mping groun', seem like I wasn't no sort o' use at all. Bye
and bye I fell in with Judge Warner, who was a great friend o' Mahs
Dukes, and I jes' up an' tells him I done been conjured along o' that
freedom Mahs Duke done give me. My king!--how he did laugh. He offered
me a good berth down on his place, but I say, 'no, sah; all I want is
Mahs Duke an' old Calliny'; so he helps me to some races an' seems
like the very notion o' goen' home done fetch me good luck right off,
'cause I made good winnen' on his bay filly, Creole, an' soon as I got
some money I bid far'well to wanderen' an' made fo' home.

"I alles spishuned Mahs Duke know mo' 'bout my travels than he let on,
fo' he jes' laughed when he see me an' say: 'All right, Nelse, I been
looken' fo' you some time. Now if yo' done got yo' fill o' seen' the
world, 'spose yo' go down an' look at the new colt I got, an' take yo'
ole place in the stable. Yo' jes' got back in time to spruce up the
carriage team fo' my wedden'.

"Well, sah, yo' could a' knocked me down with a feathah. Mahs Duke was
thirty-five, an' ovah, an' had kep' his own bachelor place fo' ten
yeah, loose an' free. Then all at once a new family come down heah
from Marylan'. They was the Mastersons, an' a Miss Bar'bra Vaughn come
to visit them, an' it was all ovah with Mahs Duke. She jest won in a
walk--that little lady.

"An' he done took her all the way to Orleans fo' wedden' trip. I
didn't go 'long. I was done tired out with travel an' 'sides that, I'd
been riden' ovah an' back to the Masterson plantation fo' Mahs Duke
till I took up with a likely brown gal they fetched with them from up
Nawth, an' of all niggahs, Nawthen niggahs is the off-scourins o' the
yeath--copy aftah theh masters, I reckon, fo' all the real,
double-distilled quality folks I met up with in all my travels were
gentlemen o' the South, sah. Yes, sah, they may breed good quality
somewheahs up theah, but all o' them sent down heah as samples ain't
nowhars with the home-bred article, sah.

"But I didn't know all that them days, an' that Cynthy o' Mistah
Masterson's look mighty peart an' talk mighty knowen', an' seem like
as we both hed travelled considerable we both hed a heap of talk
'bout; an' the upshot of it was I felt boun' an' sot to buy that gal,
if so be they'd give me a fair chance an' plenty o' time. Well, sah, I
talk it ovah with Mahs Duke, an' he fix it so I can have Cynthy fo'
three hundred dollars.

"Seem like it's a m