The old man stood up in perplexity. His fuddled brain could not grasp the reason for this silence and loneliness. He climbed feebly, with the aid of his staff, up the stone steps, and pounded loudly upon the crumbling floor of the porch.
“Oh, Ca’lline! Whar in dumnation is you gone at?”
He entered the room where Scootie had prepared his bed with the idea that he might want to lie down and rest after his trip to the cabin, and he took his seat in the comfortable rocking-chair, placing his stove-pipe hat beside him on the floor.
“Ca’lline!” he wailed. There was no answer to his call.
The fire of exasperation flamed in the ancient man’s withered frame, and he manifested his annoyance by kicking his beloved stove-pipe hat across the room.
“Dag-gone de dag-gone day whut fotch me de dag-gone luck of totin’ dat dag-gone fat nigger gal to my cabin!” he wailed. “Ca’lline! Whar in dumnation is you an’ dem three nigger brats?”
He leaned back, resting his shaking, palsied head wearily against the chair.
“Dem chillun take atter deir maw,” he commented. “Dey’s gad-arounders!”
From the top of the big pecan tree a mocking-bird broke forth in delirious music. The loud, clear notes, imitating every bird which roamed the woods, echoed back from the woods and the hillside, and broke in jewels of melody around the old log cabin.
The old man listened, sighed gratefully, and smiled.