Besides, I couldn’t do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, ‘You’ve sheered my bed,’ [thet’s when I paid my interduction fee To Southun rites,] ‘an’ kep’ your sheer,’ [wal, I allow it sticked So ’s ’t I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,] ’Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun’t do no harm, Pervidin’ thet you’ll ondertake to oversee the farm; (My eldes’ boy he’s so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers An’ settin’ in the Jestice-Court for welcomin’ o’ strangers;’) 260 [He sot on me;] ‘an’ so, ef you’ll jest ondertake the care Upon a mod’rit sellery, we’ll up an’ call it square; But ef you can’t conclude,’ suz she, an’ give a kin’ o’ grin, ‘Wy, the Gran’ Jurymen, I ’xpect, ‘ll hev to set agin.’  That’s the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, But jes’ to make the best on ‘t an’ off coat an’ buckle tu?  Ther’ ain’t a livin’ man thet finds an income necessarier Than me,—­bimeby I’ll tell ye how I fin’lly come to merry her.  She hed another motive, tu:  I mention of it here T’ encourage lads thet’s growin’ up to study ‘n’ persevere, 270 An’ show ’em how much better ‘t pays to mind their winter-schoolin’ Than to go off on benders ‘n’ sech, an’ waste their time in foolin’; Ef ‘twarn’t for studyin’ evenins, why, I never ‘d ha’ ben here A orn’ment o’ saciety, in my approprut spear:  She wanted somebody, ye see, o’ taste an’ cultivation, To talk along o’ preachers when they stopt to the plantation; For folks in Dixie th’t read an’ rite, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th’ origenle patriarchs; To fit a feller f’ wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you’ve gut to know is jes’ beyond an evrage darky; 280 Schoolin’ ‘s wut they can’t seem to stan’, they ’re tu consarned
  high-pressure,
An’ knowin’ t’ much might spile a boy for hem’ a Secesher.  We hain’t no settled preachin’ here, ner ministeril taxes; The min’ster’s only settlement’s the carpet-bag he packs his Razor an’ soap-brush intu, with his hym-book an’ his Bible,—­ But they du preach, I swan to man, it’s puf’kly indescrib’le!  They go it like an Ericsson’s ten-hoss-power coleric ingine, An’ make Ole Split-Foot winch an’ squirm, for all he’s used to singein’; Hawkins’s whetstone ain’t a pinch o’ primin’ to the innards To hearin’ on ’em put free grace t’ a lot o’ tough old sinhards! 290 But I must eend this letter now:  ’fore long I’ll send a fresh un;
I’ve lots o’ things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun: 
I’m called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in
To Cynthy’s hide:  an’ so, till death,
                                    Yourn,
                                          BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

No.  II

MASON AND SLIDELL:  A YANKEE IDYLL

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862.