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Updated: May 10, 2025
Like squatters in a new country, each man was permitted to select his location, and I at once pre-empted a dry knoll, under the shade of a pine tree, as a suitable place to squat and, dumping our household goods there, proceeded at once to improvise a shelter and skirmish around for something for supper.
The sites upon which these "squatters'" homes were placed, and over which roamed and sported their mingled goats, dogs, and children, are now occupied in great part by blocks of stately residences and apartment houses; but we know not whether the grace of God abounds more plentifully now than it did then.
"Not the slightest, my dear: it is all nonsense the way in which croakers talk about the blacks. Some of our imperious settlers, by their own conduct, encourage them to commit depredations and to revenge wrongs; but, for my part, I never knew a black fellow make an unprovoked aggression, whereas Mr. Wigton merely speaks from what he has been told by the squatters."
Following the now common direction of all eyes, he discerned a body of mounted and armed men, winding on their way to the encampment, in whose well-known uniform he recognised a detachment of the "Georgia Guard," a troop kept, as they all well knew, in the service of the state, for the purpose not merely of breaking up the illegal and unadvised settlements of the squatters upon the frontiers, upon lands now known to be valuable, but also of repressing and punishing their frequent outlawries.
Returning home through the squalid streets that night, where squatters were vending old shoes and boots that seemed scarcely worth picking out of the kennel, and garments that appeared beneath the notice of the rag merchant, I saw the little Bedouins still in full force, just as though no effort had been made for their reclamation and housing.
The promise to her of the deed to the land on which their shanty stood was also in that procession of ghosts belonging to the past. "Daddy and me was goin' to own our hut ground," she confided thoughtfully, "but but the dominie died afore we got it so we air squatters yet jest the same as the rest. Squatters be awful nice folks! Most of 'em air better'n me."
"Then I told him that he was working on private land and he'd better get off. He seemed to forget his flirty proclivities in amazement. Then he looked cunning. I read his mind. It was news to him that all the land along the valley had been taken up. "He said something about not seeing any squatters on the land, and then he shut up tight on that score. But he began to be flirty again.
"You can't imagine how doleful Fred is, and I know it's the Skinner girl who's causing it." Helen uttered an anxious exclamation. She knew her husband's dislike of the squatters. Her quick glance at his face called from his stern lips the cold question. "Have you finished?" "No." "Then do!" he snarled, opening and closing his hands impatiently.
They were squatters as well as he or at least so they termed themselves; and though they would not have expected to be admitted to home intimacies, they thought that when they were met out-of-doors or in public places, they should be treated with some respect. On such occasions Harry treated them as though they were dirt beneath his feet.
And now all gone all fallen away into this sunny silence and desertion: a family of squatters dining in the assayer's office, making their beds in the big sleeping room erstwhile so crowded, keeping their wine in the tunnel that once rang with picks.
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