“Judge, please quit teasin' me!” Like unto a peppercorn, ground between the millstones of duty and desire, the sergeant backed reluctantly away from between the carriage wheels.
“You know yourse'f how wimmin folks are. It's the new Campbellite preacher that's comin' to-night, and there won't be a drop to drink on the table exceptin' maybe lemonade or ice tea. But I've jest natchelly got to be on hand and, whut's more, I've got to be on my best behaviour too. Dem that new preacher! Why couldn't he a-picked out some other night than this one?”
“Jimmy, listen——”
But the sergeant had turned and was fleeing to sanctuary, beyond reach of the tempter's tongue.
So for the last eighth-mile of the ride, until the black driver halted his team at the Priest place out on Clay Street, the judge rode alone. Laboriously he crawled out from beneath the overhang of the carriage top, handed up two bits as a parting gift to the darky on the seat, and waddled across the sidewalk.
The latch on the gate was broken. It had been broken for weeks. The old man slammed the gate to with a passionate jerk. The infirm latch clicked weakly, then slipped out of the iron nick and the gate sagged open—an invitation to anybody's wandering livestock to come right on in and feast upon the shrubs, which from lack of pruning had become thick, irregular little jungles. Clumps of rank grass, like green scalp locks, were sprouting in the walk, and when the master had mounted the creaking steps he saw where two porch planks had warped apart, leaving a gap between them. In and out of the space ran big black ants. The house needed painting, too, he noticed; in places where the rain water had dribbled out of a rust-hole in the tin gutter overhead, the grain of the clapboarding showed through its white coating. Mentally the judge promised himself that he would take a couple of days off sometime soon and call in workmen and have the whole shebang tidied and fixed up. Once a place began to run down it seemed to break out with neglect all over, as with a rash.
Halfway through his supper that evening the judge, who had been strangely silent in the early part of the meal, addressed his house boy, Jeff Poindexter, in the accents of a marked disapproval.
“Look here, Jeff,” he demanded, “have I got to tell you ag'in about mendin' the ketch on that front gate?”
“Yas, suh—I means no, suh,” Jeff corrected himself quickly. “Ise aimin' to do it fust thing in de mawnin', suh,” added Jeff glibly, repeating a false pledge for perhaps the dozenth time within a month. “I got so many things to do round yere, Jedge, dat sometimes hit seems lak I can't think whut nary one of 'em is.”
“Huh!” snorted his employer crossly. Then he went on warningly: “Some of these days there's goin' to be a sudden change in this house ef things ain't attended to better—whole place goin' to rack and ruin like it is.”