SOME NEIGHBORS.
CHAPTER XII.
IT wuz a dretful curiosity to me and a never-failin’ source of interest to watch the ways and habits of the Southern people about Belle Fanchon, both white and colored.
The neighborhood wuzn’t very thickly settled with white people. But still there wuz quite a number of neighbors, and they wuz about all of ’em kind-hearted, generous, hospitable people to their equals.
They seemed to like their own folks the best, the Southern folks; but still they wuz very kind to my son and his wife, and seemed willin’ and glad to neighbor with ’em. While there wuz so much sickness in the house, they seemed anxious to help; and I see that they wuz warm-hearted, ready to take trouble for other folks, ready to give all the help they could.
And they wuz very polite to Josiah Allen and me, and pleasant to talk with. But let the subject of the freedmen come up, or the Freedmen’s Bureau, I could see in a minute that they hated that bureau—hated it like a dog.
I hit aginst that bureau quite a number of times in my talk with them neighbors, and I could see that it creaked awfully in their ears; its draws drawed mighty heavy to ’em, and the hull structure wuz hated by ’em worse than any gulontine wuz ever hated by Imperialists.
And colored schools, of course there wuz exceptions to it, but, as a rule, them neighbors despised the idee of schools for the “niggers,” despised the teachers and the hull runnin’ gear of the institution.
The colored men and wimmen they seemed to look upon about as Josiah and me looked onto our dairy, though mebby not quite so favorably, for there wuz one young yearlin’ heifer and one three-year-old Jersey that I always said knew enough to vote.