Text and Image(s) from Typescript

An Honest Man...

Navigate This Item

Addenda

[Page 60]

A WOMAN'S OPINION

Journeying onward and onward, I stopped at a lady's house, and asked if I could get accommodation for the night.

"Yes, if you will take home fare, you are welcome. Our supper is now ready, walk right into the dining room."

We had good fare and found it quite a pleasant place.

The next morning I asked her how much she charged me.

"Three dollars", she replied.

My inclination was to kick, but I substituted a protest.

"Why, if I could make my living as easy as you do, riding around seeing the country, I wouldn't care what people charged me", and many a time, working in the winter's cold or the summer's heat, have I wished I could attach her to one end of the paste brush for a week and thus give her an idea of what "riding around, seeing the country" meant.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But I have had many delightful trips and carry with me always most grateful remembrances of the many kindnesses shown me.

For hospitality, commend me to Person County and to Caswell, to Richmond County and her twin sister, Marlboro County, S. C., to Green and Hyde Counties. In these Counties, one meets with people of the olden time, who place no monied estimate on a night's entertainment to a traveler. They throw open their doors, and make one welcome to the best the land affords, and royally do they know how to serve it and entertain. Their hospitality is unbounded, and their only charge is "Come again".

One of the most beautiful as well as enjoyable trips I ever took was through Hyde County. I went in April, when the woods were redolent with the fragrance of the yellow jasmine (called woodbine in Va.) where the spires would contain twenty five and thirty bells.

I wanted to gather it in as I journeyed on. It was far too beautiful to bloom unseen.

[Page 61]

And I was loth to leave the grand old pines, mighty monarchs of the forest, measuring ninety and one hundred feet, from base to first limb, so grand that it seemed sacrilege for the woodman's axe ever to be applied, and I felt that surely they must bring a man nearer his God and make him a better man for dwelling among them.

And so I journey on.

I have had other toilers to tell me that my life was an inspiration to them, and a knowledge of what I have overcome had given them strength for the conflict.

I say to them all: There is only one way to win the Fight, by sledge-hammer blows day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

THE END

Previous Item