"I hope massa don't think we's come yere for to git suthin' to eat," said the smaller of the two, a little, thin, haggard-looking fellow,—"we's no beggars. Some ob de darkies is, but we's not dem kind,—Jim an' me,—we's willin' to work, ain't we, Jim?"
"Jim!" soliloquized Given,—"my name, hey? we'll take a squint at this fellow."
The squint showed two impoverished-looking wretches, with a starved look in their eyes, which he did not comprehend, and a starved look in their faces and forms, which he did.
"Come, now, are you hungry?" he queried once more.
"If ye please, massa," began the little one who was spokesman,—'little folks always are gas-bags,' Jim was fond of saying from his six feet of height,—"if ye please, massa, we's had nothin' to eat but berries an' roots an' sich like truck for long while."
"Well, why by the devil haven't you had something else then? what've you been doing with yourselves for 'long while'? what d'ye mean, coming here starved to death, making a fellow sick to look at you? Hold your gab, and eat up that pork," pushing over his tin plate, "'n' that bread," sending it after, "'n' that hard tack,—'tain't very good, but it's better'n roots, I reckon, or berries either,—'n' gobble up that coffee, double-quick, mind; and don't you open your heads to talk till the grub's gone, slick and clean. Ugh!" he said to the Captain,—"sight o' them fellows just took my appetite away; couldn't eat to save my soul; lucky they came to devour the rations; pity to throw them away." The Captain smiled,—he knew Jim. "Poor cusses!" he added presently, "eat like cannibals, don't they? hope they enjoy it. Had enough?" seeing they had devoured everything put before them.
"Thankee, massa. Yes, massa. Bery kind, massa. Had quite 'nuff."
"Well, now, you, sir!" looking at the little one,—"by the way, what's your name?"
"'Bijah, if ye please, massa."
"'Bijah? Abijah, hey? well, I don't please; however, it's none of my name. Well, 'Bijah, how came you two to be looking like a couple of animated skeletons? that's the next question."