“Well, boys, what made you leave your master? Wasn’t he kind to you?”
“Oh yes, massa berry kind—berry kind indeed.”
“Well, didn’t he give you enough to eat?”
“Oh yes, plenty of dat, plenty of dat—’nuff to eat.”
“Well, boys, what made you leave him?”
“Why, de trufe am dat he made us work ’mong sugar-canes,” said one.
“And we heerd ’bout de Norf am such a nice place, so we tort dat we would go to um,” said another.
“Nice place? Why, how do you mean a nice place?”
“Well, sah, we was told dat nobody did no work up dar.”
Even the white peasants in Virginia seemed to be lazy and indolent. They lived in little cabins, and only the very young or old were left, as every able-bodied man was in the army. They were dressed in homespun and spoke with a drawl. They did not wish to be richer, content with one acre and a single cow—Tories of a most old-fashioned kind; and the women, like the Boers, were far more dangerous rebels than the men, and tried to entrap unwary Federals when they got them drinking in their houses.