“Ephy will show you. It’s the big room on the east side. Everything is ready for you. When you have washed and freshened up a bit you may join Dorothy and I on the lawn.”
“Very good; but don’t wait for me. I may decide to take a snooze, and when I snooze I’m very uncertain. Traveling always did tire me out.”
Ephraim, with Jim’s suit case, led the way up the broad stairs of the Calvert mansion, the boy following.
“Heah we is, sah,” said the colored man, after a moment. He paused to throw open the massive door of a room. “Dis yeah room am de very bestest dis place affords. Youse mighty lucky, Mistah Jim, tuh be relegated tuh de guest chambah, en I takes dis ercasion to congratulate yo’.”
“Thank you, Ephy. But, being a guest, why should I not have the guest chamber?” and Jim’s eyes roamed admiringly over the old-fashioned but richly-furnished apartment.
“No reason ’tall, sah—no reason ’tall. I hain’t sayin’ nuffin’. But dis suah am er fine room.”
The suit case was resting on the floor by the wardrobe, and Ephraim was carefully unpacking the boy’s clothes, and putting them in their proper places, while Jim, glad to be rid of his coat, which he termed “excess baggage,” was soon puffing and blowing in a huge bowl of water, from where he went for a plunge in the tub.
“Lordy, Mistah Jim,” the colored man chuckled, following him to the door of the bathroom, “hit suah looks as though yo’ was a darkey, en all de black had washed off.”
“That’s some of the smoke and cinders acquired during our journey from Canada. Don’t forget that you have them on you, too, Ephy, only, being as black as ink, they don’t show up so well.”
“Yas’r, yas’r, I reckon dat’s right.” Old Ephraim continued to chuckle at frequent intervals. “Yo’ suah is er great boy, Mistah Jim!”