Ben: “Yes, Ise got de ’surance o’ dat, bro’ Phil.”
Phil: “An’ you’d ’a’ gone to hell, if you hadn’t got de ’surance, as you calls it, wouldn’t you?”
Ben: “If I’d ’a’ died in my sins, course I’d ’a’ gone to hell.”
Phil: “Well now fo’ a nigga what’s jes’ made his ’rangements to keep out’n hell an’ git into heaven, youse got de mos’ onaccountable long face I ever did see, an’ dat’s all about it.”
When Ben had retired in disgust, I remonstrated with Phil.
“What do you tease Ben for, Phil?” I asked. “You know better than to make fun of religion.”
“Course I do, mastah, an’ dat’s jes’ it. Ben ain’t got no religion, an’ I knows it. He’s jes’ puttin’ on dat solemncholy face to fool de good Lord wid. Ben’ll steal, mastah, whenever he gits a chaunce. He ain’t got no mo’ religion ’n a hog. Sho. What he know ’bout religion, goin’ down under de hill to pray, an’ all dat nonsense? Couldn’t git him to sing a song or whistle a tune now on no account whatsumever, but he ain’t no better nigga for dat. Didn’t I see? He shouted mighty loud las’ night, but he shu’ked his wuk dis mawnin’ an’ didn’t half curry his mules; an’ religion dat don’t make a nigga take good car’ o’ po’ dumb creeters like mules ain’t wuth nuthin’ at all, no way yo’ kin fix it. When dey keeps de row up jes’ a little better, an’ don’t cover up no weeds dey ought to cut down, an’ takes good car’ o’ mules, an’ quits stealin’, den I begins to ’spect ’em o’ havin’ de real religion. But dey can’t fool Phil wid none o’ dere sham solemncholies.”
Phil was a trifle hard and uncharitable, perhaps, in his judgments upon his fellows in a matter of this kind; but there was, at any rate, no hypocrisy in his composition. And what is more singular still, I was never able to discover any trace of superstition in his conduct. He laughed to scorn the signs and omens with which the other negroes were perpetually encouraged or affrighted. Friday was as lucky a day as any in his calendar. He would even make his fire with the wood of a lightning-riven tree, and stranger still, was not afraid, as all the rest were, on the occasion of a funeral, to bring away the shovels used in the church-yard, without waiting till the moon and stars had shone upon them.
“How is it, Phil,” I once asked him, “that you don’t believe in any of the luck signs?”
“Do you b’lieve in ’em, mastah?” he asked in reply.