All she wanted with money, she said, was to buy coffee, tea, and
whiskey, and she could 'get enough any day by sending a batch of butter
and chicken to market.' They used no wheat, nor sold any of their corn,
which, though it appeared a very large quantity, was not more than they
required to make their bread and cakes of various kinds, and to feed all
their live stock during the winter. She did not look in health, and said
they had all had ague in 'the fall' but she seemed contented, and proud of
her independence; though it was in somewhat a mournful accent that she
said, ''Tis strange to us to see company: I expect the sun may rise and
set a hundred times before I shall see another _human_ that does not
belong to the family.'
"These people were indeed, independent--Robinson Crusoe was hardly more
so, and they eat and drink abundantly; but yet it seemed to me that there
was something awful and almost unnatural in their loneliness. No village
bell ever summoned them to prayer, where they might meet the friendly
greeting of their fellow-men. When they die, no spot sacred by ancient
reverence will receive their bones--Religion will not breathe her sweet
and solemn farewell upon their grave; the husband or the father will dig
the pit that is to hold them, beneath the nearest tree; he will himself
deposit them within it, and the wind that whispers through the boughs will
be their only requiem. But then they pay neither taxes nor tithes, are
never expected to pull off a hat or to make a curtsey, and will live and
die without hearing or uttering the dreadful words, 'God save the king.
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