The early morning hours were cold and dreary, and I found my fur-lined horse blanket, as I have come to call my faithful winter overcoat, none too warm. Noting George's rather inadequate provision against the chill winds, I advised him to wrap his dilapidated old lap-robe about his shoulders.
"Ah'm all right, Boss," he replied. "Don't yo' worry erbout me. Dis yere old obercoat o' mine ain't much to look at; but hit's on de job jes' de same." He gave a most amusing chuckle. "Yo'd ought to hyear mah fambly takin' on erbout dis yere old obercoat!" he said. "Dey's kind o' proudy folks, an' dey don't like it. Dey says hit don't look neat; but Ah tell 'um Ah'm a gwine t' wear hit jes' de same, neat er no neat—de undahtakah, he mek yo' look neat!"
From which I deduced that George was not only a humorist, but in a fair way to qualify as a philosopher as well.
Two days later I happened to be at Atlanta, Georgia, over Lincoln's Birthday, and it pleased me beyond measure to find printed on the first page of one of the prominent daily newspapers of that beautiful city a three-column cut of Abraham Lincoln, with a suitable tribute in verse from one of America's leading syndicate poets. I had myself for reasons of taste, and in order to give no offense to my kindly hosts throughout the Southland, omitted from my discourse passing references to certain great figures of the Civil War; but on seeing this very notable recognition by his old-time adversaries of the great virtues of our martyred President, I hesitated no longer in respect to these references, and from that time on reverted to the original form of my talk.
After eating my breakfast on this morning of the eleventh I dallied for awhile in the office of the massive Georgian Terrace Hotel, smoking my cigar, and glancing over the news in the paper. As I was about to toss the paper aside a fine old type of your Southern gentleman seated himself on the divan alongside of me, and in the usual courteous fashion of the country gave me a morning salutation. I responded in kind, and then tapping my paper observed:
"That is a fine picture of Lincoln."
"Yes, suh, a verruh fine picture, suh," he replied. "I never had the honah of seein' Mistuh Lincoln, suh; but from all I hyear, suh, he must have resembled that picture pretty close, suh."
"It is a delight to me to find it in one of your Southern newspapers," said I, "especially in one so influential in the South as this."
"Yes, suh," he answered. "It shows that the South is not slow to recognize genius, suh, wherever it is found, suh. But," he added, "there is no occasion for surprise, suh. We have always appreciated Mr. Lincoln's greatness down hyear, and we have admiahed him, suh; though we have had reason to believe that durin' the late onpleasantness, suh, he was consid'rable of a No'thern sympathizah, suh."
Conspicuous in my memory for both his conscious wit and his unconscious humor is a strapping negro I encountered at a junction down in Alabama last winter. I was marooned there for five weary hours, receiving at the hands of its natives as high a courtesy and as fearful food as I have ever yet had presented to me. The colored porter at the hotel had a face as black as the ace of spades, and as childlike and bland as it was black. He seemed to take a tremendous interest in me, especially in my fur overcoat, which he appeared to think must "ha cost as much as eight dollahs," and he plied me with questions as we stood on the railway platform waiting for my train into Birmingham for a full hour that nearly drove me to despair. I have not space for that illuminating interchange of ideas in all its verbal fullness; but part of it ran in this wise: