Petals Plucked from Sunny ClimesBrooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
History
Petals Plucked from Sunny Climes
Brooks, A. M. (Abbie M.)
Cuba -- Description and travel; Florida -- Description and travel; Florida -- History
The cracker has a hearty welcome for the stranger, which puts the blush
of contempt upon those claiming a much higher degree of civilization.
Every thing the house contains is free to visitors. Although the bill of
fare bears no resemblance to the St. James Hotel or Carleton House in
Jacksonville, yet quantity will make up for quality. Chickens are always
killed for company, without counting the number of Christmas holidays
they have seen. Your plate is piled with sweet potatoes and corndodger
bread, or ash-cake, to be washed down with strong coffee, which they
always manage to keep on hand for special occasions. The old folks are
very attentive; but where are the children? Run away like wild rabbits.
They are out taking a view of the company. Watch, and you will soon see
curious little eyes looking through the cracks, or slipping around the
corners. These crackers are a very communicative class of persons,
always full of information pertaining to Florida, and as ready to talk
as a freshly-wound, well-regulated Yankee clock to keep time. The father
of the family is called "dad," the mother "mam." The husband speaks of
his wife as "the old woman," the wife says "old man," while the children
are always called girls and boys. Women among no class of people in the
South, however poor, are ever called "heifers," as one Northern writer
has represented, unless by their conduct they are lost both to virtue
and shame. The cracker exercises his prudential care by always keeping
hogs. It is the main support of the family; and these razor-backed
tourists are constantly going on voyages of discovery, either by land or
sea. They often excite the sympathies of visitors on account of their
thin bodies, but they possess more self-sustaining qualities than those
who are sorry for them, showing what hogs can do as well as people, when
thrown on their own resources. The sea-shore swine, which receive
sustenance from the beach, can feed twice in twenty-four hours, when the
tide recedes, and no depleted stores tell the amount of fish, oysters,
and other marine morsels, which are deposited within their bony frames.
The above is a true statement in regard to the Southern crackers, which
excites the commiseration of so many people who know nothing about them,
and would, no doubt, be greatly benefited by reserving their concern for
themselves, remembering, "Where little is given, little is required."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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