For here the boat's watchman sauntered by—a boat's watchman must be a world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet mother playing angel—oh, my, my!—and here, up yonder, was the pilot, by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's greenwood walls and out over their tops—"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever listen to you, once we're in the chute!"
"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow. She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh sisteh—aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o' Vicksbu'g, same like us got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive' yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa—a shawt spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."
"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."
"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."
"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"
"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'—well, I'll stop tell you quits de giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah ayfteh y'uncle Dan—de bacheldeh—de pilot—quit de riveh a spell fo' to run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa, sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."
"Chi—you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"
"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."
Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"
"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass, when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan' Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his 'rights' like a sett'n' hen."