Aleck, a former slave of Colonel Seymour, but whose rebellion to the slightest authority had latterly been shown by expressions cruel and insulting, and who affected a social equality with the carpet-baggers, halloed over the picket fence in the small hours of the night, to Johua, who was now eighty years of age: "Hay, dar, yu franksized woter! hez yu heerd de news, ur is yu pine plank ceasded? Hay, dar, Joshaway! De bero man is dun und riv wid de munny, und he lows dat he is ergwine ter penshun off de ole isshu niggers fust." "Aye, aye!" exclaimed Joshua, almost mechanically, as he aroused himself with an effort, and rubbed the sleep out of his dimmed eyes, "Don't you heer dat, Hanner?" he asked his old wife. "Ergwine to penshun off de ole isshu niggers fust! Grate Jarryko! Who dat er woicin' dat hebbenly pocklermashun outen dar in de shank o' de night? Haint dat yu, brudder Wiggins?" "Yaw," Aleck replied, "dis is me, sho. De bero man hez dun und sont me to norate dis pocklermashun to you und Ned." "Grate Jarryko!" exclaimed Joshua, again excitedly. "Hanner," he continued, "ef yu ever seed a cricket hop spry 'pon de hath, jess watch dis heer ole isshu jump inter his gyarments." As the negro was groping about in the dark for his ragged clothes he said half parenthetically, "Dat dare voice fetches to my membrunce de scriptur agen, whay hit says "Fling yo bred into de warter und hit is ergwine to cum out a ho cake." Yu is er shoutin', sliding-baccurd mefodis Hanner und don't pin yo fafe to providence but to grace, und grace is ergwine to keep you perpendikkler in Filadelfy meeting-house, but hit haint ergwine to fetch no horg meat nur taters nudder, dis side of de crick. Hit wur providence dat fotched dat bero man into de souf-land wid de munny to de ole lams of de flock. Don't yu see?" "I sez ole lams," snapped Hannah; "ef day wuz de onliest wuns gwine to be penshunned off, yu'd be stark nekked as er buzzard, kase yu is dun un backslewed wusser dan a scaly horg." "Grate Jarryko!" ejaculated Joshua, "How's a mishunnary ergwine to back slew, tell me dat? Kase you jined Filadelfy church, you haint got all de liggion in de world. Dare's Zion und dare's Massedony und dare's de baptizin crick und den dares fafe und providence. Don't you see Hannah? I'm ergwine to ax yu enudder pint rite dare," continued Joshua. "Who dat way back yander in the dissart, dat de good Lord fed wid ravens, when de rashuns gin out? Pend upon it, dat woice out yander imitates de woice of the proffit Heckerlijer, dat flung his leg outen jint, er tusselling wid de harkangel." "Twant Heckerlijer" answered Hannah sharply, as she threw a splinter of lightwood upon the embers. "Yu's allus a mysterfying de scriptures when yu's er spashiatin erbout dem proffets; yu haint never heerd no such a passage as dat from de circus rider, nur de slidin elder nudder; ef dat cum outer de scriptur, hits by und 'twixt de misshunaries, und day is fell frum grace same as yu."