Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/205

 TO PASTURES GREEN.

��183

��TO PASTURES GREEN.

��BY ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON.

��I find in an old history the following paragraph : "The colonization of this country originated either in religious persecution carried on in England against the Puritans and other denom- inations of Christians, or in visionary schemes of adventurers, who set out for the new world in quest of settle- ments, or in pursuit of gain. It was the former cause which peopled the colonies of New England ; it was to the latter that the colonies of Virginia and New York owe their origin."

But, succeeding Raleigh's disastrous early attempts to found settlements in what is now North Carolina, there pen- etrated to the northwestern part of that state a few families who sought relig- ious freedom like their prototypes of Plymouth. Of these colonists the greater number were French Hugue- nots, the remainder being Scotch Pres- byterians and Irish Protestants. Many of the men were cadets of noble fami- lies, and with them, as with the heads of families, came a handful of retainers faithful to their masters.

The fortunes common to all colonial settlements were borne by these peo- ple : their men fought, governed and died, their women endured, as has been the fashion of the world since time began, but still the children thrived and grew to the stature of their fathers, and their widening lands were tilled by their increasing families of slaves. The descendants of those in service who came from the mother countries straggled over the slowly growing villages and passed at last into the class familiarly known as "Redjohns," or poor whites. The soft climate and productive soil fostered habits of improvidence, and languid though ardent temperaments, and it is not strange that an old inhabitant may find it in his heart to doff his hat with exquisite courtesy, you may be sure,

��to the hurrying world, while he prefers to stand still and only see it hasten through the years.

This region, then, is The Land of Nod, the country where stoves are an innovation, and wide-throated fire- places, with veritable hearth-stones, rule the roast ; where people send produce to market in great road- wagons that are often out for weeks ; where farmers carry or send their grain to mill on horseback if they may, but if they may not, on any other thing that can be induced to bear the bur- den, with small regard to gender or style ; where the tenderest beef is sold for six cents a pound, and the most respectable mutton for eight cents j where eggs are always ten cents a dozen, and chickens fifteen cents apiece ; where cattle wander at will, and pigs wax fat on the mast ; where graceful deer, clumsy bear, and lithe panther still range in the forest prime- val ; where poverty is purely pictorial of costume, and exploded notions of caste still smolder among the natives • where simple religious faith holds pres- tige, and hymns are still deaconed out j where cmoke from the chimneys of hospitable homes soars skyward un- frightened by screaming steam-eagles, and where there is a post-office yclept Lovelady.

But sparkling streams smile adown broad fertile fields, and the austere grandeur of guarding mountain peaks gives majesty to the picture, while over all the soft deep blue of the southern sky holds th~ glowing "Heart of Day." The Land of Nod has been rarely explored by pleasure seekers; a few artists, whose eyes have drawn beauty from these wild haunts of the dryads, to charm blase citizens, hav- ing been almost their only frequenters, aside from their scattered inhabitants. Down the east stretches the beautiful

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