Notwithstanding the great change wrought by the war, the DeKays had been able to hold on to a picturesque residuum of their former wealth and to keep up a fair show of that hospitality which had once been almost unlimited. The guests of the mansion felt the perfect freedom given them, and so the days went by without a circumstance to hinder their enjoyment of every moment.
Uncle Mono was a source of great amusement to every body; his banjo, his songs, his stories, his peculiar philosophy and that individuality of thought and expression, so often exhibited by old negroes, making him especially interesting to Moreton and Miss Crabb. His life had been so saturated with slavery's influences that freedom, coming to him after he had passed the meridian of life, had not been able to change him much.
Along with his other gifts, Uncle Mono was a fortune-teller whose fame held the admiration and the awe of all the negroes at highest strain. He could tell when it was going to rain and when the wind was going to change as well as he could predict the kind of sweetheart the future would bring to the inquiring youth or maiden. In fact he was the seventh son of a seventh son, and not a drop of white-man's blood ran in his veins.
"I's pyo' blood dahky f'om away back," he was fond of saying. "None yo' yaller niggah 'bout me. Nuffin' I 'spises mo' 'n one o' dese yer no' 'count clay-faced merlatters. Steal! Dey des steal de sole of 'm yo' shoes! No sah, I's pyo' blood dahky."
Sometimes, when the evening air chanced to be warm enough, the guests and the household would assemble on one of the wide verandas and send for Uncle Mono to play for them while the gentlemen smoked their pipes and cigars and the ladies promenaded back and forth to the brisk tinkling of the banjo. They all enjoyed the touch of old-time custom when a number of the plantation negroes, young and old, crept up to within a respectful distance, looking on and listening.
The nights were superb, the splendor of stars or moon and sky adding an almost weird sheen to the gray fields and silvery river. The pronounced atmosphere of isolation which broods over all those large low-country plantations gave to the guests at DeKay Place a comforting sense of liberty, as if the restraints of conventional life had been dissolved and dissipated, or had never come here.
Some swings had been made of huge muscadine vines brought from the woods and suspended from the trees on the lawn. The young women, especially Miss Noble and Miss Crabb, found swinging most exhilarating sport. Moreton watched Cordelia as she oscillated, like a gay pendulum, in the soft night-light under the dusky boughs, until his heart timed its beating with her movements. He enjoyed every phase of this delightful subtropical episode in his life. It did him good to see Reynolds returning to something like his old-time youthful enthusiasm and cheerfulness.
Among them all it was silently noted how Mrs. Ransom and Reynolds were drawn towards each other.
"Dunno 'bout dat big, dahk young ge'man flyin' roun' de young missus no how," muttered Uncle Mono to his colored companions; "seem lak mebbe she better look sha'p 'bout 'im. He sort o' 'sterious lookin' young man anyhow."
Miss Crabb for some reason failed to win favor with the negroes. She was very much interested in them and tried hard to study them; but her inquiring manner and insistent tones of voice did not touch their warm African hearts. On the other hand, Miss Noble was a prime favorite with them all.