As far as the pleasure of life goes, boys brought up in this primitive mountain country have little to complain of. They may lack certain advantages; in this imperfect world, where two bodies cannot occupy the same space at once, the presence of some things necessitates the absence of others; but most certainly they have their full quota of what in youthful phrase are known as “good times.” The very prettiest sight that I saw in North Carolina, not excepting any landscape or flower,--and I saw floral displays of a splendor to bankrupt all description,--was a boy whom I met one Sunday morning in a steep, disused road outside of the town. I was descending the hill, picking my steps, and he was coming up. Eleven or twelve years old he might have been, cleanly dressed, fit for any company, but bare-legged to the knee. I wished him good-morning, and he responded with the easiest grace imaginable. “You are going to church?” said I. “Yes, sir,” and on he went up the hill, “progressing by his own brave steps;” a boy, as Thoreau says, who was “never drawn in a willow wagon;” straight as an arrow, and with motions so elastic, so full of the very spirit of youth and health, that I stood still and gazed after him for pure delight. His face, his speech, his manner, his carriage, all were in keeping. If he does not make a good and happy man, it will be an awful tragedy. This boy was not a “cracker’s” child, I think. Probably he belonged to one of the Northern families, that make up the village for the most part, and have settled the country sparsely for a few miles round about. The lot of the native mountaineers is hard and pinched, and although flocks of children were playing happily enough about the cabin doors, it was impossible not to look upon them as born to a narrow and cheerless existence. Possibly the fault was partly in myself, since I have no very easy gift with strangers, but I found them, young and old alike, rather uncommunicative.