I can't stay behind!
Dere's room enough, room enough,
Room enough in de heaven for de sojer:
Can't stay behind!"

It always excites them to have us looking on, yet they sing these songs
at all times and seasons. I have heard this very song dimly droning on
near midnight, and, tracing it into the recesses of a cook-house, have
found an old fellow coiled away among the pots and provisions, chanting
away with his "Can't stay behind, sinner," till I made him leave his
song behind.

This evening, after working themselves up to the highest pitch, a
party suddenly rushed off, got a barrel, and mounted some man upon it,
who said, "Gib anoder song, boys, and I'se gib you a speech." After
some hesitation and sundry shouts of "Rise de sing, somebody," and
"Stan' up for Jesus, brud-der," irreverently put in by the juveniles,
they got upon the John Brown song, always a favorite, adding a
jubilant verse which I had never before heard,--"We'll beat Beauregard
on de clare battlefield." Then came the promised speech, and then no
less than seven other speeches by as many men, on a variety of
barrels, each orator being affectionately tugged to the pedestal and
set on end by his specal constituency. Every speech was good, without
exception; with the queerest oddities of phrase and pronunciation,
there was an invariable enthusiasm, a pungency of statement, and an
understanding of the points at issue, which made them all rather
thrilling. Those long-winded slaves in "Among the Pines" seemed rather
fictitious and literary in comparison. The most eloquent, perhaps, was
Corporal Price Lambkin, just arrived from Fernandina, who evidently
had a previous reputation among them. His historical references were