“Yes, generally one of their own preachers.”
“Do they with you?” I inquired of Yazoo.
“Yes, sometimes they hev a white minister, and sometimes a black one, and if there arn’t neither handy, they get some of the pious ones to marry ’em. But then very often they only just come and ask our consent, and then go ahead, without any more ceremony. They just call themselves married. But most niggers likes a ceremony, you know, and they generally make out to hev one somehow. They don’t very often get married for good, though, without trying each other, as they say, for two or three weeks, to see how they are going to like each other.”
I afterwards asked how far it was to the post-office. It was six miles. “One of my boys,” said our host, “always gets the paper every week. He goes to visit his wife, and passes by the post-office every Sunday. Our paper hain’t come, though, now, for three weeks. The mail don’t come very regular.” All of his negroes, who had wives off the place, left an hour before sunset on Saturday evening. One of them, who had a wife twenty miles away, left at twelve o’clock Saturday, and got back at twelve o’clock Monday.
“We had a nigger once,” said Yazoo, “that had a wife fifteen miles away, and he used to do so; but he did some rascality once, and he was afraid to go again. He told us his wife was so far off, ’twas too much trouble to go there, and he believed he’d give her up. We was glad of it. He was a darned rascally nigger—allers getting into scrapes. One time we sent him to mill, and he went round into town and sold some of the meal. The storekeeper wouldn’t pay him for’t, ’cause he hadn’t got an order. The next time we were in town, the storekeeper just showed us the bag of meal; said he reckoned ’twas stole; so when we got home we just tied him up to the tree and licked him. He’s a right smart nigger; rascally niggers allers is smart. I’d rather have a rascally nigger than any other—they’s so smart allers. He is about the best nigger we’ve got.”
“I have heard,” said I, “that religious negroes were generally the most valuable. I have been told that a third more would be given for a man if he were religious.” “Well, I never heerd of it before,” said he. Our host thought there was no difference in the market value of sinners and saints.
“Only,” observed Yazoo, “the rascalier a nigger is, the better he’ll work. Now that yer nigger I was tellin’ you on, he’s worth more’n any other nigger we’ve got. He’s a yaller nigger.”
I asked their opinion as to the comparative value of black and yellow negroes. Our host had two bright mulatto boys among his—didn’t think there was much difference, “but allers reckoned yellow fellows was the best a little; they worked smarter. He would rather have them.” Yazoo would not; he “didn’t think but what they’d work as well; but he didn’t fancy yellow negroes ’round him; would rather have real black ones.”
I asked our host if he had no foreman or driver for his negroes, or if he gave his directions to one of them in particular for all the rest. He did not. They all did just as they pleased, and arranged the work among themselves. They never needed driving.
“If I ever notice one of ’em getting a little slack, I just talk to him; tell him we must get out of the grass, and I want to hev him stir himself a little more, and then, maybe, I slip a dollar into his hand, and when he gits into the field he’ll go ahead, and the rest seeing him, won’t let themselves be distanced by him. My niggers never want no lookin’ arter. They tek more interest in the crop than I do myself, every one of ’em.”