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LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY 135 |
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" What 's that ?" said the old gentleman, observing some of the company formed in a group around a large handbill.
" Nigger advertised! " said one of the company, briefly.
Mr. Wilson, for that was the old gentleman's name, rose up, and, after carefully adjusting his valise and umbrella, proceeded deliberately to take out his spectacles and fix them on his nose ; and this operation being performed, read as follows : —
" Ran away from the subscriber, my mulatto boy, George. Said George six feet in height, a very light mulatto, brown curly hair ; is very intelligent, speaks handsomely, can read and write; will probably try to pass for a white man; is deeply scarred on his back and shoulders ; has been branded in his right hand with the letter H.
" I will give four hundred dollars for him alive, and the same sum for satisfactory proof that he has been killed."
The old gentleman read this advertisement from end to end, in a low voice, as if he were studying it.
The long-legged veteran, who had been besieging the fire-iron, as before related, now took down his cumbrous length, and, rearing aloft his tall form, walked up to the advertisement, and very deliberately spit a full discharge of tobacco-juice on it.
" There 's my mind upon that! " said he, briefly, and sat down again.
" Why, now, stranger, what 's that for ?" said mine host.
" I 'd do it all the same to the writer of that ar paper, if he was here," said the long man, coolly resuming his old employment of cutting tobacco. "Any man that owns a boy like that, and can't find any better way o' treating him, deserves to lose him. Such papers as these is a shame to Kentucky; that 's my mind right out, if anybody wants to know! "
" Well, now, that 's a fact," said mine host, as he made an entry in his book. |
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