When Mr. Sanders returned home, bearing the news of Gabriel's escape, Nan Dorrington laid siege to his patience, and insisted that he go over every detail of the event, not once but a dozen times. To her it was a remarkable adventure, which fitted in well with the romances which she had been weaving all her life. How did Gabriel look when he ran from the depot at Malvern? Was he frightened? And how in the world did he manage to get in the waggon, and crawl on the inside of the sham bale of cotton and hide so that nobody could see him? And what did he say and how did he look when Mr. Sanders found him asleep in the cotton-bale box, or the cotton-box bale, whichever you might call it?
"Why, honey, I've told you all I know an' a whole lot more," protested Mr. Sanders. "Ef ever'body was name Nan, I'd be the most populous man in the whole county."
"Well, tell me this," Nan insisted; "what did he talk about when he woke up? Did he ask about any of the home-folks?"
"Lemme see," said Mr. Sanders, pretending to reflect; "he turned over in his box, an' got his ha'r ketched in a rough plank, an' then he bust out cryin' jest like you use to do when you got hurt. I kinder muched him up, an' then he up an' tol' me a whole lot of stuff about a young lady: how he was gwine to win her ef he had to stop chawin' tobacco, an' cussin'. I'll name no names, bekaze I promised him I wouldn't."
"I think that is disgusting," Nan declared. "Do you mean to tell me he never asked about his grandmother?"
"Fiddlesticks, Nan! he looked at me like he was hungry, an' I told him all about his grandmother, an' he kep' on a-lookin' hungry, an' I told him all about her neighbours. What he said I couldn't tell you no more than the man in the moon. He done jest like any other healthy boy would 'a' done, an' that's all I know about it."
"That's what I thought," said Nan wearily; "boys are so tiresome!"
"Well, Gabriel didn't look much like a boy when I seed him last. He hadn't shaved in a month of Sundays, and his beard was purty nigh as long as my little finger. He couldn't go to a barber-shop in Malvern for fear some of the niggers might know him an' report him to the commander of the post there. I begged him not to shave the beard off. He looks mighty well wi' it."
"His beard!" cried Nan. "If he comes home with a beard I'll never speak to him again. Gabriel with a beard! It is too ridiculous!"
"Don't worry," Mr. Sanders remarked soothingly. "Ef I git word of his comin' I'll git me a pa'r of shears, an' meet him outside the corporation line, an' lop his whiskers off for him; but I tell you now, it won't make him look a bit purtier—not a bit."