'No, you wouldn't laugh. I'd make you feel way down in your pocket. I'd have but one sermon and one text, and that would be: 'Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.' You Southern nabobs do nothing but waste—you waste enough in one day to feed the whole North for a week. It's a sin—the unpardonable sin—for you know better.'
'Well, it is wrong, but how can we help it? We can't make the negroes anything but what they are—shiftless and careless of everything but their own ease.'
'I don't know about that. I think such a man as Joe ought to be able to manage them.'
'Joe! Well, he can't. He's all drive, and negroes are human beings; they should be treated kindly.'
We had approached the front of the still, and were fastening our horses to the trunk of a tree, when we heard loud voices issuing from the other side of the enclosure.
'Her'm what I owes you—now pack off ter onst, and don't neber show your face on dis plantation no more,' said a voice, which I at once recognized as that of 'boss Joe.'
'I shan't pack off till I'm ready, you d—d black nigger, I've been bossed 'bout by ye long 'nuff. Clar out, and 'tend ter yer own 'fairs,' rejoined another voice, which had the tone of a white man's.
'I reckon dis am my 'fair, and I shan't leff you git drunk and burn up no more white rosum yere; so take yerseff off. Ef you don't, I'll make you blacker nor I is.'
'Put your hand on me, and I'll take the law on ye, shore,' returned the white man.
'Pshaw, you drunken fool, do you s'pose dese darkies would tell on me? Ef dey would, dar word ain't 'lowed in de law; so you trabble. I don't keer ter handle you, but I shill ef you don't leab widin five minutes.'