River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1894-03-22
FLORIDA LETTER.
ST. AUGUSTINE, Feb. 28, 1894.


ask permission to give an acco unit of
themselves, but | cannot leave this
ancient city without sending message
to my friends. Had | travelling COM
panions with whom to exchange de-
lights / should not need perhaps to
voice Cd my overlooking enjoyment
through your columns and unhappily
lorg distance telephones do not operate
between River Falls and st. Augustine
else your welkin would have rung
with my words of rapture ere this. If
l were TO count time by experience
rather than by Figures on the dial
long indeed would be the time since
babe farewell to my northern friends
and turned my steps southwark in
search of rest and warmth and some
other things,-that | have found both
and much more is what inspires me to
write this. One of my experiences
while in Kansas was having my
fortune told by an old colored
woman who assured me that my jour
ney would be greatly success and
prosperity" and thus far her words
have proved true.
, After three enjoyable weeks in
southeastern Kansas where in Jan. l
listened to the singing of the meadow
lark and looked out upon green foliage
! and felt the exhilarations of balmy
spring time with snowstorIn sand
wife he'd in) where / attended darky
meetings, and visited darky schools,
and was happy and gained six pounds
in weight, | again turned my steps
| southwark toward the land of Ponce
de Leon. OF my journey hither via
| Fort Scott, Memphis, Atlanta and
Macon to Jacksonville, my note book
is full. As | rode I wrote. Every
thing was 50 new and strange and
interesting that 1 could not help talk
ing with my pencil for want of better
company. L recall the low wet forest
marshes of Arkansas with little board
houses built on stills and reached by
| ladder-like steps with dugout boats
moored at the foot OF each To be ready
| IN case of an overflow of the Miss.
| The small saw mills, the cotton
patches in the clearings-the long
street ches of forest covered marshes,
one mass of fallen logs and tangled
| vines-the thriftless homes and shift.
less looking men and women, and my
impression of how utterly untouched
| they are by the civilization of to.
day. So inundated is their land that
wonder where they bury their dead.
Crossing the Miss. River on fine
steel railroad bridge we entered Mem
phiswhere the evidences of southern
| life were unmistakable. At this point
| white labor ceased. The hand of the
colored man lifted every burden. The
| old southern feeling of the degrade
tion of work seems not yet to have
| died out, and the white man chooses
the aristocratic occupation of leaning
against something, with his hands
IN his pockets and gradually descends
in the scale of manliness. Colored
people and cotton bales make up the
Memphis picture, save for the beauti-
full magnolia and bay trees and a few
| fine old southern mansions.
Across northern Miss, Ala and
diagonally through Ga. the way was a
perpetual unfolding of new life and
vegetation. Forests of pine and oak
and bay and many unknown shrubs, |
| fields of cotton and corn-the soil in |
| varying shades of red and yellow-the |
surface uneven uplands crowned with |
pine trees stretch away in all di- |
| rections. Almost the only habitations |
seen outside of the towns are the |
negro cabins, and oh what shabby |
| tumbled down, dilapitated shanties |
they were! The ragged darkies, their |
garmets one mass of patches and holes, |
black Venuses gorgeous in turbans |
| and fancy gowns-sunbonnetted Re-
| beccas at the well-venerable Uncle |
| Toms, motheTly Aunt Chloes, mis-. |
chevious Topsies and scores of darky |
children were to be seen all along the |
way. None so happy as the colored |
children who kick and frolic and roll |
and clap their hands, their bare legs |
and feet and big eyes and mouths aud
general cute appearance make them to
me Palmer Cox's Brownies alive and
known TO them and they ENJOY life
with heartiness that one might
almost envy.
Scenes in the cotton belt and the
pitch tar and turpentine" belt of
Ga. crowd upon my memory. Saw
mills and turpentine distilleries, tall
pine trees and marsh glades with
tangled masses of vine and cane and
fallen logs, negro cabins swarming
with negro life, more rags and patches
and cute darby children. When night
came on the way was lighted by burn
ing logs and stumps. The leaping
flames and the dark shadows through
which we so hurriedly passed made
picture never to be forgotten. The
cabins too were lighted up from with
in and glimpses through open doors of
blazing fires in the rude fIeplaces
against which dark forms stood out
like shadow pantomiInes flashed out in
| the darkness. But the panorama
/ Cannot be reproduced in words. Again
and again 1 longed tor kodaek.
| Through all this wild, wondrous, de-
garded region with its immense posi-
| bilities if but touched by the hand of
intelligence and industry, this warm
sunny land, the beauties of which /
have not limited at, / came to my
present delectable resting place in the
enjoyment of which all previous ex-
periences pale. st. Augustinei when
think of trying to tell you what its
charm is, realize that it cannot be
done, but leave it all tomorrow and
the spirit that is upon me says that