After this reply, he leaned forward and poured out another cup of coffee for himself and family, as I slowly turned and walked away. No more poverty-stricken families can be found than some of these occasionally seen moving through the mountains. This one had property in a team and wagon, but I have met them traveling on foot and carrying their sole possessions. A family of the latter description I came across near the Ocona Lufta in Swain county. It was a warm May day, and the road was dry and dusty. I was on foot with a companion from the Richland valley. On descending a short hill to a small stream gliding out from under a clump of wayside willows, we met the party. There were eight of them, as destitute, ragged, forlorn, and withal as healthy a family as I ever saw. The father and husband was fully 70 years of age. His long gray hair, although unkempt; his wrinkled face, and mild blue eyes, had something in all to arouse reverence and pity in the most thoughtless of mankind. He was dressed in an unbleached muslin shirt, much the worse for wear; a pair of pantaloons so completely covered with patches that it would have taken an artisan tailor to distinguish the original ground-work; a pair of cloth suspenders, and a battered hat. He was bare-footed, and carried on his shoulders half a bushel of corn. The wife and mother was much younger. Her face was stolid enough to be utterly indifferent to their condition. She had on the least possible quantity of clothes to cover her form, and a calico bonnet on her head. Under her arm was a bundle of spring onions, probably gathered from some convenient yard near which they had encamped in true gypsy fashion. The eldest daughter, a grown woman, was no better attired than her Mother. She had in her possession a roll of tattered blankets. The five remaining, frowzy children, barefooted and ragged like their sire, had in their respective keepings, a coffee-pot, two or three gourds and an iron kettle. This was the whole family with a full inventory of their worldly possessions. They said that they were moving back to Tennessee; that they had been burnt out; that the head of the family could not earn more than 20 cents per day; that it was “split the Smoky mountings or bust.” We were under the impression that the 20 cents per day included the board for the family. We gave them some small change and tobacco and then separated.