“I ain’t nothin’ but a ole nigger,” he used to say. “I ain’t had no eddication like some er dese yere smarties what kin read an’ cipher an’ do de double shuffle in de copy-book. Matt ain’t never rub his back ’gin no college wall. Bes’ thing he knows is dat he doan’ know nothin’. Dat’s a pow’fle useful piece o’ l’arnin’ to help a man, black or white, from makin’ a fool er hesself bigger dan what de good Lawd ’tended him fer ter be. Matt he gradyuated in dat ’ar knowledge an’ got he stiffikit. When de good Lawd turn a man out a fool, he got ter be a fool, but he needn’ ter be a bigger fool den what he gotter.”
So he listened in the market, where he went every morning to bargain for his bit of beefsteak, or fish, or butter, and where the men and women who kept the stalls knew him as well as they knew each other. They all liked him and welcomed him as he approached in his clean old clothes, his market basket on his arm, his hat set rather knowingly upon his grizzled wool. He was, in fact, rather a flirtatious old party, and was counted a great wit, and was full of a shrewd humour as well as of grandiloquent compliment.
“I has a jocalder way er talkin’, I ain’t gwine ter deny,” he would say when complimented upon his popularity with the fair sex, “an’ dey ain’t nothin’ de ladies likes mo’ dan a man what’s jocalder. Dey loves jokin’ an’ dey loves to laff. It’s de way er de sect. A man what cayn’t be jocalder with ’em, he hain’t no show.”
“What dis hyer claim agentin’ I’s hearin’ so much talk about?” he enquired of a group one morning. “What I wants is ter get inter de innards of de t’ing, an’ den I’se gwine to claim sump’n fer myse’f. If dar’s claimin’ gwine on, I’se a gen’leman what’s gwine to be on de camp-meetin’ groun’, an’ fo’most ’mong de shouters.”
“What did ye lose by the war, Uncle Matt?” said a countryman, who was leaning against his market waggon of “produce” and chewing tobacco. “If ye kin hunt up suthin’ ye lost, ye kin put in a claim fer the vally of it, an’ mebbe get Government to give ye indemnity. Mebbe ye kin an’ mebbe ye cayn’t. They ain’t keen to do it, but mebbe ye could work it through a smart agent like January. They say he’s as smart as they make ’em.”
It was a broiling July morning; only the people who were obliged to leave their houses for some special reason were to be seen in the streets; the market waggons which had come in from the country laden with vegetables and chickens and butter were drawn up under the shadow of the market house, that their forlorn horses or mules might escape the glaring hot sun. The liveliest business hour had passed, and about the waggons a group of market men and women and two or three loiterers were idling in the shade, waiting for chance-belated customers. There was a general drawing near when Uncle Matt began his conversation. They always wanted to hear what he had to say, and always responded with loud, sympathetic guffaws to his “jocalder” remarks.
“He’s sech a case, Uncle Matt is,” the women would say, “I never seen sich a case.”
When the countryman spoke, Uncle Matt put on an expression of dignified thoughtfulness. It was an expression his audience were entirely familiar with and invariably greeted with delight.
“Endurin’ of de war,” he said, “I los’ severial things. Fust thing I memberize of losin’ was a pa’r of boots. Dar was a riggiment passin’ at de time, an’ de membiers of dat riggiment had been footin’ it long enough to have wo’ out a good deal er shoe-leather. They was thusty an’ hungry, an’ come to de halt near my cabin to require if dar warn’t no vittles lyin’ roun’ loose for de good er de country. When dey was gone, my new boots was gone, what I’d jest brung home from de cobbler.”
His audience broke into a shout of enjoyment.