“I should think you would like to fight Napoleon—I should, if I were you.”
“Nor’m, I don’ b’lieve in no fightin’—’cep’in’ ’tis ter fit de Yankees. I’m er peaceable man, I is.”
I told Dan what a bad report Solomon had made out against him.
He laughed. “Solomon has the grumps this morning. He seemed to have quite a time with your namesake, as well as with the rest of us. Napoleon Bonaparte sent him to rub Nellie Grey down and saddle her for me. The mare threw her head up and jerked him about a little, and we could hear him saying: ‘Whoa! Nellie Grey, whoa! You got de debbul in you too! Who-a, Nellie Grey!’ Between the two of them I am having rather a hard time lately,” said Dan. “Solomon blames ’Poleon Bonaparte directly for all the hard times he has, and me indirectly. If something isn’t done as it should be, and I take Napoleon to task, he lays it thick and hard on Solomon. Solomon did have a time of it at camp this morning. You see, ’Poleon Bonaparte is very particular about the way the horses are kept, but he makes Solomon do all the rubbing down, and Solomon doesn’t understand how to manage horses and is a little afraid of them. ’Poleon Bonaparte found fault with his job this morning, and made him rub Nellie Grey down twice. It naturally occurred to Nellie that so much rubbing meant an opportunity for playing. Black Solomon really was the good angel at camp, for before he and Nellie Grey got us to laughing, swearing had been thick enough to cut with a knife. I had turned loose on ’Poleon, and ’Poleon had turned loose on Solomon.”
“Dan, what makes you keep them both?”
“Keep them both! I don’t. I don’t want either of them, but I can’t get rid of them.”
“Make Napoleon do his work and send Solomon off.”
“Make! Nell, how you talk! And ’Poleon’s got just as much right to hire a nigger as I have to own one.”
And during our stay in Charlottesville Dan’s servants gave him “more trouble,” he said, “than fighting the Yankees.” But it was a very happy time in my life.
The late springtime of ’64 found me again in Petersburg.