“Tip-top,” he said, with a laugh. “As we went to town, nothin’ would do the black scamp but we must go by after the gal. She happened to be dressed up, an’ went to town with us. I set in front an’ driv’, while they done their courtin’ on the back seat. I soon got the papers in shape, an’ Squire Ridley spliced ’em right on the sidewalk in front o’ his office. A big crowd was thar, an’ you never heerd the like o’ yellin’. Some o’ the boys, jest fer pure devilment, picked me up an’ carried me on their shoulders to the tavern an’ made me set down to a hearty dinner. Joe borrowed a apron from the cook an’ insisted on waitin’ on me, La me, I wisht you’d ‘a’ been thar. I felt like a blamed fool.”
“I reckon you did have a lots o’ fun,” said Mrs. Gill. “Well, I’m glad he ain’t on our hands. I wouldn’t pass another day like yis-tiddy fer all the slaves in Georgia.”
THE WHIPPING OF UNCLE HENRY
I do believe,” said Mrs. Pelham, stooping to look through the oblong window of the milk-and-butter cellar toward the great barn across the farmyard, “I do believe Cobb an’ Uncle Henry are fussin’ ag’in.”
“Shorely not,” answered her old-maid sister, Miss Molly Meyers. She left her butter bowl and paddles, and bent her angular figure beside Mrs. Pelham, to see the white man and the black man who were gesticulating in each other’s faces under the low wagon-shed that leaned against the barn.
The old women strained their ears to overhear what was said, but the stiff breeze from across the white-and-brown fields of cotton stretching toward the west bore the angry words away. Mrs. Pelham turned and drew the white cloths over her milkpans.
“Cobb will never manage them niggers in the world,” she sighed. “Henry has had Old Nick in ’im as big as a house ever since Mr. Pelham went off an’ left Cobb in charge. Uncle Henry hain’t minded one word Cobb has said, nur he won’t. The whole crop is goin’ to rack an’ ruin. Thar’s jest one thing to be done. Mr. Pelham has jest got to come home an’ whip Henry. Nobody else could do it, an’ he never will behave till it’s done. Cobb tried to whip ’im t’other day when you was over the mountain, but Henry laid hold of a ax helve an’ jest dared Cobb to tech ‘im. That ended it. Cobb was afeard of ‘im. Moreover, he’s afeard Uncle Henry will put p’ison in his victuals, or do ’im or his family some bodily damage on the sly.”
“It would be a powerful pity,” returned Miss Molly, “fer Mr. Pelham to have to lay down his business in North Carolina, whar he’s got so awful much to do, an’ ride all that three hundred miles jest fer to whip one nigger. It looks like some other way mought be thought of. Couldn’t you use your influence—”