"De Lord bless you, massa, for saying dat; and de Lord bless you for telling dat big Cunnel, dat if dey gwo to war de brack man will be Free!"
"Did you hear what we said?" I inquired, greatly surprised, for I remembered remarking, during the interview of the previous evening, that our host carefully kept the doors closed.
"Ebery word, massa."
"But how could you hear? The doors and windows were shut. Where were you?"
"On de piazzer; and when I seed fru de winder dat de ladies war gwine, I know'd you'd talk 'bout politics and de darkies—gemmen allers do. So I opened de winder bery softly—you didn't har 'cause it rained and blowed bery hard, and made a mighty noise. Den I stuffed my coat in de crack, so de wind could'nt blow in and lef you know I was dar, but I lef a hole big 'nough to har. My ear froze to dat hole, massa, bery tight, I 'shore you."
"But you must have got very wet and very cold."
"Wet, massa! wetter dan a 'gator dat's been in de riber all de week, but I didn't keer for de rain or de cold. What I hard made me warm all de way fru."
To my mind there was a rough picture of true heroism in that poor darky standing for hours in his shirt-sleeves, in the cold, stormy night, the lightning playing about him, and the rain drenching him to the skin—that he might hear something he thought would benefit his down-trodden race.
I noticed his clothing though bearing evident marks of a drenching, was then dry, and I inquired: "How did you dry your clothes?"
"I staid wid some ob de cullud folks, and arter you gwoes up stars, I went to dar cabin, and dey gabe me some dry cloes. We made up a big fire, and hung mine up to dry, and de ole man and woman and me sot up all night and talked ober what you and de oder gemmen said."