“Come on, Bredduh Drayton. Mekso you walk so slow?”
“Uh haffuh walk slow, tittie, ’cause dese debble’ub’uh britchiz bus’, en’ dem ent wut. Da’ gal uh my’own able fuh pit uh berry deestunt patch ’puntop de knee, but seem lukkuh him ent able fuh do nutt’n’ ’long de seat. Da’ w’ymekso dish’yuh britchiz do berry well fuh man fuh seddown een’um, but dem cyan’ specify fuh walk.”
“Wuh mekso you ent tek anodduh lady fuh wife? You got big house en’ ’nuf groun’ fuh mek crap, mekso you ent fuh hab ’ooman?”
“Uh hab house en’ groun,’ fuh true. Uh got uh two-chimbly house, but ’ooman shishuh onsaa’t’n t’ing, uh kinduh ’f’aid fuh tek anodduh chance. Ebbuh sence my lady nyam dem watuhmilyun en’ buttuhmilk en’ him Jedus tek’um, uh yent hab nutt’n’ fuh bodduh me. Uh kin seddown een de sunhot eenjurin’ de whole day en’ nebbuh yeddy no ’ooman’ woice duh call fuh tell me fuh git’up. Uh kin seddown tell uh fuh gone ’sleep.”
“Yaas, my Bredduh, you binnuh seddown, fuh true!” a church sister laughingly retorted. “Da’ de reas’n w’ymekso you shame’ fuh stan’up fuh lead yo’ class! Long seddown mek short stan’up, you know.”
“Go ’way, gal! ’Nuf man wuh hab wife een dem house, dem britchiz ent able fuh specify. Dem wife lazy tummuch fuh patch’um.” And so Abram, always backward in company, put on the best front he could for a while and, unlike Edward Bellamy, never looked behind him. At last the raillery told on him, however, and he made up his mind to take another plunge into the roiling waters of married life. Not the “uncertain sea of matrimony” beloved of poets, but just the black and sluggish current of the branch or run, in which, among snags and cypress knees, swam the slimy catfish and the venomous moccasin. The hazard was not great, for, however forbidding they looked, the waters were shallow, and the low-country negro, stepping into matrimony, keeps at least one big toe on dry ground, and, if one steps in the wrong place, one can always step out again, and try elsewhere. So, with more than a toe-hold of mental reservation, Abram at last, like the storied frog, “would a wooing go”—and he went. “Uh gwine Cross Road’. Uh gwine Sat’d’y night w’en ’nuf ’ooman dey dey, en’ uh gwine saa’ch dem eb’ry Gawd’ one ’tell uh git one wuh kin specify. Uh yent wan’ no settle’ ’ooman, ’cause dem done hab ’nuf man fuh marri’d, en’ dem know tummuch. Dem too schemy! Seem lukkuh de mo’ husbun’ en’ t’ing dem fuh hab, de mo’ schemy dem git! Ef uh tek uh nyung gal fuh wife, wuh ent know nutt’n’, uh kin bruk’um fuh suit, same lukkuh oxin bruk fuh pull plow. Uh kin fetch’um onduhneet’ me han’!”
With these masterful masculine reflections, Abram went his ways to the Cross Roads, and having, like Poe’s Raven, acquired the sitting habit, down he sat near the store on a convenient log which offered at once rest for his weary bones and camouflage for his sartorial infirmities. For an hour or more he watched with an appraising eye the women coming and going, acknowledging the salutations of those who passed near him. At last, his approving regard rested upon what the ante-bellum advertisements would have called a “likely girl” who curtseyed as she came opposite him. “Come’yuh, gal,” he called. “Wuh you name?”
“Sukey, suh.”
“You duh An’ Minda’ gal, enty?”
“Yaas, suh, him duh my Grumma en’ me duh him gran’.”