"Now, gentlemen, thet quarrelsome, oneasy, ongrateful, tobaccer-chawin', hoss-racin', high-bettin', big-braggin', nigger-stealin', wimmin-whippin', yaller son of the devil, is South Car'lina, and ef she doant come back and behave herself in futur', I'm d----d ef she wont be ploughed with fire, and sowed with salt, and Andy Jones will help ter do it."
The speaker was frequently interrupted in the course of his remarks by uproarious applause--but as he closed and descended from the platform, the crowd sent up cheer after cheer, and a dozen strong men, making a seat of their arms, lifted him from the ground and bore him off to the head of the table, where dinner was in waiting.
The whole of the large assemblage then fell to eating. The dinner was made up of the barbacued beef and the usual mixture of viands found on a planter's table, with water from the little brook hard by, and a plentiful supply of corn-whiskey. (The latter beverage had, I thought, been subjected to the rite of immersion, for it tasted wonderfully of water.)
Songs and speeches were intermingled with the masticating exercises, and the whole company was soon in the best of humor.
During the meal I was introduced by Andy to a large number of the "natives," he taking special pains to tell each one that I was a Yankee, and a Union man, but always adding, as if to conciliate all parties, that I also was a guest and a friend of _his_ very particular friend, "thet d----d seceshener, Cunnel J----."
Before we left the table, the secession orator happening near where we were seated, Andy rose from his seat, and, extending his hand to him, said: "Tom, you think I 'sulted you; p'r'aps I did, but you 'sulted my Yankee friend har, and your own relation, and I hed to take it up, jest for the looks o' the thing. Come, there's my hand; I'll fight you ef you want ter, or we'll say no more 'bout it--jest as you like."
"Say no more about it, Andy," said the gentleman, very cordially; "let's drink and be friends."
They drank a glass of whiskey together, and then leaving the table, proceeded to where the ox had been barbacued, to show me how cooking on a large scale is done at the South.
In a pit about eight feet deep, twenty feet long, and ten feet wide, laid up on the sides with stones, a fire of hickory had been made, over which, after the wood had burned down to coals, a whole ox, divested of its hide and entrails, had been suspended on an enormous spit. Being turned often in the process of cooking, the beef had finally been "done brown." It was then cut up and served on the table, and I must say, for the credit of Southern cookery, that it made as delicious eating as any meat I ever tasted.