“Do you remember anything about the Revolutionary War?” asked Barnum. “Well, I should say I duz,” replied the old lady. “I ’members when de bullets wuz a flyin’ and a zoonin’ round here laik bumblebees, sah.” “What do you remember about the fall of the Roman empire?” said Barnum. The old woman was “stumped” for a moment, but, recovering herself, replied: “I wuz a mighty leetle gal den’ but I ’members hearin’ de ole folk say dat dey heerd sumpin’ drap.” E. J. FERGUSON. Washington, Pa. [Illustration: Photo by Julie Royster, Raleigh, N. C.] Trotwood’s Travels LITTLE JOURNEYS THROUGH THE SOUTH—FLORENCE ALABAMA. It is fitting that the story of the journey to Florence, Ala., should appear In the same issue with Jackson’s march into the Creek Nation; for the story of this pretty little city on the Tennessee, between the foothills of the mountains and the cotton plains beyond, is literally thumb-marked with Old Hickory. Andrew Jackson knew and understood what was good in woman, in man and in land. In these he never erred. Never in his life did he tie on to a quitter or touch a yellow streak. When he stamped the seal of his friendship on a man or woman, or drove the steel of his compass[1] on land he had decided to buy, they were already registered. And history, a century later, will tell you they were not false. When a man’s judgment, like his literature, stands the test of a century, it is good for all time. But before the white man was the Indian, and before the Indian, the Mound Builders. The Mound Builders never were known to settle on poor land. They found Florence before the Indian, before the white man, before the hero of New Orleans. It is beautiful to speculate about those people. Who they were and what they were only their great, silent mound monuments tell, and they are as dumb as the unreturning past. The mound they built where the great creek meets the Tennessee is a perfect and splendid specimen of their custom. Scholars say it was built for religious worship—not to bury their dead within, and it is one of a series in the valley of the Tennessee. What robed, mysterious priest and peoples once worshiped around it? What censers of eternal fire burned always on its summit? What white-robed maidens met a sacrificial death on its summit overlooking the river? What warriors thronged around it, chanting their battle songs and dipping their spear points in the victims’ blood? “Forever and forever flows the river, Forever and forever rolls the plain— Forever shall the pale stars ’round them quiver, But never shall their past return again. Hyperion dawns but light their frieze in vain, And moons peer sadly through the columned way, The midday glares on what doth yet remain Of faded glory with a mocking play— Thus passeth into shadow man’s imperial sway.”