"A northern gentleman was being entertained by a southern colonel on a fishing-trip. It was his first visit to the South, and the mosquitoes were so bothersome that he was unable to sleep, while at the same time he could hear his friend snoring audibly.
"The next morning he approached the old darky who was doing the cooking.
"'Jim,' he said, 'how is it the colonel is able to sleep so soundly with so many mosquitoes around?'
"'I'll tell yo', boss,' the darky replied, 'de fust part of de night de kernel is too full to pay any 'tenshum to de skeeters, and de last part of de night de skeeters is too full to pay any 'tenshum to de kernel.'"
See also Applause; New Jersey.
MOTHERS
While reconnoitering in Westmoreland County, Virginia, one of General Washington's officers chanced upon a fine team of horses driven before a plow by a burly slave. Finer animals he had never seen. When his eyes had feasted on their beauty he cried to the driver: "Hello good fellow! I must have those horses. They are just such animals as I have been looking for."
The black man grinned, rolled up the whites of his eyes, put the lash to the horses' flanks and turned up another furrow in the rich soil.