Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1883-09-19
NOT A PLEASANT PICTURE.
How the Inhabitants of AriSansa WOODS
Live.

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How the Inhabitants of Arkansas Woods
Live.
1t Is the natives themselves that
more especially attract the strangers
attention. There's the head of the
family prodigiously tall and ungainly
quite interesting objects they are,
too, with their thousand-and-one men
tai and physical peculiarities. The
children also, always dozen or fifteen
OF them, ragged, sorrowful-looking ur-
chins, of all sizes and shapes. And
the dogs-bless me, l came near for
getting to mention the dogs--great
they are in numbers, and so thin and
bony that it is little wonder the great
er portion of their existence is spent in
lying before the old fireplace, never
changing their position save when
compelled to do so. A striking sense
of willingness seems to overshadow
the whole group, as they squat about
the dingy room in all imaginable atti-
tudes, each wrapped up in the narrow
confines of his own little self and the
quid of dog-leaf tobacco Tobacco is
their only solace--a homemade article
it is, too, meanest and yilest to be
found anywhere in the land, Men
chew it, the women chew it, the chill
dren chew it, and even the dogs chew
It, Its chew, chew, chew, spit, spit,
spit, squirt, squirt, from morning till
night and from night till morning, and
II you are not cautious enough to get
Off at a safe distance you will be com.
PEELED to dodge innumerable missiles Of
amber colored juice that are shot about
in every conceivable direction irrespect-
i've of persons or things. Sometimes
their jaws become weary after a long
term of service in the art Of mastica-
ton; chewing requires too much eXer-
else for their indolent natures to with
stand. Something must be done to re-
lieve these overworked members of the
human organism, and the characteris-
tic pipe is at once brought forth from
its hiding place in the chimney. And
such pipes great, black, filthy things
strong enough to wreck the constitu-
tion of a Fifth Ward politician. "A
man who can stand before one of
those pipes when it is in full blast can
stand anything. He would need no
life insurance.
The diet of these people is a remark
able thing in its way, not only in quail
tty, but also in quantity. Corn bread
and bacon constitute the bill of fare,
and in the meagre compass of its life
sustaining qualities it combines all
and the only--delicaci of the season,
never out Of season. It's corn bread
and bacon for breakfast, corn bread
and bacon for dinner, corn bread and
bacon for supper; that is all the year
round. To mOralize upon the ingredi-
ents of that corn bread would be as
hazardous as to attempt to solve the
mysteries that cluster around that
world-famous dish, boarding-house
hash. know it is horrible mixture
of corn meal and water, but | am ut
tus or soda. This is poured into
small, rusty, iron pot, half buried in
the ashes, where it bakes and dries
until it becomes hard enough to knock
a hole through Il brick wall, provided
the aforesaid wall isn't more than ten
feet thick. When the baking process
is going on the family squat about the
fireplace in languid listlessness and fire
random shots of tobacco juice at the
fire.
The bacon, too is an article worthy
of comment, inasmuch as it imparts a
sort of flavor to the corn bread, and
thereby renders it the more palatable.
You first discover it in huge slabs of
fat, with little or no lean in its Compo-
sition, almost encrusted in the accum-
ulated filth of weeks and months. One
glance at it would make a health ofli-
Ger sick; but to eat it! oh. horrors!
The corn bread, being baked to the
proper extent, is placed on stump
outside the door to cool, while the dogs
form a circle about it, lick their chops
in silent hunger, and bestow wistful
glances upon the, to them, delicious
morsel. Slices of bacon are then plac-
ed in the great iron pot, where they
sizzle and sputter until finally resolved
into number Of little dried-up chips
floating about upon miniature sea OF
Shiny grease. This horrible mass
grease and all-in conjunction with
the corn bread, is eagerly devoured by
these rapacious natives, and on this
meagre diet, strange to say, but never
theless true, they manage somehow to
keep the sands of life in motion. Truly,
one half the world knows not how
the other half lives.
A Fruitless Search.
One day there visited Buddha a wo-
l.. II