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AFTER dinner, we rode over my friend's plantation. It contained about twelve hundred acres, mainly covered with forest trees, but with here and there an isolated patch of cleared land devoted to corn and cotton. A small tributary of the Trent formed its northern boundary, and bordering the little stream was a tract of three hundred acres of low, swampy ground, heavily timbered with cypress and juniper. Tall old pines, denuded of bark for one third of their height, and their white faces bearded with long, shining flakes of แ scrape turpentine," crowned the uplands; and scattered among them, about a hundred well-clad, "well-kept" negro men and women were shouting pleasantly to one another, or singing merrily some simple song of "Ole Car'lina," as with the long scrapers they peeled the glistening scales from the scarified trees, or, gathering them in their aprons, "dumped " them into the rude barrels prepared for their reception. Preston had a kind word for each one as we passed-a pleasant inquiry about an infirm mother or a sick child, or some encour aging comment on their cheerful work; and many were the hearty blessings they showered upon "good massa," and many their good-natured exclamations over "de strange gemman dat sell massa's truck."

"He'm de kine, 'ou gals," shouted an old daiky, bent nearly double with age, who, leaning against one of the barrels, was "packing down" the flakes as they were emptied from the aprons of the women: "He'm de kine, I tell by him eye; de rocks doan't grow fass ter dat gemman's pocket!"

“Well, they don't, uncle," I replied, tossing him a halfdollar piece, and throwing a handful of smaller coin among the women. A general scramble followed, in which the old fellow nimbly joined, shouting out between his boisterous explosions of merriment:

"Dis am de sort, massa; dis am manna rainin' in de wilderness-de Lord's chil'ren lub dis kine; it'm good ter take, massa, good ter take."

"Good as black jack, eh, uncle?" I inquired, laughing, for I saw certain lines about his shrunken mouth, and underneath his sunken eyes, which told plainly he was rather too familiar with that delicious compound of strychnine and whiskey.

"Yas, massa, good as black Jack; dat's my name, massa, dat's my name-yah! yah!" and he turned his face, wet with merry tears, and distended in an uncommonly broad grin, up to mine. In a moment, however, his eye caught Preston's. His broad visage collapsed, his distended mouth shrank to a very diminutive opening, and his twinkling eyes assumed a peculiarly stolid expression, as he added, in a deprecatory tone :

"No, massa Robert, I doan't mean black jack—I doan't mean dat; 'ou knows I doan't keer fur him; 'ou knows I doan't knows him no more, massa Robert."

"I am glad you don't know him," replied Preston, playing on his name. "He's a hardened old sinner. But you know

better than to ask presents of strangers. Give it back to the gentleman at once."

An indescribable expression stole over the old negro's visage as he thrust his hand through his thin, frosty wool, looked pleadingly up in his master's face, and, seeing no signs of relenting there, slowly and reluctantly opened his palm, and tendered me the money.

"No, no, Preston, let him keep it; it won't do him any harm," I said.

"No more'n it woan't, good massa-not a morsel ob harm," exclaimed the darky, his small eyes twinkling again with pleasurable anticipation, and his broad face widening into its accustomed grin; "I woan't take nary drop, massa Robert, nary drop."

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'Well," said his master, "you can keep it, if you'll promise not to drink it up to-morrow. So much whiskey would spoil your prayer at the meeting."

"So it 'ould, massa Robert-so much as dat; but Jack allers prays de stronger fur a little, massa Robert-jess a little ; it sort o' 'pears ter warm up de ole man's sperrets, and ter fotch all de 'votion right inter him froat."

"I suppose it does all the devotion you ever feel. You're past praying for, I fear, Jack," replied Preston, good-naturedly, turning his horse to go.

"Not pass prayin' fur 'ou, massa Robert, not pass dat; an' ole Jack neber will be, nudder-not so long as he kin holler loud 'nuff fur de Lord ter yere. 'Ou may 'pend on dat, massa Robert, 'ou may 'pend on dat."

As we rode away, I asked Preston if the old black led the services at the negro meetings.

"Yes, I am obliged to let him. He was formerly the plantation preacher, and, with all his faults, the blacks are much attached to him. A small rebellion broke out among them, five years ago, when I displaced him, and put Joe into the pulpit. I compromised the difficulty by agreeing that Jack should lead in prayer every Sunday morning. They think he has a gift that way, and you would conclude the day of Pentecost had come, if you should hear him when he is about half-seas-over.”

"Then he does pray better for a little whiskey?"

"Yes; a mug of 'black jack' helps him amazingly."

After a two hours' circuit of the plantation, we halted in the vicinity of the distilleries, which stood huddled together on the bank of the little stream of which I have spoken. There were three of them, each of thirty barrels' capacity-an enormous size and they were neatly set in brick, and enclosed in a substantial framed structure, which was weatherboarded, and coated with paint of a dark brown color. Near the only one then in operation were several large heaps of flake turpentine, three or four hundred barrels of rosin, and a vast quantity of the same material scattered loosely about and mixed with broken staves, worn-out strainers, and the debris of the rosin bins. Pointing to the confused mass, I said to my host:

"I've half a mind to turn missionary.

to preach to you Southern heathen."

I feel a sort of call

"I wish you would," he rejoined; "you'd give me a chance to laugh at your sermons, as you have laughed at mine."

"No, you wouldn't laugh. I'd make you feel way down. in your pocket. I'd have but one sermon and one text, and

You

that would be: 'Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.' You Southern nabobs do nothing but waste. waste enough in one day, to feed the whole North for a week. It's a sin―the unpardonable sin-for you know better."

"Well, it is wrong; but how can we help it? We can't make the negroes anything but what they are-shiftless, and careless of everything but their own ease."

"I don't know about that. I think such a man as Joe ought to be able to manage them."

Joe! Well, he can't-he's all drive. And negroes are human beings; they should be treated kindly."

We had approached the front of the still, and were fastening our horses to the trunk of a tree, when we heard loud voices issuing from the other side of the enclosure.

"Here'm what I owes you. Now pack off ter onst, and don't neber show your face on dis plantation no more," said a voice, which I at once recognized as that of "boss Joe."

"I shan't pack off till I'm ready, you d-d black nigger. I've been bossed 'bout by ye long 'nuff. Clar out, and 'tend ter yer own 'fairs," rejoined another voice, which had the tone of a white man's.

"I reckon dis am my 'fair, an' I shan't leff you git drunk, and burn up no more white rosin yere; so take yerself off. Ef you doan't, I'll make you blacker nor I is."

"Put yer hand on me, and I'll take the law on ye, shore,” returned the white man.

"Pshaw, you drunken fool! does you s'pose dese darkies 'ould tell on me? Ef dey 'ould, dar word ain't 'lowed in de law; so you trabble. I doan't keer ter handle you, but 1 shill, ef you don't leab widin five minutes."

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