It was half-past six, and we were tired and hungry, when the domain of Egger towered in sight,—­a gaunt, two-story structure of raw brick, unfinished, standing in a narrow intervale.  We rode up to the gate, and asked a man who sat in the front-door porch if this was Egger’s, and if we could be accommodated for the night.  The man, without moving, allowed that it was Egger’s, and that we could probably stay there.  This person, however, exhibited so much indifference to our company, he was such a hairy, unkempt man, and carried on face, hands, and clothes so much more of the soil of the region than a prudent proprietor would divert from raising corn, that we set him aside as a poor relation, and asked for Mr. Egger.  But the man, still without the least hospitable stir, admitted that that was the name he went by, and at length advised us to “lite” and hitch our horses, and sit on the porch with him and enjoy the cool of the evening.  The horses would be put up by and by, and in fact things generally would come round some time.  This turned out to be the easy way of the country.  Mr. Egger was far from being inhospitable, but was in no hurry, and never had been in a hurry.  He was not exactly a gentleman of the old school.  He was better than that.  He dated from the time when there were no schools at all, and he lived in that placid world which is without information and ideas.  Mr. Egger showed his superiority by a total lack of curiosity about any other world.

This brick house, magnificent by comparison with other dwellings in this country, seemed to us, on nearer acquaintance, only a thin, crude shell of a house, half unfinished, with bare rooms, the plastering already discolored.  In point of furnishing it had not yet reached the “God bless our Home” stage in crewel.  In the narrow meadow, a strip of vivid green south of the house, ran a little stream, fed by a copious spring, and over it was built the inevitable spring-house.  A post, driven into the bank by the stream, supported a tin wash-basin, and here we performed our ablutions.  The traveler gets to like this freedom and primitive luxury.

The farm of Egger produces corn, wheat, grass, and sheep; it is a good enough farm, but most of it lies at an angle of thirty-five to forty degrees.  The ridge back of the house, planted in corn, was as steep as the roof of his dwelling.  It seemed incredible that it ever could have been plowed, but the proprietor assured us that it was plowed with mules, and I judged that the harvesting must be done by squirrels.  The soil is good enough, if it would stay in place, but all the hillsides are seamed with gullies.  The discolored state of the streams was accounted for as soon as we saw this cultivated land.  No sooner is the land cleared of trees and broken up than it begins to wash.  We saw more of this later, especially in North Carolina, where we encountered no stream of water that was not muddy, and saw no cultivated ground that was not washed.  The process of denudation is going on rapidly wherever the original forests are girdled (a common way of preparing for crops), or cut away.