"No, dey don't. Ef dey did, Phyllis 'ud neveh 'a' come to de pass she came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes' believes dey believes, dat's all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got—oh, Lawd! don't spile my breas'-han'kercheh!—is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but lots o' niggehs is got lots mo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an' betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh——"
"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis—and the Courteneys—and the Quakeress."
"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'——"
"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to ask him about and you know I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you can—listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And we're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"
At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six; a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made out in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged as if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity.
"The Fly-up-the-Creek!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that can't be all!" She sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then, as the full humor of the thing struck her—but her behavior may as well go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and thought of home.
When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the theme was once more Phyllis.
"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.
"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."
Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold one of his negroes!"