“Dar we is!” he cried exultantly. “Ah’ll jes’ take yo’ all in t’ visit wid’ Miss Catalpa while Ah fixes dishyer kerrige so it’ll take yo’ back to de P’int dry—ya-as’m.”
“‘Miss Catalpa,’ no less!” murmured Helen in Ruth’s ear. “That sounds like a real darkey name, doesn’t it? I wonder if she’s an old aunty—or mammy, do they call them?”
But Ruth was interested in another phase of the matter. “Won’t the lady object to unexpected visitors, Uncle Simmy?” she asked.
“Lor’ bress yo’! no, honey,” he said, helping her out of the sheltered carriage, and then Helen in turn. “Yo’ come right in wid me. Miss Catalpa’s on de front po’ch. She likes t’ hear de drummin’ ob de rain, she say—er—he, he, he! W’ite folks sho’ do have funny sayin’s, don’t dey?”
“Then Miss Catalpa is white!” gasped Helen to Ruth, as the old darkey led the way across the back yard to the cottage.
They reached the shelter of the front veranda just as the rain “came down in buckets,” as Helen declared. The chums had never seen it rain so hard before. And the thunder of it on the porch roof drowned all other sound. Unc’ Simmy was grinning at them and saying something; they could see his lips moving; but they could not hear a word.
In the half dusk of the vine-sheltered porch they saw him gesticulating and they looked toward the other end. There was a low table and a sewing basket. In a low rocker, swinging to and fro, and crooning a song perhaps, for her lips were moving as her needles flashed back and forth in the soft wool she was knitting, was a fair, pink-cheeked little lady, her light brown hair rippling away from her brow and over her ears in some old-fashioned and forgotten style, but which was very becoming to the wearer.
Her ear was turned toward their end of the porch, and she was smiling. Evidently, in spite of the drumming of the hard rain, she had distinguished their coming; but her eyes had the unmistakable look of those who live in darkness.
The little lady was blind.