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"I think you told me something about it, but don't recollect the particulars; though I had then no doubt, I believe, but the old man wronged you, as I understood you worked very hard for him through the season." "I did, like a niggar cause he promised to give me this colt, then a little snubby three-year-old, for my summer's work, if I would stay and work well for him, which I did, as I said.
Two little filthy children, however, seemed to be still under the ancien régime of non-ablution; but upon my saying to the old nurse Molly, in whose ward they were, 'Why, Molly, I don't believe you have bathed those children to-day, she answered, with infinite dignity, 'Missis no b'lieve me wash um piccaninny! and yet she tress me wid all um niggar when 'em sick. The injured innocence and lofty conscious integrity of this speech silenced and abashed me; and yet I can't help it, but I don't believe to this present hour that those children had had any experience of water, at least not washing water, since they first came into the world.
Nobody was good nuff for her dere; dey had no taste for cookin'. She was mighty high 'mong de ladies, in de instep, but not a mossel of pride to de niggars. Oh, you would a walked right into de cockles ob her heart. If you had tredded up to her, she would a married you, and gub you her tree plantations, and eight hundred niggar, and ebery ting, and order dinner for you herself.
I knows den it no use to look for her any longer, and de more I grows to look down, 'pears like de more dey laughs at me, and dey calls me 'dat moon-hit niggar. I gets so stupid after a while, dat massa threatens to sell me way down whar dey works de niggars up; and I gets so, I don't care how much dey whips me, or anyting else, for I tinks I neber be mysef again, when one day massa takes me wid him down to de boats, to fotch de cotton, and I hears de captain ask, what ail dat fellow to look so blue, and massa tells him, I got a notion dat I hab a right to keep my wife and young uns, like I hab de feelin's ob white folks.
"'I isn't a man, sais I, 'I is only a niggar. "'Poor, ignorant wretch, said he. "'Massa, sais I, 'you has waked up de wrong passenger dis present time.
My old missus in Varginy was werry ticular about her graby. She usen to say, 'Sorrow, it tante fine clothes makes de gentleman, but a delicate taste for soups, and grabys, and currys. Barbacues, roast pigs, salt meat, and such coarse tings, is only fit for Congress men. I kirsait my graby, Massa, is done to de turn ob a hair, for dis child is a rambitious niggar.
Some of the dancers kneeled, some stood, some sat still with curious looks upon their faces, while others fled as in terror. The fiddler ran off into the kitchen saying: "Lord a marcy, what de matter. What's dat mean? Prayin' in a dance hall! Dis beats anyting dis niggar ever saw." Jasper Very continued to pray with loud voice and great unction.
He take up de clam ebber so far in de air, and let him fall right on de rock, which break shell for him, and down he goes and pounces on him like a duck on a June bug. Sometimes clam catch him by de toe though, and hold on like grim death to a dead niggar, and away goes bird screamin' and yellin', and clam sticking to him like burr to a hosses tail. Oh, geehillikin, what fun it is.
My mother felt it her duty to instruct him in the gospel, of which he was perfectly ignorant, and she took great pains to impart to him its elementary truths, which he willingly and joyfully took in. "Dis poor niggar nebber 'fore heard Jesus Christ," he said to her one day in a low voice; "Him wond'ful good for die for black man like me who nebber do noting to please Him.
He stand so much sun, he ain't easy combustioned in his entails. "'Go on, sais they. "Well, my bredren," sais I, "I will dilate to you the valy of a niggar, as put in one scale and white man in de oder. Now, bredren, you know a sparrer can't fall to de ground no how he can fix it, but de Lord knows it in course ob argument you do. Well, you knows twelve sparrers sell in de market for one penny.
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