on thet, gentlemen! I, a white boy, and, 'cordin' to
the Declaration of Independence, jest as good blood as the old Cunnel,
bein' larned to read by an old slave, and that old slave a'most worked
to death, and takin' his nights, when he orter hev been a restin' his
old bones, to larn me! I'm d--d if he don't get to heaven for that one
thing, if for nothin' else.

'Wal, you all know the rest--how, when I'd grow'd up, I settled har, in
the old North State, and how the young Cunnel backed my paper and set
me a runnin' at turpentinin'. P'r'aps you don't think this has much to
do with the Yankees, but it has a durned sight, as ye'll see raather
sudden. Wal, arter a while, when I'd got a little 'forehanded, I begun
shippin' my truck to York and Bosting; and at last my Yankee factor, he
come out har, inter the backwoods, to see me, and says he: 'Jones, come
North and take a look at us.' I'd sort o' took to him. I'd had lots to
do with him afore ever I seed him, and I allers found him as straight as
a shingle. Wal, I went North, and he took me round, and showed me how
the Yankees does things. Afore I knowed him, I allers thought--as
p'r'aps most on ye do--that the Yankee war a sort o' cross atween the
devil and a Jew; but how do you s'pose I found 'em? I found that they
_sent the pore man's children to schule_. FREE--and that the
schulehouses war a d--d sight thicker than the bugs in Miles Privett's
beds! and thet's saying a heap, for ef eny on you kin sleep in his
house, excep' he takes to the soft side of the floor, I'm d--d. Yas, the
pore man's children are larned thar FREE!--all on 'em--and they've jest
so good a chance as the sons of the rich man! Now, arter that, do you
think that I--as got all my schulin' from an old slave, by the light of
a borrored pine-knot--der you think that _I_ kin say any thing agin the
Yankees? P'r'aps they _do_ steal--though I don't know it--p'r'aps they
_do_ debauch thar wives and darters, and sell thar mothers' vartue for
dollers--but ef they do, I'm d--d ef they don't send pore children ter
schule--and that's more'n we do--and let me tell you, until we do, we
must count on thar bein' cuter and smarter nor we are.

'This gentleman, too, my friends, who's been a givin' sech a hard
settin' down ter his own relation, arter they've broughten him up and
givin' him sech a good schulein' for nothin', he says the Yankees want
to interfere with our niggers. Now, thet han't so, and they couldn't ef
the