Wut doos Secedin' mean, ef 't ain't thet natʼrul rights hez riz, 'n'

Thet wut is mine 's my own, but wut 's another man's ain't his'n?

Besides, I could n't do no else; Miss S. suz she

to me,

"You've sheered my bed," [thet 's when I paid my interduction fee

To Southun rites,]"an' kep' your sheer," [wal, I allow it sticked

So 's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,]

"Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun't do no harm,

Pervidin' thet you'll ondertake to oversee the

farm ;

(My eldes' boy is so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers

An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for welcomin' o' strangers ;")

[He sot on me ;] "an' so, ef you 'll jest ondertake the care

Upon a mod'rit sellery, we 'll up an' call it

square;

But ef you can't conclude," suz she, an' give a kin' o' grin,

"Wy, the Gran' Jurymen, I 'xpect, 'll hev to set

agin."

Thet's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du,

But jes' to make the best on 't an' off coat an' buckle tu?

Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an income necessarier

Than me, bimeby I'll tell ye how I fin❜lly come to merry her.

She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here

T'encourage lads thet 's growin' up to study 'n'

persevere,

An' show 'em how much better 't pays to mind their winter-schoolin'

Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' waste their time in foolin';

Ef 't warn't for studyin' evenins, why, I never 'd

ha' been here

An orn'ment o' saciety, in my approprut spear: She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' culti

vation,

To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation;

For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, onless it is by jarks,

Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' origenle patriarchs;

To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higher

archy,

All thet you've gut to know is jes' beyund an evrage darky;

Schoolin''s wut they can't seem to stan', they 're tu consarned high-pressure,

An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for bein' a Secesher.

We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes;

The min'ster's only settlement's the carpet-bag he packs his

Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hymbook an' his Bible,

But they du preach, I swan to man, it 's puf'kly indescrib'le!

They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss-power coleric ingine,

An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he 's used to singein';

Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the inards

To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot o' tough old sinhards!

But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un;

I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun:

I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle

law in

To Cynthy's hide: an' so, till death,

Yourn,

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

No. II.

MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE

IDYLL.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

GENTLEMEN,

JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862.

I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New-Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the excellent essay upon "Old Age," the author of which I cannot help suspecting to be a

young man who has never yet known what it was to have snow (canities morosa) upon his own roof. Dissolve frigus, large super foco ligna reponens, is a rule for the young, whose wood-pile is yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the best thing to keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this: that we attach a less inordinate value to our own productions, and, distrusting daily more and more our own wisdom (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment), do reconcile ourselves with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon Tinkham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the part of the public (as I have reason to know from several letters of inquiry already received), but would also, as I think, have largely increased the circulation of your magazine in this town. Nihil humani