But it certain
ar' a mighty easy way ter git wuk fer nothin', jes ter wait till
de crap's laid by an' den run a man off kase he happens ter go ter
a political meetin'! 'Pears like tain't _much_ more freedom
dan we hed in ole slave-times."
"Did it ebber'ccur ter you. Uncle Nimbus," said Berry, very
thoughtfully, "dat dis yer ting _freedom_ waz a durn curus
affair fer we cullud people, ennyhow?"
"Did it ever? Wal, now, I should tink it hed, an' hit 'ccurs ter
me now dat it's growin' quarer an' quarer ebbery day. Though I'se
had less on't ter bear an' puzzle over than a-most enny on ye,
dat I hez, I don't know whar it'll wuk out. 'Liab sez de Lord's a
doin' His own wuk in His own way, which I 'specs is true; but hit's
a big job, an' He's got a quare way ob gittin' at it, an' seems
ter be a-takin' His own time fer it, tu. Dat's my notion."
It was no doubt childish for these two simple-minded colored men
to take this gloomy view of their surroundings and their future.
They should have realized that the fact that their privileges were
insecure and their rights indefensible was their own misfortune,
perhaps even their fault. They should have remembered that the
susceptibilities of that race among whom their lot had been cast by
the compulsion of a strange providence, were such as to be greatly
irritated by anything like a manly and independent exercise of
rights by those who had been so long accounted merely a superior
sort of cattle.
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