It was pleasant there. Mrs. Buck was peeling laboriously, anxious not to waste a particle of fruit. She stopped long enough to get a paring knife and bowl for the visitor.
“Judith has gone to show your servant where to put the carriage and horses and then to open up the house in the back for him. It was the old house the Bucks had before my father bought this place—a good enough house with furniture in it. Judith gives it a big cleaning now and then and I reckon the old man can move right in.”
Old Billy was in the seventh heaven of delight. A stable for Cupid and Puck, with plenty of good pasture land, a carriage house 217 for the coach, shared with Judith’s little blue car, but best of all, a house for himself!
“A house with winders an’ a chimbly an’ a po’ch wha’ I kin sot cans er jewraniums an’ a box er portulac! I been a dreamin’ ’bout sech a house all my life, Miss Judy. Sometimes when I is fo’ced ter sleep in the ca’ige, when Miss Ann an’ me air a visitin’ wha’ things air kinder crowded like, I digs me up a little flower an’ plants it in a ol’ can an’ kinder makes out my coachman’s box air a po’ch. Miss Judy, it air a sad thing ter git ter be ol’ an’ wo’ out ’thout ever gittin’ what you wanted when you wa’ young an’ spry.”
“Yes, Uncle Billy, I know how you feel, but now you have a little house and you can live in it as long as it suits you and grow all the flowers you’ve a mind to. Nobody has lived in it for years and years but I used to play down here when I was a little girl and had time to play. Every now and then I give it a good cleaning, though, and you won’t have to do much to start with.”
It was a rough, two-roomed cabin, with shabby furniture, but it seemed like a palace to the old darkey.
“I reckon I’ll put me up a red curtain,” he sighed. “I been always a wantin’ a red 218 curtain, an’ bless Bob, if they ain’t already a row of skillets an’ cookin’ pots by the chimbly. I am moughty partial ter a big open fiah place wha’ you kin make yo’ se’f a ol’ time ash cake.”
“Can you cook, Uncle Billy?”
“Sho’ I kin cook, but I ain’t git much chanct ter cook, what with livin’ roun’ so much.”
“Well, you can help me sometimes when I get pushed for time,” and Judith told the old man of the task she had undertaken of feeding the motormen.