“Do tell me something more about the darkies,” said her companion, sipping his tea enjoyingly, when Thompson had gone, “I’ve been chuckling ever since, over those stories you told us yesterday.”
Carter knit her pretty brow to try to think up something. It was very pleasant to her to try to amuse this amiable man, for she really felt grateful to him, and anxious to please him.
“O, I’ll tell you about Uncle Enos, when he got religion,” she said, smiling at the remembrance. “It was such a clever thing in him! Enos was our white-washer, and he had been notoriously bad and irreligious, until his conversion. The very next day he came to me and told me of it, and added that, early that morning, while he was white-washing a fence, a serious danger had threatened him in his new life. ‘Miss Kyarter,’ he said, ‘I was wuckin’ away en thinkin’ ’bout de blessed change whar done bin cum tuh me, en I look up en see one o’ them miser’ble, low-life, God-forsaken niggers, whar I had done bin use tuh keep comp’ny with, a-cummin’ down de road. I see him begin tuh laugh en sner, ez soon ez he cum nigh me, en I knowed ’twus kus I done jine de army o’ de Lord. He stop short on t’other side de fence, en he low since I bin done got religion, he s’pose I b’lieve everything de Bible say is true? I tell him, ‘Yes, bless de Lord!’ ‘Well,’ he say, with one o’ his wicked, mischeeveous grins, ‘don’t de Bible say dat when de Lord done finish all He wuks, He bin look at ’em all, en behol’ dey was all good?’ ‘Yes,’ I tell him, ‘dem is de ve’y words o’ de blessed book.’ ‘Well,’ he say, ‘didn’ de Lord mek de Devil? How was dat?’ en he slaps his impident fat sides en busted out a-laughin’! He had jiss turn roun’ to go way, when I call him back. ‘Hol’ on, you blasphemious black-skinned raskill!’ I say, ‘you think yuh dun kotch me, do yuh? But wasn’ he a mighty good Devil?’”
Stafford laughed, with a feeling of zest that he had not known for a long while. He was evidently immensely amused at the negro characteristics, as Carter unfolded them to him, and the girl, catching sight of a guitar, tucked away in a corner, ran and brought it, in her natural and impulsive way, and, with her head prettily turned on one side, began to tune it.
“I’m going to sing you some plantation hymns,” she said. “Shall I?”
As he responded with the most evident enthusiasm, she got her chords attuned and began to sing to an indescribably plaintive tune:
“O, send down de angel to trouble o’ de water,
O, send down de angel to trouble o’ de water,
O, send down de angel to trouble o’ de water,
And to let God’s saints come in.”