“Berry well, uh gwine hab you fuh wife. You know who uh yiz, enty? Me duh Ebbrum Drayton, en’ uh lib todduh side Adam’ Run deepo, en’ uh hab uh two-chimbly house en’ ’e got two story, en’ uh bin hab uh mare, but him gone en’ dead. En’ w’en you gone home, tell yo’ Grumma uh gwine fuh shum Sunday night fuh tell’um uh gwine hab you fuh wife.”
“Yaas, suh. Well, good ebenin’, suh,” and, with another curtsy, she was gone.
But Abram’s plans they gang’d agley, for old John, in putting the word-of-mouth entail on the Dower House, had tied the “’tail” so loosely that its terms and conditions were constantly subject to family discussion and interpretation, and Abram’s son now objected to his father’s marriage, believing that it would break the entail and deprive him of the right of succession to “de Two-Chimbly House.” “W’en Grumpa him tie de ’tail ’puntop de house, ’e say ’sponsubble suh ’e yent fuh tek off, en’ suh ’e yent fuh tie ’puntop no ’ooman. Pa ent know uh Gawd’ t’ing ’bout da’ gal him duh talk ’bout hab fuh wife. ’E nebbuh see ’e Ma, ’e nebbuh shum fight. Da’ gal’ Ma iz de debble! W’en da’ ’ooman fight da’ gal’ Pa, ’e run’um ’long hoe en’ hatchitch alltwo! Da’ nigguh run ’tell ’e cross Jacksinburruh. ’E nebbuh stop’ ’tell ’e gone spang Ti Ti! W’en ’e bog up to ’e crotch ’mong dem waa’ment’ en’ t’ing ’e git sattify een ’e mine’. No, suh! Pa ent study nutt’n’ ’cep’ hab wife fuh sweep ’e house en’ patch ’e britchiz. Bumbye, w’en da’ gal’ maamy’ sperrit git een’um en’ ’e bex fuh true! Ki! Da’ gal gwine tek de ’tail off Grumpa’ house en’ none uh we gwine shum ’gen! W’en Pa duh bog up to ’e crotch een Ti Ti, wuh saa’bis den fuh hab patch ’puntop ’e britchiz? No, suh!”
His daughter sought to comfort Abram, who, in the short space of 36 hours, had loved and wooed, and won and lost. “Nemmine’, Pa, you got yo’ Two-Chimbly House.”
“Yaas, but uh cyan’ seddown befo’ alltwo de chimbly one time.”
AT THE CROSS ROADS STORE
For many years after freedom came to the negroes of the low-country, they were cruelly and ignobly cheated by the tradespeople who set up little Cross Roads stores in every community. Many of these were German corner-shopkeepers from the cities. Others were wandering Jews, whose predatory instincts took them wherever there were pickings to be had. Yet others, to their shame, were certain low-class South Carolinians that did not scruple to take advantage of the ignorant freedmen who, a wasteful and improvident people, whose needs had all been supplied under slavery, squandered the money they were unaccustomed to handling and unable to compute.
Imitative as monkeys, however, it is to the credit of their intelligence, if not of their morality, that they soon learned to retaliate, and many a brick and rusty plowshare was weighed in their bags of seed cotton and paid for by the tricky shopkeeper who, knowing that in many cases the cotton was stolen from the planter for whom the negro worked, and brought stealthily by night to the sophisticated merchant, did not scan his purchase too closely, and many an ancient nest egg, too, was sold to the shopkeeper as a new-laid “yaa’d aig” and shipped away to city customers.
The marks upon the brass beams of the counter-scales with which the negroes’ purchases were weighed, were so obscured and tarnished that they could not be deciphered, even by customers who could read, but the wily shopman knew exactly where to put his weight to give a twelve-ounce pound, which is what the negro usually got. Always suspecting “de buckruh” of cheating him, and being unable to do even the smallest addition, the negro soon learned to protect himself, if not from short weights, at least from short change, and it was interesting to observe a shopper making her week’s purchases on Saturday nights at one of these neighborhood stores. The women, commonly more alert, and always more suspicious, than the men, were usually charged with the buying. If a customer had a dollar to spend, she would first price the various commodities under consideration.
“Hummuch you ax fuh sugar?”