And in its healing effect smile at the bitterness past.”
Lines composed by Sir John Herschel in a dream.
After an early breakfast the following morning, Vance proceeded to the hospital. The patient had been expecting him.
“He has seemed to know just how near you’ve been for the last hour,” said the nurse. “He followed—”
“Sit down, Mr. Vance, please,” interrupted the patient.
Vance drew a chair near to the pillow and sat down.
“It all kum ter me last night, Mr. Vance! Now I remember whar ’t was I met yer. But fust lem me tell yer who an’ what I be. My name’s Quattles. I was born in South Kerliny, not fur from Columby. I was what the niggers call a mean white, and my father he was a mean white afore me, and all my brothers they was mean whites, and my sisters they mahrrid mean whites. The one thing we was raised ter do fiust-rate, and what we tuk ter kindly from the start, was ter shirk labor. We was taught ’t was degradin’ ter do useful work like a nigger does, so we all tried hard ter find su’thin’ that mowt be easy an’ not useful.”
“My dear fellow,” interrupted Vance, who saw the man was suffering, “you’re fatiguing yourself too much. Rest awhile.”
“No, Mr. Vance. You musn’t mind these twitchin’s an’ spazums like. They airn’t quite as bahd as they look. Wall, as I war sayin’, one cuss of slavery ar’, it drives the poor whites away from honest labor; makes ’em think it’s mean-sperretid ter hoe corn an’ plant ’taters. An’ this feelin’, yer see, ar’ all ter the profit uv the rich men,—the Hammonds, Rhetts, an’ Draytons,—’cause why? ’cause it leaves ter the rich all the good land, an’ drives the poor whites ter pickin’ up a mean livin’, any way they kin, outside uv hard work! Howsomever, I didn’t see this; an’ so, like other mis’rable fools, I thowt I war a sort uv a ’ristocrat myself, ’cause I could put on airs afore a nigger. An’ this feelin’ the slave-owners try to keep up in the mean whites; try to make ’em feel proud they’re not niggers, though the hull time the poor cusses fare wuss nor any nigger in a rice-swamp.”
“My friend,” said Vance, “you’ve got at the truth at last, though I fear you’ve been long about it.”