Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/30

MY LADY OF THE SOUTH him much! I know I have been lots happier here left alone."

"Ye shore have been happy 'nough," broke in the negro, soberly. "But ye shorely can't live yere alone no more for a while, Miss Jean. 'T ain't no laughing matter, far as I can see. De sojers was yere most ebery day, an' blame me if I can see which side was de worst, de Yanks or de Confeds. Dey steal, an' dey git drunk, an' dey fight, an' it wan't no fit place no longer fer any young gal to be all alone by herse'f, wid no one but an ol' nigger to look after her. It could be did, Missus, when dis country was peaceable like, but now de Lord only knows what's goin' to happen next. Dis yere house would have been burnt to de groun' long afore dis if General Johnston had n't been a-living yere, an' now he's gone. Ye know all dat, Miss Jean, an' it shore looks best to me what yo' pa an' Massa George wants ye fer to do."

"Do you like Calvert Dunn, Joe?"

"Well, maybe I don't exactly like him. Miss Jean," scratching the gray wool under the edge of his hat, and evidently puzzled how to answer diplomatically. "Ye see, he never done treated dis nigger ver' nice, dat's a fact, fer shore. But I reckon it am just his way, an' he don't really mean nothin' by it, nohow. Anyhow he shore t'inks an almighty lot o' ye, Miss Jean, an' ye'd shore be perfectly safe where dey all live at Fairview, while yo' pa and Massa George was away a-fightin' agin de Yanks."

"The armies may come to Fairview yet, and there is no one there but old Judge Dunn and Lucille." [ 22 ]