“He talk right husky, ma’am, an’ I ’gun ter feel husky myse’f; an’ den I know’d dat ef I didn’t change de tune, I’d be boo-hooin’ right dar ’fo’ all un um wid needer ’casion nor ’skuce. I went up ter Mary Ellen an’ cotch ’er by de shoulder and say, ‘Shucks, gal! Dat train’ll be here terreckly, an’ den what you gwine ter do?’
“’Twuz a hint ez broad ez a horse-blanket, ma’am, but Mary Ellen never tuck it. She des stood dar an’ look at me. An’ ’bout dat time Marse Bolivar he ketch’d holt er my shoulder an’ whirlt me ’roun’, an’ ’low, ‘What de matter, Minervy Ann? Talk it right out!’
“Wellum, I let you know I tol’ ’im; I des laid it off! I tol’ des how ’twuz; how Mary Ellen been sont up dar by ol’ Fed Tatum, an’ how, on de ’count er no fault er her’n de Northron folks tuck ’er ter be a white gal; an’ how one er de gals what went ter school wid ’er wuz gwine ter come ter see ’er an’ stay ’twixt trains. Den I ’low, ‘Whar is Mary Ellen gwine ter see ’er? In dat ar mud-shack whar her ma live at? In de big road? In de woods? In de hoss-lot?”
The whole scene from beginning to end had been enacted by Aunt Minervy Ann. In the empty spaces of the room she had placed the colonel, his wife, and Mary Ellen, and they seemed to be before us, and not only before us, but the passionate earnestness with which she laid the case of Mary Ellen before the colonel made them live and move under our very eyes.
“In de big road? In de woods? In de hoss-lot?”
And when she paused for the reply of the colonel, the look of expectation on her face was as keen and as eager as it could have been on the day and the occasion when she was pleading for Mary Ellen. The spell was broken by the lady of the house, who leaned forward eagerly as if expecting the colonel himself to reply. Perhaps Aunt Minervy Ann misunderstood the movement. She paused a moment as if dazed, and then sank by the sofa with a foolish laugh.
“I know you all put me down ter be a fool,” she said, “an’ I ’speck I is.”
“Nonsense!” cried the lady of the house, sharply. “What did the colonel reply?”
Aunt Minervy remained silent a little while, picking at one of the fringes of the sofa. She was evidently trying to reassemble in her mind the incidents and surroundings of her narrative. Presently she began again, in a tone subdued and confidential: