Here and there they passed an expanse of
cultivated land, and there were many smaller clearings in which could
be seen, plowing with gaunt mules or stunted steers, some heavy-footed
Negro or listless "po' white man;" or women and children, black or
white. In reply to a question, the coachman said that Mr. Fetters had
worked all that country for turpentine years before, and had only
taken up cotton raising after the turpentine had been exhausted from
the sand hills.
He had left his mark, thought the colonel. Like the plague of locusts,
he had settled and devoured and then moved on, leaving a barren waste
behind him.
As the morning advanced, the settlements grew thinner, until suddenly,
upon reaching the crest of a hill, a great stretch of cultivated
lowland lay spread before them. In the centre of the plantation, near
the road which ran through it, stood a square, new, freshly painted
frame house, which would not have seemed out of place in some Ohio or
Michigan city, but here struck a note alien to its surroundings. Off
to one side, like the Negro quarters of another generation, were
several rows of low, unpainted cabins, built of sawed lumber, the
boards running up and down, and battened with strips where the edges
met. The fields were green with cotton and with corn, and there were
numerous gangs of men at work, with an apparent zeal quite in contrast
with the leisurely movement of those they had passed on the way. It
was a very pleasing scene.
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