The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 eBook

Bersides, I couldn’t do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, “You’ve sheered my bed,” [Thet’s when I paid my interdiction 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 is so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers An’ settin’ in the Jestice-Court for welcomin’ o’ strangers";) [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’ Jury, I expect, ’ll hev to set agin.”  Thet’s the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, But jest 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,
  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 ‘t warn’t for studyin’, evening, I never ‘d ha’ ben here
  An 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’ write, onless it is by jarks,
  Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th’ oridgenal patriarchs;
  To fit a feller f’ wut they call the soshle higherarchy,
  All thet you’ve gut to know is jest beyund an evrage darky;
  Schoolin’ ‘s wut they can’t seem to stan’, they’re tu consarned
          high-pressure,
  An’ knowin’ t’ much might spile a boy for bein’ 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 hymbook 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 sin-hards!

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.

* * * * *

OLD AGE.