The Gulf breeze swept across his sweat-drenched face, cooling it like a breath from the land where angels dwell.
Slowly his shattered nerves were composed; slowly his trembling limbs were stilled; slowly his twitching muscles quieted. He felt tired. He breathed deeply, like a man who had emerged from the depths of great water.
Then he filled his mouth with chewing tobacco and grinned.
“Lawd!” he chuckled. “I’s powerful glad it come out de way it done.”
His mind quickly reviewed each incident of this exciting day, and as he watched the sun sink below the horizon, he announced his conclusion:
“When Marse Tom tole me to leave dis town, he jes’ nachelly overspoke hisse’f!”
The Cruise of the Mud Hen.
Unthinking people assert that negroes do not think.
Nevertheless, when Skeeter Butts, by methods peculiarly his own, became the high-proud owner of a good, cheap automobile, he permitted only three friends to ride with him,—Vinegar Atts, Hitch Diamond, and Figger Bush.