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Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' I've been cornfis

cated,

For sence we've entered on th' estate o' the late nayshnul eagle,

She hain't no kin' o' right but jes' wut I allow ez legle: Wut doos Secedin' mean, ef 't ain't thet nat❜rul rights hez riz, 'n'

Thet wut is mine's my own, but wut's another man's ain't his'n?

Besides, I could n't do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, "You've sheered my bed," [thet's when I paid my interduction 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' stran

gers";)

[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' Jurymen, I 'xpect, 'll hev to set agin." Thet's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I

to du,

But jes' 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' perse

vere,

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' evenins, I never 'd ha' been 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' rite, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' oridgenle patriarchs;

To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you've gut to know is jes' 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 Se

cesher.

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 in

nards

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,

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No. II.

MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862.

GENTLEMEN, I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New-Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the excellent essay upon "Old Age," the authour of which I cannot help suspecting to be a young man who has never yet known what it was to have snow (canities morosa) upon

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