"
"Won't it? What did Joe Johnson say to me last night before the
Washington Tavern? He said: 'I've sold whiter niggers than you, myself.
I kin run you to market an' git my price for you!'"
The bay sailor took off his hat.
"Look at me!" he continued; "by smoke! look on my brown skin and black
eyes an' coal black hair. Whair did they come from? They come from
Greece, whair Leonidas an' Marky Bozarris and all them fellers came
from: that's what my daddy said. He know'd better than me. I'm nothin'
but a pore Eastern Shore man sailing my little vessel, but I'm a
free-born man, and I tell you, Judge, it's a dangerous time when nothing
but his shade of color protects a free man."
"James Phoebus," the Judge said, gravely, "I hope you believe me when
I say that I think all these things outrages, and they grow out of the
greater outrage of slavery itself. We are being governed by new states,
hatched in the Southwest from the alligator eggs of old slavery, that
had grown into political and moral disrepute with us in Maryland and
Virginia."
"There's no nigger in me," Phoebus said, putting on his hat, "but I
have taken these hints about my looking like a nigger to heart, and I'll
take a nigger's part when he is imposed on, as if he was some of the
body and blood of my Lord Jesus. Now you hear it!"
"And brave enough you are to mean it, my honest fellow. So do my errand,
and good-morning, James.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208