Old Uncle Tim was very poor, and his little cabin was small and shabby; and yet neither hunger nor cold had ever come in an unfriendly way to visit it. The tall plantation smoke-house threw a friendly shadow over the tiny hut every evening just before the sun went down--a shadow that seemed a promise at close of each day that the poor home should not be forgotten. Nor was it. Some days the old man was able to limp into the field and cut a load of cabbages for the hands, or to prepare seed potatoes for planting, so that, as he expressed it, "each piece 'll have one eye ter grow wid an' another ter look on an' see dat everything goes right." And then Uncle Tim was brimful of a good many valuable things with which he was very generous--_advice_, for instance. He could advise with wisdom upon any number of subjects, such as just at what time of the moon to make soap so that it would "set" well, how to find a missing shoat, or the right spot to dig for water. These were all valuable services; yet cabbages were not always ready to be cut, potato-planting was not always in season. Often for weeks not a hog would stray off. Only once in a decade a new well was wanted; and as to soap-making, it could occur only once during each moon at most. It is true that between times Uncle Tim gave copious warnings _not_ to make soap, which was quite a saving of effort and good material. But whether he was cutting seed potatoes, or advising, or only playing on his banjo, as he did incessantly between times, his rations came to the little cabin with clock-like regularity. They came just as regularly as old Tim _had worked_ when he was young, as regularly as little Tim _would_ when he should grow up, as it is a pity daily rations cannot always come to such feeble ones as, whether in their first or second childhood, are able to render only the service of willingness. And so we see that the two Tims, as they were often called, had no great anxieties as to their living, although they were very poor. The only thing in the world that the old man held as a personal possession was his old banjo. It was the one thing the little boy counted on as a precious future property. Often, at all hours of the day or evening, old Tim could be seen sitting before the cabin, his arms around the boy, who stood between his knees, while, with eyes closed, he ran his withered fingers over the strings, picking out the tunes that best recalled the stories of olden days that he loved to tell into the little fellow's ear. And sometimes, holding the banjo steady, he would invite little Tim to try his tiny hands at picking the strings. "Look out how you snap 'er too sudden!" he would exclaim if the little fingers moved too freely. "Look out, I say! Dis ain't none o' yo' pick-me-up-hit-an'-miss banjos, she ain't! An' you mus' learn ter treat 'er wid rispec', caze, when yo' ole gran'dad dies, she gwine be yo' banjo, an' stan' in his place ter yer!"