“ ‘I wouldn't go through what I have gone through,’ says Coper, hitting the stable-door with his fist enough to split it, ‘not for twice the money. Mrs. Coper never left off rowing for two days and nights, and how I should a' stopped her, I don't know, if luck hadn't stood my friend; but I happened to meet with a hoss the very moral of the one you've got, only perhaps just a leetle better, and Mrs. C. took to him wonderful. I wouldn't disturb our domestic harmony by having that hoss of yourn back again, not for half the Bank of England.’ Now the gent was a very tender-hearted man, and believed all that Coper told him, and kept the hoss; but what he did with him I can't think, for he was the wiciousest screw as ever put his nose in a manger.”
Editor's Drawer.
We placed on record, not long since in the “Drawer,” two or three anecdotes of the pomposity and copied manners of New England negroes, in the olden time. Here is another one, that seems to us quite as laughable as the specimens to which we have alluded. It is not quite certain, but rather more than probable, that the minister who takes a part in the story was the same clergyman who said, in conversation with a distinguished Puritan divine, [pg 421] that he could “write six sermons a week and make nothing of it.” “Precisely!” responded the other; “you would make just nothing of your sermons!” But to the story.
There were a good many colored people in Massachusetts many years ago, and one of them, an old and favorite servant, was held by a clergyman in one of the easternmost counties of the State. His name was Cuffee; and he was as pompous and imitative as the Cæsar, whose master “libbed wid him down on de Plains,” in Connecticut. He presumed a good deal upon his age and consequence, and had as much liberty to do as he pleased as any body in the house. On the Sabbath he was always in the minister's pew, looking around with a grand air, and, so far as appearances went or indicated, profiting as much by his master's rather dull preaching as any of the congregation around him who were pretending to listen.
One Sunday morning Cuffee noticed that several gentlemen in the neighborhood of his master's pew had taken out their pencils, and were taking notes of the discourse; either because it was more than usually interesting, or because they wished it to be seen by the parson that they thought it was. Cuffee determined that he would follow the example thus set him; so in the afternoon he brought a sheet of paper and pen and ink-horn to church with him. His master, looking down from his pulpit into his pew, could hardly maintain his gravity, as he saw his servant “spread out” to his task, his great red tongue out, and one side of his face nearly touching the paper. Cufee applied himself vigorously to his notes, until his master had come to his “sixteenth and lastly,” and “in view of this subject we remark, in the eighth and last place,” &c., knowing nothing all the while, and caring just as little, about the wonderment of his master, who was occasionally looking down upon him.
When the minister reached home, he sent for Cufee to come into his study.
“Well, Cuffee,” said he, “what was that I saw you doing in meeting this afternoon?”
“Me, massa?—w'at was I a-doin?”
“Yes, Cuffee; what was that you were about, in stead of listening to the sermon?”