- self and wife. They ate at the same table with the gentleman,
and had good living, beside having something out of the store, "tobacco and so on—tobacco for both on 'em, and two people uses a good deal of tobacco you know; so that's pretty good wages—seven dollars a month besides their keep and tobacco." Irishmen, he informed me, had been employed occasionally at the forge. "They do well at first, only they is apt to get into fights all the time; but after they've been here a year or two, they get to feel so independent and keerless-like, you can't get along with 'em." He remained about half an hour, and not till he returned did I hear again the noise of picking and shovelling, and cutting timber.
At the forges, I was told, slave labour is mainly employed—the slaves being owned by the proprietors of the forges.
I spent that night at a large inn in a village. In the morning as I sat waiting in my room, a boy opened the door. Without looking up I asked, "Well?"
"I didn't say nuthin', sar," with a great grin.
"What are you waiting there for?" "Please, massa, I b'leve yours owin' me suthin', sar." "Owing you something? What do you mean?" "For drying yer clothes for yer, sar, last night." I had ordered him immediately after tea to go up stairs and get my clothes, which had been drenched in a shower, and hang them by the kitchen fire, that they might be dry if I should wish to leave early in the morning. When I went to my bedroom at nine o'clock I found the clothes where I had left them. I went down and reported it to the landlord, who directly sent the boy for them. In the morning, when I got them again I found they were not dry except where they were burned. I told him to be gone; but with the door half open, he stood putting in his head, bowing and grinning. "Please, sar, massa sent me out of an errand, and I was afeard you would be gone before I got back; dat's
