pines and black-jacks, all but an acre or two of garden-plot behind the house. The sign was removed, and the overseer of Colonel Walter Greer, the new owner, was installed in the house, which thenceforth lost entirely its character as an inn.
In the old days, before the use of artificial heat in the curing of tobacco, the heavy, coarse fibre which grew upon rich, loamy bottom lands or on dark clayey hillsides was chiefly prized by the grower and purchaser of that staple. The light sandy uplands, thin and gray, bearing only stunted pines or a light growth of chestnut and clustering chinquapins, interspersed with sour-wood, while here and there a dogwood or a white-coated, white-hearted hickory grew, stubborn and lone, were not at all valued as tobacco lands. The light silky variety of that staple was entirely unknown, and even after its discovery was for a longtime unprized, and its habitat and peculiar characteristics little understood. It is only since the war of Rebellion that its excellence has been fully appreciated and its superiority established. The timber on this land was of no value except as wood and for house-logs. Of the standard timber tree of the region, the oak, there was barely enough to fence it, should that ever be thought desirable. Corn, the great staple of the region next to tobacco, could hardly be "hired" to grow upon the "droughty" soil of the ridge, and its yield of the smaller grains, though much better, was not sufficient to tempt the owner of the rich lands adjacent to undertake its cultivation. This land itself, he thought, was only good "to hold the world together" or make a "wet-weather road" between the rich tracts on either hand. Indeed, it was a common saying in that region that it was "too poor even to raise a disturbance upon."
To the westward of the road running north and south there had once been an open field of some thirty or forty acres, where the wagoners were wont to camp and the drovers to picket their stock in the halcyon days of the old hostelry. It had been the muster-ground of the militia too, and there were men yet alive, at the time of which we write, whose fathers had mustered with the county forces on that ground. When it was "turned out," however, and the Ordinary ceased to be a place of entertainment, the pines shot up, almost as thick as grass-blades in a meadow, over its whole expanse. It is strange how they came there. Only black-jacks and the lighter decidua which cover such sandy ridges had grown there before, but after these were cleared away by the hand of man and the plow for a few years had tickled the thin soil, when nature again resumed her sway, she sent a countless army of evergreens, of mysterious origin, to take and hold this desecrated portion of her domain. They sprang up between the corn-rows before the stalks had disappeared from sight; they shot through the charred embers of the deserted camp-fire; everywhere, under the shade of each deciduous bush, protected by the shadow of the rank weeds which sprang up where the stock had fed, the young pines grew, and protected others, and shot slimly up, until their dense growth shut out the sunlight and choked the lately protecting shrubbery. Then they grew larger, and the weaker ones were overtopped by the stronger and shut out from the sunlight and starved to death, and their mouldering fragments mingled with the carpet of cones and needles which became thicker and thicker under their shade, until at the beginning of the war a solid, dark mass of pines fit for house-logs, and many even larger, stood upon the old muster-field, and constituted the chief value of the tract of two hundred acres which lay along the west side of the plantation of which it formed a part. It was this tract that Nimbus selected as the most advantageous location for himself and his friend which he could find in that region. He rightly judged that the general estimate of its poverty would incline the owner to part with a considerable tract at a very moderate price, especially if he were in need of ready money, as Colonel Desmit was then reputed to be, on account of the losses he had sustained by the results of the war. His own idea of its value differed materially from this, and he was thoroughly convinced that, in the near future, it would be justified. He was cautious about stating the grounds of this belief even to Eliab, having the natural fear of one unaccustomed to business that some other person would get wind of his idea and step into his Bethesda while he, himself, waited for the troubling of the waters.
He felt himself quite incompetent to conduct the purchase, even with Eliab's assistance, and in casting about for some white man whom they could trust to act as their agent, they could think of no one but Hesden Le Moyne. It was agreed, therefore, that Eliab should broach the matter to him, but he was expressly cautioned by Nimbus to give him no hint of the particular reasons which led them to prefer this particular tract or of their means of payment, until he had thoroughly sounded him in regard to the plan itself. This Eliab did, and that gentleman, while approving the plan of buying a plantation, if they were able, utterly condemned the idea of purchasing a tract so notoriously worthless, and refused to have anything to do with so wild a scheme. Eliab, greatly discouraged, reported this fact to his friend and urged the abandonment of the plan. Nimbus, however, was stubborn and declared that "if Marse Hesden would not act for him he would go to Louisburg and buy it of Marse Desmit himself."
"Dar ain't no use o' talkin', 'Liab," said he. "You an' Marse Hesden knows a heap more'n I does 'bout most things; dar ain't no doubt 'bout dat 'an nobody knows it better'n I does. But what Nimbus knows, he knows, an' dat's de eend on't. Nobody don't know it any better. Now, I don't know nuffin' 'bout books an' de scripter an' sech-like, only what I gits second-hand—no more'n you does 'bout sojerin', fer instance. But I tell ye what, 'Liab, I does know 'bout terbacker, an' I knows all about it, too. I kin jes' gib you an' Marse Hesden, an' aheap mo' jes like you uns, odds on dat, an' beat ye all holler ebbery time. What I don't know 'bout dat ar' crap dar ain't no sort ob use a tryin' to tell me. I got what I knows de reg'lar ole-fashioned way, like small-pox, jes by 'sposure, an' I tell yer 'Liab, hit beats any sort ob 'noculation all ter rags. Now, I tell you, 'Liab Hill, dat ar' trac' ob lan' 'bout dat ole Or'nery is jes' de berry place we wants, an' I'm boun' ter hev it, ef it takes a leg. Now you heah dat, don't yer?"
Eliab saw that it was useless for him to combat this determination. He knew the ruggedness of his friend's character and had long ago learned, that he could only be turned from a course, once fixed upon in his own mind, by presenting some view of the matter which had not occurred to him before. He had great confidence in Mr. Le Moyne's judgment—almost as much as in Nimbus', despite his admiration for his herculean comrade—so he induced his friend to promise that nothing more should be done about the matter until he could have an opportunity to examine the premises, with which he was not as familiar as he would like to be, before it was altogether decided. To this Nimbus readily consented, and soon afterwards he borrowed a wagon and took Eliab, one pleasant day in the early fall, to spy out their new Canaan. When they had driven around and seen as much of it as they could well examine from the vehicle, Nimbus drove to a point on the east-and-west road just opposite the western part of the pine growth, where a sandy hill sloped gradually to the northward and a little spring burst out of it and trickled across the road.
"Dar," he said, waving his hand toward the slope; "dar is whar I wants my house, right 'longside ob dat ar spring, wid a good terbacker barn up on de hill dar."
"Why, what do yer want ter lib dar fer?" asked the other in surprise, as he peered over the side of the wagon, in which he sat upon a thick bed of fodder which Nimbus had spread over the bottom for his comfort.
"Kase dat ar side-hill am twenty-five acres ob de best terbacker groun' in Ho'sford County."
"Yer don't say so, Nimbus?"
"Dat's jes what I do say, 'Liab, an' dat's de main reason what's made me so stubborn 'bout buyin' dis berry track of lan'. Pears ter me it's jes made fer us. It's all good terbacker lan', most on't de berry best. It's easy clar'd off an' easy wukked. De 'backer growed on dis yer lan' an' cured wid coal made outen dem ar pines will be jes es yaller ez gold an' as fine ez silk, 'Liab. I knows; I'se been a watchin' right smart, an' long ago, when I used ter pass by here, when dey fust begun ter vally de yaller terbacker, I used ter wonder dat some pore white man like Marse War', dat knowed how ter raise an' cure terbacker, didn't buy de ole place an' wuk for demselves, 'stead ob overseein' fer somebody else. It's quar dey nebber t'ought on't. It allers seemed ter me dat I wouldn't ax fer nothin' better."
"But what yer gwine ter do wid de ole house?" asked Eliab.
"Wal, Bre'er Liab," said Nimbus with a queer grimace, "I kinder 'llowed dat I'd ler you hab dat ar ter do wid jes 'bout ez yer like."
"Oh, Bre'er Nimbus, yer don't mean dat now?"
"Don't