“Page,” said Miss Herrick.
“Page!” echoed the young Englishman—“Page? why surely that name belongs to the ‘F.F.V.’s,’ doesn’t it?”
“All the darkies took th’ name o’ th’ fam’lies they b’longed to after th’ war,” she explained. “I had a cook here oncet called Faginia Herrick; she used to b’long to father ’fo’ th’ war.”
“By gad!” was Roden’s sole remark. “By gad!” said he again.
“You needn’t say nothin’!” she exclaimed, breaking suddenly into her melodious laughter; “there’s two little right black niggers at th’ mill, an’ one’s called Prince Albert and th’ other Queen Victoria, ’n’ ’f you leave off th’ ‘Prince’ or th’ ‘Queen’ they won’t answer you, neether.”
She was evidently delighted with his expression of face at this, and released the two dogs in order to indulge more freely in her mirthful mood. She sat down on the stone steps, letting her arms hang simply at her sides, and putting down her head, laughed into the hollow lap of her gray kirtle, as though confiding her surplus merriment to its care.
It was at this moment that the overseer came into sight—a tall, gaunt man, with a beard that seemed flying away with his round head, after the fashion of a comet’s tail; little steely blue eyes drawing close to the bridge of his nose as though it magnetized them; long, crooked teeth, not unlike the palings in one of his own fences for tint and irregularity; and a wide-open square smile, like the smile of a Greek comic mask. He wore a waistcoat of as many hues as Joseph’s renowned garment, a blue cotton shirt, ginger-colored trousers tucked into heavy mud-crusted boots, and a straw hat, impossible to describe, tilted to the back of his head. In his arms he carried the little black-and-tan terrier which Roden remembered, and twisted its untrimmed ears while talking.
“Howdy? howdy?” he remarked, genially. “My darter Faginia’s tole me ’bout you. Got all yo’ clo’es lef in Washin’ton? Hey? Got ’em this mornin’? You don’ sesso? Well! My darter Faginia says as how you’re goin’ in fur horse-racin’? That so? You don’ sesso? Well, what d’you think er my darter Faginia, anyhow? Darter, go ’n’ bring me some water; I’m mortal thirsty.” Then, as the girl disappeared, “Well, what d’you think er her?”
“She seems to me very—very charming,” ventured Roden.
“Well, sir, you ’ain’t got no more idea of th’ sweethearts that girl’s had—I mean would ’a’ had ’f I’d ’lowed it. The las’ one was Jim Murdoch, a hoop-pole man. But, sir”—here Mr. Herrick assumed a tone of the most pompous dignity—“but I will tole you, sir, as how my darter Faginia shall deceive no retentions, respecially from a hoop-pole man!”