ring advice and correction in a strain of humor
that kept his hearers in a pleased excitement. He handled the banjo
and the guitar alternately, and talked all the time when he was not
singing. Mary (how much harder featured and brazen a woman is in
such a position than a man of the same caliber!) sang, in an
untutored treble, songs of sentiment, often risque, in solo and in
company with John, but with a cold, indifferent air, in contrast to
the rollicking enjoyment of her comrade.

The favorite song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched
lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed in the falsetto pathetic
refrain:

"Mary's gone away wid de coon."

All this, with the moon, the soft summer night, the mixed crowd of
darkies and whites, the stump eloquence of Happy John, the singing,
the laughter, the flaring torches, made a wild scene. The
entertainment was quite free, with a "collection" occasionally during
the performance.

What most impressed us, however, was the turning to account by Happy
John of the "nigger" side of the black man as a means of low comedy,
and the enjoyment of it by all the people of color. They appeared to
appreciate as highly as anybody the comic element in themselves, and
Happy John had emphasized it by deepening his natural color and
exaggerating the "nigger" peculiarities. I presume none of them
analyzed the nature of his infectious gayety, nor thought of the
pathos that lay so close to it, in the fact of his recent slavery,
and the distinction of being one of Wade Hampton's niggers, and the
melancholy mirth of this light-hearted race's burlesque of itself.

A performance followed which called forth the appreciation of the
crowd more than the wit of Happy John or the faded songs of the
yellow girl. John took two sweet-cakes and broke each in fine pieces
into a saucer, and after sugaring and eulogizing the dry messes,
called for two small darky volunteers from the audience to come up on
the platform and devour them. He offered a prize of fifteen cents to
the one who should first eat the contents of his dish, not using his
hands, and hold up the saucer empty in token of his victory. The
cake was tempting, and the fifteen cents irresistible, and a couple
of boys in ragged shirts and short trousers and a suspender apiece
came up shamefacedly to enter for the prize. Each one grasped his
saucer in both hands, and with face over the dish awaited the word
"go," which John gave, and s