“I mean, uncle, ev’ry man born in a State whar they hain’t no niggers to wallop. Yankees are sneaks and cowards. Can’t one Suth’n-born man whip any five Yankees?”
“I reckon not.”
“What! Not ef the Suth’n man’s Virginia-born?”
“I reckon not. Delancy Hyde Rusk, that’s the decoy the ’ristocrats down South have been humbuggin’ us poor whites with tell the common sense is all eat clean out of our brains. They stuff us up with that air fool’s brag so we may help ’em hold on ter thar niggers. Whar did the Yankees come from? They camed from England like we did. They speak English like we do. Thar ahnces’tors an’ our ahnces’tors war countrymen. Now don’t be sich a lout as ter suppose that ’cause a man lives North, and hain’t no niggers ter wallop, he must be either a sneak or a coward, or what Jeff Davis calls a hyena.”
“Ain’t we down South the master race, Uncle D’lancy?”
“Wall, nevvy, in some respects we air; in some respects not. In dirt an’ vermin, ignorance an’ sloth, our poor folks kn giv thar poor folks half the game, an’ beat ’em all holler. In brag an’ swagger our rich folks kn beat thars. But I’ll tell yer what it is, nevvy: ef, as the slaveholders try to make us think, it’s slavery that makes us the master race, then we must be powerful poor cattle to owe it to niggers and not to ou’selves that we’re better nor the Yankees. Now mind what I’m goin’ ter say: the best thing for the hull Suth’n people would be to set ev’ry slave free right off at wunst.”
“What, Uncle D’lancy! Make a nigger free as a white man? Can’t I, when I’m a man, own niggers like gra’f’her Hyde done? What’s the use of growin’ up ef I can’t have a nigger to wallop when I want ter, I sh’d like ter know?”
“Delancy Hyde Rusk, them sentiments must be nipped in the bud.”
The Colonel went to the door and locked it, then cast his eyes round the room as if in search of something. The boy followed his movements with a curiosity in which alarm began to be painfully mingled. Finally, the Colonel pulled a strap from his trunk, and, approaching Delancy junior, who was now uttering a noise between a whimper and a howl, seized him by the nape of the neck, bent him down face foremost on to the bed, and administered a succession of smart blows on the most exposed part of his person. The boy yelled lustily; but after the punishment was over, he quickly subsided into a subdued snuffling.
“Thar, Delancy Hyde Rusk! yer’ll thahnk me fur that air latherin’ all the days of yer life. Ef I’d a-had somebody to do as much for me, forty yars ago, I shouldn’t have been the beast that Slavery brung me up ter be. Never you talk no more of keepin’ niggers or wallopin’ niggers. They’ve jest as much right ter wallop you as you have ter wallop them. Slavery’s gone up, sure. That game’s played out. Thank the Lord! Jest you bar in mind, Delancy Hyde Rusk, that the Lord made the black man as well as the white, and that ef you go fur to throw contempt on the Lord’s work, he’ll bring yer up with a short turn, sure. Will you bar that in mind fur the rest of yer life, Delancy Hyde Rusk?”