cost, when my contraband of the kitchen department called me to dinner by announcing that the eggs had been boiling for an hour, and the oysters stewing for twice that time! HOME LIFE OF THE FREEDMEN. After dinner we visit the negroes in their cabins. The _home life_ of the freedmen is at once the most noticeable and most interesting feature of their new condition. Even in former days, however often the sanctity of their homes may have been violated, with however weary limbs and suffering souls they may have gone to them, yet here they must have found their chiefest joy. Now, the humble cabins have become transfigured, and we find therein not only joy, but peace and comfort, and, indeed, in greater or less degree, every element of that domestic order which makes the home the corner stone of our free institutions. I have frequently, when conversing with the freedmen about the flight of their former masters, asked them why they did not accompany them, and have invariably received the reply, 'Oh, sah, we couldn't do dat. We belongs yere. _Dese are our homes._' This strong attachment to the soil, which has been made still stronger by the removal of everything which could in any way remind them of their former condition, has proved to be the great _lever_ to raise them into the dignity of free laborers. It is true their cabins are not yet free-holds; but the assurance that, unless the Government itself fails, no fault or misfortune of another can ever deprive them of their homes, puts them at once on their good behavior, that they may retain in their possession what they prize so dearly. The good results of this transformation of the home are seen in every direction. The marriage relation is observed with a constantly increasing strictness. Family ties are knitted more closely together. Parents take a deep interest in the education of their children, and the children become in turn teachers to the parents of much that is improving and civilizing. In the field there are generous rivalries between families to see which will cultivate the largest patches of corn and cotton. Greater neatness and order are observable about the dwellings, and wherever new cabins have been erected--always by negro carpenters--there has been marked improvement in the style and comfort of the buildings. Freedom has also created new wants, and the freedman purchases from time to time, as he has ability, articles of luxury and of ornament for his home.