'P'r'aps so, massa. Whot's de use ob habin' ears, ef you don't h'ar?'
'Well, I suppose not much; and you tell all you hear to the other negroes?'
'I reckon so, massa,' said the darky, looking very demure.
'That's the use of having a tongue, eh?' I replied, laughing.
'Dat's it 'zaxly, massa.'
'Well, Jim, I do think the slaves will be finally freed; but it will cost more white blood to do it than all the niggers in creation are worth. Do you think the darkies would fight for their freedom?'
'Fight, sar!' exclaimed the negro, straightening up his fine form, while his usual good-natured look—passed from his face and gave way to an expression that made him seem more like an incarnate fiend than a human being; 'FIGHT, sar; gib dem de chance, and den see.'
'Why are you discontented? You have been at the North, and you know the blacks are as well off as the majority of the poor laboring men there.'
'You say dat to me, Massa K——; you don't say it to de Cunnel. We are not so well off as de pore man at de Norf! You knows dat, sar. He hab his wife and children, and his own home; what hab we, sar? No wife, no children, no home; all am de white man's. Der yer tink we wouldn't fight to be free?' and he pressed his teeth together, and there passed again over his face the same look it wore the moment before.
'Come, come, Jim, this may be true of your race; but it don't apply to yourself. Your master is kind and indulgent to you.'