“I never heard of sick people eating turnips,” said I.
“But you see I have, and has eat ’em, and am here to tell you about ’em.”
“General Grant is nominated for President,” said I, looking over the morning paper. “Grant, did you say? I’ll never vote for him! He wasn’t satisfied with $25,000 for salary, but wanted $50,000; and nex’ time he’ll want a hundred thousand. Do you know, cousin,” said the old man, “that them Yankees robbed me of one hundred and fifty niggers? The government ought to pay me for ’em. They had no more right to take them niggers than they had to steal my horses and mules—which they stole at the same time. I tell you, they must pay me for my property!” and cousin Jimmie came down with a heavy blow of his walking cane on the rug. “Ef they don’t pay me they are the grandest set o’ villyuns on top o’ earth! When the blue-coated raskils was goin’ up the Cheneyville road they met up with two runaways old Mr. Ironton had caught and hobbled with a chain. A Yankee said it was a shame for a human bein’ to be treated so. Mrs. Ironton flung back at ’em: ‘I don’t care! you may show them to the President himself, and hang them round his neck, if you like.’ The old woman was so sassy that the man simmered down. I heard another officer inquire very perlite, ef it was customary to sarve the niggers this way, and I said we had to do something to keep ’em down in their places; and, no matter how bad a nigger was, he was too valuable to kill, so we punished ’em in other ways.
“To-morrow is my birthday,” sighed cousin Jimmie, “and I’ll be eighty-eight years old.” I celebrated the day for him and made him some presents; and I asked him to tell me bravely and truly whether or not he would be willing to live his life over, to accumulate all the money and estate he once possessed, to become a second time sick and old and destitute. Cousin Jimmie was silent a moment; then his aged eyes twinkled, and a smile spread over his still handsome old face: “I would try it over; life is mighty sweet; I’m not ready to give it up, cousin.” “But you must before long relinquish all there is in this life.” “Well,” said he, “I’ve made pervision. I gave my niece Mary all my silver and my red satin furniture, and my brother has promised to bury me with my people in Mississippi. I’m all right there.”
“I’ve heard, cousin Jimmie, that you denied the globular shape of the earth. How is that?”
“Why, I know the earth is flat. ’Tain’t fashionable to say so, but it don’t stand to reason that the world is round and flyin’ in the air, like folks say. ’Tain’t no sech thing—else eyes ain’t no account.”
Two years more of this life, and then old cousin Jimmie—who was my father’s first cousin on his mother’s side—was able from some other planet, we hope, to investigate the shape of this one to which he had clung so loyally.