Before Removing The Mud That Hung Upon
Me To The Waist In Heavy Clods, I Showed The
Darky My Chart-Case, And Explained The Object
Of My Mission.
He was very intelligent, and,
after asking a few questions, said to his son:
"Take dis gun to de house;" and then turning
to me, continued: "Dis is de sort ob man I'se am.
I'se knows how to treat a friend like a white man,
and I'se can fight wid my knife or my fist or my
gun anybody who 'poses on me. Now I'se knows
you is a gemmin I'se won't treat you like a
nigger. Gib you best I'se got. Cum to de house."
When inside of the house of this resolute
black, every attention was paid to my comfort.
The cargo of the paper canoe was piled up in
one corner of the room. The wife and children
sat before the bright fire and listened to the story
of my cruise. I doctored the sick pickaninny of
my host, and made the family a pot of strong
coffee. This negro could read, but he asked me to
address a label he wished to attach to a bag of
Sea-Island cotton of one hundred and sixty
pounds' weight, which he had raised, and was
to ship by the steamboat Lizzie Baker to a
mercantile house in Savannah.
As I rested upon my blankets, which were
spread upon the floor of the only comfortable
room in the house, at intervals during the night
the large form of the black stole softly in and bent
over me to see if I were well covered up, and he
as noiselessly piled live-oak sticks upon the dying
embers to dry up the dampness which rose from
the river.
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