"What will you do?"
"We'll give 'em h—l, ef they want it!"
"Will it not be necessary to agree among yourselves before you do that? I met a turpentine farmer below here who openly declared that he is friendly to abolishing slavery. He thinks the masters can make more money by hiring than by owning the negroes."
"Yes, that's the talk of them North County[D] fellers, who've squatted round har. We'll hang every mother's son on 'em, by ——."
"I wouldn't do that: in a free country every man has a right to his opinions."
"Not to sech opinions as them. A man may think, but he mustn't think onraasonable."
"I don't know, but it seems to me reasonable, that if the negroes cost these farmers now one hundred and fifty dollars a year, and they could hire them, if free, for seventy-five or a hundred, that they would make by abolition."
"Ab'lish'n! By—, sir, ye aint an ab'lishener, is ye?" exclaimed the fellow, in an excited manner, bringing his hand down on the table in a way that set the crockery a-dancing.
"Come, come, my friend," I replied, in a mild tone, and as unruffled as a pool of water that has been out of a December night; "you'll knock off the dinner things, and I'm not quite through."
"Wal, sir, I've heerd yer from the North, and I'd like to know if yer an ab'lishener."