“I reckon like enough,” growled Cavarly.
“Happen I was bo'n over there,” said Henry. “Drove the mules to a mule windlass, what they haul seines with, on that same beach. That's Tommy Todd's boathouse, an' he lives back o' them pitch pines.”
“Sit down,” said Cavarly, “an' pull for Tommy Todd's.”
The men gave a faint cheer and shouted to the boat behind. But Cavarly looked no more cheerful than before.
We drew to the shore, where an old weather-beaten boathouse stood, the mule windlass before it, two uprights with a monstrous spool between; and we straggled wearily up the beach, seeing in the distance a long, shambling house among the pitch pines, with smoke rising from the chimney. There Henry beat upon the door, opened it to a sound within, and we streamed into a low, smoky room where a man and a woman sat at breakfast. A fat negro woman was frying bacon on a stove, and an old negro man sat bent over in a chair.
“Hiop! Jemima!” cried the man at the table. “Four, six, eight! Hol' on! Too many.”
“Don' you know me, Tommy Todd? I'm Pete Henry.”
“Maybe you be. Jemima! You're sociable, Pete Henry. Ten, twelve! Been gettin' acquainted, ain't you! Fourteen, fifteen! Jemima!”
Cavarly introduced himself and made Mr. Todd more calm, for he seemed an excitable man and sarcastic. He was square-set, but bony, and wore a thin, gray chin beard and a faded black coat with dangling tails.
Mrs. Todd screeched when we first began to pour in, the fat negro woman jabbered wildly and crowded herself back of the stove, and the old negro man cried out in astonishment, “An' mah name's Tuppentine!” But presently we were seated about everywhere, and mainly on the floor, eating corn bread and bacon, which the fat cook fried for us, rolling her eyes as if it had come to her that we would ask for fried cook, when there was no more bacon.