He lived in a log house that was not so good as an overseer's house, and there were pine trees all around it, and wild flowers, but no other kinds of flowers.

And in the trees there were owls, and in the bushes there were whip-poor-wills, and sometimes a mockingbird, but no other kinds of birds, and at night the fireflies were all about.

And outside the pine trees, all around the house, the tobacco grew and grew.
It grew so broad and high that the children might have played I-spy in it,--only there weren't any children.

There was only the boy, and he hated tobacco.

He was poor, and his father was a hard man.