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This enraged the little brief agent, and he let off a volley of oaths at the Darkee. Darkee said, "there was nobody there to see to the switch, and he didn't keer." Here was rebellion in the egg. It was too much for a man who held the bag and took a bit from every passenger. So he advanced with his little, stinted brain boiling hot, which if it was all mercury would hardly be too much to fill the glass bulb of a thermometer, and began to cuff wooleyhead hitherward and thitherward, as our singing-master would say. Wooley-head told him, "he hadn't better touch him; nobody should whip him as wasn't his master." He put out his hands to keep off the blows, or to prevent any more. At this the slender-headed and slender-leg'd agent betook himself to a stout whip, with which he lashed, until the lash flew off, and then struck the poor half-clad object until he, himself, was almost out of breath. I could not tell what the great offense was, although I had seen it all, which call'd forth such a measure of punishment; but I saw the agent was rousing himself for another lick. The steam was up, and he turned the butt end of his whip and struck the friendless boy with all the ferocity his strength allowed. Happily such hornets have their stinging tempers placed on weak frames, and their lack of power- not their dispositions sets a limit to their mischief. Wooley-head was used to such a hand, (here use is said to make a difference,) and he stood doggedly immovable, although the pain must have been great. I could stand it no longer. So I told our little man, the agent, with the air of one having authority, if the boy refused his duty not to whip him, but to report him to his master. This had the desired effect. The agent, either finding he was like to be worsted, or that I had espoused the side of the boy, at once desisted.

Now it strikes me I have done more for the "amelioration of the conditions of the slave" than any abolitionist of my acquaintance, notwithstanding some of them have "spoke in meeting," some take the "Emancipator," some sponge their neighbors' books, and some have given twenty-five cents to a lecturer. I saved this darkee from further beating. John Quincy Adams got Cinquez et als. clear, and I got Jim clear. Now John Quincy will have credit for his effort, but as for me, why, even Jim did not, and never will, thank me. The "A. S. society" will not give me a vote of thanks. In two hours after this, when I returned, the

same black boy was driving the car and singing his negro songs, as happy as if his hide was not all ridged over with stripes.

One of Morrill's purposes in making this journey was to visit his cousins, the Annises, who lived near Aurora, Illinois. He found them after a long journey by steamboat and stage-coach and describes his visit:

July 4th, Sunday. Blackberry Creek. Arrived at Cousin Prudence Annis's last evening at dark, who knew my voice, and was very glad to keep me after crying a bit as women will do, they say, for joy. In a log-cabin, among the woods, hogs, horses, and cattle, to say nothing of prairie-wolves and rattlesnakes, they seem to live upon the cream of creams, the best of the best land in the world. Butter 64 cents the pound, pork 3 cts., milk free as water, fowls wild or tame the cost of a charge of lead and powder, deducting the sport. Cattle here are fat very early. All this in consideration that you will dwell here. Forty-five acres of corn and enough of wheat, etc., to make out a field of 90 acres in one close, stretches out in front of Mr. Annis's logcabin, gently descending to what they call here a slew (slough.) It has a look that would do eastern hill-bound eyes good to behold. Yet such fields or larger are no marvel here.

They plough and cross-plough, then only cut out the weeds with the hoe, and the corn is finished, until harvest which comes any time in the fall or winter, as they choose. But the wheat has to be cut at the proper moment. This is either thrashed out forthwith in the field or stacked. Barns hardly used at all. In stacks or in the chaff they can keep wheat until they choose to send it to market.

Here all live on "claims," which pass perfectly secure under the broad shield of Lynch-Law. That is, any person may run a plough around any unclaimed land he can find, and this will give him a good claim against all others, except the General Government, to whom he has to pay $1.25 per acre when they call or when the land sale comes off. The claimants all come into a bond with a high penalty to assist each other to all their rights. They have a committee who make a final decision of all disputes among themselves. They proceed in a very summary way to oust all jumpers those who claim on top of an old proprietor. But

when a single individual has appropriated all about him, evidently for speculation and not to live upon, they will not hesitate to jump on to him. They settle all division-line disputes.

At a land-sale no stranger dares to bid against these pioneers - commonly called squatters - who appoint one of their number to bid off all the lots in such a precinct, watching him in breathless anxiety all the while to see that he is faithful and makes no blunders. He then deeds to each man his claim. Should he refuse to do this, his life would want insurance. If a speculator should run the price up higher than $1.25 per acre, his only alternative would be to refund the excess and redeed the land, if it had been struck off to him, or suffer the penalties to be awarded by Judge Lynch, whose decisions an hundred brawny hands and clubs stand ready to enforce without stint or delay.

Morrill fell in with the ways of the place, revealed himself in the new light of a sportsman, and showed unexpected skill at shooting birds on the wing.

We go in a lumber-box waggon-lady Prudy on the back seat. The horses are trained not to be frightened, and so I shoot all the game within gunshot. I may proudly say that to-day, for I have not missed whether on the wing or at rest. Have killed quails, mourning-doves, red-wing blackbirds, plovers, etc. (omitting the plural in the second and fourth.) On the prairie this is fine sport. The birds and flowers are singularly beautiful.

The pleasure of this first visit led to a better knowledge of the west and especially of Illinois where he made some investments in prairie lands.

After he had given up storekeeping, though he still retained business interests as director in one or more local banks, and various ventures in which he was associated with "Judge" Harris in addition to his farm, he was able to give increasing time to public affairs. It was to this period that he referred when he said: "Then I realized that public questions must have a little more serious study. I had always had in my library all that I could afford, but now political economy had some attention besides other litera

ture. I attended State, County, and Town political meetings, but always refused to take any nomination for office."

He was steadily growing in breadth of outlook and in knowledge, and forming his convictions on public questions so that they were based on the solid rock of principle. Many things aided in his development, not least the local "Literary Society" which he attended faithfully and which afforded him a field where he might try his wings as author as well as speaker.

No one could live in Vermont, certainly not in any of the four southeastern counties, without being interested in farming. Orange County and Strafford in particular was an almost purely agricultural district and remains so to this day. Morrill had been familiar with farming from his infancy; all his dreams of the quiet, studious, contemplative life had a farm in Strafford as their setting. By 1847 he had given such thought and attention to farming as to be chosen by his fellow-members of the Orange County Agricultural Society to deliver the address at their October meeting — evidently an unusual production, for it was published at the request of the society and has been preserved. It has the same qualities that were to mark his later addresses in Congress and out-sound common sense set forth in oldfashioned diction and illuminated by illustrations from the classics. Two brief sections, on Sheep and Fruit, will suffice to give its flavor and serve also to show where his strongest interest lay.

SHEEP

It is important to obtain that breed of sheep best suited to the climate and pasturage. In Saxony and Spain the value of the fleece is mostly sought, but in England the carcass, or the mutton, is considered most important. To obtain a fine, heavy fleece, and also the largest carcass, is perhaps impossible. But some approximation to this has been reached, as is evident in the South

Down breed. These advantages might here, it is thought, be combined and brought to a higher perfection than they have been. The practice of breeding in and in, as it is termed, is as fatal to the sheep as to any other animals. If the farmer is satisfied with his stock, he should select males of the same breed from a different family for the use of his flock. The Romans made some pretensions to skill in breeding sheep, according to one of their poets, who says

"Is wool thy care, let not thy cattle go

Where bushes are, where burs and thistles grow;
Nor in too rank a pasture let them feed:

Then of the purest white select thy breed."

[Dryden's translation.]

The disfavor of black sheep still continues, and the injunctions relative to pastures might be followed with profit. Damp pastures are said to be most frequently visited with the hoof-rot. Sheep require a large range of pasturage, and no man's avarice or ignorance should tempt him to overstock his farm with sheep. Diseases and death among the flock, it is true, will teach them their lessons in a short time if any choose that road to learn.

FRUIT

It will soon become a question whether the railroads, now piercing through Vermont, shall carry fruit up or down; whether we shall obtain the choicest varieties of apples, pears, plums, and grapes from other States, or whether we shall seize the opportunity to cultivate them for home use and also to send abroad. Our soil and climate encourage us to do the latter. Who is there with mouth so dead to the taste of the innocently tempting fruit-garden that will not plant one tree?

The skill in grafting, and inoculating trees is now so well established, as almost to dispute scriptural authority, that "grapes cannot be gathered of thorns, or figs of thistles." But the art is no modern invention. Even in the time of Virgil, he says:

"The thin-leaved arbute hazel-graffs receives;
And planes huge apples bear that bore but leaves.
Thus mastful beech the bristly chestnut bears,
And the wild ash is white with blooming pears
And greedy swine from grafted elms are fed
With falling acorns, that on oaks are bred."

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