They is children all their lives,
mebby, till some one minute of craziness may
strike one of them, and then he is a devil temporary.
Mebby, when the crazy fit has passed, some white
woman is worse off than if she was dead, or mebby
she IS dead, or mebby a loonatic fur life, and that
nigger is a candidate fur a lynching bee and ginerally
elected by an anonymous majority.
Not that ALL niggers is that-a-way, nor HALF of
'em, nor very MANY of 'em, even--but you can
never tell WHICH nigger is going to be. So in the
black belt the white folks is mighty pertic'ler who
comes along fooling with their niggers. Fur you
can never tell what turn a nigger's thoughts will
take, once anything at all stirs 'em up.
We didn't know them things then, Doctor Kirby
and me didn't. We didn't know we was moving
light-hearted right into the middle of the biggest
question that has ever been ast. Which I disre-
member exactly how that nigger question is worded,
but they is always asting it in the South, and an-
swering of it different ways. We hadn't no idea
how suspicious the white people in them awful
black spots on the map can get over any one that
comes along talking to their niggers. We didn't
know anything about niggers much, being both
from the North, except what Doctor Kirby had
counted on when he made his medicine, and THAT
he knowed second-handed from other people.
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