“I ex-pect, I ex-pect—”
“You spec, Jim! You allers spectin’! Mistis, we’s free—we kin go anywhars!”
I suspect there had been a great deal of long-suffering on the part of Jim. He burst out like flame from a smoldering fire,—
“Anywhars! That’s what ails niggas! Freedom means anywhars to ’em, and so they’re nuffin’ nor nobody. You vagabon’, Rose Moncton, you kin’t go anywhars much longer—not ’long o’ me!”
“O, you white folksy Jim! I ’low this trompin’ was yer own plan. When you finds a town whar it’s any show of warm, I’ll hang up my things and stay, and not afore—ye hyar that! I ’low I won’t see Peyty and Kit a-freezin’!”
She scowled at me, she actually did, as if I froze her with my pale face and cool leaf-green dress, and kept the sun off her, talking with that “white folksy Jim.”
I fancied Jim was hoping I would say something more to them. I fancied he, at least, was in great need of a friend’s advice.
“Where did you come from?” I asked him. But the other head of the family answered,—
“Come from nuff sight warmer place than we’s goin’ anywhars.”
“Rose is allers techy when she’s cold, mistis,” Jim apologized. “Ole Maum Phillis used fer to say as Rose’s temper goose-pimpled when the cold air struck it. We kim from Charleston, mistis. We’s speckin’ to work out some land for ourselves, and hev a home. We kim up norf to git wages, so as we kin all help at it. I’d like to stop hyar, mistis.”