Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/89

 perhaps was the reason, why he departed so much from the ordinary routine, and managed things so very differently from all his neighbors. He was born of a good family, as they say in Virginia, but his father died when he was a mere boy, and left but a very scanty property. He began life, in a small way, in a country store. His shrewdness, economy, and attention to his business, enabled him, in the course of a few years, to lay up a considerable sum of money. In Virginia, trade is hardly looked upon as respectable, — at least, such was the case at the time of which I am speaking, — and every one who desires to be any body, aims at becoming a landed proprietor. About the time that major Thornton had made enough, to think of changing his store for a plantation, the proprietor of Oakland, having already wasted two good estates on dogs, horses, and wild debauchery, became so pressed for money, as to be obliged to bring his remaining property under the hammer. Major Thornton became the purchaser; — but the place he bought, was very different from Oakland as I saw it. The buildings which were old and ugly, were all out of repair and just tumbling to the ground; and the land was nearly ruined by that miserable, thriftless system of cultivation, so universal throughout the slave-holding states of America.

In a few years after the property had passed into the hands of major Thornton, every thing was changed. The old houses were torn down and new ones built. The grounds about the house were enclosed and ornamented; and the land, under skilful management, was fast regaining its original fertility. Those who had been born and bred planters, and whose estates were very much in the same way in which Oakland had been before it fell into the hands of major Thornton, looked at what was going on there, with astonishment and envy, and wondered how it could possibly happen. Major Thornton was always ready to tell them; for he was extremely fond of talking, — particularly about himself and his system of farming. But though he had explained the whole matter at least ten times, to every one of his neighbors, he never could make a single convert, He had three favorite topics; but he was equally unsuccessful upon all of them. He never could persuade any