altimore, and told 'em they would
be beat an' their gineral killed. He's made the oystermen all round yer
jine the island churches an' keep Sunday. That stutterin' leaves him
when he preaches, and when he leads the shout in meetin' it's piercin'
as a horn."

"He's a bloody Romany rogue," Joe Johnson muttered, "to tell me such a
tale! But, kirjalis! he cursed not me!"

"What language is that, Mr. Johnson? Is it Dutch or Porteygee?"

"It's what we call the gypsy; some calls it the Quaker. It's convenient,
Levin, when you go to Philadelfey, or Washinton, or New York, or some o'
them big cities, an' wants to talk to men of enterprise without the
quails a-pipin' of you. Some day I'll larn it to you if you're a good
boy."

They now sailed out of the thoroughfare into the broad mouth of the
Manokin, where a calm fell upon air and water for a little while, and
they could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water,
beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface around
them, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth of
a creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, and
with the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a few
dips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wild
plums still adhered to the bushes, and the stiff-branched
persimmon-trees bore thousands of their tomato-like fruit. The
partridges were chirping in the corn, the crow blackbirds held a funeral
feast around the fodder, some old-time bayside mansions stretched their
long sides and speckled negro quarters along the inlets, half hidden by
the nut-trees, and in the air soared the turkey-buzzard, like a
voluptuary politician, taking beauty from nothing but his lofty station.

"The ole Eastern Sho'," Jack Wonnell said, with his animated vacancy,
"is jess stuffed with good things, Cap'n Johnsin. You kin fall ovaboard
most anywhair an' git a full meal. You kin catch a bucket of crabs with
a piece of a candle befo' breakfast, an' shoot a wild-duck mos' with
your eyes shet."

"This country's good for nothin'," Joe Johnson said. "Floredey is the
land! Wot kin a nigger earn for yer? Corn, taters, melons: faugh!
Tobacco is a givin' out, cotton won't live yer. But Floredey is the
hell-dorader of the yearth."

"What's the hell-dorader?" asked Levin.

"That's Spanish or Porteygee for cheap niggers an' cotton," cried the
trader. "Cotton's the bird!"

"I thoug