“Do you mean to say that one of these black men will do more work than you?”
“Yes, sho’e,” (sure.)
“What’s the reason of that?”
“’Case they was allus put mo’e at it.”
He went on to complain that he couldn’t always get pay for the work he did. “A man owes me money for wood. If he don’t pay me soon, I’ll take a stick and beat it out on him.”
“That’ll be to work for it twict, and not git it then,” observed a negro, very wisely; and I trust Wade was persuaded not to try the stick.
“Ought to have such laws yer as dey has up in Tennessee,” said another negro. “Dar you’d git yer money! Laws is strick in Tennessee! Ebery man chalks a line up dar. A man owes you money, de probo’ marshal make him toe de line. I’s been round, since de wa’ busted, and I han’t seen no whar laws like dey got up dar in Tennessee.”
By this time a large number of negroes had assembled on the spot, dressed in their Sunday clothes; and such an animated discussion of their political rights ensued, that, concluding I had strayed by mistake into an out-door convention of the freed people, I quietly withdrew,—followed by my friend Wade, who wished to know if I could accommodate him to a “chaw of tobacker.”
CONVENTION OF FREEDMEN DISCUSSING THEIR POLITICAL RIGHTS.