Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/191

 contraptions. An' they knows I knows it." She paused and lifted a long, black finger.

"They fools Miss Betty, an' they fools you, Mars Ran, but they don't fool Mammy Liza."

She replaced her hands together primly in the lap of her silk dress and continued in a confidential tone.

"'Course we knows niggers steals, but they steals eatables, an' nobody pays any 'tention to that. Your Grandpap never did, nor your pap, nor us. You can't be too hard on niggers, jist as you can't be too easy on 'em. If you's too hard, they gits down in the mouth, an' if you's too easy they takes the place. A down in the mouth nigger is always a wuthless nigger, an' a biggity nigger is a 'bomination!"

She paused a moment, but she had entered upon her discourse, and she continued.

"I ain't specifyin' but what there's some on this place that would b'ar watchin', an' I's had my eye on 'em; but they's like the unthinking horse, they'd slip a fril-fral outen the kitchen, or a side of bacon outen the smoke-house, but they wouldn't do none of your gran' stealin'.

"No, sah! No, sah! Mars Ran, them jules wasn't took by nobody in this house."

She paused and reflected, and her face filled with the energy of battle.

"I'd jist like to see a nigger tech a whip-stitch that belongs to my chile. I'd shore peel the hide 178