"You is a good man,
capt'n - we knows dat," they said; and when I
asked why, the answer showed their childlike
faith. "'Cause you couldn't hab come all dis
way in a paper boat if de Lord hadn't helped
you. He dono help only good folks."
The Cracker also came with his children to
view the wonder, while the raftsmen were so
struck with the advantages of my double paddle,
which originated with the inhabitants of the
Arctic regions, that they laid it upon a board and
drew its outlines with chalk. They vowed they
would introduce it upon the river.
These Crackers declared it would take more
than "de shoutings," or any other religious
service, to improve the moral condition of
the blacks. They openly accused the colored
preachers of disturbing the nocturnal rest of
their hens and turkeys; and as to hog-stealing
and cow-killing, "Why, we won't have any
critters left ef this carpet-bag government lasts much
longer!" they feelingly exclaimed.
"We does nothing to nobody. We lets the
niggers alone; but niggers will steal - they can't
help it, the poor devils; it's in 'em. Now, ef they
eats us out of house and home, what can a poor
man do? They puts 'em up for justices of peace,
and sends 'em to the legislature, when they can't
read more'n us; and they do say it's 'cause we
fit in the Confederate sarvice that they razes the
nigger over our heads. Now, does the folkes up
north like to see white people tyrannized over
by niggers? Jes tell 'em when you go back,
stranger, that we's got soulds like yours up
north, and we's got feelings too, by thunder! jes
like other white men. This was a white man's
country once - now it's all niggers and dogs.
Why, them niggers in the legislature has
spitboxes lined with gold to spit in! What's this
country a-coming to? We wish the niggers no
harm if they lets our hogs and chickens alone."
After this tirade it was amusing to see how
friendly the whites and blacks were. The
Crackers conversed with these children of Ham, who
had been stealing their hams for so long a time,
in the most kindly way, realizing, perhaps, that
they had various peculiar traits of their own, and
must, after all, endure their neighbors.
A traveller should place facts before his
readers, and leave to them the drawing of the moral.
Northern men and women who go to the
southern states and reside for even the short space of
a year or two, invariably change their life-long
views and principles regarding the negro as a
moral and social creature.
