To this Abraham had no reply, save to look at the offender as if he would thus scorch her with the volcanic heat of his supreme contempt, and walked away into the darkness.
Caroline’s song dwindled into a murmur as he vanished. She went to the door and peered after him as he receded in the misty moonlight, with a look of deep concern upon her.
Abraham went on until he came to the cottage of his widowed sister, Martha Todd. Here he took a seat on the doorstep. A woman came out of the unlighted room.
“Dat you, Abrum?” she grunted in surprise. “Well, well; I do know you skeered me, sho, kase I ain’t ’spectin’ you. What kin er happen ter tek you off frum home dis time er night; I des fixin’ ter go ter baid?”
“Marfy,” said the visitor, in a deeply pained voice, “de storm has riz in my own home at las’. I reckon me en Ca’line done bust up fer good.”
“Why, Abrum; whut’s de matter? How come you seh dat? My!”
“Sister Marfy, you know Ca’line. You know how she is w’en she set ’er haid. She is sho’ nough set on ’mersion en de Baptist chu’ch. You know how I is on dat subjec’.”
“Brer Abrum, dis done come on us at las’.” The woman seemed to filter her tones through a mixture of resignation and satisfaction. “I been hat my eye open fer er long time. I ain’t seh nothin’ kase it no business er mine, en I ’low it bes’ ter wait. Ev’y day while you hard at wuk de Baptist preacher is been er buzzin’ in Ca’line’s ear. I don’t see no way out’n it. It sholly is too bad; Asphy is so young; you is sech er big Mephodis’ an’ er deacon, too. I do know how you feel.”
“Marfy,” said the ebon devotee, sternly, as he evoked a dull thud from his knee onto which his broad hand descended; “Marfy, me en Ca’line gwine be divo’ced, ’at’s de end.”
“Too bad she tuk dat way,” sighed Martha Todd, more deeply than she was given to over her own misfortunes.