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“‘The laborer,’ Deacon Henzy,” sez I, solemn, “‘is worthy of his hire.’”

“Wall, didn’t I lay out to pay him? I laid out this very fall to get him a pair of pantaloons and a vest and a cravat. I laid out to pay him richly. And he had better a trusted to me, who have been a perfect father and gardeen to him, than to have riz up and demanded his pay. But,” sez he, “there is no use of talkin’ about it now, it only excites me and onmans me, and I come in merely to borry a augur and have a little neighborly visit.”

And then wantin’, I spoze, to take his mind offen his own troubles, he sort o’ launched off agin onto his favorite theme of runnin’ down the Southerners.

“The Southern people,” sez he, “are a mass of overbearin’, tyrannical slave-drivers, selfish, without principles or consciences, crackin’ their whips over the blacks, drivin’ ’em to work, refusin’ ’em any justice.”

“Why,” sez I, “the slaves are liberated, Deacon Henzy.”

“Wall, why be they?” sez he. “It wuzn’t from any good will on the part of the bloated aristocracy of the South. They liberated ’em because they had to. Why didn’t they free ’em because it wuz right to free ’em? because it wuz right and just to the slaves? because it wuz a wicked sin that cried up to the heavens to make ’em labor, and not pay ’em for it?”