"Hope I may die!" Jack Wonnell protested, "I never does lie: it's too hard to find lies for things when people comes an' tells you, or you kin see fur yourseff. Jimmy called me a liar fur sayin' Meshach Milburn was gone into the Jedge's front do', but we saw him come out of it, didn't we?"
"Yes, that was so; but this yer one is an awful lie."
"Well, Levin, purty yaller Roxy, she told me, an' she's too purty to tell lies. I loves that gal like peach-an'-honey, Levin, an' I don't keer whether she's white or no. She's mos' as white as me, an' a good deal better."
"So you do talk to Roxy some?"
"Levin, I'll tell you all about it, an' you won't tell nobody. Well, I picks magnoleys an' wild roses an' sich purty things fur Roxy to give her missis, an' Roxy gives me cake, an' chicken, an' coffee at the back door, knowin' I ain't got much to buy 'em with. Lord bless her! she don't half know I don't think as much of them cakes an' snacks an' warm rich coffee, as I do of her purty eyes. She's a white angel with a little coffee in her blood, but it's ole Goverment Javey an' more than half cream!"
Here Levin laughed loudly, and said that Jack must have learned that out of a book.
"Oh," said Jack, shutting one eye hard and joining in the grin, "sence I ben in love I kin say lots o' smart things like that. I have seen purty little Roxy grow up from a chile, an' as she begin to round up and git tall, says I: 'Nigger or no nigger, she's angel!' The white gals they all throwed off on me, caze I wasn't earnin' nothin', an' I sot my eyes on Roxy Custis an' I says: 'What kin I do fur to make her shine to me?' So I kept a-follerin' of her everywhere, an' I see her one day comin' along the road a-pickin' of the wild blossoms an' with her han' full of 'em, an' I says: 'Roxy, what you doin' of with them flowers?' 'They're fur my missis, Miss Vesty,' says she; 'she lives on wild flowers, an' they're all I has to give her, an' I want her to love me as much as Virgie.' You see Levin, the t'other gal, Virgie, waits on Miss Custis, an' Roxy she was a little jealous. Then I says: 'Roxy, I kin git you flowers for your missis. I know whair the magnoleys is bloomin' the whitest an' a-scentin' the whole day long.' 'Do you?' says she, 'Oh, Mr. Wonnell, I would like to have a bunch of magnoleys to put on Miss Vesty's toilet every day.' 'I'll git 'em fur you, Roxy,' says I, 'becaze I allus thought you was a little beauty.' Says she: 'I'd give most anything to surprise Miss Vesty with flowers every day,—rale wild ones!' 'Then,' says I, 'Roxy, I'll git' em fur you for a kiss!' An' she most a-blushed blood-red an' ran away."
"That's what I told you, Jack, she's raised too well to be talkin' to white fellers."
"Nobody's raised too well," rejoined Jack Wonnell, "to be deef to love and kindness. Says I to myself: 'Jack, you skeert that gal. Now say nothin' mo' about the kiss, an' go git her the flowers every day, an' she'll think mo' of you!' So away I went to King's Creek an' pulled the magnoleys, an' I come to the do' an' asked ole Hominy to bring down Roxy for a minute. Roxy she come, an' was gwyn to run away till she saw my flowers, an' she stopped a minute an' says I: 'I jest got 'em for you, Roxy, becaze I see you when you was a little chile.' She tuk 'em an' says: 'It was very kind of you, sir,' an' kercheyed an' melted away. Next day I was thar agin, Levin, an' I says, to make it seem like a trade: 'Roxy, kin ye give me a cup of coffee?' 'Law, yes!' she says, forgittin' her blushin' right away. So I kept shady on love an' put it on the groun's of coffee, an', Levin, I everlastin'ly fotched the wild flowers till that gal got to be a-lookin' fur me at the do' every day, an' I'd hide an' see her come to the window an' peep fur me. One day she says, as I was drinkin' of the coffee: 'Mr. Wonnell, what do you put yourself at sech pains fur to 'blige a pore slave girl that ain't but half white?' I thought a minute, so as to say something that wouldn't skeer her off, an' I says: 'Roxy, it's becaze I'm sech a pore, worthless feller that the white gals won't look at me!' The tears come right to her eyes, an' she says: 'Mr. Wonnell, if I was white I would look at you.' 'I believe you would,' says I, 'becaze you've got a white heart, Roxy.'"
"Jack, you're a dog-gone smart lover," said Levin. "I didn't think you had no kind of sense."