He said He'd bring a sword,
An' no mo' peace on de earf!"
There was a wild melancholy in the air that made the child's heart tremble in his breast. Particularly on wet days, when he couldn't go down into the wilderness, he used to stand in the doorway with the Duchess in his arms, listening with all his ears.
"An' Jerusha," he said, one morning during a thunderstorm, when she polished the oak in persistent silence, "why don't you sing? Grandmamma can't hear."
"No, Massa Efan, not to-day."
"Why not? This is just the day to, when the rain's makin' such a noise you can sing as loud as you like."
"Yo' won't nebber ketch dis nigger raisin' no chunes on de twenty-firs' ob July."
"Why not?"
"Don' you know, little massa, dis de day yo' fader died?"
"Oh-h, is it?" A silence of some moments, broken only by the dash of summer rain against the window-pane. "Did you know my father when he was quite little?"