"Must er bin er flea bitin' me!"
"I felt sumfin. Don't 'zactly know what it wuz. Mebbe a chigger!"
"Must er been a flea. Hit bit me, too!"
Sam tried to redeem himself for failing on his lessons in arithmetic. He had long ago learned to read and write and had asked for a course in history. The young teacher had given him a copy of Gulliver's Travels.
"Look a here, Marse Rooney, I been a readin' dat book yer gimme—"
"Well, that's good."
"Yer say dat book's history?"
"Well, it's what we call fiction, but I think fiction's the very best history we can read. It may not have happened just that way but it's true all the same."
"Well, ef hit nebber happened, I dunno 'bout dat," Sam objected. "I been suspicionin' fer a long time dat some o' dem things that Gulliver say nebber happen nohow."
"You read it," the teacher ordered.