She said the funeral had been grand. Michael had spoken beautifully about "Uncle Mose" and given him such a character; said that white and black respected him and were kind to him, and when he had said all that you would think could be said, Harris had taken it up and praised him more.
"En, Miss Pashuns, dem call yo' name too. Bre' Harris say, en de chile of his ole Marster thought dat mutch ob Bre' Mose dat she sen' fo' tell um say she was gwine to give him, a oxen for him to put in a little cart to drive out wid."
Moses had sold his fine pair of oxen some few years back. With the price of one he paid for having a cataract removed from his eyes, and the rest of the money he asked me to keep for him, and it lasted him four years, I think. He would send his grandson, a little boy, down with a note to ask me to send one, or five dollars, as the case might be. Chloe went back to the time about twenty years ago when he planted rice here, when he had always from $300 to $400 in the bank; but his health failed and he had to move away from the plantation to the pineland because the "tissic" was not so bad in the pineland as on the river. It was very touching to hear all she had to say. She wound up by saying why she was so glad that the minister was absent, for she said:—
"Dis preecher don' keer fu' nuthin' but money—dey ain't no money un a funeral, en he jes' hurry thro' en don' hav' no proper preechin', neider talkin' nor singin', let lone prayin', en, Miss Pashuns, he's a black man too, en dat mek it wuss."
"Why," I asked, "does that make it worse?"
"Bekase eberybody kno' mulatta lub money, en dey look fu' dat, but w'en yu see a daa'k complected man, same color 'bout as me, yu don't look fu' dat, kase dat cola' don' lub money like dat."
That was news to me. I did not know that what she called "light-skinned" people were more avaricious than black. I was disposed to argue on the subject, but Chloe was emphatic.
"Nigger get dem fault, 'tis true, but dem don't wushop money." With this high praise for her own special color she said good night.
Jim and Joe Keith have had a tremendous day's work bringing in the hay. The ox wagon has a very long, high rack body, and that was packed just as tight as it could be ten times.
My dear little Scottie dog came and sat very close to me to-day and looked at me with very sad eyes and dribbling badly from the mouth. I am too distressed because that is the way my former little terrier dog's last illness began.