Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1884-06-27
THE PH0gNIX ON THE WING.

When the New England newspaper men
went on their excursion through southern
Virginia, eastern and middle Tonnossee, and
northern Georgia, the thing they meant to
do was to find out what the country and the
people were like, and then toll their readers
at home about it without prejudice or con
cealment. Lot us turn back to Norfolk, Va,
which was the real beginning, 1t is n quaint
Old town which the vOyager secs spread out
before him as he sails up from Hampton
Roads and rounds SewalPs Point into O spa
cious and perfectly protected harbor, where
tho largest ships may find anchorage. The
city lies just where tho Elizabeth river comes
down to meet the Chesapeake. Within it's
own corporate limits il has population of
about 25,OO0 but if, after the fashion Of
Boston, one adds to it tho outlying dependen-
oies of Brambleton, Berkeley, Gosport, Ports
mouth and Atlantic City, We have n munich
pality OF no mean proportions. The city
bears tho marks OF two centuries of civiliza-
tion and the scars of three wars. Many of its
buildings are curiousy old, and its residence
streets of tho time gono by have 4 sleepy
hollow mir but the general impression which
tho stranger receives is that of a city which,
after living for half a century and more only
in its past, has at last aroused to lively sense
of its possibilities and advantages, and is put
ting on vigorous and substantial young life.
Now wharvos are building now business
blocks are going up, and the talk of its peo-
pie is no longer Of what has been, but Of what
is to be. As shipping port it has unrivallcd
advantages. 1t has always beon a lending
cotton port, and since the war its lumber
trade from the North Carolina forests has
grown to immense proportions Within easy
distance of the whRrves great lumber mills
are ceaaelessly cutting the forest products into
every shape that the trade of the country de-
mands. The railroad lines strong in their
confidence in the city's future, arc preparing
to make it leading export point for the grain
of the west and northwest
But we should forget Norfolk's most inter
esting and novel characteristic did we fail to
mention that it lies in the midst of q great
region of truck farming"-for 80 the mar
! ket-gardening business is invariably called
which here finds its market and shipping
| point. For miles all about the city and with
in easy distance by rail- the one occupation
| OF the farmers is the growing of early vege-
! tables and small fruits for tho northern mar
ket. The truck season begins while yet our
/ northern fields are locked in snow and ice
| with lettuce, asparagus and radishes, and pease,
beans, cabbages, potatoes, corn and other
staple vegetables follow in duo order. The
strawberry season ends and cherries are in
the market by the end Of May. The soil is
white and clayey, and the natives tell you
with touch of pride that 'there isn't stone
in tho whole of Norfolk county rs big as a
ducks egg"
1t was scene never to be forgotten on that
evening in early May when a veteran Norfolk
| Journalist "a man tall erect, dignified, cour-
tcous, gray headed, white-bonrded-a ideal
| type, in short, of the old Virginia gentleman,
! with the pride of his state and his family
namo upon HIM stood up to give a cordial
and impressive welcome to the Yankee Jour
nalists, and to assure them that they were re-
ceived as brothers and not as strangers that
every thought Of past bitterness had been
wiped out, and that the people of Virginia
only asked to bo taken into the hearts of the
people of tho North even ~ Virginians on
their part were ready and anxious to wei.
come and strike hands with their brethren
from every section of a common country
The sentiment was then q strange one to
| our Northern ears, but its genuineness
was unmistakable; and afterwards We heard
it repeated in so many forms, by so many
men, and on so many occasions that we
should have been unworthy of our Amer
| lean citizenship had We not come to believe
1t to be the spontaneous and heartfelt senti-
ment OF every true representative of the
South Of to-day.
From Norfolk our route was directly across
southern Virginia by the Norfolk & Western
| road-a well-built aud well-equpped trunk
| to Bristol on the Tennessee border, with
through connections to Memphis, st. Louis
and tho great West. To eyes fresh from
| New England hills and rocks the country for
tho first half day out of Norfolk has a novel
| look, and We can well understand that in any
season other than whom the spring freshness
is upon it, it might seem monotonous and
even checrlcss. To us, however who had
left chilling east winds and naked fields be-
! lNNWal !.
was delightful one, full OF eager and almost
boyish zost. Three miles out of Norfolk the
railroad passes through the northern border
OF the Great Dismal Swamp, striking across
1t for eight or ton miles in O mathematcally
straight line. Beyond this for near 200 miles
the route lies continuously through low,
level country, whose unvarying features in
| endless succession are a low, stunted under.
growth, with here and there a stand OF large
timber peanut farms, pine thickets, small
villages, struggling and discouraged looking,
and then more peanut farms, more pine thick
cts, more underground more isolated villages
and everywhere the "nigger and a mule"
everywhere the pickaninnies, every where tho
pigs. just at the time Of our visit the pea.
nut farmelj were in rebellion and holding
meetings to protest against the action of the
buyers in decreeing an arbitrary cut in the
price of the crop because shftless and SLOW
emily element among the growers persisted in
bringing the 'goobers" or ground nuts, as
they are locally called, to market without
properly cleaning and asserting them.
On this days ride it was we made our first
acquaintance with the southern pig. At
first he was novelty and we made him the
butt of all manner of alleged Jokes and sup
posed witticisms, but ii soon became evident
that he was an indigenous product, native TO
the soil and inseparAble from it, and we came
to accept his presence just as naturally as we
did that of the air, the water, the trees, the
men and women-and the pickaninnies. In
every town and village, on the outskirts of
! every city, in every clearing and thicket, on
every farm and field in every highway and
byway, in the most impossible and unexpect
ed places, he inevitably and invariably turns
up, always serene, always imperturbsble, al
ways self-possessed and master of the situa-
tion, always with an interrogation point in his
cunning eye, as if he said, Here l am, and what
are you going to do about it 2" Always he is
long and thin and lean-long bodied long
headed, long-snouted, long legged. From his
birth till his course is run no forages for him
self, and to his credit be it said that when he
comes to the table with hoe-cake accompan-
ment he is always 30 palatRble and toothsomo
as to put to the blush his pRmpered kinsman
of the north.
Here as elsewhere in the farming sections
| passed over the houses are of an almost inva.
riable type, and too often they give small
idea of native thrift and home comfort The
material is of small logs, usually hewn, with
the orevices filed in with mud or mortar.
Without exception the chimney is built out.
side, at one end, and is laid up with stones or
brick-sometimes with sticks and clay. In
hundreds of those dwellings of the poorer
class not q square inch of glass is to be seen,
and often not oven an opening for window.
Sometimes they have white and sometimes
black occupants. If the latter tho flock of
pickaninnies of assorted sizes is as inevitable
and as characteristic as is the drove of pigs.
To describe the funny two-wheeled carts,
made often of rough poles cut in the nearest
thicket, and the antiquated wagons which form
the only visible means of local conveyance in
these rural districts, would require an artists
pencil to go along with the scrbbler's pen.
Throughout the day il was a delight often
repeated to study the motley crowds that
gathered about the railroad stations in the lit
tie villages. Life seemed perpetual loafing-
day for blacks and whites. A resident Yir.
ginian remarked to us that if, in one of these
villages, there were, say $50 Inhabitants, 2l9
of them would always be found at the station