" And they sold their little place for half it
was worth, traded cattle for a pair of horses and a covered wagon,
and set off, half beggared, with their sick boy on a bed in the
bottom of the wagon, as cheery as if they were rich people on a
pleasure-trip. A pair of steers "to spell" the horses, and a cow to
give milk for Jos, they drove before them; and so they had come by
slow stages, sometimes camping for a week at a time, all the way
from Tennessee to the San Jacinto Valley. They were rewarded.
Jos was getting well. Another six months, they thought, would see
him cured; and it would have gone hard with any one who had
tried to persuade either Jefferson or Maria Hyer that they were not
as lucky a couple as could be found. Had they not saved Joshua,
their son?
Nicknames among this class of poor whites in the South seem
singularly like those in vogue in New England. From totally
opposite motives, the lazy, easy-going Tennesseean and the
hurry-driven Vermonter cut down all their family names to the
shortest. To speak three syllables where one will answer, seems to
the Vermonter a waste of time; to the Tennesseean, quite too much
trouble.
Pages:
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597