“Gabe promised too, but he smoked and chawed all the same,” remarked Chloe as she took her pipe and tobacco from her pocket.
“Oh, dat Gabe is a hippercrite, I allus knowd’d dat; not like dese yer boys nohow,” replied Andy, between puffs of his pipe.
“I ain’t never gwine to smoke,” interposed Mose, not willing to be overlooked.
“Better wait ’till yer axed,” suggested Kitty.
“Well, how was dey gittin’ along in de porehouse when yer lef’, Brudder Isrel?” inquired Andy.
“Oh, fust-rate, what is left of de old stock, but dar is a heap of changes in the pore-house as well as in other places, Brudder Andy. Some of the ol’ residenters have gone to dar long home, and dar places are done filled. Gabe Websta was one of de late arrivals.”
“What is dat?” cried Andy in amazement, while Aunt Kitty and Mose gazed upon him in consternation, and Chloe removed her pipe to listen. “Yer suttenly don’t mean our Gabe Websta?” he questioned.
“I is sorry to inform you, Brudder Andy, that Gabe is at this moment in the pore-house; he was took up as a wagrant early this fall.”
“As a wagrant!” echoed Andy, rolling up his eyes and shaking his frosty head. “Now ain’t it too bad dat anybody dat had de raisen dat boy had wid ol’ Marse Courtney, has done gone an’ disgraced hisself?”
“You know that he never would work, Uncle Andy,” remarked Kitty. “Ol’ missus used to say that it was more bother to make Gabe work than his work was wuth.”