The room I slept in had a hole in the end that you could drive a span of horses through. It had been left for a chimney. As I found out that the day before a rattlesnake had come into the house, and the good woman had to defend herself with the fire-poker, I did not sleep so well as I might. The possibility of a rattler in the dark, and no poker handy, filled me with uneasy thoughts; but as people get up with the sun, the time passed, and I was glad to get back to civilized life. I noticed that the cotton was ridged up with concave rows of earth, which was covered with rank weeds. This was done to keep the water from running off too quickly. I asked whether sage would not hold the ridges as good as weeds. "Oh, yes!" they said, and it brought a dollar a pound; but they had never thought of that. Some of the States do not have seventy school-days in the year; and the whole South to-day has not as many public libraries as the State of Massachusetts. A man needs perfect health to enjoy some of the pastoral work which he must do if he intends making a success among the mountain whites. One thing should never be forgotten. The poor whites of the mountains were loyal to the Union, and out from this type came the greatest American we have had, Abraham Lincoln. Here, then, is plenty of material to work on,--families big enough to start a small church, and who do not send to England for pug-dogs for lack of progeny. Here is the rich fields, and here must the race be lifted before the millions of blacks can have a chance. Education must be pushed; and then will come a period of scepticism, for this people are fifty years behind the times. Several people were sitting on a large veranda; and one man, a preacher lately from Texas, was telling us of his visit. Among other things he spoke of the cyclone-pits, and said, "Seems to me, brother, a man can't have much faith in God who would go into a pit. I would not; would you?" "No," replied mine host. "Men seem to me to be losing faith. I once raised a woman up by prayer that three doctors had given up. Aunt Sally, have ye any of that liver invigorator? I kind of feel as if I needed some." Here was a man who had prayed a woman out of the jaws of death, calling for liver medicine. None of them seemed to see the incongruity of it. One good old deacon that I knew horrified his pastor, who was a strong temperance man, by furnishing the communion with rye whiskey. The old man meant all right; but he had neglected to replenish the wine, and thought something of a spirituous nature was needed, and so brought the whiskey.