‘Right smart, right smart, thank ye.  You’re—­’ the rest of the sentence was cut short by a gleeful exclamation from Jim, who, mounted on the box of the carriage, which was drawn up on the cleared plot in front of the meeting-house, waved an open newspaper over his head, and called out, as he caught sight of the Colonel: 

‘Great news, massa, great news from Charls’on!’

(The darky, while we were in church, had gone to the post-office, some four miles away, and got the Colonel’s mail, consisting of letters from his New-York and Charleston factors, the Charleston Courier and Mercury and the New-York Journal of Commerce.  The latter sheet, at the date of which I am writing, was in wide circulation at the South, its piety (!) and its politics being then calculated with mathematical precision for secession latitudes.)

‘What is it, Jim?’ shouted his master.  ‘Give it to us.’

The darky had somehow learned to read, but holding the paper at arm’s length, and throwing himself into a theatrical attitude, he belched out, with any amount of gesticulation, the following: 

’De news am, massa, and gemmen and ladies, dat de ole fort fore Charls’on hab hen devacuated by Major Andersin and de sogers, and dat dey hab stole ’way in de dark night and gone to Sumter, whar dey can’t be took; and dat de ole Gubner hab got out a procdemation dat all dat don’t lub de Aberlishen Yankees shill cum up dar and clar ’em out; and de paper say dat lots ob sogers hab cum from Gorgia and Al’bama and ’way down Souf, to help ’em.  Dis am w’at de Currer say,’ he continued, holding the paper up to his eyes and reading:  ’Major Andersin, ob United States army hab ’chieved de ’stinction ob op’ning de cibil war ’tween American citizens; he hab desarted Moulfrie, and by false fretexts hab took de ole Garrison and all his millinery stores to Fort Sumter.’

‘Get down, you d——­d nigger,’ said the Colonel, laughing, and mounting the carriage-box beside him.  ’You can’t read.  Old Garrison isn’t there—­he’s the d——­d Northern Abolitionist.’

‘I knows dat, Cunnel, but see dar,’ holding the paper out to his master, ’don’t dat say he’m dar?  It’m him dat make all de trubble.  P’raps dis nig’ can’t read, but ef dat ain’t readin’ I’d like to know it!’

‘Clear out,’ said the Colonel, now actually roaring with laughter; ’it’s the soldiers that the Courier speaks of, not the Abolitionist.’

‘Read it yoursef, den, massa, I don’t seed it dat way.’

Jim was altogether wiser than he appeared, and while he was equally as well pleased with the news as the Colonel, he was so for an entirely different reason.  In the crisis which these tidings announced, he saw hope for his race.

The Colonel then read the paper to the assemblage.  The news was received with a variety of manifestations by the auditory, the larger portion, I thought, hearing it, as I did, with sincere regret.