Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/263

Rh. We-alls wa'n't a gonter sell off none er us's lan' but we'd rent some fer say a hunerd years fer a sum down, same as buyin'."

"Hush! You ol' fool nigger!" admonished her master. "You go on back ter the kitchen. You ain't got no sense on 'count er that cawn liquor you done been a drinkin'."

"What did she mean?" asked Spottswood, puzzled. "Wasn't the land bought from your family by my great-grandfather? I always understood it was."

"She ain't a meanin' nothin'," said Rolfe Bolling, with the insinuating manner of a person who has drunk too much but has just enough sense to try to conceal something. "You mus' 'scuse Mam' Peachy."

"Yes, you mus' scuse Mam' Peachy," said Old Abe solemnly. "She wan't a meanin' ter let no cat out'n the bag."

"Ain't no cat in no bag," said the old woman vindictively. "Ain't nothin' but a piece er paper in Ol' Marse's desk what had writ on it jes' what I 'members. I ain't nebber fergit nothin' in my life. I's drunk now but I still kin 'member an' I tell you one thing, young man, you young Taylor man, with yo' toploftical ways, you an' yo' stiff-backed sisters an' that mean ol' dried up Bob Taylor what thinks hisse'f too good ter