Journey through Texas, or, A saddle-trip on the southwestern frontier : with a statistical appendix Page: 87 of 552
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50 / A JOURNEY THROUGH TEXAS.
But it must be remembered that they were having the first use
of a very fine alluvial soil, and were subject to floods and fevers.
The yellow fever or cholera another year might kill half their
negroes, or a flood of the Red River (such as occurred August,
1849, and October, 1851) destroy their whole crop, and so use
up several years' profits.
A slate hung in the piazza, with the names of all the cotton-
pickers, and the quantity picked the last picking day by each, thus:
Gorge, 152; David, 130; Polly, 98; Hanna, 96; Little Gorge,
52, etc. The whole number of hands mentioned on the slate
was fourteen. Probably there were over twenty slaves, big and
little, on the plantation.
When our horses were ready, we paid the negro for taking
care of them, and I went in and asked the woman what I might
pay her for what we had eaten.
" What !" she asked, looking in my face as if angry.
I feared she was offended by my offering money for her hospi-
tality, and put the question again as delicately as I could. She
continued her sullen gaze at me for a moment, and then answer-
ed as if the words had been bullied out of her by a Tombs
lawyer,
" Dollar, I reckon."
"What !" thought I, but handed her the silver.
Riding out at the bars let down for us by the old negro, we
wondered if the child would be living twenty-four hours later,
and if it survived, what its moral chances were. Poor, we
thought. Five miles from a neighbor; ten, probably, from a
Louisiana* school; hound-pups and negroes for playmates.* The State Superintendent lately recommended that two out of three of the
Directors of Common Schools in Louisiana should be required to know how
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Olmsted, Frederick Law. Journey through Texas, or, A saddle-trip on the southwestern frontier : with a statistical appendix, book, January 1, 1857; New York. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth2407/m1/87/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.