The Deliverance | Page 9

doubt of it, I think."
"And it's all your blamed fault," burst out the other angrily; "you've
gone and turned them all agin me--white and black alike. Why, it's as
much as I can do to get a stroke of honest labour in this nigger-ridden
country."
Christopher laughed shortly.
"There is no use blaming the Negroes," he said, and his pronunciation
of the single word would have stamped him in Virginia as of a different
class from Fletcher; "they're usually ready enough to work if you treat
them decently."

"Treat them!" began Fletcher, and Carraway was about to fling open
the shutters, when light steps passed quickly along the hall and he
heard the rustle of a woman's silk dress against the wainscoting.
"There's a stranger to see you, grandfather," called a girl's even voice
from the house; "finish paying off the hands and come in at once."
"Well, of all the impudence!" exclaimed the young man, with a saving
dash of humour. Then, without so much as a parting word, he ran
quickly down the steps and started rapidly in the direction of the
darkening road, while the silk dress rustled upon the porch and at the
garden gate as the latch was lifted.
"Go in, grandfather!" called the girl's voice from the garden, to which
Fletcher responded as decisively.
"For Heaven's sake, let me manage my own affairs, Maria. You seem to
have inherited your poor mother's pesky habit of meddling."
"Well, I told you a gentleman was waiting," returned the girl stubbornly.
"You didn't let us know he was coming, either, and Lindy says there
isn't a thing fit to eat for supper."
Fletcher snorted, and then, before entering the house, stopped to haggle
with an old Negro woman for a pair of spring chickens hanging
dejectedly from her outstretched hand, their feet tied together with a
strip of faded calico.
"How much you gwine gimme fer dese, marster?" she inquired
anxiously, deftly twirling them about until they swung with heads aloft.
Rising to the huckster's instinct, Fletcher poked the offerings
suspiciously beneath their flapping wings.
"Thirty cents for the pair--not a copper more," he responded promptly;
"they're as poor as Job's turkey, both of 'em."
"Lawdy, marster, you know better'n dat."
"They're skin and bones, I tell you; feel 'em yourself. Well, take it or
leave it, thirty cents is all I'll give."
"Go 'way f'om yere, suh; dese yer chickings ain' no po' w'ite
trash--dey's been riz on de bes' er de lan', dey is--en de aigs dey wuz
hatched right dar in de middle er de baid whar me en my ole man en de
chillun sleep. De hull time dat black hen wuz a-settin', Cephus he was
bleeged ter lay right spang on de bar' flo' caze we'uz afeared de aigs
'ould addle. Lawd! Lawd! dey wuz plum three weeks a-hatchin', en de
weather des freeze thoo en thoo. Cephus he's been crippled up wid de

rheumatics ever sence. Go 'way f'om yer, marster. I warn't bo'n
yestiddy. Thirty cents!"
"Not a copper more, I tell you. Let me go, my good woman; I can't
stand here all night."
"Des a minute, marster. Dese yer chickings ain' never sot dey feet on de
yearth, caze dey's been riz right in de cabin, en dey's done et dar vittles
outer de same plate wid me en Cephus. Ef'n dey spy a chice bit er
bacon on de een er de knife hit 'uz moughty likely ter fin' hits way
down dir throat instid er down me en Cephus'."
"Let me go, I say--I don't want your blamed chickens; take 'em home
again."
"Hi! marster, I'se Mehitable. You ain't fergot how peart I use ter wuk
w'en you wuz over me in ole marster's day. You know you ain' fergot
Mehitable, suh. Ain't you recollect de time ole marster gimme a dollar
wid his own han' caze I foun' de biggest wum in de hull 'baccy patch?
Lawd! dey wuz times, sho's you bo'n. I kin see ole marster now es plain
es ef twuz yestiddy, so big en shiny like satin, wid his skin des es tight
es a watermillion's."
"Shut up, confound you!" cut in Fletcher sharply.
"If you don't stop your chatter I'll set the dogs on you. Shut up, I say!"
He strode into the house, slamming the heavy door behind him, and a
moment afterward Carraway heard him scolding brutally at the servants
across the hall.
The old Negress had gone muttering from the porch with her unsold
chickens, when the door softly opened again, and the girl, who had
entered through the front with her basket of flowers, came out into the
growing moonlight.
"Wait a moment, Aunt Mehitable," she said. "I want to speak to you."
Aunt Mehitable turned slowly,