“Yas’m. I sho’ gits lonesome fer de ole times an’ de easy ways, ’fore dis island was a hog lot.”
“Oh, so your boss is the man who gets the refuse from the hospital?” asked Brad.
“Yassuh. I ain’ neber see so much slop since I been born. In de ole days my Massa wouldn’t ov tetched he hand to sich wuk, but not Mr. Beeson. He go fer dat stuff all de time hisself.”
Kitty thought the old man looked to be eighty or ninety. His bloodshot eyes were deeply sunken in his wrinkled dusty brown face, while his once-large frame had little padding left on the bones.
“It was nice of Mr. Beeson to let you continue to live here after he rented the island,” Kitty remarked, hoping to draw him out further.
“Yassum, but he can’t he’p hisse’f. Massa’s son, up nawth, whut own de island all dese years, say he won’t rent to nobody, lessen I kin stay here de res’ o’ mah days an’ lib in peace.”
“I Sho’ Gits Lonesome,” the Old Negro Said