198 A FLORIDA SHRINE. 
everything heavenly. The younger set of 
negroes (“my people” was his word) were 
on the wrong road. They had “sold their 
birthright,” though exactly what he meant 
by that remark I did not gather. ‘ They 
ain’t got no sense,” he declared, “and what 
sense they has got don’t do ’em no good.” 
I told him finally that I was from the 
North. “Oh, I knows it,” he exclaimed, “ I 
knows it;” and he beamed with delight. 
How did he know, I inquired. “Oh, I 
knows it. I can see it in you. Anybody 
would know it that had any jedgment at all. 
You’s a perfect gentleman, sah.” He was 
too old to be quarreled with, and I swal- 
lowed the compliment. 
I tore myself away, or he might have run 
on till night — about his old master and mis- 
tress, the division of the estate, an abusive 
overseer (“ he was a perfect dog, sah! ””), and 
sundry other things. He had lived a long 
time, and had nothing to do now but to re- 
call the past and tell it over. So it will be 
with us, if we live so long. May we find 
once in a while a patient listener. 
This patriarch’s unfavorable opinion as to 
the prospects of the colored people was 
