Part 24 (1/2)

”Yo' servant, Miss Sajane, Miss Lena; yo' servant, Mahstah,” he said with a bow to each. ”I done come pay my respects to the family what got back. I'm powerful glad to heah they got safe ovah that ocean.”

”Oh, yes; you're very thankful when you wait two whole weeks before you come around to say 'howdy.' Have you moved so far into the swamp you can't even hear when the family comes home? Sit down, you're tired likely. Tell us all the news from your alligator pasture.”

”My king! Miss Lena, you jest the same tant'lizin' little lady. Yo'

growen' up don't make you outgrow nothen' but yo' clothes. My 'gatah pasture? I show yo' my little patch some o' these days--show yo' what kind 'gatahs pasture theah; why, why, I got 'nigh as many hogs as Mahs Matt has n.i.g.g.ahs these days.”

”Yes, and he hasn't so many as he did have,” remarked Mrs. Nesbitt, significantly. ”You know anything about where Scip and Aleck are gone?”

”Who--me? Miss Sajane? You think I keep time on all the runaway boys these days? They too many for me. It sutenly do beat all how they scatter. Yo' all hear tell how one o' Cynthy's boys done run away, too? Suah as I tell you--that second boy, Steve! Ole Mahs Masterson got him dogs out fo' him--tain't no use; nevah touched the track once.

He'll nevah stop runnen' till he reach the Nawth an' freeze to death.

I alles tole Cynthy that Steve boy a bawn fool.”

”Do you mean your son Steve, or your grandson?” queried Mrs. Nesbitt.

”No'm, 'taint little Steve; his mammy got too much sense to let him go; but that gal, Cynthy--humph!” and his disdain of her perceptive powers was very apparent.

”But, Uncle Nelse, just remember Aunt Cynthy must be upwards of seventy. Steve is fifty if he is a day. How do you suppose she could control him, even if she knew of his intention, which is doubtful.”

”She nevah would trounce that rascal, even in his youngest days,”

a.s.serted Nelse, earnestly; ”and as the 'bush is bent the tree's declined.' I use to kote that scripper to her many's the day, but how much good it do to plant cotton seed on stony groun' or sow rice on the high lan'? Jes' that much good scripper words done Cynthy, an' no more.”

His tone betrayed a sorrowful but impersonal regret over the refractory Cynthia, and their joint offspring. Evilena laughed.

”Where did you get so well acquainted with the scripture, Nelse?” she asked. ”I know you never did learn it from your beloved old Mahs Duke Loring. I want you to tell this gentleman all about the old racing days. This is Dr. Delaven (Nelse made a profound bow). He has seen great races abroad and hunted foxes in Ireland. I want you to tell him of the bear hunts, and the horses you used to ride, and how you rode for freedom. The race was so important, Dr. Delaven, that Marmaduke Loring promised Nelse his freedom if he won it, and he had been offered three thousand, five hundred dollars for Nelse, more than once.”

”Nevah was worth as much to myself as I was to Mahs Duke,” said Nelse, shaking his head. ”I tell yo' true, freedom was a sure enough hoodoo, far as I was concerned; nevah seemed to get so much out o' the horses after I was my own man; nevah seemed to see so much money as I owned befo', an' every plum thing I 'vested in was a failure from the start; there was that gal o' Mahs Masterson's--that there Cynthy--”

The old man's garrulity was checked by the noiseless entrance of Margeret. He gave a distinct start as he saw her.

”I--I s'lute yo', Miss Retta,” he said, sweeping his cap along the floor and bowing from where he sat. She glanced at him, bent her head slightly in acknowledgment, but did not address him.

”Miss Loring asks to see you in the dining room, Mistress Nesbitt,”

she said softly; then drawing a blind where the sun was too glaring, and opening another that the breeze might be more apparent, she pa.s.sed silently out.

The old man never spoke until she disappeared.

”My king!--she get mo' ghost-like every yeah, that Retta,” he said, while Evilena gathered up the ball of stocking yard and wound it for Mrs. Nesbitt; ”only the eyes o' that woman would tell a body who she is, these days; seems like the very shape o' her face been changed sence she--”

”Nelse,” said Mrs. Nesbitt, a trifle sharply, ”whatever you do you are not to let Mr. Loring know about those runaways; maybe you better keep out of his sight altogether this visit, for he's sure to ask questions about everything, and the doctor's orders are that he is not to see folks or have any business talks--you understand? and nothing ever does excite him so much as a runaway.”

”Oh, yes, Miss Sajane, I un'stan'; I'll keep out. Hearen' how things was I jes' come down to see if Miss Gertrude needs any mo' help looken' after them field n.i.g.g.ahs. They nevah run away from _me_.”

”Well”--and she halted doubtfully at the door--”I'll tell her. And if you want Dr. Delaven to hear about the old racing days, honey, hadn't you better take him into the library where the portraits are? I'm a trifle uneasy lest Mr. Loring should take a notion to come in here.

Since he's commenced to walk a little he is likely to appear anywhere but in the library. He never does seem to like the library corner.”

Delaven glanced at the library walls as the three advanced thereto--walls paneled in natural cedar, and hung with large gilt frames here and there between the cases of books. ”I should think any man would like a room like this,” he remarked, ”especially when it holds one's own family portraits. There is a picture most attractive--a fine make of a man.”

”That Mahs Tom Loring, Miss Gertrude's father,” explained Nelse. ”Jest as fine as he looks theah, Mahs Tom was, and ride!--king in heaven!

but he could ride. 'Taint but a little while back since he was killed, twenty yeahs maybe--no, eighteen yeahs come Christmas. He was followen' the houn's, close on, when his horse went down an' Mahs Tom picked up dead, his naik broke. His wife, Miss Leo Masterson, she was, she died some yeahs befo', when Miss Gertrude jest a little missy. So they carried him home from Larue plantation--that wheah he get killed--an' bury him back yonder beside her,” and he pointed to a group of pines across the field to the north; ”so, after that--”

”Oh, Nelse, tell about live things--not dead ones,” suggested Evilena, ”tell about the races and your Mahs Duke, how he used to go horseback all the way to Virginia, to the races, and even to Philadelphia, and how all the planters gathered for hundreds of miles, some of the old ones wearing small clothes and buckled shoes, and how--”

”Seems like you done mind them things so well 'taint no use tryen' to rake up the buried reck'lections o' the pas' times,” said the old man, rebukingly, and with a certain pomposity. ”I reckon now you 'member all the high quality gentlemen. The New Market Jockey Club, an' how they use to meet reg'lar as clock-work the second Tuesday in May and October; an' how my Mahs Duke, with all the fine ruffles down his s.h.i.+rt front, an' his proud walk, an' his voice soft as music, an' his grip hard as steel, was the kingpin o' all the sports--the grandest gentleman out o' Calliny, an' carried his head high as a king ovah all Jerusalem--I reckon you done mind all that theah, Miss Lena.”