"'Ya-as,' he said hesitatingly, as if he thought the result hardly worth the trouble; for which opinion I hardly blame him, considering the nature of a great many white men of this country. 'But it am right hard work, Cap'm.'--Here he chuckled causelessly and absurdly.--'Sometimes I thinks I'd like to come and do chores for you, Cap'm.' "'Oh no,' I remonstrated. 'Don't think of giving up your respectable and profitable industry. I couldn't afford to pay you more than ten dollars a month." Here he laughed in his obstropolous and irrational fashion, signifying thereby, I think, that he was embarrassed by my arguments. "Well, I kinder likes dem terms," he said. "'Pears like I wants to have a good time better'n to have a heap o' money." "And so here he is with me, having a good time, and getting more money than he deserves. Now when you have freed with your own right hand as many of these lazy bumpkins as I have, you will feel at liberty to speak of them with the same disrespectful levity. Wendell Phillips says that the negro is the only man in America who can afford to fold his arms and quietly await his future. That is just what the critter is doing, and just what puts me out of patience with him. Moreover, he can't afford it; if he doesn't fall to work pretty soon, we shall cease to be negrophilists; we shall kick him out of doors and get in somebody who is not satisfied with folding his arms and waiting his future." "He is too impatient," said the Doctor, after he had finished reading the letter to Lillie. "Just like all young people--and some old ones. God has chosen to allow himself a hundred years to free the negro. We must not grumble if He chooses to use up a hundred more in civilizing him. I can answer that letter, to my own satisfaction. What right has Captain Colburne to demand roses or potatoes of land which has been sown for centuries with nothing but thistles? We ought to be thankful if it merely lies barren for a while." CHAPTER XX. CAPTAIN COLBURNE MARCHES AND FIGHTS WITH CREDIT.