“Der ain’t nobody in Car’lina fer ’er ceppin er dad! Seem like she idol—idol—”
“Idolizes him,” I suggested.
“Mout be dat,” Mammy Jacks assented. She repeated the word to herself with much satisfaction. It was a long one.
The little vixen, I thought. So she would be rid of me before her father returned! She knew that he would not send me away, and so—well, she was a spit-fire!
“Look here, Mammy Jacks,” I said. “I don’t think that I shall sleep to-night. I am restless. I should like something to read. Will you ask Miss Wilmer if she can lend me a book. Any book will do, old or new.”
“Tooby sho,’” she said, and she went to do my bidding.
I thought that this might re-open relations. It might bring the girl herself to learn what kind of book I would choose to have. There was not likely to be much choice on this up-country plantation, where I need not expect to find the “Fool of Quality” or “The Female Quixote” or any of the fashionable productions of the circulating libraries. But a Pope, a Richardson, or possibly a Fielding I might hope to have.
Alas, my reckoning was at fault. I had none, of these. It was Mammy Jacks who presently brought back the answer and the book. “Missie, she up ’n say dat monst’ous good book fer you,” the negress explained, as she set down the volume with a grin. “Missie say it wuz ole en new, but she specks new ter you. She tuck’n say she ’ope you read it ter night—you in monst’ous big need uv it.”
Puzzled by the message, and a little curious, I took the book and opened it. It was the Bible!
For a moment I was very angry; it seemed to be a poor jest, and in bad taste. Then I saw, or thought that I saw, that it was not a jest at all. This queer girl had sent the Bible, thinking to impress me, to frighten me, to bend me at the last moment to her will!