“Esau, uh wish you please kin pick up some chip’ fuh me fuh staa’t me fiah.”
“Wuh you gwi’ gimme?”
“Wuffuh me haffuh pay you fuh chop wood, Esau?”
“Enty uh done marri’d you fuh wife? Wuffuh man haffuh chop wood fuh ’e own wife?”
“Uh marri’d you, fuh true, Esau, but enty uh done run you off, en’ now you stan’ same lukkuh all dem todduh man wuh uh nebbuh bin hab fuh husbun’?”
Esau scratched his head, the point being rather fine for his comprehension, but he grunted stubbornly, nevertheless.
“Man hab wife fuh cook ’e bittle fuhr’um, enty? Hukkuh ooman kin cook bittle bidout ’e chop wood, eeduhso pick up chip’ fuh mek fiah? No, ma’am! Wuh you gwine gimme fuh eat ef uh chop wood fuh you?” Therefore, whenever Esau chopped wood, the hotel kitchen paid the fee.
September burned and passed away. October came. Among the brown and purple trunks of the pines, the red-bronze foliage of blackgum and sourwood glowed like dull fires. Tripods rose above the breakers, and, from the vantage of their elevated tops, the Islanders fished with rod and reel for the beautiful channel bass which came up with the rising tide. The long rollers crashed upon the strand and broke into lace-like spray that the sea-wind tossed into a thousand miniature rainbows. The plaintive cry of the sea-birds, the whisper of the wild-oats as their ripening seed panicles rustled in the wind, and the sharp tang in the air, brought to the spirit the poignant sadness of autumn—“Falling Leaf and Fading Tree,” and Tosti’s haunting melody.
On a certain night, Jane permitted Esau’s escort to a cottage two miles up the beach, whither she had undertaken an errand for her employer. The night was dark and overcast, and the air was heavy with a promise of coming rain. A fitful breeze picked up the loose sand above highwater mark into little whorls, sent them dancing about the upper beach, and set the clumps of wild-oats on the dunes above to shivering weirdly. The tide was at the flood, and the long dun rollers boomed sullenly on the beach and sucked at the sands as though loath to leave them.
As she got farther away from the comforting lights of the hotel and adventured into the creepy darkness that lay before her, Jane shuddered, and lifted the shawl from her shoulders over her bandanna-topped head as though to shut out from her apprehensive ears all fearsome sounds. Esau shuffled along beside her, but he, too, was uncomfortable, for he was a timid negro, and even the boldest are none too brave at night.