An old
stove in a corner was soon aglow with burning
light wood. While I was cooking my supper,
the little propeller Cygnet, which runs between
Norfolk and Van Slyck's Landing, at Currituck
Narrows, touched at Pungo Ferry, and put off
an old woman who had been on a two years'
visit to her relatives. She kindly accosted the
dwarfed black with, "Charles, have you got a
match for my pipe?"
"Yes, missus," civilly responded the negro,
handing her a light.
"Well, this is good!" soliloquized the ancient
dame, as she seated herself on a box and puffed
away at the short-stemmed pipe. Ah, good
indeed to get away from city folks, with their
stuck-up manners and queer ways, a-fault-finding
when you stick your knife in your mouth in
place of your fork, and a-feeding you on China
tea in place of dear old yaupon. Charles, you
can't reckon how I longs to get a cup of good
yaupon."
As the reader is about entering a country
where the laboring classes draw largely upon
nature for their supply of "the cup that cheers
but not inebriates," I will describe he shrub
which produces it.
This substitute for the tea of China is a holly
(ilex), and is called by the natives "yaupon"
(I. cassine, Linn.). It is a handsome shrub,
growing a few feet in height, with alternate,
perennial, shining leaves, and bearing small scarlet
berries. It is found in the vicinity of salt water,
in the light soils of Virginia and the Carolinas.
The leaves and twigs are dried by the women,
and when ready for market are sold at one dollar
per bushel. It is not to be compared in
excellence with the tea of China, nor does it approach
in taste or good qualities the well-known
yerbamate, another species of holly, which is found
in Paraguay, and is the common drink of the
people of South America.
The old woman having gone on her way, and
we being again alone in the rude little shanty,
the good-natured freedman told me his history,
ending with, -
"O that was a glorious day for me,
When Massa Lincoln set me free."
He had too much ambition, he said, deformed as
he was, to be supported as a pauper by the
public. "I can make just about twelve dollars a
month by dis here ferry," he exclaimed. "I
don't want for nuffin'; I'se got no wife - no
woman will hab me. I want to support myself
and live an honest man."
About seven o'clock he left me to waddle up
the road nearly a mile to a little house.
"I an' another cullo'd man live in
partnership," he said.
