"Mind yer own bizniss," replied the white man, after a casual glance at the Deacon, and seeing that he did not wear a uniform. "Keep yer mouth shet if ye know when y're well off."
"O, massa, save me! save me!" said the negro, jumping up and running toward the Deacon, who had slipped down from the fodder, and was standing in the road.
"All right, Sambo; don't be scared. He sha'n't kill you while I'm around," said the Deacon.
"I tell ye agin to mind yer own bizniss and keep yer mouth shet," said the white man savagely. "Who air ye, anyway? One o' them slinkin' nigger-stealin' Abolitionists, comin' down here to rob us Southerners of our property?"
He followed this with a torrent of profane denunciation of the "whole Abolition crew."
"Look here, Mister," said the Deacon calmly, reaching back into the wagon and drawing out a musket, "I'm a member o' the church and a peaceable man. But I don't 'low no man to call me names, and I object to swearin' of all kinds. I want to argy this question with you, quietly, as between man and man."
He looked down to see if there was a cap on the gun.
"What's the trouble 'twixt you and this man here?"
"That ain't no man," said the other hotly. "That's my nigger bought with my money. He's my property. I've ketched him tryin' to run away tryin' to rob me of $1,200 worth o' property and give it to our enemies. I'm gwine to kill him to stop others from doin' the same thing."
"Indeed you're not," said the Deacon, putting his thumb on the hammer.