'But I'm more than _half_ dead just now.'

'Ah,' replied the woman, still laughing, 'yer a chicken.'

'A chicken! what's that?'

'A thing that goes on tu legs, and karkles,' was the ready reply.

'Ah, my dear madam, you can out-talk me.'

'Yes, I reckon I kin outrun ye, tu. Ye ain't over rugged.' Then, after a
pause, she added,--'What d'ye 'lect that darky Linkum for President
for?'

'I didn't elect him. _I_ voted for Douglass. But Lincoln is not a
darky.'

'He's a mullater, then; I've heern he war,' she replied.

'No, he's not a mulatto; he's a rail-splitter.'

'Rail-splitter? _Then he's a nigger, shore_.'

'No, madam; white men at the North split rails.'

'An' white wimmin tu, p'raps,' said the woman, with a contemptuous toss
of the head.

'No, they don't,' I replied,' but white women _work_ there.'

'White wimmin work thar!' chimed in the hitherto speechless beauty,
showing a set of teeth of the exact color of her skin,--_yaller_. 'What
du the' du?'

'Some of them attend in stores, some set type, some teach school, and
some work in factories.'

'Du tell! Dress nice, and make money?'

'Yes,' I replied, 'they make money, and dress like fine ladies; in fact,
_are_ fine ladies. I know one young woman, of about your age, that had
to get her own education, who earns a thousand dollars a year by
teaching, and I've heard of many factory-girls who support their
parents, and lay up a great deal of money, by working in the mills.'

'Wal!' replied the young woman, with a contemptuous curl of her
matchless upper lip; 'schule-marms ain't fine ladies; fine ladies don't
work; only niggers does that _har_. I reckon I'd ruther be 'spectable
than work for a livin'.'

I could but think how magnificently the lips of some of our glorious
Yankee girls would have curled had they heard that remark, and seen the
poor girl that made it, with her torn, worn, greasy dress; her bare,
dirty legs and feet, and her arms, neck, and face so thickly encrusted
with a layer of clayey mud that there was danger of hydrophobia if she
went near a wash-tub. Restraining my involuntary disgust, I replied,--

'We at the North think work is respectable. We do not look down on a
man or a woman for earning their daily bread. We all work.'

'Yas, and that's the why ye'r all sech cowards,' said the old woman.

'Cowards!' I said; 'who tells you that?'

'My old man; he says one on our _boys_ can lick five of your Yankee
_men_.'

'Perhaps s