CHAPTER XXXXII.
Another illustration worthy of mention in connection with the others is related here. A friend of mine named John J. Jordan, wounded at Vicksburg, Miss., one of the cleverest and inoffensive beings, owned several slaves by heritage. Among them was one John Foster, a mulatto. He was an accomplished carpenter and very active. His master gave him his own time and he was comparatively free all his life, he was devoted to the Jordan family and was a very responsible negro, however, his newly made friends the carpet baggers filled his brains with such illusions that he became a leader among the negroes, making speeches and made himself very obnoxious to those who were his friends from infancy. All at once Foster disappeared. He was gone a couple of years when his former master received a letter from him, dated New York, begging assistance to enable him to return to Washington County. Notwithstanding his master's impoverished condition, the money was sent him and Foster came back entirely reformed. He had no more use for the Yankees, his short stay among them cured him. What a pity the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin did not take John Foster under her protecting wings. What a lost opportunity! What a fine additional illustration that picture would have made to her already fertile imagination as the sequel will show.
One day John Foster came to my house to see me. Good day, Marse Ike, said he, I thought I'll come to see you it has been a long time since I sawn you, and the following conversation took place: Where have you been John? I've been to New York. How do you like New York? I don't like it at all, let me tell you Mass Ike, those Yankees are no friends of the negroes. Well John I could have told you so before you went. Mass Ike, let me tell you what they've done. They told me I could make a fortune in the North, that I could get four and five dollars a day by my trade as a carpenter. Who told you so? Why John E. Bryant and his like of carpet baggers. Well did you not get it? I got it in the neck, I tell you what they did. I left here with right smart money, Marse John let me pay him for my time and got nearly three hundred dollars that I saved. I went to New York, and after looking around the city for a few days I commenced hunting work, but wherever I went they shook their heads, for no. I spent the whole winter there without striking a lick until I spent all my money. I finally applied at a shop where a dutchman was foreman, I was willing to work at any price for I had to live but do you know what they did? No John, I don't. Well they every one of them, and they worked twenty-five hands, laid down their tools and walked out of the shop declaring that they would not work by the side of any damned negro, and the boss had to discharge me. No, Marse Ike, the Yankees are no friends to we colored people, only for what they can cheat us out of. I worked all my life among white folks here at home and it made no difference, I tell you Marse Ike, the people of the South are the negroes friends. Well John, you did not say so before you left here. No, I did not appreciate what the people here done for me until I went North. Well, John, you ought to go among your people and disabuse their minds and tell them what you know from personal experience. I am doing that Marse Ike every day. I have not long to stay here below, I have contracted consumption from exposure and am hardly able to do a day's work. I am taking little jobs now and then. Well John, if you stand in need of anything come to see me. You will always find something to eat here and some clothes to wear. John died six months later.