“Hukkuh Paul happ’n fuh gi’ you catfish? You mus’be baig fuhr’um, enty?”
“Baig fuhr’um! Me fuh baig man fuh catfish! I iz uh lady, uh wan’ you fuh know, en’ ef you haffuh baig’um fuh gunjuh, me yent haffuh baig’um fuh catfish!”
“Wuh you got fuh do wid wuh Paul gi’ me? Him duh yo’ juntlemun, enty?”
“Ef ’e yent my’own, uh know berry well suh him ent fuh blonx to no black nigguh lukkuh you!”
“Nigguh! Who you call nigguh? De Debble is uh nigguh!”
“Him duh nigguh fuh true, but dis ricefiel’ full uh ’e chillun, en’ ’e gran’chillun alltwo, en’ uh ’spec’ you duh one uh ’e gran’!”
A shriek of laughter from Scipio filled Diana’s cup of anger to overflowing, and, with a savage rice-cutting swing, she sideswiped Venus with her saw-edged sickle, and cut her acquaintance below, and behind, the belt. Bustles were not then worn, but the victim was saved from a most inconvenient wound by the folds of her looped-up skirt, which, like a furled sail, hung just abaft the beam, and she received only a scratch. Starting at the scratch, however, Diana was twenty feet away and going strong when Venus, yelling with pain, turned and gave chase. Screams of laughter mingled with shouts of excitement, as Diana tripped and fell on the stubble, and Venus, too close to check her speed, stumbled over her prostrate assailant and came a cropper, the rice hook flying out of her hand as she fell. Diana’s weapon, having been taken from her by one of the men, the two ladies were on equal terms with nature’s weapons, and, both being on all-fours, literally and figuratively, they soon fastened their “ten commandments” in each other’s wool. They fought viciously and silently, and not until, collapsed from exhaustion, they had been separated by the men, did they again become vocal. Venus’ gingham skirt had suffered a cruel rent. As she reached behind her and felt the yawning gap in her sartorial hinterland, and realized the ignominy that had been put upon her by this “most unkindest cut of all,” she shrieked in anger. “Uh gwine tek you Trial Jestuss! You fuh gone Adam’ Run fuh dis t’ing wuh you done do!” and she flung wrathfully out of the field. Out of the babel of voices that arose among the partisans of the two goddesses, the dominant note was abuse of Scipio, who had flung Paul, the apple, or rather the Guinea squash, of discord among them.
“Wuh you haffuh do ’long Paul’ name? Ef him iz buy gunjuh en’ frock en’ t’ing fuh t’ree ’ooman’, uh sho’ ’e mo’ bettuh den fuh nebbuh buy nutt’n’ fuh none!” showing the world-wide feminine appreciation of a free spender. “Wuh you ebbuh buy fuh ’ooman? Eb’ry Sat’d’y night da’ buckruh’ sto’ duh Cross Road’ full up wid ’ooman, en’ you ebbuh buy uh tencent wut’ uh bakin fuh greese dem mout’? No, suh! You lub fuh talk sweetmout’ talk ’long’um, but you dat stingy you nebbuh buy uh candy, eeduhso uh sugar, fuh sweet’n dem mout’. Ent you know suh ’ooman lub uh freehan’ man?”
“Yaas, tittie! You talk trute! ’Ooman redduh hab ’e mout’ full’uh muhlassis den ’e yez full’uh sweetmout’ talk!”
“Him lub’um alltwo,” observed a sapient one. “Him mout’ en’ him yez alltwo fuh full one time!”