"Must er bin er flea bitin' me!"

"I felt sumfin. Don't 'zactly know what it wuz. Mebbe a chigger!"

"Must er been a flea. Hit bit me, too!"

Sam tried to redeem himself for failing on his lessons in arithmetic.
He had long ago learned to read and write and had asked for a course in
history. The young teacher had given him a copy of _Gulliver's Travels_.

"Look a here, Marse Rooney, I been a readin' dat book yer gimme--"

"Well, that's good."

"Yer say dat book's history?"

"Well, it's what we call fiction, but I think fiction's the very best
history we can read. It may not have happened just that way but it's
true all the same."

"Well, ef hit nebber happened, I dunno 'bout dat," Sam objected. "I been
suspicionin' fer a long time dat some o' dem things that Gulliver say
nebber happen nohow."

"You read it," the teacher ordered.

"Yassah, I sho gwine ter read it, happen er no happen. Glory be ter God.
Just 'cause yer tells me, sah!"