Some Southern merchants, from different points in Alabama and Georgia, were returning from New York, after making their purchases. They could not say too much about the kindness with which they had been met, and their disappointment at not finding the Yankees all eager to drink their blood for desert after dinner. But in a moment after such expressions they would break out into the most fearful and blasphemous invectives against some conspicuous Northerner, who had the misfortune to differ from them as to the best mode of re-establishing peace throughout the Rebel regions. These people have discovered that they must tolerate the opinions of others, but their intolerant spirits have not yet been sufficiently disciplined to it; and so it happens that sometimes, now, their utter impotence only serves to increase their malice. Must the poor negroes prove the vent for this rage that dare not reach to higher objects? Manifestly the negroes themselves have no faith in them. At one of the railroad eating-houses I happened to ask a fine looking old “uncle” what wages he received. “Twenty dollahs a month, sah; but I’se gwine to quit. ’Tain’t enuff, is it?” “O yes, uncle, if they give you twenty dollars a month and your boarding, you are getting fully as much as you would get at the best places in the North for this kind of work. In Richmond they are only getting fifteen dollars.” “You tink, den, sah, dat we oughtn’t fur to quit—dat when dey pay us twenty dollahs dey ain’t a cheatin’ us?” “By no means. Work straight ahead, and do the best you can, as long as you can get such wages.” “Well, den, sah, I’ll do as you say. I was afeared of dese men cheatin’ me, because I knowed dey would if dey could. But I’ll do jus as you say, sah. If you say wuck on, I’ll do it.” And three or four of the servants who had gathered about, nodded and grinned their approval of the old man’s conclusions. “That’s just the trouble,” exclaimed a young Alabamian, to whom, a few hours later, I was narrating the incident. “These fellows have all got to believe in the Yankees, and to think that we, who have always been their best friends, want to cheat them. It’s going to ruin the South. Five years hence, I firmly believe, the cotton-growing regions will be an utter waste, unless you Yankees, who don’t know anything about cotton growing, come in, learn it, and get the niggers to work for you. They won’t half work for us.” “Won’t a fair day’s wages, in the long run, be sure to bring a fair day’s work?” “No. I tell you, the nigger _never_ works except when he is compelled to. It isn’t in his nature, and you can’t put it in. He’ll work a day for you for good wages, and then will go off and spend it; and you’ll not get another lick out of him till he’s hungry, and has got nothing to eat.”