“I reckon you-all is ’Piscopal?”

“Why?”

“Why, you-all talks ’Piscopal.”

So much for a tribute to the culture of the church.

* * * * *

At Jones’ supper is ready, spread on a bare board running the length of the room—­a bare board supported by saw-horses; the seats are boards again, a little lower in height.  They sag in the middle threateningly.  One plate is piled high with fish—­bones, skin and flesh all together in one odourous mass.  Salt pork graces another platter and hominy another.  I am alone in the supper room.  The guests, landlord and landlady are all absent.  Some one, as he rushes by me, gives me the reason for the desertion: 

“They’ve all gone to see the fight; all the white fellers is after a nigger.”

Through the window I can see the fleeing forms of the settlers—­women, sunbonnets in hand, the men hatless.  It appears that all the world has turned out to see what lawless excitement may be in store.  The whirling dust and sand in the distance denote the group formed by the Negro and his pursuers.  This, standing on the little porch of my lodging-house, I see and am glad to find that the chase is fruitless.  The black man, tortured to distraction, dared at length to rebel, and from the moment that he showed spirit his life was not worth a farthing, but his legs were, and he got clear of Excelsior.  The lodgers troop back.  Molly, my landlady’s niece, breathing and panting, disheveled, leads the procession and is voluble over the affair.

“They-all pester a po’r nigger’s life out ’er him, ye’es, they dew so!  Ef a nigger wants ter show his manners to me, why, I show mine to him,” she said generously, “and ef he’s a mannerly nigger, why, I ain’t got nothin’ ag’in him; no, sir, I suttenly ain’t!”

It is difficult to conceive how broad and philanthropic, how generous and unusual this poor mill girl’s standpoint is contrasted with the sentiment of the people with which she moves.

I slip into my seat at the table in the centre of the sagging board and find Molly beside me, the girl from Excelsior with the pretty hair on the other side.  The host, Mr. Jones, honours the head of the table, and “grandmaw” waits upon us.  Opposite are the three men operatives, flannel-shirted and dirty.  The men are silent for the most part, and bend over their food, devouring the unpalatable stuff before them.  I feel convinced that if they were not so terribly hungry they could not eat it.  Jones discourses affably on the mill question, advising me to learn “speeding,” as it pays better and is the only advanced work in the mill.

Molly, my elbow-companion, seems to take up the whole broad seat, she is so big and so pervading; and her close proximity—­unwashed, heavy with perspiration as she is, is not conducive to appetite.  She is full of news and chatter and becomes the leading spirit of the meal.