With the aid of Jim, a new linch-pin was soon whittled out, the turpentine rolled on to the cart, and the vehicle put in a moving condition.

‘Where are you hauling your turpentine?’ asked the Colonel.

‘To Sam Bell’s, at the “Boro’."’

‘What will he pay you?’

’Wal, I’ve four barr’ls of “dip,” and tu of “hard.”  For the hull, I reckon he’ll give three dollars a barr’l.’

‘By tale?’

‘No, for two hun’red and eighty pound.’

‘Well, I’ll give you two dollars and a half by weight.’

‘Can’t take it, Cunnel; must get three dollar.’

’What, will you go sixty miles with this team, and waste five or six days, for fifty cents on six barrels—­three dollars?’

’Can’t ‘ford the time, Cunnel, but must git three dollar a barr’l.’

‘That fellow is a specimen of our “natives,"’ said the Colonel, as we resumed our seats in the carriage.  ’You’ll see more of them before we get back to the plantation.’

‘He puts a young cow to a decidedly original use,’ I remarked.

’Oh no, not original here; the ox and the cow with us are both used for labor.’

‘You don’t mean to say that cows are generally worked here?’

’Of course I do.  Our breeds are good for nothing as milkers, and we put them to the next best use.  I never have cow’s milk on my plantation.’

‘You don’t! why, I could have sworn it was in my coffee this morning.’

’I wouldn’t trust you to buy brandy for me, if your organs of taste are not keener than that.  It was goat’s milk.’

‘Then how do you get your butter?’

’From the North.  I’ve had mine from my New York factors for over two years.’

We soon arrived at Sandy the negro-hunter’s, and halted to allow the Colonel to inquire as to the health of his family of children and dogs,—­the latter the less numerous, but, if I might judge by appearances, the more valued of the two.

* * * * *

SOUTHERN AIDS TO THE NORTH.

II.

If war did little else, it would have its value from the fact that it acts so extensively as an institution for the dissemination of useful knowledge.  Every murmur of political dissension sends thousands to consult the map, and repair their early neglect of geography.  Perhaps if atlases and ethnographical works were more studied we should have less war.  And it is by no means impossible that the mutual knowledge which has been or is to be acquired by the people of the South and the North during this present war will eventually aid materially in establishing a firm bond of union.