Alas! Elk Cross Roads Is A Dirty Grocery Store,
Encumbered With Dry-Goods Boxes, Fly-Blown Goods, Flies, Loafers.
In
reply to our inquiry we were told that they had nothing to eat, for
us, and not a grain of feed for the horses.
But there was a man a
mile farther on, who was well to do and had stores of food, - old man
Tatern would treat us in bang-up style. The difficulty of getting
feed for the horses was chronic all through the journey. The last
corn crop had failed, the new oats and corn had not come in, and the
country was literally barren. We had noticed all along that the hens
were taking a vacation, and that chickens were not put forward as an
article of diet.
We were unable, when we reached the residence of old man Tatem, to
imagine how the local superstition of his wealth arose. His house is
of logs, with two rooms, a kitchen and a spare room, with a low loft
accessible by a ladder at the side of the chimney. The chimney is a
huge construction of stone, separating the two parts of the house; in
fact, the chimney was built first, apparently, and the two rooms were
then built against it. The proprietor sat in a little railed
veranda. These Southern verandas give an air to the meanest
dwelling, and they are much used; the family sit here, and here are
the washbasin and pail (which is filled from the neighboring
spring-house), and the row of milk-pans.
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