Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

CORN-PONE OPINIONS

(Written in I900)
FIFTY years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen
and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on
the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose
society was very dear to me because I was forbidden
by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and
impudent and satirical and delightful young black
man-a slave-who daily preached sermons from
the top of his master's woodpile, with me for sole
audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several
clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with
fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I
believed he was the greatest orator in the United
States and would some day be heard from. But
it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he
was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.
He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to
saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense
-he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the
sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way
through the wood. But it served its purpose; it
kept his master from coming out to see how the
work was getting along. I listened to the sermons
from the open window of a lumber room at the back
of the house. One of his texts was this:
"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en
I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."
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