A few hours' ride from town was one of these islands, "pre-empted" by a man named Spiffle, whose principal business was to fatigue him devising ways and means to live without work. He would have scorned to hoe an hour in his corn patch, and yet would not have hesitated a moment to pursue a deer or bear for days, with all the indefatigability of a German metaphysical philosopher studying an incomprehensibility. But hunting deer and bear, though it brought more sweat and fatigue in an hour than the hardest day's work, was sport; so was drinking whiskey, and between the two, Jim Spiffle had little time to extend the limits of his demesnes, or multiply the com forts of his household circle, wherein a wife and a dozen children attested Jim's obedience to scripture.
It is a sultry day in June, and I am about describing the external appearance of Jim's pre-emption. A small patch of green and waving corn, surrounded by a brush fence, save where it is eked out, by the side of an antiquated log-cabin, with a dirt chimney, around whose top the smoke is lying in dense heaps, too lazy to curl; one or two bedraggled hens, by noisy cackling, are endeavouring to inform the mistress that their diurnal recumbencies are consummated--whilst the cock of the walk, desirous of egging them on to increased exertions, struts majestically before them, waving one feather, constituting his tail, and seriously meditates a crow; but when he reflects that the exertion of flapping his wings must premise, contents himself with a low chuckle of admiration. An old hound, mangy and blear-eyed, is intent upon a deer's leg; and, as he gnaws its tough sinews, tries to delude himself into the belief that it is a delectable morsel from the ham. A boy of some thirteen winters, in full dress swamp costume (a short, well-worn shirt), rifle in hand, at a short distance from the house, is endeavouring to allay the mental and bodily disquietude of a fox-squirrel, so that they both may be on the same side of a chunky gum, up which the aforesaid squirrel, on the approach of the incipient Nimrod, had incontinently retreated. Spiffle, jun., sneaks round to the south side, but "funny" hangs on the north, east, and west--back to the north and south, all in vain! All the points of the mariner's compass are traversed, but still the cunning squirrel evades his foe, who, venting his malediction, finally retires from the pursuit, muttering, "Cuss you! I was only going through the motions; the rifle ain't loaded!" The lord of the soil, extended to his full proportions, is lying on a log, beneath a shady bush; a branch of which is bent down and so ingeniously arranged, that when the breeze moves, it will scratch his head; his mouth is full of tobacco--and as he sleeps, true to his nature, his right hand is busily engaged stealing a couple of dimes and an old jack-knife out of his own pocket; his jaws are relaxed, and the huge, well-chewed quid gleams beautifully dark from the profundity of mouth; a gentle titillation on his lips half arouses him, and, champing his jaws with an emphasis, his waking senses are saluted by the yell of his eldest born, who, on the failure of his squirrel enterprise, finding dad asleep, had made an heroic attempt to hook his sire's quid out of the deep abyss. The poor boy pays dearly for the attempted larceny--three fingers hanging by mere shreds of skin, are the attestations of his dad's strength of jaw. The scream of the poor devil, and the boisterous grief of the miserable squatter, who, though the "Arab" of the swamp, has still a father's feelings, brings from the cabin a form which, begrimed with dirt, and haggard with premature age, would scarcely be taken for the best of God's works--a woman--but such she was; and her tears and outcries also gave evidence that she, too, amidst the heart-hardenings of poverty, contumely, and lowliness, had still gushing up in her heart the pure waters of love.