Page:Harris Dickson--Old Reliable in Africa.djvu/31

 dis levee did break, hit's been a mighty long time ago, an' things got kinder settled down."

Zack hung over the rail and watched the fog that swirled upon the sea; a fine mist blew from the south. A sailor with rubber mop scraped the water from the deck, a deck as clean as Selina's kitchen table. Zack scarcely dared to step upon it. Other sailor men were beginning to hang strips of sail-cloth from the roof, and lash their flapping bottoms to the rail. The deck looked like those dripping lanes of canvas which led from the main circus to the side show. Zack couldn't remember a time when it hadn't rained on circus day in Vicksburg. Suddenly he straightened himself, and paid no more attention to the water; Miss Stanton came tripping along with a violin case under her arm. In order to shut off all allusion to overflows, Zack took first shot at the conversation: "Missy, is you gwine to play? Oughter hear ole man Jake play dat fiddle on Sherwood Plantation. He sets dem niggers crazy wid dancin' itch."

"No, I am not going to play; I only want to be sure that my violin is not strained: The case was bent this morning."

"Yas'm, dat's de time when I kep' 'em from shovin' you."

Doris Stanton wore a fur turban, so softly brown it seemed a part of her eyes and hair, and