probably the women like this method of raising money better than the
direct one.

The evening gayety of the town was well distributed. When we descended
to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected, black, white,
and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four glaring torches
lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read might decipher this
legend on a standard at the back of the stage:

HAPPY JOHN.
ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
COME AND SEE HIM!

Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow girl,
took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by his
audience. His face was blackened to the proper color of the stage-darky,
and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and coat striped
longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam," the coat a
swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a bell-crowned white
hat. This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to tickle all colors in
the audience amazingly. Mary, the "bright" woman (this is the universal
designation of the light mulatto), was a pleasing but bold yellow girl,
who wore a natty cap trimmed with scarlet, and had the assured or pert
manner of all traveling sawdust performers.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed a bright woman in the crowd, "Happy John was sure
enough one of Wade Hampton's slaves, and he's right good looking when
he's not blackened up."

Happy John sustained the promise of his name by spontaneous gayety and
enjoyment of the fleeting moment; he had a glib tongue and a ready, rude
wit, and talked to his audience with a delicious mingling of impudence,
deference, and patronage, commenting upon them generally, administering
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 wh