What Might Have Been Expected Part 8

"You see, Mah'sr Harry," he said, "I lib right on de outside edge ob you' pa's woods, and I kin go ober dar jist as easy as nuffin, early every mornin', and see dat dem boys does dere work, and don't chop down de wrong trees. Mind now, I tell ye, you all will make a pile o' money ef ye jist hire me to obersee dem boys."

For some time Harry resisted his entreaties, but at last, princ.i.p.ally on account of Kate's argument that the old man ought to be encouraged in making something toward his living, if he were able and willing to do so, Harry hired him on his own terms, which were ten cents a day.

About four o'clock every afternoon during his engagement, Uncle Braddock made his appearance in the village, to demand his ten cents. When Harry remonstrated with him on his quitting work so early, he said:

"Why, you see, Mah'sr Harry, it's a long way from dem woods here, and I got to go all de way back home agin; and it gits dark mighty early dese short days."

In about a week the old man came to Hurry and declared that he must throw up his engagement.

"What's the matter?" asked Harry.

"I'm gwine to gib up dat job, Mah'sr Harry."

"But why? You wanted it bad enough," said Harry.

"But I'm gwine to gib it up now," said the old man.

"Well, I want you to tell me your reasons for giving it up," persisted Harry.

Uncle Braddock stood silent for a few minutes, and then he said:

"Well, Mah'sr Harry, dis is jist de truf; dem ar boys, dey ses to me dat ef I come foolin' around dere any more, dey'd jist chop me up, ole wrapper an' all, and haul me off fur kindlin' wood. Dey say I was dry enough. An' dey needn't a made sich a fuss about it, fur I didn't trouble 'em much; hardly eber went nigh 'em. Ten cents' worf o'

oberseein' aint a-gwine to hurt n.o.body."

"Well, Uncle Braddock," said Harry, laughing, "I think you're wise to give it up."

"Dat's so," said the old negro, and away he trudged to Aunt Matilda's cabin, where, no doubt, he ate a very good ten cents' worth of corn-meal and bacon.

This wood enterprise of Harry's worked pretty well on the whole.

Sometimes the men cut and hauled quite steadily, and sometimes they did not. Once every two weeks Harry rode over to the station, and collected what was due him; and his share of the profits kept Aunt Matilda quite comfortably.

But, although Kate was debarred from any share in this business, she worked every day at her tidies for the store, and knit stockings, besides, for some of the neighbors, who furnished the yarn and paid her a fair price. There were people who thought Mrs. Loudon did wrong in allowing her daughter to work for money in this way, but Kate's mother said that the end justified the work, and that so long as Kate persevered in her self-appointed tasks, she should not interfere.

As for Kate, she said she should work on, no matter how much money Harry made. There was no knowing what might happen.

But the most important of Kate's duties was the personal attention she paid to Aunt Matilda. She went over to the old woman's cabin every day or two, and saw that she was kept warm and had what she needed.

And these visits had a good influence on the old woman, for her cabin soon began to look much neater, now that a nice little girl came to see her so often.

When the spring came on, Aunt Matilda actually took it into her head to whitewash her cabin, a thing she had not done for years. She and Uncle Braddock worked at it by turns. The old woman was too stiff and rheumatic to keep at such work long at a time; but she was very proud of her whitewas.h.i.+ng; and when she was tired of working at the inside of her cabin, she used to go out and whitewash the trunks of the trees around the house. She had seen trees thus ornamented, and she thought they were perfectly beautiful.

Kate was violently opposed to anything of this kind, and, at last, told Aunt Matilda that if she persisted in surrounding her house with what looked like a forest of tombstones, she, Kate, would have to stop coming there.

So Aunt Matilda, in a manner, desisted.

But one day she noticed a little birch-tree, some distance from the house, and the inclination to whitewash that little birch was too strong to be resisted.

"He's so near white, anyway," she said to herself, "dat it's a pity not to finish him."

So off she hobbled with a tin cup full of whitewash and a small brush to adorn the little birch-tree, leaving her cabin in the charge of Holly Thomas.

Holly, whose whole name was Hollywood Cemetery Thomas, was a little black girl, between two and five years old. Sometimes she seemed nearly five, and sometimes not more than two. Her parents intended christening her Minerva, but hearing the name of the well-known Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, they thought it so pretty that they gave it to their little daughter, without the slightest idea, however, that it was the name of a grave-yard.

Holly had come over to pay a morning visit to Aunt Matilda, and she had brought her only child, a wooden doll, which she was trying to teach to walk, by dragging it head foremost by a long string tied around its neck.

"Now den, you Holly, you stay h'yar and mind de house while I's gone,"

said Aunt Matilda, as she departed.

"All yite," said the little darkey, and she sat down on the floor to prepare her child for a coat of whitewash; but she had not yet succeeded in convincing the doll of the importance of the operation when her attention was aroused by a dog just outside of the door.

It was Kate's little woolly white dog, Blinks, who often used to come to the cabin with her, and who sometimes, when he got a chance to run away, used to come alone, as he did this morning.

"Go 'way dar, litty dog," said Miss Holly, "yer can't come in; dere's n.o.body home. Yun 'long, now, d'yer y'ear!"

But Blinks either did not hear or did not care, for he stuck his head in at the door.

"Go 'way, dere!" shouted Holly. "Aunt Tillum ain't home. Go 'way now, and tum bat in half an hour. Aunt Tillum'll be bat den. Don't yer hear now, go _'way_!"

But, instead of going away, Blinks trotted in, as bold as a four-pound lion.

"Go 'way, go 'way!" screamed Holly, squeezing herself up against the wall in her terror, and then Blinks barked at her. He had never seen a little black girl behave so, in the whole course of his life, and it was quite right in him to bark and let her know what he thought of her conduct. Then Holly, in her fright, dropped her doll, and when Blinks approached to examine it, she screamed louder and louder, and Blinks barked more and more, and there was quite a hubbub. In the midst of it a man put his head in at the door of the cabin.

He was a tall man, with red hair, and a red freckled face, and a red bristling moustache, and big red hands.

"What's all this noise about?" said he; and when he saw what it was, he came in.

"Get out of this, you little beast!" said he to Blinks, and putting the toe of his boot under the little dog, he kicked him clear out of the door of the cabin. Then turning to Holly, he looked at her pretty much as if he intended to kick her out too. But he didn't. He put out one of his big red hands and said to her:

"Shake hands."

Holly obeyed without a word, and then s.n.a.t.c.hing her wooden child from the floor, she darted out of the door and reached the village almost as soon as poor Blinks.

In a minute or two Aunt Matilda made her appearance at the door. She had heard the barking and the screaming, and had come to see what was the matter.

When she saw the man, she exclaimed:

"Why, Mah'sr George! Is dat you?"

"Yes, it's me," said the man. "Shake hands, Aunt Matilda."

"I thought you was down in Mississippi; Mah'sr George," said the old woman; "and I thought you was gwine to stay dar."

"Couldn't do it," said the man. "It didn't suit me, down there. Five years of it was enough for me."

"Enough fur dem, too, p'r'aps!" said Aunt Matilda, with a grim chuckle.

The man took no notice of her remark, but said: