You kin fall ovaboard
most anywhair an' git a full meal. You kin catch a bucket of crabs with
a piece of a candle befo' breakfast, an' shoot a wild-duck mos' with
your eyes shet."
"This country's good for nothin'," Joe Johnson said. "Floredey is the
land! Wot kin a nigger earn for yer? Corn, taters, melons: faugh!
Tobacco is a givin' out, cotton won't live yer. But Floredey is the
hell-dorader of the yearth."
"What's the hell-dorader?" asked Levin.
"That's Spanish or Porteygee for cheap niggers an' cotton," cried the
trader. "Cotton's the bird!"
"I thought cotton was a wool," Levin said.
"No, boy, cotton is a plant, growin' like a raspberry on a bush, havin'
pushed the blossoms off an' burst the pods below 'em, an' thar it is fur
niggers to pick it. Thar's a Yankee in Georgey made a cotton-gin to gin
it clean, an' now all the world wants some of it."
"Some of the gin?" asked the irrelevant Wonnell.
"No, some of the cotton, Doctor Green! They can't git enough of it.
Eurip is crazy about it, but there ain't niggers enough to pick it all.
So I'm in the nigger trade an' tryin' to be useful to my country, an'
wot does I git fur it? I git looked down on, an' a nigger's pertected
fur a-topperin' of me! But never mind, I'll be a big skull yet, an' keep
my kerrige--in Floredey."
"What's Floredey good fur?" Levin asked.
"It's full of nigger Injins, Simminoles, every one of 'em goin' to be
caught an' branded, an' put at cotton an' tobakker plantin', an' hog an'
cow herdin'.
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