“THE OLD NEGRO PUT HIS HANDS TO HIS MOUTH AND CALLED.”
Mr. Meredith Ingram was standing out in his front yard, enjoying a pipe before breakfast. He was talking to himself and laughing when Daddy Jake and the children approached.
“Howdy, Mars’ Meredy,” said the old negro, taking off his hat and bowing as politely as he could with the child in his arms. Mr. Ingram looked at him through his spectacles and over them.
“Ain’t that Gaston’s Jake?” he asked, after he had examined the group.
“Yasser,” said Daddy Jake, “an’ deze is my marster’s little chillun.”
Mr. Ingram took his pipe out of his mouth.
“Why, what in the world!—Why, what under the sun!—Well, if this doesn’t beat—why, what in the nation!”—Mr. Ingram failed to find words to express his surprise.
Daddy Jake, however, made haste to tell Mr. Ingram that the little ones had drifted down the river in a boat, that he had found them, and wished to get them home just as quickly as he could.
“My marster bin huntin’ fer um, suh,” said the old negro, and I want ter beat him home, kaze ef he go dar widout deze chillun, my mistiss’ll be a dead ’oman—she cert’n’y will, suh.”