“But as I have said prior and heretofore, if the colored people have done so well in the last twenty-five years, in spite of all the burdens and hindrances of race prejudice and the weights that unjust laws impose on ’em, by the hatred and envy of them that can’t bear to see their prosperity—if they have done so well in the chill and the dark, as you may say, what can’t they do when they come out in the light and the warmth of a place where sure rewards wait upon honest labor—where the atmosphere is helpful, and inspirin’, and hopeful, instead of icy, and draggin’ down, and chokin’, and stiflin’. “Where their color is fashionable, and not a badge of disgrace. “Where their rulers will be them that love ’em and seek their best good, their own people, their peers, only wiser and more helpful than they be—as the Declaration of Independence sez free men must be, in a free land, judged by their peers, their equals. “Where there will not be dishonest members of an alien and dominant race to step in and steal their first poor earnings in the name of law or might, or both. “Where their daughters, if beautiful, will be free from their ruler’s lust, and their small possessions safe from his avarice. “If in the last quarter of a century in this persecuted, hampered state they have been able to accumulate, in one of the worst States of the Union for them, six million dollars’ worth of property, what can they do in the next twenty years, when their labor and their persons will be protected by the law, and they will be encouraged by wise advice, and their intellects and reason enriched and broadened by education and means of culture?” Genieve’s dark, beautiful eyes jest brightened and glowed as I talked; she fairly hung onto my words, as I could see. “But,” sez Col. Seybert, “they don’t want to go.” Thomas J. leaned back in his chair in deep enjoyment of his Ma’s talk, as I could see plain; and he says to Col. Seybert: “How do you know they don’t want to go?” [Illustration: “SET DOWN IN OUR SWAMP.”] “Because I do know it,” sez he. “They say they are not Africans now, but Americans; they have a right here; they have just as good right here now as we have.” “Wall, I don’t dispute that idee,” sez I. “I have got a right to go and set down in our swamp and set there; but I should be dretful apt to get all covered with mud and mire, I couldn’t see nuthin’ but dirt and slosh; the bad, nasty air would make me deathly sick, to say nuthin’ of my bein’ bit to death by muskeeters and run over by snakes and toads, etc. “It hain’t a question of right—nobody could dispute that I would have a right to stay there if I wuz a minter; but the question is, would it be as well for me as it would to move up on the higher ground out of the filth, and darkness, and sickly, deathly air and influences, etc., etc., etc.?”