Mary Ellen stopped tossing bits of bread to the chickens. "No, Aunt Lucy," she said. "I hadn't thought about that."

"Yes, you has!" cried Aunt Lucy, rising and shaking a bodeful forefinger.

"Yes you _has_, an' yes you _does_! An' you don' 'preshuate him, tha.s.s whut. Him a wushshippin' you!"

Mary Ellen began tossing bread again. "How do you know that?" she asked.

"How does I know?--law me, jes listen to thet chile! How does I know?

Ain' he done tole me, an' yo' an' Lizzie, an' Majah Buford--an' _you_?

Ain' he done tole you a dozen times? Don' everybody know hit? Him ez fine er man you goin' toe see right soon, I tell you. Tall ez yo' fatheh wuz, an' strong ez er li'ne. He kin git ole Mr. An'lope. He kin ride ary beastis in this yer onery country. An' him a-wukkin' for ther railroad, an' a lawyeh, an' all that. He's shoh' boun' toe be rich, one o' these yer days. An' he's a gemman, too, mo'oveh; he's a gemman!

Reckon I knows quality! Yas, sir, Cap'n Franklin, she shoh'ly am the bestes' man fer a real lady to choosen--bestes' in all this yer lan'.

Uh-huh!"

"I never thought of him--not in that way," said Mary Ellen, not quite able to put an end to this conversation.

"Miss Ma'y Ellen," said Aunt Lucy solemnly, "I'se wukked fer you an' yo'

fam'ly all my life, an' I hates to say ary woh'd what ain't fitten. But I gotto to tell you, you ain' tellin' the _trufe_ to me, toe yo' old black mammy, right now. I tells you, an' I knows it, tha' hain't nary gal on earth ever done look at _no_ man, I don't care who he wuz, 'thout thinkin' 'bout him, an' 'cidin' in her min', one way er otheh whetheh she like fer to mah'y that ther man er not! If er 'ooman say she do different f'om thet, she shoh'ly fergettin' o' the trufe, tha.s.s all!

Ain' thought o' him! Go 'long!" Aunt Lucy wiped her hand upon her ap.r.o.n violently in the vehemence of her incredulity.

Mary Ellen's face sobered with a trace of the old melancholy.

"Aunt Lucy," she said, "you mean kindly, I am sure, but you must not talk to me of these things. Don't you remember the old days back home? Can you forget Master Henry, Aunt Lucy--can you forget the days--those days--?"

Aunt Lucy rose and went over to Mary Ellen and took her hand between her own great black ones. "No, I doesn't fergit nothin', Miss Ma'y Ellen,"

she said, wiping the girl's eyes as though she were still a baby. "I doesn't fergit Mas' Henry, Gord bless him! I doesn't fergit him any mo'n you does. How kin I, when I done loved him much ez I did you? Wuzn't I goin' to come 'long an' live wif you two, an' take keer o' you, same's I did to the old place? I was a-lookin' to ther time when you an' Mas'

Henry wuz a-goin' ter be mah'ied. But now listen toe yo' ole black mammy, whut knows a heap mo'n you does, an' who is a-talkin' toe you because you ain't got no real mammy o' yer own no mo'. You listen toe me. Now, I done had fo' husban's, me. Two o' them done died, an' one distapeart in the wah, an' one he turn out no 'count. Now, you s'pose I kain't love no otheh man?"

Mary Ellen could not restrain a smile, but it did not impinge upon the earnestness of the other.

"Yas'm, Miss Ma'y Ellen," she continued, again taking the girl's face between her hands. "Gord, he say, it hain't good fer man toe be erlone.

An' Gord knows, speshul in er lan' like this yer, hit's a heap mo' fitten fer a man toe be erlone then fer a 'ooman. Some wimmen-folks, they's made fer grievin', all ther time, fer frettin', an' worr'in', an'

er-mopin' 'roun'. Then, agin, some is made fer _lovin_'--I don' say fer lovin' mo'n one man to er time; fer ther ain't no good 'ooman ever did thet. But some is made fer _lovin_'. They sech er heap o' no 'count folks in ther worl', hit do seem like a shame when one o' them sort don'

love n.o.body, an' won't let n.o.body love them!"

Mary Ellen was silent. She could not quite say the word to stop the old servant's garrulity, and the latter went on.

"Whut I does say, Miss Ma'y Ellen," she resumed, earnestly looking into the girl's face as though to carry conviction with her speech--"whut I does say, an' I says. .h.i.t fer yo' own good, is this; Mas' Henry, he's daid! He's daid an' buh'ied, an' flowehs growin' oveh his grave, yeahs 'n yeahs. An' you never wuz mahied toe him. An' you _wan't_ nothin' but a gal. Chile, you don't know nothin' '_bout_ lovin' yit. Now, I says toe you, whut's ther use? Tha.s.s. .h.i.t, Miss Ma'y Ellen, whut's ther use?"

CHAPTER XXII

EN VOYAGE

"I wish, Sam," said Franklin one morning as he stopped at the door of the livery barn--"I wish that you would get me up a good team. I'm thinking of driving over south a little way to-day."

"All right, Cap," said Sam. "I reckon we can fix you up. How far you goin'?"

"Well, about twenty-five or thirty miles, perhaps."

"Which will bring you," said Sam meditatively, "just about to the Halfway House. Seein' it's about there you'll be stopping I reckon I better give you my new buggy. I sort of keep it, you know, for special 'casions."

Franklin was too much absorbed to really comprehend this delicate attention, even when Sam rolled out the carriage of state, lovingly dusting off the spokes and with ostentation spreading out the new lap robe. But finally he became conscious of Sam, standing with one foot on the hub of a wheel, chewing a straw, and with a certain mental perturbation manifest in his countenance.

"Cap," said he, "I know just how you feel."

"What's that?" said Franklin.

"Well, I mean, I allow me and you is pretty much in the same boat."

"Eh?" said Franklin, puzzled.

"Why, both us fellers is fixed about the same."

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand you."

"Well, now, er--that is, you know, we both got a girl, you know--I mean, we each has a girl--"

Franklin's face was not inviting, which fact Sam noticed, hastening with his apology.

"Oh, no offence, Cap," said he hurriedly, "but I was just a-thinkin'.

You know that Nory girl over to the hotel. Well, now, I'm gone on that girl, the worst sort o' way. Honest, Cap, I ain't happy. I used ter eat an' sleep 'thout no sort of trouble, but now I'm all used up. I ain't right. An' it's Nory."

"Why don't you marry her?" asked Franklin calmly.

Sam gasped. "I--I--that's it, that's just it! I--can't ast her!" he said, with despair and conviction in his voice. "I've tried, and I can't say a word to her about it, nothin' more than mebbe to ast her to pa.s.s me the b.u.t.ter. She don't seem to understand."

"Well, what do you expect? Do you think she is going to ask you about it herself?"

"My G.o.d, Cap, I don't know! I ever she did, I know mighty well what I'd say. But she won't, and I can't. And there we are. I lose my nerve every time I try to speak to her. Now, I say this to you, man to man, you know, and no one the wiser; I can talk to anybody else about this, to anybody but just Nory. Now, you've been goin' down to this here Halfway House a-plenty for a long time, and I don't know as you seem much furder along 'an I am. So I allowed maybe you was hooked up a good deal the way I be. You go down there, an' set down and eat, an'

you set around like, but can't seem to make no break--you don't dast to say what you want to say. Is that so?"

Franklin flushed, his first impulse being of distinct displeasure; yet he recognised the perfect good faith of the other's remarks and turned away without reply.

"An' what I was goin' to say," continued Sam, following after him, "is like this. Now, you ain't afraid of Nory, an' I ain't afraid of Miss Beecham. Turn about's fair play. I'll speak to Miss Beecham for you, if you'll just sort o' lay this here before Nory for me. You needn't say much, understand! If I ever onct get started, you know, I'll be all right. I could tell her all about it then, easy enough. Now, say, Cap, six of one and half a dozen of the other. Is it a go?"

Franklin could not keep back a smile. "Well, in regard to my half of it," he said, "I can neither affirm nor deny it. But if what you say were true, don't you think you might find it pretty hard to talk to Miss Beauchamp on this matter?"

"Not in a hundred!" said Sam eagerly. "I'd just as soon talk to Miss Beecham as not. I'd ruther. They ain't no feller around here that I think's any whiter than you be. An' Lord knows, that girl down there is handsome as ever looked through a bridle, and kind as she is handsome. I've seen her now, reg'lar, in my trips down there for quite a while, an' I promise you, she's a thoroughbred, an' high strung, but as even gaited as ever stepped. Yes, sir!"

"She is all that, I think, Sam," said Franklin soberly.

"Then it's a go, Cap?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Sam," said Franklin kindly, "maybe we'd better let it run along a little while as it is. You know, girls have odd notions of their own. Perhaps a girl would rather have a man speak for himself about that sort of thing. And then, the asking sometimes is the easiest part of it."

"Then you'll ast Nory for me?"