A CHORD OF WOOD.

Well, New York, you've made your pile
Of Wood, and, if you like, may smile:
Laugh, if you will, to split your sides,
But in that Wood pile a nigger hides,
With a double face beneath his hood:
Don't hurra till you're out of your Wood.

A MERCHANT'S STORY.

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'

CHAPTER XIX.

The moon and the stars were out, and the tall, dark pines cast long,
gloomy shadows over the little rows of negro houses which formed the
rearguard to Preston's mansion. They were nearly deserted. Not a
solitary fire slumbered on the bare clay hearths, and not a single darky
stood sentry over the loose pork and neglected hoecakes, or kept at bay
the army of huge rats and prowling opossums which beleaguered the
quarters. Silence--death's music--was over and around them. The noisy
revelry of the dancers had died away in the distance, and even the
hoarse song of the great trees had sunk to a low moan as they stood,
motionless and abashed, in the presence of the grim giant who knocks
alike at the palace and the cottage gate.

A stray light glimmered through the logs of a low hut, far off in the
woods, and, making our way to it, we entered. A bright fire lit up the
interior, and on a rude cot, in one corner, lay the old preacher. His
eyes were closed; a cold, clammy sweat was on his forehead--he was
dying. One of his skeleton hands rested on the tattered coverlet, and
his weazened face was half buried in a dilapidated pillow, whose ragged
casing and protruding plumage bespoke it a relic of some departed white
sleeper.

An old negress, with gray hair and haggard visage, sat at the foot of
the bed, wailing piteously; and Joe and half a dozen aged saints stood
around, singing a hymn, doleful enough to have made even a sinner weep.

Not heeding our entrance, Joe took the dying man by the hand, and, in a
slow, solemn voice, said:

'Brudder Jack, you'm dyin'; you'm gwine ter dat lan' whence no trabeller
returns; you'm settin' out fur dat country which'm lit by de smile ob de
Lord; whar dar ain't no sickness, no pain, no sorrer, no dyin'; fur dat
kingdom whar de Lord reigns; whar trufh flows on like a riber; whar
righteousness springs up like de grass, an' lub draps down like de dew,
an' cobers de face ob de groun'; whar you woan't gwo 'bout wid no
crutch; whar you woan't lib in no ole cabin like dis, an' eat hoecake
an' salt pork in sorrer an' heabiness o