Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/189

Rh Gates, they are older than I am."

"Why, chil', age ain't got a mite ter do with gittin' along with folks. Look at ol' Marse Bob! He air ol' enough ter git along if age'll do it. It air plain common sense mixed with a good, kin' heart that puts up with other folkses' failin's that does the wuck. Not that Marse Bob ain't got mo' sense than mos' folks an' his heart is kin', too, but he air so imtolerant to'ds folks what ain't got as much sense as he am. He done made a joke er the whole cremation an' it looks lak it done kinder et in on his soul. He allus tuck out his spleen a teasin' folks. He allus wa' a teasin' pusson from the time he wa' a boy. He teased his ma an' his pa. He teased all the niggers on the place an' even the animules, though he loved 'em all an' they loved him. When he married Miss Evy Spottswood, yo' gran'ma what was, he'd tease her till she'd cry an' then he'd tease her some mo'. I hearn him with my own years a teasin' her on her death bed. That wa' twenty years ago, jes' befo' my lim's played out on me."

"Didn't he love her, Aunt Pearly Gates?" asked Rebecca in big-eyed wonderment.

"Sho' he loved her, but teasin' air allus been the bref er life ter Marse Bob. He didn't mean no harm, but Miss Evy wa' too easy ter tease.