Devil tales

The sunlight drifting through an avenue of live-oaks sifts dappled gold upon the well-known gig that has splashed through miles and miles of the waxy “buckshot” mud, and now win...

“Don’ yo’ ’Maumer’ me!” said the old woman, crossly. “What you come here ter me fur if hit hain’t ter fetch dem bobs ter Sairey? Hain’t I seed yo’ in de coals, ’way ’cross de fi...

Micajah was stung to the quick, and dwelt upon his sorrow. At a wedding he was in his own particular province, and everybody knew it—that was where it wounded. They had even inv...

Then Demetria shed tears, and more reproaches followed, and Marse Charles, cold even to the marrow’s centre from fear, let loose the devil’s little fly and threw the box upon th...

But the fancy grew, and so did the stories, when Jezrul asked that she might be brought from the field and taken on trial as a house-maid. When Madame demurred, Jezrul promised...

“Unc’ ’Jah workin’ yit, an’ bimeby de stranger ain’ kim ter see de gal no mo’; but er tarrypin foller her, an’ stay by her when she work, an’ listen when she talk, an’ hit ’ten’...

Through the long day Maumer sat and brooded, neglecting the toddlers who had strayed onto forbidden ground; and stirring the cradles roughly with her foot,—Old Maumer, who had b...

Daddy Mose had been counsellor, soothsayer, and leading exhorter to the whole of the dusky population of Piney ever since the close of the war. It was said that in emergencies t...

“So when Ole Miss an’ de white folks’ doctor des plum gib hit up, Unc’ Cæsar he limp up ter de Big House, wid his white head bare, an’ ax Ole Miss mout he work on ’Lish.