"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a quadroom?"
"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"
"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!—dat de likes o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin make a niggeh out'n a simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh like a niggeh; but——"
Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"
"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but—I's seen it done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"
"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was good."
"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de Quak'ess." The narrator shut her lips tight.
The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the Votaress bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was in sight.
Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main river. She had heard with awe that bit of history—not this history,—the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent presence of the Fly-up-the-Creek away over here on this morning side of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no right to be, coming down-stream.
"My!" cried the girl, "I wish—oh, my, my, my, I wish I could be five people at once!"