. Highways and byways of the South. of businesswith a little rifle across his knees. He was watchingfor rats, and this was his chief employment the daythrough. He had sprinkled some corn on the walkto entice his game from beneath the building, andwhenever a rat came in sight, he crouched stealthilyforward, took careful aim, and banged away. I didnot see any other hunters among the village tradesmen,but they all spent a good deal of time in front of theiremporiums idling at their ease, absorbing tobacco, andtalking with such loiterers as chose to stop. Some oftheir shops were very curious littl
. Highways and byways of the South. of businesswith a little rifle across his knees. He was watchingfor rats, and this was his chief employment the daythrough. He had sprinkled some corn on the walkto entice his game from beneath the building, andwhenever a rat came in sight, he crouched stealthilyforward, took careful aim, and banged away. I didnot see any other hunters among the village tradesmen,but they all spent a good deal of time in front of theiremporiums idling at their ease, absorbing tobacco, andtalking with such loiterers as chose to stop. Some oftheir shops were very curious little affairs and had old-fashioned show windows that were nightly protectedagainst intruders by folding wooden shutters. Benjamin Harrison Butts waylaid me while I wasmaking my first tour of the town, and nothing woulddo but he must show me around. In his opinion oneof the chief attractions of the vicinity was JohnBrowns Cave, and we went two miles up the riverand found a low tunnel-like aperture running back into John Browns Town 247. An Old Mill a cliff beside the railway. There is a tradition thatBrown lived in the cave for a time ; but he probablynever knew of it, though it is not by any means insig-nificant, and has a length of a mile or more, andexpands here and there into considerable chambers. Not far beyond the cave, in a half-wooded hollow,through which courses a swift little tributary of thePotomac, stands an ancient grist-mill. It is a good- 248 Highways and Byways of the South sized stone structure, with a slow-revolving overshotwheel on one side. Close by, just above a ford, was afootbridge, one plank broad, and here two boys werepaddling about in the water. An older sister was withthem. She was planning to go fishing, for she had ahoe and was digging in likely spots alongshore forworms to use as bait. Meanwhile the boys were busywith a small tin can into which they hoped to inveiglesome innocent minnows. Benjamin Harrison Buttswas interested in their wiles with the
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjohnsonc, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1904
