GETTING TO WORK
"This process of 'setting the day on its legs' is certainly a noisy one," was Abner's first thought next morning as he awoke in the gray dawn to find that the place beside him in the big feather bed had already been vacated by Henry.
Above the clatter made by dogs, chickens and geese in the yard below, could be heard the stentorian tones of Mason Rogers evoking his black myrmidons. "Hi, thar, Rube, Tom, Dink, Eph! Wake up, you lazy varmints!" From the negro quarters came, in answer to each name, "Yes, suh! Comin', Marstah!" The creaking boards of the back porch, the slamming of doors, the clatter of cooking utensils, and the admonishing voice of Mrs. Rogers attested that she, too, was taking "holt on the day" in earnest.
Dudley slipped into his clothes and hastened down the steep stairway in search of such toilet accessories as his attic apartment did not afford. When he reached the porch, the twins provided him with a basin of water, a "noggin" of lye soap, and a towel; and telling him he would find the "coarse comb on the chist of drawers in the settin'-room," hurried to the poultry-yard, where the chickens were already off their roosts and clamoring for their morning meal.
His toilet completed, Dudley started for a ramble before breakfast. At first a faint pink light began to tinge the eastern sky, but presently, from over the crest of the hills across the road, the sun arose like a red ball, dispersing the chill gray mist, and the new day, fresh and radiant and vibrant with the songs of birds, the crowing and cackling of chickens, and the lowing of cattle, was fully inaugurated.
If the stranger found the scene in front of the house quietly beautiful, no less interesting was the more homely one to the rear. In the stable lot Susan and Rache were each stooping beside a long-horned cow, milking. In another enclosure Eph was struggling to head off a determined little calf from its mother, a fierce-looking spotted cow which a negro woman was trying to milk. At the window of the barn loft could be seen a negro man tossing down hay to the horses; and in a lot across the way a number of hogs, in answer to Henry's loud "Soo-e-ey, soo-e-ey!" came clamoring and squealing for the corn "nubbins" he was tossing from the sack across his shoulders.
Soon after breakfast, Abner, accompanied by Henry, set out with the subscription paper.
"How many signers did you git?" inquired Rogers that night when the family were again assembled around the fire.
"Forty-three down, four more doubtful, and two more promised conditionally."
"Who air the conditionals?"