Page:The cotton kingdom (Volume 2).djvu/325

 "Sorry for you, but we have no accommodation for travellers here," was the only reply, and the planter stepped to the other side of a tobacco cask.

The traveller rode on. About half an hour afterwards he came in sight of another house. It was at a distance from the road, and to reach it he was obliged to let down and put up again three different sets of fence-bars. The owner was not at home, and his wife said that they were not accustomed to take in strangers. "It was not far to the next house," she added, as the traveller hesitated.

He reached, at length, the next house, which proved to be the residence of another large tobacco planter, who sat smoking in its verandah, as the traveller rode near and made his petition.

"We don't take in travellers," was again his answer.

The sick man stated his special claims to kindness, and the planter good-naturedly inquired the particulars, asked how far he had ridden, where he got his horse and his dog, whither he was bound, and so on (did not ask where he was born or what were his politics). The traveller again stated that he was ill, unable to ride further, and begged permission to remain for the night under the planter's roof, and again the planter carelessly replied that they didn't take in travellers; anon, asked how crops were looking further west, and talked of guano, the war news, and the prospect for peaches. It became dusk while the traveller lingered, and the negroes came in with their hoes over their shoulders from the fields across the road, but the planter continued chatting and smoking, not even offering the traveller a cigar, till at length the latter said, "If you really cannot keep me to-night, I must go on, sir; I cannot keep my horse much longer, I fear."

"It is not far to the next house."