Rights Societies to blow him a little, and he’ll go fast enough for any Young American party out.’  After leaving the old woman, who said she was nearly related to General Cass, I went politely to the other girls, bidding them, one after another, a square down good-morning, ending with a social chat and a smile for them all.  On the opposite side of the smoky kitchen stood the grim figure of a nigger wench, as big as the north side of a Dutch lighthouse, and as saucy as Benton’s goat.  The way she was making the wool fly over a sas-pan as big as old Zack Coffin’s ile kettle was a caution to nervous folks.  ’What on earth have ye got in that, eh?’ I inquires, peeping over the side into the half-scalding foam.

“‘What business is that to you?’ sounds, like thunder rolling away in the distance, from t’other side the cauldron.  Looking up almost dumb-founded I espied the hard phiz of the General, in dim outline through the fog and steam, stirring away at a massive ladle.

“‘Pierce!  Lord love yer soul—­is it you?’ says I, my feelings rising into a rhapsody of affection for him:  ‘Give us yer hand.’

“‘Yes, it’s me; just come round here if you can see your way through,’ says he; and I fumbled my way round, and got him by the hand, and had a hearty good shake, just for old acquaintance sake.

“‘But what in the name of Columbus are you doing here?’ I inquired, touching him on the elbow, significantly.

“‘Well!’ he answers, rather undecidedly, ’just helping prepare this pot of mixture for the black pig.’  He kept on moving his big ladle with one hand and throwing in additional feed with the other, from a bucket that stood close by.

“I inquired of the General where he kept so dangerous an animal, and was told in the most complacent manner that he ran all about, was as ravenous of power as the gentleman of those lower regions we hear so much about is of sinners; that he demanded all the country’s swill.  Here the General threw into the cauldron another sprinkling of grits, which he said was to complete the pot of homony.  It was merely the daily feed of the black pig, which the colored female assisted the General in preparing.  The General seemed very good-natured, and commenced a mathematical description of the ingredients of the mixture, when suddenly there came a fierce blow from behind, which well nigh tilted him deep into the foaming liquid.  I grabbed the broad expanse of his nether garments, while the wench screamed, and was only quieted when she found him safe under her broad lee.  A deep sonorous voice responded:—­’Stir quicker in the feed!’ I turned to see from whence it came, and who had dealt thus unmercifully with the General, when behold! there stood this hideous animal.  With fourteen horns he incessantly used, and two just growing, he hoped in time to use; with a back of thorns he ever and anon threatened all who came near him; with a tail of poison he defiantly lashed, and a wicked eye that sought objects afar off—­he was the most pertinacious brute unchained.  Moreover he had a snout like a ploughshare, with which he had frequently driven Mr. Pierce to the wall.