cake and ice-cream, offered a chance to the stranger to contribute
money for the benefit of the Presbyterian Church. I am afraid it was
not a profitable entertainment, for the men seemed to have business
elsewhere, but the ladies about the tables made charming groups in
the lighted grove. Man is a stupid animal at best, or he would not
make it so difficult for the womenkind to scrape together a little
money for charitable purposes. But probably the women like this
method of raising money better than the direct one.

The evening gayety of the town was well distributed. When we
descended to the Court-House Square, a great crowd had collected,
black, white, and yellow, about a high platform, upon which four
glaring torches lighted up the novel scene, and those who could read
might decipher this legend on a standard at the back of the stage:

HAPPY JOHN.
ONE OF THE SLAVES OF WADE HAMPTON.
COME AND SEE HIM!

Happy John, who occupied the platform with Mary, a "bright" yellow
girl, took the comical view of his race, which was greatly enjoyed by
his audience. His face was blackened to the proper color of the
stage-darky, and he wore a flaming suit of calico, the trousers and
coat striped longitudinally according to Punch's idea of "Uncle Sam,"
the coat a swallow-tail bound and faced with scarlet, and a
bell-crowned white hat. This conceit of a colored Yankee seemed to
tickle all colors in the audience amazingly. Mary, the "bright" woman
(this is the universal designation of the light mulatto), was a
pleasing but bold yellow girl, who wore a natty cap trimmed with
scarlet, and had the assured or pert manner of all traveling sawdust