old Dodson's (or Dobson's) infirmities in the Table, you will recognize this as a kindred picture. . ..

"The people here, with few exceptions, are becoming poorer and poorer, and without the least prospect of amendment, as the prime cause is to be found in the worthlessness of the negro. As I am now physically unable to take charge (active) of the plantation, I am utterly at a loss as to what is best to be done. If I could sell this place, the problem would be solved, but nothing can be sold here now." . ..

Thomas's own words will best show how he felt the loss of his brother, that occurred in April of this year.

, 28th April, 1878.

" My dear Sister,—A note from Marye, received this morning, informs me that I have lost my only brother. If there was a rule in such cases he would have been the survivor, but there is no rule that I