"if anybody asks you
what you be, an' speshul if any of them Yankees asks you, you tell
'em that you're Union, but you remember you're secesh."
"'The Sterett fam'ly, ondoubted, is the smartest fam'ly in the
South. My brother Jeff, who is five years older than me, gives
proofs of this, partic'lar. It's Jeff who invents that enterprise in
fishin', which for idleness, profit an' pastime, ain't never been
equalled since the flood, called "Juggin' for Cats." It's Jeff, too,
once when he ups an' jines the church, an' is tharafter preyed on
with the fact that the church owes two hundred dollars, and that it
looks like nobody cares a two-bit piece about it except jest him,
who hires a merry-go-round--one of these yere contraptions with
wooden hosses, an' a hewgag playin' toones in the center--from
Cincinnati, sets her up on the Green in front of the church, makes
the ante ten cents, an' pays off the church debt in two months with
the revenoos tharof.
"'As I sits yere, a relatin' of them exploits,' an' Colonel Sterett
tips the canteen for another hooker, 'as I sits yere, gents, all
free an' sociable with what's, bar none, the finest body of gents
that ever yanks a cork or drains a bottle, I've seen the nobility of
Kaintucky--the Bloo Grass Vere-de-Veres--ride up on a blood hoss,
hitch the critter to the fence, an' throw away a fortune buckin'
Jeff's merry-go-round with them wooden steeds.
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