“Oh, Massa, now you is makin’ fun ob dis poor niggar.”
“I am not. Take a turnip, scrape it the same as the radish, into fine shaving, mix it with fresh mustard, and a little pepper and vinegar, and you can’t tell it from t’other.”
“By golly, Massa, but dat are a wrinkle. Oh, how missus would a lubbed you. It was loud all down sout dere was a great deal ob ’finement in her. Nobody was good nuff for her dere; dey had no taste for cookin’. She was mighty high ‘mong de ladies, in de instep, but not a mossel of pride to de niggars. Oh, you would a walked right into de cockles ob her heart. If you had tredded up to her, she would a married you, and gub you her tree plantations, and eight hundred niggar, and ebery ting, and order dinner for you herself. Oh, wouldn’t she been done, gone stracted, when you showed her how she had shot her grandmother?1 wouldn’t she? I’ll be dad fetched if she wouldn’t.”
1 Shooting one’s granny, or grandmother, means fancying you have discovered what was well known before.
“Have you any other fish?” I said.
“Oh yes, Massa; some grand fresh clams.”
“Do you know how to cook them?”
“Massa,” said he, putting his hands under his white apron, and, sailor-like, giving a hitch up to his trousers, preparatory to stretching himself straight; “Massa, dis here niggar is a rambitious niggar, and he kersaits he can take de shine out ob any niggar that ever played de juice harp in cookin’ clams. Missus structed me husself. Massa, I shall nebber forget dat time, de longest day I live. She sent for me, she did, and I went in, and she was lyin’ on de sofa, lookin’ pale as de inside of parsimmon seed, for de wedder was brilin’ hot.
“‘Sorrow,’ said she.
“‘Yes, Missus,’ said I.