“Buy ’em.”
“How do they get the money?”
“Earn it.”
“How?”
“By their own work. I tell you my niggers have got more money ’n I hev.”
“What kind of books do they get?”
“Religious kind a books ginerally—these stories; and some of them will buy novels, I believe. They won’t let on to that, but I expect they do it.”
They bought them of peddlers. I inquired about the law to prevent negroes reading, and asked if it allowed books to be sold to negroes. He had never heard of any such law—didn’t believe there was any. The Yazoo man said there was such a law in his country. Negroes never had anything to read there. I asked our host if his negroes were religious, as their choice of works would have indicated.
“Yes; all on ’em, I reckon. Don’t s’pose you’ll believe it, but I tell you it’s a fact; I haint heerd a swear on this place for a twelvemonth. They keep the Lord’s day, too, right tight, in gineral.”
“Our niggers is mighty wicked down in Yallerbush county,” said my companion; “they dance.”