Again Jane had painted a sunset she had not intended.
XV
ROMANCE OF STATISTICS
On a warm morning, ten days later, William stood pensively among his mother's flowerbeds behind the house, his attitude denoting a low state of vitality. Not far away, an aged negro sat upon a wheelbarrow in the hot sun, tremulously yet skilfully whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, labor more to his taste, evidently, than that which he had abandoned at the request of Jane. Allusion to this preference for a lighter task was made by Genesis, who was erecting a trellis on the border of the little garden.
“Pappy whittle all day,” he chuckled. “Whittle all night, too! Pappy, I thought you 'uz goin' to git 'at long bed all spade' up fer me by noon. Ain't 'at what you tole me?”
“You let him alone, Genesis,” said Jane, who sat by the old man's side, deeply fascinated. “There's goin' to be a great deal of rain in the next few days maybe, an' I haf to have this boat ready.”
The aged darky lifted his streaky and diminished eyes to the burnished sky, and laughed. “Rain come some day, anyways,” he said. “We git de boat ready 'fo' she fall, dat sho.” His glance wandered to William and rested upon him with feeble curiosity. “Dat ain' yo' pappy, is it?” he asked Jane.
“I should say it isn't!” she exclaimed. “It's Willie. He was only seventeen about two or three months ago, Mr. Genesis.” This was not the old man's name, but Jane had evolved it, inspired by respect for one so aged and so kind about whittling. He was the father of Genesis, and the latter, neither to her knowledge nor to her imagination, possessed a surname.
“I got cat'rack in my lef' eye,” said Mr. Genesis, “an' de right one, she kine o' tricksy, too. Tell black man f'um white man, little f'um big.”