"Yes sah," answered with a reverential bow the Major. "But the butt that we has is mighty dry." "But there is the bayou, close by." "Yes sah, so 'tis," assented the Major, with another bow. "I guess I'll think of that nex' time." "But what are you all about?" asked the Doctor. "I understood that you were all to be up and ready for work by this time." "I tole the boys so," said the Major in a tone of indignant virtue. "I tole 'em every one to be up an' about right smart this mornin'. I tole 'em this was the fust mornin' an' they orter be up right smart, cos everythin' 'pended on how we took a start. 'Pears like they didn't mine much about it some of 'em." "I'm afraid you didn't set them an example, Scott. Have you had your breakfast?" "No sah. 'Pears like the ole woman couldn't fetch nothin' to pass this mornin'." "Well, Scott, you must set them an example, if you want to influence them. Never enjoin any duty upon a man without setting him an example." "Yes sah; that's the true way," coincided the unabashed Major. "That's the way Abraham an' Isaac an' Jacob went at it," he added, turning his large eyes upward with a sanctimoniousness of effect which, most men could not have equalled without the aid of lifted hands, tonsures and priestly gowns. "An' they was God's 'ticlar child'n, an 'lightened by his holy sperrit." The Doctor studied him for a moment with the interest of a philosopher in a moral curiosity, and said to himself, rather sadly, that a monkey or a parrot might be educated to very nearly the same show of piety. "Are all the people here?" he inquired, reverting from a consideration of the spiritual harvest to matters connected with temporal agriculture. "No sah. I'se feared not. Tom an' Jim is gone fo' suah. Tom he went off las' night down to the fote. 'Pears like he's foun' a gal down thar that he's a co'ting. Then Jim;--don' know whar Jim is nohow. Mighty poor mean nigger he is, I specs. Sort o' no 'count nigger." "Is he?" said the Doctor, eyeing Scott with a suspicious air, as if considering the possibility that he too might be a negro of no account. "I must have a talk with these people. Get them all together, every man, woman and pickaninny." The Major's face was radiant at the prospect of a speech, a scene, a spectacle, an excitement. He went at his subordinates with a will, dragging them out of their slumbers by the heels, jerking the little ones along by the shoulder, and shouting in a grand bass voice, "Come, start 'long! Pile out! Git away frum hyer. Mars Ravenel gwine to make a speech." In a few minutes he had them drawn up in two ranks, men in front, women in the rear, tallest on the right, younglings on the left. "I knows how to form 'em," he said with a broad smile of satisfied vanity. "I used to c'mand a comp'ny under Gineral Phelps. I was head boss of his cullud 'campment. He fus' give me the title of Major."