"There! I declare!" said she. "I knowed my boy would come back to me some day a gentleman!"
"A gentleman? I'm bound to be that!" said the man, with a braggart laugh and swagger. "I tell ye, mar, we're going to have the greatest confederacy ever was!"
"Do tell if we be!" said the edified "mar."
"Six months from now, you'll see the Yankees grovelling at our feet, begging for admission along with us. We'll have Washington, and all of the north we want, and defy the world!"
"I want to know now!" said Mrs. Sprowl, overcome with admiration.
"The slave-trade will be reopened, Yankee ships will bring us cargoes of splendid niggers, not a man in the south but'll be able to own three or four, they'll be so cheap, and we'll be so rich, you see," said Lysander.
"You don't say, re'lly!"
"That's the programme, mar! You'll see it all with your own eyes in six months."
"Why, then, why shouldn't the south secede!" replied "mar," hastening to put on the tea-kettle, and then to mix up a corn dodger for her son's supper. "I'm sure, we ought all on us to have our servants, and live without work; and I knowed all the time there was another side to what Penn Hapgood preaches (for he's dead set agin' secession), though I couldn't answer him as you could, Lysie dear!"
"Wal, never mind all that, but hurry up the grub!" said "Lysie dear," putting sticks in the stove. "I hain't had a mouthful since breakfast."