The Struggle for Missouri

couple were married, and either went in debt for a little spot of land near home or pushed out into the new country. There they built a rude log cabin to shelter them from the storm, and by the time their children had reached the age they were when they married they had built up an unpretentious but very comfortable home, with their land well cleared and fenced, and stocked with cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry sufficient to maintain them in comfort. From this class came always the best and strongest men in the South. Comparatively few of them became Slaveowners, and then but rarely owned more than one or two negroes. A very large proportion found homes in the great free States north of the Ohio River.

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On the other hand, none of this accession to comparative wealth seemed possible to the "White Trash." The boys and girls mated, squatted on any ground they could find unoccupied, raised there the merest shelter, which never by any chance improved, no matter how long they lived there, and proceed