The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been [p275] planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.
“No, sir, Mr. D., I can’t put hit off till to-morrow,” she declared in answer to Mr. Opp’s request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders’ meeting. “I’s ’bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o’clock in de mawnin’, an’ I’s gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber.”
“Was he a particular friend, the one that died?” asked Mr. Opp.
“Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin’ ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain’t no friend ob mine.”
“Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?” asked Mr. Opp.
“’Ca’se I ’spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an’ I ain’t gwine lose dis chanst ob seein’ him buried.”
“But, Aunt Tish,” persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, “I’ve got a very important [p276] and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You’ll have to stay with Kippy till I get home.”
The old woman looked at him strangely. “See dis heah hole in my haid, honey? ’Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an’ him an’ yer paw fell out, an’ one night when you was a baby he follow yer paw up here, an’ me an’ him had hit out.”
“But where was my father?” asked Mr. Opp.
“Dey was ’sputin’ right heah in dis heah kitchen where we’s standin’ at, an’ dat mean, bow-laigged nigger didn’t have no better manners den to ’spute wif a gentleman dat was full. An’ pore Miss she run in so skeered an’ white an’ she say, ‘Aunt Tish, don’t let him hurt him; he don’t know what he’s sayin’,’ she [p277] baig, an’ I tell her to keep yer paw outen de way an’ I tek keer ob Bunk.”