“Then permit me to ask,” sed this Pollock, wich wuz bound to kick up a muss, “ef ther’s any race uv pure blood in this section uv Kentucky, wich is yaller?”
“No! uv course not,” sed Mrs. P.; “them yaller people is mulatters—half nigger, half white.”
“And them ez is quite white—not quite, but nearly so—about the color uv a new saddle, like Jane, there,” sed he, pintin to a octoroon girl uv 18 wich used to belong to the Deekin afore the isshooin uv the infernal proclamashen, “like Jane, there, wich is waitin on the Deekin, and—but, good Lord!” sed he, startin up like a tragedian.
“Wat!” shouted the company, all startin up.
“Nothin,” sed he: “only, now that Jane’s face is in range with the Deekin’s, wat a wonderful resemblance! She hez the Pogram nose and ginral outline uv face; not Mrs. P.’s angularity, but the Deekin all over. My deer sir,” sed he, addressin the Deekin, “ef she wuzn’t a quadroon, I shood say she looks enough like yoo to be yoor daughter, by a first wife, I shood say, for she hez not, ez I remarked, Mrs. P.’s angularity and gineral boneinis; but uv course, she bein a part nigger, the resemblance may be sat down ez-a-very-remarkable-coincidence!”
The Deekin turned ez white ez a sheet, and Mrs. Pogram turned ez red ez a biled lobster, from wich I inferred that there wuz trooth in a rumor I had heerd about the Deekin and his wife hevin a misunderstandin about a nigger woman and her baby, about 18 years ago, wich resulted in his bein made bald-headed in less than a minute, and the baby’s mother being sold South. The Illinoy store-keeper, uv the name uv Pollock, resoomed,—
“I wuz about askin wat them niggers is ez is nearly white?”
“Why, they’r octoroons, or seven-eighths white,” sed Mrs. Pogram.
“And no Kentuckian ever marries a nigger?” inquired the store-keeper, who I saw wuz pursooin his investigations altogether too fur.