ng more than a capital farm."

"So besser. _Dat_ good land, I tell you! One acre down dere wort' more
dan twenty acre up here."

"My grandson would not be pleased to hear you say that, Jaaf."

"Who your grandson, Miss Dus. Remember you hab little baby tudder day;
but baby can't hab baby."

"Ah, Jaaf, my old friend, my babies have long since been men and women,
and are drawing on to old age. One, and he was my first born, is gone
before us to a better world, and _his_ boy is now your young master.
This young lady, that is seated opposite to me, is the sister of that
young master, and she would be grieved to think you have forgotten her."

Jaaf laboured under the difficulty so common to old age; he was
forgetful of things of more recent date, while he remembered those which
had occurred a century ago! The memory is a tablet that partakes of the
peculiarity of all our opinions and habits. In youth it is easily
impressed, and the images then engraved on it are distinct, deep and
lasting, while those that succeed become crowded, and take less root,
from the circumstance of finding the ground already occupied. In the
present instance, the age was so great that the change was really
startling, the old negro's recollections occasionally coming on the mind
like a voice from the grave. As for the Indian, as I afterwards
ascertained, he was better preserved in all respects than the black; his
great temperance in youth, freedom from labour, exercise in the open
air, united to the comforts and abundance of semi-civilized habits, that
had now lasted for near a century, contributing to preserve both mind
and body. As I now looked at him, I remembered what I had heard in
boyhood of his history.

There had ever been a mystery about the life of the Onondago. If any one
of our set had ever been acquainted with the facts, it was Andries
Coejemans, a half-uncle of my dear grandmother, a person who has been
known among us by the _sobriquet_ of the Chainbearer. My grandmother had
told me that "uncle Chainbearer," as we all called the old relative,
_did_ know all about Susquesus, in his time--the reason why he had left
his tribe, and become a hunter, and warrior, and runner among the
pale-faces--and that he had always said the particulars did his red
friend great credit, but that he would reveal it no further. So great,
however, was uncle Chainbearer's reputation for integrity, that such an
opinion was sufficient to procure for the Onond