‘Wal, I reckon I hev,’ responded the orator.  ’I’ve heerd on ’em, and seed ’em, too.  When I was North I went ter one on thar conventions, and I’ll tell you how they look.  They’ve all long, wimmin’s hair, and thin, shet lips, with big, bawlin’ mouths, and long, lean, tommerhawk faces—­’bout as white as vargin dip—­and they all talk through the nose, [giving a specimen,] and they look for all the world jest like the South-Car’lina fire-eaters—­and they are as near like ’em as two peas, excep’ they don’t swar quite so bad, but they make up for that in prayin’—­and prayin’ too much, I reckon, when a man’s a d—­d hippercrit, is ‘bout as bad as swearin’.  But I tell you, the decent folks up North han’t ab’lisheners.  They look on ’em jest as we do on mad dogs, the itch, or the nigger-traders.

’Now, ’bout this secession bis’ness—­though tan’t no use ter talk on thet, ’cause this State never’ll secede—­South-Car’lina has done it, and I’m raather glad she has, for though I was born thar, I say she orter hev gone to h—­l long ago, and now she’s got thar—­let her stay! But, ’bout thet bis’ness, I’ll tell you a story.

‘I know’d an old gentleman once by the name o’ Uncle Sam, and he’d a heap o’ sons.  They war all likely boys—­and strange ter tell, though they’d all the same mother, and she a white woman, ’bout half on ’em war colored—­not black, but sorter half-and-half.  Now, the white sons war well-behaved, industrious, hard-workin’ boys, who got ’long well, edicated that children, and allers treated the old man decently; but the mulatter fellers war a pesky set—­though some on ’em war better nor others.  They wouldn’t work, but set up for airystocrocy—­rode in kerriges, kept fast hosses, bet high, and chawed tobaccer like the devil.  Wal, the result was, they got out at the elbows, and ’cause they warn’t gettin’ ’long quite so fast as the white ’uns—­though that war all thar own fault—­they got jealous, and one, on ’em, who was blacker nor all the rest—­a little feller, but terrible big on braggin’—­he packed up his truck one night, and left the old man’s house, and swore he’d never come back.  He tried ter make the other mulatters go ’long too, but they put thar fingers ter thar nose, and says they:  ‘No you don’t!’ I was in favor o’ lettin’ on him stay out in the cold, but the old man was a bernevolent old critter—­so he says:  ’Now, sonny, you jest come back and behave yourself, and I’ll forgive you all on your old pranks, and treat you jest as I allers used ter; but, ef you won’t, why, I’ll make you—­that’s all!’

‘Now, gentlemen, that querrelsome, oneasy, ongrateful, tobaccer-chawin’, high-bettin’, hoss-racin’, big-braggin’, nigger-stealin’, wimmin-whippin’, yaller son of the devil, is South-Car’lina; and ef she don’t come back and behave herself in futur’, I’m d—­d ef she won’t be ploughed with fire, and sowed with salt, and—­Andy Jones will help ter do it.’

The speaker was frequently interrupted in the course of his remarks by uproarious applause—­but as he closed and descended from the platform, the crowd sent up cheer after cheer, and a dozen strong men, making a seat of their arms, lifted him from the ground, and bore him to the head of the table, where dinner was in waiting.