“Hyuh; lemme slip dis pilluh und’ yo’ head; an’ leave dat ole cat slide down further on yo’ stummic, whah ’tain so dang’us.”
This little attention performed, Felo sat down in the rocking chair and began looking about the room, uncertain how to start his communication. After an awkward silence, he asked:
“You goin’ keep on readin’?”
“What have you got to say?” Mr. Amos questioned, without looking away from his book.
“Man, put yo’ book down, an’ be soshable,” he commanded. “You ain’ sattafy peepin’ up in books all day long, you gotta come hyuh at night-time strainin’ yo’ eyesight over agin?... W’a’s de matter, you don’ wan’ talk?”
“No; I want to listen,” said Mr. Amos, closing the book and putting it aside. “What have you to tell me?”
“I wan’ tell you ’bout a upsetment me an’ Lethe had las’ night,” he began apologetically. “I know Lethe done blabbed it all over Gritny by now; an’ I know she goin’ tell Miss Tilly; an’ Miss Tilly sho ain’ goin’ miss tell you soon’s she see you; so I wan’ tell you de whole thing so you know de straight tale w’en you hyeah it fum somebody else.”
Whereupon he gave a careful account of his visit to Aunt Susan’s cook shop; the members he met and talked with there; his misunderstanding with Lizzie, and his late visit to the church; where he learned that Lethe had gone home in a sullen frame of mind over some wilful misinformation communicated to her by the vengeful Lizzie. Leaving the church with the wake in full swing, he told how he went to Lethe’s house, to find that she had gone to bed. He knocked on the door and she got up and let him in; finding fault with him for coming so late; and asking why he hadn’t spent the night with the women he began the evening with so pleasantly at Susan’s.
“I say to ’uh: For Gawd sake, Lethe, don’ try an’ raise no humbug late in de night like dis. I ain’ come hyuh to make no squawble over any lie Lizzie Cole done hatched up jes’ for spite.
“I say: I come hyuh like I do evvy Sunday night; ’cause I wan’ see you, an’ ’cause I thinks somh’n ’bout you.... So dah whah I commence to undress myself, an’ went to bed, ’cause I was sleepy.”