“Ah kissed ’er in de mouf
An’ ah hugged ’er in de souf.”
“Ain’ you know bettah an’ to mek a noise dat a way, dis time in de mo’ning?” the irritated cook inquired.
“Ah ain’ mek no noise, Miss Sereny. Hit de caah,” he made reply in pleasant tones. It would be folly to irritate unduly the custodian of the chicken lest the fowl be consumed before friendly relations could be reestablished. His black face was bathed in good humor as he went on. “Miss Sereny, ma hand an’ ma foot done slip.”
That smile disarmed the cook. It was his strongest weapon, but Ike usually resorted to a sullen obstinacy which infuriated her, to his undoing. She glared at him for a moment and then his smile and the spirit of the morning claimed her. “You bettah watch you’ step, den,” she returned, and their voices blended in a boisterous gust of laughter.
Ike’s salute to his favorite fowl awakened Virginia from her sleep with a start. Sitting up in bed, she cast a frightened glance about her pretty bedroom. For a moment she listened intently, drawn up in a little white heap on her bed, her blue eyes misty with dreams, peeping out from a frame of towsled hair. “It’s Ike running the engine,” she decided.
She gave a little yawn as she poked her feet into her slippers and ran over to a window. From it she could look, between the tops of two great elms, across the valley in which South Ridgefield lay to the top of a small hill upon which, bathed in the morning sun, stood the brick hospital building. Her eyes rested upon it, thoughtfully, and she took a deep breath of morning air. She began to sing happily as she turned to dress.
Obadiah was shaving in his bath room. He used an old fashioned razor, the pride of his youth. His deep cut wrinkles made it a matter of care–almost a ceremony. Ike’s disturbance nearly resulted in the amputation of a lip. Obadiah was peeved. Rushing to the window, he threw it open. He heard Serena’s words of remonstrance and determined to dismiss Ike. He often did that.
Suddenly the morning breeze played caressingly about him. He pulled his bath robe closer to him and slammed the window down. His face felt stiff where the lather had dried upon it. “Darn the luck,” growled Obadiah. He washed his face, restropped his razor, reprepared his lather, and finally completed his shave by nicking his neck on his Adam’s apple. “Dang it all,” he howled. The world was ill using Obadiah and he resented it. He dressed slowly and from his bedroom window moodily viewed his beautiful grounds.
Into his view danced Virginia, swinging a wide brimmed hat by its streamers and singing gaily as she made for a bed of sweet peas.