“How did you happen to come all the way back?” I asked.

“Well-l,” ruminated the old man, “home was always a-restin’ on mah min’.  Ah kep’ thinkin’ ‘bout home.  So aftuh de Wah ceasted Ah jus’ kim ’long back.”

Many of the old plantation customs still survive.  A little before noon the bell is rung to summon the hands from the cotton fields.  Over the red plowed soil you hear a darky cry, a melodious “Oh-oh-oh!” as wild and musical as the cries of the south-Italian olive gatherers.  The planters cease their work, mules stand still, traces are unhooked from singletrees, and chain-ends thrown over the mules’ backs; then the men mount the animals and ride in to the midday meal, the women trudging after.  Those who rent land, or work on shares, go to their own cabins, while those employed by the hour or by the day (the rate of pay is ten cents an hour or seventy-five cents a day) come to the kitchen to be fed.  Nor is it customary to stop there at feeding negroes.  As in the old days, any negro who has come upon an errand or who has “stopped by” to sell supplies, or for whatever purpose, expects to stay for “dinner,” and makes it a point to arrive about noon.  Thus from sixteen to twenty negroes are fed daily at the Burge plantation house.

The old Christmas traditions are likewise kept up.  On Christmas day the negroes come flocking up to the house for their gifts.  Their first concern is to attempt to cry “Christmas gift!” to others, before it can be said to them—­for according to ancient custom the one who says the words first must have a gift from the other.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A YOUNG METROPOLIS

An observer approaching a strange city should be “neutral even in thought.”  He may listen to what is said of the city, but he must not permit his opinions to take form in advance; for, like other gossip, gossip about cities is unreliable, and the casual stranger’s estimate of cities is not always founded upon broad appreciations.  But though it is unwise to judge of cities by what is said of them, it is perhaps worth remarking that one may often judge of men by what they say of cities.

I remember an American manufacturer, broken down by overwork, who, when he looked at Pompeii, could think only of the wasted possibilities of Vesuvius as a power plant, and I remember two traveling salesmen on a southern railroad train who expressed scorn for the exquisite city of Charleston because—­they said—­it is but a poor market place for suspenders and barbers’ supplies.  There are those who think of Boston only as headquarters of the shoe trade, others who think of it only in the terms of culture, and still others who regard it solely as an abode of negrophiles.