The deacon interrupts,—­suggests “that it were better to move practically; and that small streams may yet direct how a mountain may be removed.  Our Union is a great monument of what a Republic may be,—­a happy combination of life, freshness, and greatness, upon which the Old World looks with distrust.  The people have founded its happiness-its greatness!  God alone knows its destiny; crowned heads would not weep over its downfall!  It were better each citizen felt his heart beating to the words-It is my country; cursed be the hand raised to sever its members!” The lady tells Mr. Scranton that their produce has increased every year; that last year they planted one hundred and twenty acres with cotton, ninety with corn, forty with sweet potatoes, as many more with slips and roots; and three acres of water-melons for the boys, which they may eat or sell.  She assures him that by encouraging the pay system they get a double profit, besides preparing the way for something that must come.

“Come!” Mr. Scranton interrupts:  “let the south be true to herself, and there’s no fear of that.  But I confess, deacon, there is something good as well as curious about your way of treating niggers.”  And Mr. Scranton shakes his head, as if the practicability yet remained the great obstacle in his mind.  “Your niggers ain’t every body’s,” he concludes.

“Try it, try it!” Mrs. Rosebrook rejoins:  “Go home and propound something that will relieve us from fear-something that will prepare us for any crisis that may occur!”

It was six o’clock, the plantation bell struck, and the cry sounded “All hands quit work, and repair to supper!” Scarcely had the echoes resounded over the woods when the labourers were seen scampering for their cabins, in great glee.  They jumped, danced, jostled one another, and sang the cheering melodies, “Sally put da’ hoe cake down!” and “Down in Old Tennessee.”

Reaching their cabins they gathered into a conclave around Daddy and Bradshaw, making the very air resound with their merry jargon.  Such a happy meeting-such social congratulations, pouring forth of the heart’s affections, warm and true,—­it had never been before Mr. Scranton’s fortune to witness.  Indeed, when he listened to the ready flashes of dialogue accompanying their animation, and saw the strange contortions of their fresh, shining faces, he began to “reckon” there was something about niggers that might, by a process not yet discovered, be turned into something.

Old “Mammies” strive for the honour of having Daddy and Bradshaw sup at their cabins, taunting each other on the spareness of their meal.  Fires are soon lit, the stew-pans brought into requisition, and the smoke, curling upward among a myriad of mosquitoes, is dispersing them like a band of unwelcome intruders; while the corn-mills rattle and rumble, making the din and clatter more confounding.  Daddy and Bradshaw being “aristocratic darkies from the city"-caste