When the war came, Phil was a stanch Southerner in all his feeling, and firmly held to his faith in the success of his side, even to the end. The end crushed him completely. When his master explained to the colored people their new condition of freedom, and proposed to engage them for wages, Phil stoutly refused. “De odder folks may do as dey pleases, mastah, but Phil’s gwine to be your nigga jes’ as he always was. I ain’t gwine to be free nohow. I ain’t got no free nigga blood in me. I never saw no free nigga what wasn’t hungry; an’ I don’t know no free nigga what _won’t steal_; more’n dat, I never know’d a free nigga what wouldn’t sneak up on birds an’ _shoot ’em on de groun’_. I tell you, I ain’t gwine to be no sich folks as dem. Ise your nigga, an’ Ise gwine to be jes’ dat. I’ll do my wuk, an’ I ain’t goin’ to take no wages, an’ you’ll take car’ o’ me jes’ as you always did, on’y don’t never call me no free nigga. Ise a slave, I is, an’ Ise got de bes’ mastah in ole Virginy, an’ I ain’t fool ’nough to want to change de sitiwation.” His master explained to him the necessity of the case, and showed him how impossible it was, by any mutual agreement, to alter the fact of freedom, or to escape its consequences. “You must accept wages, Phil, for I may die or go into bankruptcy, and you may grow old or get ill; and if I should be poor or dead, then there would be nobody to take care of you. You must work for wages and take care of your money, so that it may take care of you.” “Mastah, do you mean to tell Phil dat de law makes me a free nigga whedder or no?” “Yes, Phil.” “Den stick yo’ fingers in yo’ years, mastah, ’cause Ise gwine to swear. _Damn_ de law. Dat’s what I say about dat. An’ now Ise jus’ gwine to die, an’ dat’s all about it.” The poor fellow walked away with bowed head and tear-stained face. The broad, stalwart shoulders were bent beneath the weight of responsibility for himself. He was a strong man, physically, but the merest child in character, and the feeling that he no longer had any one but himself to lean upon, was more than he could bear. The light of cheerfulness and good humor went out of his face. The joyousness of his nature disappeared, and before the summer had ripened into autumn, poor Phil lay down and died of a broken heart. OLD TIMES IN MIDDLE GEORGIA. BY RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. Cloth. 12mo. Price, $1.50. “This is a collection of short stories: they are human nature, genial, graceful, and truthful, and are simply beautiful pictures of a real life and full of interest. The reader who dips into one of these stories does not want to lay aside the book until it is completed.”--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago. “We predict for Mr. Johnston’s book a popularity hardly equalled by any Southern production of recent years.”--_The Herald_, Augusta, Me. “The book will please all readers who love quaint humor and true pathos and a good literary style.”--_The News_, Tacoma, Wash.