“Would you wish to see de insides of de house?” Mustard asked. “I got eve’ything plain an’ simple, but it’s fine an’ dandy fer a nigger whose wife ain’t never out here to keep house. Hopey cooks fer Marse Tom, an’ I got to take keer of things by myse’f.”
“It’s real nice not to hab no lady folks snoopin’ aroun’ de place,” Popsy asserted. “Dey blim-blams you all de time about spittin’ on de flo’ an’ habin’ muddy foots.”
They walked about the house inspecting it. Popsy followed Mustard about, listening inattentively to Mustard’s talk, wondering what it was all about. He came to one room which attracted his attention because it looked as though it held the accumulated junk of years.
“Whut you keep all dis trash in dis room fer, Mustard?”
“Dis ain’t trash. Dese here is Marse Tom’s curiosities,” Mustard explained. “Dis is like a show—all kinds of funny things in here.”
The old man stepped within the room, and Mustard began to act as showman, displaying and expatiating upon all the interesting things of the place.
The room bore a remote resemblance to a museum. When Gaitskill had first moved on the plantation, nearly fifty years before, he had amused himself by making a collection of the things he found upon the farm and in the woods, which interested him or took his fancy. For instance, here was a vine which was twisted so that it resembled a snake. That was all there was to it. Because it looked like a snake, Gaitskill had picked it up and brought it to the house and added it to his collection.
Stuff of this sort had accumulated in that room for years. Mustard had no use for the room. Gaitskill had not needed it before him. When the overseer moved in, he had zealously guarded Marse Tom’s curiosities. As for Colonel Gaitskill, he did not even know the trash was in existence.
Mustard had added to the accumulation through the years. Now and then, in his work in the fields or woods, he would find something that reminded him of something that Marse Tom had “saved” in that room, so he would bring it in and add that to the pile.
So now Mustard had something to talk to Popsy about, and he talked Popsy to the verge of distraction, proclaiming all sorts of fanciful reasons for the preservation of each curious object. The old man was bored as he had never been bored in all his life. His feeble form began to droop with weariness, his mind failed to grasp the words which Mustard pronounced with such unction, but Mustard did not notice, and would not have minded if he had observed Popsy’s inattention. He intoned his words impressively and talked on and on.