Inside Quarles Farm


picture courtesy of "Mark Twain in His Times"

"In the corner of the front yard were a dozen lofty hickory trees and a dozen black walnuts...Down a piece,
abreast the house, stood a little log cabin against the rail fence; and there the woody hill fell sharply away,
past the barns, the corncrib, the stables and the tobacco curing house, to a limpid brook which sang along
over its gravelly bed and curved and frisked in and out and here and there and yonder in the deep shade
of overhanging foliage and vines...In the little log cabin lived a bedridden white-headed slave woman whom
we visited daily and looked upon with awe, for we believed she was upward of a thousand years old and
had talked with Moses...We called her 'Aunt' Hannah...We had a faithful and affectionate good friend, ally
and advisor, in 'Uncle Dan'l,' a middle-aged slave." Autobiography, 5-6

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