“Mawnin’, lady. Mawnin’, gemman, sah. A day o’ glory fo’ the time o’ year. Yas, sah, yas, ma’am, a real day o’ glory. Won’t you ’light down, ma’am?”
“Of course we will, Jim George, and we want some of your best shad.”
“Ah d’clar to gracious! Is that yo’all, Miss Betty? Good Lan’! it’s been a coon’s age since I seen yo’ purty face round hyah. It does me proud to see a——”
“Shad and corn-pone, Jim George,” she interrupted. “I want you to show this gentleman we can still cook in the South.”
“Ah’ll show him. Ah’ll show him, Miss Betty. Rufe! Rufe! Come hyah and take Miss Betty’s hoss.”
A boy led the mare away, and Fessenden and the girl established themselves in a hammock under a solitary oak at the bluff’s edge.
He drew a long breath of the salt air and smiled at his companion. “This is Paradise, and not even a serpent to mar it.”
In an incredibly short time Jim George appeared, bearing a tray piled high with eatables, and proceeded to spread the cloth on a table under the oak.
“Miss Betty,” he said, “and, gemman, sah, there’s a shad-roe as is a shad-roe. Jes’ yo’ eat it with all the buttah yo’ kin spread on it. This hyah co’n-pone needs a spoon for it. Them baked ’taters growed theirselfs right hyah in the patch behint the house. They’s as sweet as honey. And hyah’s some milk. Yo’ ’member Jersey Molly, Miss Betty? Yas’m, this is her milk. None o’ yo’ pastorilized stuff neither—this is jes’ plain milk.”
“Betty,” said Fessenden, when Jim George had left them to themselves, “allow me to drink your health in Jersey Molly wine.”