“I hain’t no reason to tell you er lie, Unc’ Rastus.”
From that moment Montague had the contempt of the whole room. Aunt Milly was evidently recompensed by this, for she simply looked into the sympathetic faces around her and made no sound. Rastus lay back on his quilt silently, and languidly thrust his feet back to the fire.
Aunt Milly’s voice sounded cold and equivocal in her effort to smother her emotions when she said, “Well, come on, y’all, an’ git yo’ ’possum an’ biscuit ‘fo’ dey git co’.” The last words of her invitation were drowned in the scrambling and shuffling of feet as the crowd surged toward the table. A whole opossum embedded in a great heap of fried sweet potatoes was placed by Len and Cæsar on each end of the long table, and Aunt Milly followed them with a great bucket of coffee and pans of smoking biscuits.
They were all seated and had begun the feast, when, to their astonishment, Rastus rose and staggered to a vacant place at the end of the table.
“Whar my ‘possum, Aunt Milly?” he demanded, with pretended pique. “On my soul, I b’lieve you tryin’ ter lef’ me out.”
“Go back ter yo’ bed, Rastus,” she scolded, gently. “What kin got in you? you ain’t eat nothin’ in er mont’ ‘cep’ er li’l soup en gravy, en now you want ter founder yo’se’f on ’possum meat.”
He shoved his plate impatiently toward her. “Gimme some er dem taters en dat ‘possum. You heer me?”
“You too sick, Rastus,” protested Aunt Milly, with maternal persuasiveness. “Go lie down, en I ’ll fix you some er yo’ good soup.”
“I know I wuz sick,” he replied; “but I want ter tell y’all, I ain’t now; I’m cuored well en soun’.” As he spoke these words, accompanied by a heroic attempt to hold himself erect in his chair, Aunt Milly recalled the strange look of desperate determination that had possessed his face when Montague had finished speaking, and she kept silent. Both sides of the long table were curiously looking at the invalid. “I’m er li’l weak yit, but I ain’t sick,” he went on, bracing himself with a thin hand on each side of the table. “You know dat conjure doctor on de river plantation? Well, he come by here dis mawnin’ ‘fo’ day, he did—des ez I wuz gittin’ up ter git er armful er firewood, en—”
“Why, you know dat ain’t so, Unc’ Ras-tus,” broke in Aunt Milly, “kase I got up fus’ dis mawnin’, en you wuz soun’ ersleep.”