“Sarvant, mahster!”
“Take some sugar?”
“Much obleeged, young mahster; seems like ’most everything spiles whiskey. Somehownutther nothin’ don’t gee with sperrits ’cep’n ’tis mo’ sperrits.”
“But Aunt Polly might like sugar with hers.”
“Dat’s a fac’, Marse Charley, dat’s a fac’; but Lor’ me, women don’t know; but den again dey tell me it’s a wise man as knows his own father, so d’yar ’tis.”
“Well, Uncle Dick, I can make out without you now, so good-night; and present my compliments to Aunt Polly, and you and she drink my health.”
“We will pint’ly, Marse Charles, we will pint’ly.” And even after the old man had closed the door, you might have heard muttered fragments of his amiable intentions, as he trudged back to the kitchen.
“Well,” began my grandfather, rising from the table to fill his pipe, “you made a long stay of it in Richmond. How did you leave the young man?”
“Ah, he is nearly well again,” said Charley, deftly removing a side-bone from the fowl before him. “By Jove, I did not know how hungry I was. That early dinner on the boat seems to me now like a far-away dream of a thing that never was. I wonder whether this turkey really is the best that old Sucky ever raised? How good that tobacco smells!”
Charley was happy. The bright fire and good cheer, after his long, cold, and tiresome ride, the intense consciousness of being at home once more, but, above all, the look of beaming satisfaction on the face of the venerable but still vigorous old man, who sat smiling upon him and enjoying his appetite and high spirits, filled him with ineffable content.