Mamma says I may tell you two funny stories, because they are true:
There are two old colored people living at Fort L., near the
school-house. Their names are Toby and Isabel. Toby keeps the
school-house clean, but Isabel is so old and fat that she can not
work much. One day my aunt met her on the road, and asked her where
she had been. She said, "Oh, I've been helpin' Tobe in de school."
"Why, you can't help him sweep, can you?" said auntie. "No; but
Tobe he make so much dust when he sweep, an' it make him cough so,
I t'ought I would go an' stand by him, so some of de dust would go
down my froat, an' den Tobe wouldn't get so much on his lungs to
make him cough so."
My sister teaches a school in the country, and one of her pupils is
a little colored boy by the name of Nick. The other day he came
into the room, crying bitterly, and said, "Teacher, the boys are
all the time calling me names." She said, "What do they call you?"
"They call me Nicholas, and that isn't my name; it's Nicky."