The old woman raised her head, which was covered with tangled locks and matted hair, and exclaimed-- “Hey?” “No, Hayes, Lady Hayes; where is her plantation?” “This is the place,” she answered; “I’m Widder Hayes and you are all to stay here to-night.” We could not believe our ears or eyes; but after putting the dirty old woman through a severe cross-examination she finally produced a contract, signed by our advertiser, agreeing for board and lodging for the company and we found ourselves booked for the night. It appeared that our advertiser could find no better quarters in that forlorn section and he had indulged in a joke at our expense by exciting our appetites and imaginations in anticipation of the luxuries we should find in the magnificent mansion of “Lady Hayes.” Joe Pentland grumbled, Bob White indulged in some very strong language, and Signor Vivalla laughed. He had travelled with his monkey and organ in Italy and could put up with any fare that offered. I took the disappointment philosophically, simply remarking that we must make the best of it and compensate ourselves when we reached a town next day. When the old woman called us to dinner we crept into her hut and found that she had improvised benches at her table by placing boards upon the only four chairs in her possession, and at that, some of us were obliged to stand. The dinner consisted of a piece of boiled smoked bacon, a large dish of “greens,” and corn bread. Three plates, two knives, and three forks made up the entire table furniture and compelled a resort to our jack-knives. “A short horse is soon curried,” and dinner was speedily despatched. It did not seem possible for an audience to assemble in that forsaken quarter, and we concluded not to take the canvas tent out of the wagon. By three o’clock, however, at least fifty persons had arrived on the ground to attend the night show and they reported “more a coming.” Accordingly we put up the tent and arranged our small stage and curtains, preparing seats for two hundred people. Those who had already arrived were mostly women, many of them from sixteen to twenty years old--poor, thin, sallow-faced creatures, wretchedly clad, some of them engaged in smoking pipes, while the rest were chewing snuff. This latter process was new to me; each chewer was provided with a short stick, softened at one end, by chewing it, and this stick was occasionally dipped into a snuff box and then stuck into the mouth, from whence it protruded like a cigar. The technical term for the proceeding is “snuff-dipping.”