In another back settlement a young student was preaching on the Prodigal Son. "And what, my friends, would you have done had your son come home in that way after such conduct?" The answer was prompt, "I would have shot the boy, and saved the calf." [Illustration: A SOUTHERN SAWMILL. _Page 91._] IX. THE SOUTH IN SPRINGTIME. "You are going the wrong time of the year," was the reiterated warning of friends who heard that I was to make a Southern trip. Experience proved them to be as far astray as if they had warned one from going North in June; for the May of the South is the June of the North. Nature was revelling in her fullest dress, making a symphony in green,--all shades, from the pale tint of the chinquapin and persimmon, to the deep indigo of the long-leafed pine, and the tender purple green of the distant hills,--a perfect extravaganza of vegetable growth. The weather was delicious; from the south and east came the ocean air, and from the north and west the balsam-laden ozone of the mountains, every turn in the road revealing new beauties. The cool Southern homes, with their wide verandas covered with honeysuckle, and great hallways running right through the house, often revealing some of the daintiest little pictures of light and shade, from apple or china tree varied with the holly, the Cape jasmine, and scuppernong vines, the latter often covering a half-acre of land, while chanticleer and his seraglio strutted in proud content, monarch of all he surveyed. High on a pole hung the hollowed gourds, homes for the martins and swallows. The mistress sat at her sewing in the shady porch, while out beyond, under a giant oak, with gracefully twined turban and brilliant dress, the sable washerwoman hung out her many-colored pieces, making altogether a scene of rural beauty seldom surpassed. What joy to sit in the ample porch and look over the great cotton-fields with their regular rows of bluish green, variegated by the tender hue of the young corn, and a dozen shades of as many species of oak, while the brilliant tulip-tree and the distant hills, now of softest blue, contrasting with the rich, red ochre of the soil, make up a picture never to be forgotten. Cooled by the breezes that sweep through the porch, one dozes away an hour of enchantment. The negroes with their mules, in the distance, in almost every field, add to its piquancy, and often, floating on the wind, come wild snatches in weird minor notes the broken rhythm of their old Virginia reel, performed with the rollicking exuberance of the race.