“I don’t exactly get the hang of you, my dear boy——”
“Hold right on there, deacon. If you have got anything to say, leave off the finery, and cut the garment plain. I ain’t much on soap, but I’m honest clear through. Go ahead with your tongue notions.”
“Rob,” resumed the other, recalling the fact that the boy had given at least so much of a name, “I ain’t going to perlaver. I want you to go hum with me.”
Little Hickory showed his surprise without speaking.
“I’m in dead ’arnest. Mandy and I have talked this all over time and again. We ain’t got chick nor child, and she was saying only yesterday how cheering it would be to have a boy in the house. I ain’t rich as some, but I’m comfortably fixed, and what I’ve got shall be yours, as soon as I’m through with it. You shall have my name, too, and be Elihu Cornhill, Jr.”
Rob still was too much surprised to speak, which allowed Deacon Cornhill to continue:
“It would be the making of you, Rob. It would get you away from the wickedness of this sinful city, and——”
“And away from my bizness.”
“Luddy me, you don’t call this blackin’ folks’ shoes and boots bizness!”
“By it I get my living, sir,” said the youthful speaker, with a pride one in better circumstances might have failed to display.