“But,” sez I, “you have told me that your little girl always sleeps with her colored nurse, and you did with yours when you wuz a child. And,” sez I, “that seems to me about as intimate as anybody can get, to sleep in the same bed; and when both are a layin’ down, they seem to be pretty much on a equality—that is,” sez I, reasonable, “if their pillers are of the same height and bigness.” And I resoomed—“I never hearn of any white teacher bein’ in that state of equality with the colored people,” sez I; “they are a laborin’ for their souls and minds mostly, and you can’t seem to get on such intimate terms with them, if you try, as you can with bodies.” Miss Stanwood tosted her head fearful high at this, and didn’t seem impressed by the depth and solidity of my argument no more than if it had been a whiff of wind from a alkelie desert. It wuz offensive to her. And she never seemed to care about conversin’ with me on them topics agin. But I wuz dretful polite to her, and shouldn’t have said this if she hadn’t opened the subject. But from all my observations, I see the Southerners felt pretty much alike on this subject, they wuz about unanimous on it—though, as there always must be everywhere, there wuz a few that thought different. There must be a little salt scattered everywhere, else how could the old earth get salted? But I couldn’t bear to hear too much skairful talk from Southerners about the two races bein’ intimate with each other. I couldn’t bear to hear too many forebodin’s on the subject, for I know and everybody knows that ever sence slavery existed the two races had been about as intimate with each other as they could be—in some ways; and the white man to blame for it, in most every case. And I couldn’t seem to think the Bible and the spellin’ book wuz a goin’ to add any dangerous features to the case; no, indeed. I know it wuz goin’ to be exactly the reverse and opposite. But as interestin’ as the white folks wuz to me to behold and observe down in them Southern States, the colored people themselves wuz still more of a curiosity to me. To me, who had always lived up North and had never neighbored with anybody darker complexioned than myself (my complexion is good, only some tanned)—it wuz a constant source of interest and instruction to me “to look about and find out,” as the poet has so well remarked. And I see, as I took my notes, that Victor and Genieve wuz no more to be compared with the rest of the race about them than a eagle and a white dove wuz to be compared with ground birds. These two seemed to be the very blossoms of the crushed vine of black humanity, pure high blossoms lifted up above the trompled stalks and tendrils of the bruised and bleeding vine that had so long run along the ground all over the South land, for any foot to stamp on, for every bad influence of earth and sky to centre on and debase. (That hain’t a over and above good metafor; but I’ll let it go, bein’ I am in some of a hurry.)