had been drawn up opposite to her, completing the fireside circle. They were talking and laughing cheerfully.
The next morning when I turned out I found Yazoo looking with the eye of a connoisseur at the seven prime field-hands, who at half-past seven were just starting off with hoes and axes for their day's work. As I approached him, he exclaimed with enthusiasm:—
"Aren't them a right keen lookin' lot of niggers?"
And our host soon after coming out, he immediately walked up to him, saying:—
"Why, friend, them yer niggers o' yourn would be good for seventy bales of cotton, if you'd move down into our country."
Their owner was perfectly aware of their value, and said everything good of them.
"There's something ruther singlar, too, about my niggers; I don't know as I ever see anything like it anywhere else."
"How so, sir?"
"Well, I reckon it's my way o' treatin' 'em, much as anything. I never hev no difficulty with 'em. Hen't licked a nigger in five year, 'cept maybe sprouting some of the young ones sometimes. Fact, my niggers never want no lookin' arter; they jus tek ker o' themselves. Fact, they do tek a greater interest in the crops than I do myself. There's another thing—I 'spose 'twill surprise you—there ent one of my niggers but what can read; read good, too—better 'n I can, at any rate."
"How did they learn?"
"Taught themselves. I b'lieve there was one on 'em that I bought, that could read, and he taught all the rest. But niggers is mighty apt at larnin', a heap more 'n white folks is."
I said that this was contrary to the generally received opinion.
