"Yes, sir."
"And you tell your missis to send me a peck of meal. Stay—a loaf of bread, or some biscuit, or corn-cake, or anything else which may happen to be baked up. Tell her I want them sent out right away."
Jake bowed and disappeared.
"Now we may as well ride down this path, while he is gone for the things. Mrs. G. will blow off on him first, so that rather less of it will come upon me. I wish I could get her to see them herself. Lord bless her, she is a kind-hearted woman enough! but she thinks there's no use doing,—and there an't. She is right enough about it. But, then, as the woman says, there must be some place for them to be in the world. The world is wide enough, I'm sure! Plague take it! why can't we pass a law to take them all in with our niggers, and then they'd have some one to take care of them! Then we'd do something for them, and there'd be some hope of keeping 'em comfortable."
Harry felt in no wise inclined to reply to any of this conversation, because he knew that, though nominally addressed to him, the good gentleman was talking merely for the sake of easing his mind, and that he would have opened his heart just as freely to the next hickory-bush, if he had not happened to be present. So he let him expend himself, waiting for an opportunity to introduce subjects which lay nearer his heart.
In a convenient pause, he found opportunity to say,—
"Miss Nina sent me over here, this morning."
"Ah, Nin! my pretty little Nin! Bless the child! She did? Why couldn't she come over herself, and comfort an old fellow's heart? Nin is the prettiest girl in the county! I tell you that, Harry!"
"Miss Nina is in a good deal of trouble. Master Tom came home last night drunk, and to-day he is so cross and contrary she can't do anything with him."
"Drunk? Oh, what a sad dog! Tom gets drunk too often! Carries that too far, altogether! Told him that, the last time I talked to him. Says I, 'Tom, it does very well for a young man to have a spree once in one or two months. I did it myself, when I was young. But,' says I, 'Tom, to spree all the time, won't do, Tom!' says I. 'Nobody minds a fellow being drunk occasionally; but he ought to be moderate about it, and know where to stop,' says I; 'because, when it comes to that, that he is drunk every day, or every other day, why, it's my opinion that he may consider the devil's got him!' I talked to Tom just so, right out square; because, you see, I'm in a father's place to him. But, Lord, it don't seem to have done him a bit of good! Good Lord! they tell me he is drunk one half his time, and acts like a crazy creature! Goes too far, Tom does, altogether. Mrs. G. an't got any patience with him. She blasts at him every time he comes here, and he blasts at her; so it an't very comfortable having him here. Good woman at heart, Mrs. Gordon, but a little strong in her ways, you know; and Tom is strong, too. So it's fire fight fire when they get together. It's no ways comfortable to a man wanting to have everybody happy around him. Lord bless me! I wish Nin were my daughter! Why can't she come over here, and live with me? She hasn't got any more spirit in her than just what I like. Just enough fizz in her to keep one from flatting out. What about those beaux of hers? Is she going to be married? Hey?"