At this point Ben came out of the house with his huge boxes. He was first discovered by Josh, who, delighted with the fun, pointed mysteriously toward him and stuttered, “Da-da-da ’e co-co-comes.”
“The Lord help us,” said Dinah and quick as thought she seized the sleeping Victoria Eugenia and thrust her into the churn as the nearest place of concealment.
The awakened baby gave a screech but Dinah stopped its mouth with a piece of the licorice she always carried in her pocket with her tobacco box and pipe. Meantime Hetty, determined not to be outdone, caught up Dud, and, opening the meal chest, tumbled him in, telling him in fierce whispers “not to stir nor wink, for thar was a man comin’ to cotch him.”
Snatching a newspaper which lay on the floor, she rolled it together and placed it under the lid, so as to allow the youngster a breathing place. This done, she resumed her seat just as Ben appeared, who, throwing down his pack, accosted her with—
“Wall, a’nt, got your chores done? ’Cause if you have I want to trade a little. I won’t be hard on you,” he continued, as he saw the forbidding expression of her face. “I’ll dicker cheap and take most any kind o’ dud for pay.”
Dicker and chores were Greek to old Hetty, but she fully comprehended the word Dud. He meant her DUD—the one in the meal chest—and she grasped the handle of the frying pan, so as to be ready for what might follow next.
“Let me show you some breastpins,” said Ben, looking round for a chair.
They were all occupied, and as the mischievous Josh pointed to the chest, Ben crossed over, and ere Hetty was aware of his intention, seated himself quite as a matter of course. But not long, for Hetty’s dusky fist flourished in the air, and, more than all, the smothered cry of “Granny, granny, he done sot on me,” which came from beneath him, landed him on the other side of the room, where he struck against the churn; whereupon, Victoria Eugenia set up another yell, which sent him back to the spot where Josh’s cowhides were performing various evolutions by way of showing his delight.
“Thunder!” ejaculated Ben, looking first at the skirts of his swallow-tail, then at the chest, from which Dud was emerging, covered with meal, and then at the churn, over the top of which a pair of little black hands and a piece of licorice were visible, “what’s the meaning of all this?”
No explanation whatever was vouchsafed, and, to this day, Ben does not know the reason why those negroes were stowed away in such novel hiding places.