Samantha on the Race Problem

by Marietta Holley

Sez he, “I am dead sick of all this talk about the Race Problem.”

“Then why,” sez I, mildly but firmly, “why do you insist on talkin’ on it?”

“I want to tell you my feelin’s,” sez he.

Sez I, “I know ’em, Josiah Allen.”

And then I sot demute, and hoped I had averte the storm—or, ruther, I would call it the squall, for I didn’t expect a hard tempest, more of a drizzle.

So I knit fast, and sot in hope.

But anon he begun agin:

“I am sick on’t. I believe more’n half the talk is for effect. I don’t believe the South is a bleedin’; I hain’t seen no blood. I don’t believe the niggers are a rizen, I hain’t seen ’em a gettin’ up. I believe it is all folderol.”

And then I sez, a lookin’ up from my knittin’ work:

“Be mejum, Josiah Allen; you don’t live there. You hain’t so good a judge as if you lived in the South; you hain’t so good a judge as John Richard is, for he has lived right there.”