There was a deal of sly chuckling among the men; the women too, affected to make light of it, though some bridled up their turbaned heads and stared defiance across at the men. Not a hand, however, was raised; and as the preacher announced the result, the women laughed their oily gobble of a laugh. “Well, now, I’d like to have the women tell me about the men. Are they as good husbands as when they were slaves? Do you live as well in your houses? Do they work as well, and make you as comfortable?” There was a great giggling now; the ivories that were displayed would have driven a dentist to distraction, and many a stalwart black fellow, who had no notion of being a dentist, did seem to be distracted. But every woman’s hand was raised, and the good preacher proceeded to announce the result and moralize thereon. “Then,” he said, “I am asked, by our distinguished guest, to put a question that I’m afraid you’ll laugh at. You know your old masters always said you were much happier in a state of slavery than you would be in freedom, and a good many people at the North don’t know but it may be true. You’ve tried supporting yourselves now for some time, and a good many of you have found it pretty hard work sometimes. Now, I want as many of you as are tired of it, and would rather go back and have your old masters take care of you, to hold up your right hands.” It was fine to notice the start and frightened look, and then the sudden change that came over their faces. The preacher had warned them not to laugh, but they did not look as if they wanted to laugh. They were more disposed to get angry; and the “no, noes” were sufficiently emphatic to satisfy the most devoted adherents of the old system, who used to be constantly declaring that “the slaves were the happiest people on the face of the earth.” * * * * * But there remained a scene that showed how, if not anxious to return to their old masters, they were still sometimes glad to have their old masters return to them. Dr. Fuller rose to pronounce the benediction, and all reverently bowed their heads—the proud mothers and their hopeful children, likely plantation hands, gray-headed and gray-bearded patriarchs, like one who stood at my elbow, and, black though he was, looked so like the busts we have of Homer, that I could hardly realize him to be merely a “worn-out nigger”—bowed all together before God, the freedmen and the Major-Generals, the turbaned young women from the plantations, and the flower of Northern schools and society, the woolly-headed urchins, who could just remember that they once “b’longed to” somebody, and the Chief Justice of the United States.