The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-04-28
A CRACKER SKETCH.
BY LOUIS CALVERT.

A two-room log house with low, dilapidated "worm" fence around it, ragged honeysuckle vine at one side of the door which is never closed, winter or summer, a few stunted rose bushes bordering the path of white sand, that glistened blindiDgly in the sun of midsummer day, from the broken gate to the ricketty doorstep.
 A traveller drew his horse up at the gate and after the fashion of the country shouted "Hel-lo!" He heard sono- rous growl from within the house as if an immense, ill-natured African lion had been disturbed from an af- ternoon siesta, then shrill, shattered voice commanded, "You, Watch, git right back thar" and the great dog obediently retired to his favorite couch beneath the high, uncurtained bedstead.
 A few moments later there pro- truded from the open door an enor- nous corn-cob pipe, from which the smoke was curling in lazy blue col umn. As the pipe with, it seemed, several sections of stem gradually made itself visible, it became evident that the other end disappeared in all old woman's mouth-a dry, expres- sionless mouth, surrounded with ever widening circles of wrinkles as is the center of tree, which circles took in long, sharp nose, hooked chin, two bright, inquisitive eyes, and finally disappeared under the folds of cot ton handkerchief bound over snowy hair.
 Then the handle of the pipe was with an effort extracted from it's ac- customed place between the old cracker mothers lips as she called, "Ole man, ole man, here's sum'un as wanster see you"
 The pipe is replaced and the thin column of blue smoke curls lazily up as the stranger sits in silence under close scrutiny from the eyes above the primitive pipe as we'll as from pair of bright, starry orbs dimly wis., ible through crack between two logs of the cabin.
 Presently thick stream of dark yellow fluid is projected from around 6 corner of the building with the force and volume of lawn sprinkler, heavy quid of tobacco is flung out among the stunted rose bushes, and an old man-dwarfed in appearance, with lean, and slender frame, yellow skin, thick gray hair locks from which projects an acquiline nose and peer two ferret-like and furtive eyes comes slowly slouching into view He wears patched and alarmed brown jeans clothes, and, as it is summer, he does not wear any shoes at all. He speaks first, saying in breath:
 "Good-even'-tollable-light, Mis- ter"
 The stranger "lights" and enters the house, which after the glaring sand path outside, looks as cool and gloomy as grotto. There he came face to face with the girl of the starry eyes, who, indeed appears, perhaps from the contrast with her homely sur- roundings, a rare vision of girlish loveliness.
 AS the stranger bowed she smiled bashfully and said "Good mawnin'," though it is late in the afternoon, but no one "makes him acquainted"
 The young lady, whom the mother calls "Soonie," brings him directly a drink of cool spring water in small long handled gourd, which is white and as light as cork, and which seems to impart an agreeable flavor and sweetness to the water; but as the weary traveller meets Soonie's hand in taking the gourd and her eyes while drinking, it may be the virtue did not all lie in the gourd.
 The mother sits beside the doorway, knitting, smoking and gazing down the lonely sandy road as she had done every day these last fifty years. Along that road, she tells the stranger, her old man brought her to this home the day they were married-only he wasn't an old man then, but one of the finest boys in the country along that road her only son, Benny, marched away to "jine Gov'nor Brown" but he never came back; along that road later on came one division of Sher- mans conquering hosts as they swept over the already desolated country on to the sea; and along that road some day in the near future she will be carried in rough pine box, on jolt ing ox-cart, up to the burying ground at New Prospect church and laid to rest. Old man Stubbs with similar thoughts, perhaps, sits near her in- dustriously schewing new tobacco quid and splitting with deadly precis- ion at the lazy flies basking in the sun on the doorstep, and asking at inter- vals, like minute guns:
 "And what did you say your name mout be, mister2" though the guest had not as yet mentioned it.
 "And you are from-where, mis-