Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/136

 "But why did I never chance to see him before? Why does he never come here?"

"Coz I won't let 'im. Sez I to 'im, 'Drosky, yer ole sinner, look a here! if eber yer come a niggerin' roun' de house whar I libs, I'll sot de tidy-man at yer, I will.' Oh! I tell yer, I haz to make 'im mind—he'd be awful imperdent if I didn't. But I keeps 'im down; he's awful feared o' me. If I jest clap hands and cry, 'Tidy-man! tidy-man! hist-st-st!' he'll run like rats."

"But, Winny, do you think he could build our hen-coop?"

"I 'clare I dun'no why not. If a nigger can't build a hen-coop nor a pig-sty, what on arth kin he do? You go an' ask leabe ob yer granny, an' if she says so, I'll go an' get ole dad, an' we'll see what he kin do."

Permission to build being readily obtained from Mrs. Campbell, Winny went out, and soon returned followed by her venerable parent; and of all the strange objects ever beheld in the shape of a man, old Drosky, take him all in all, was the most strange and singular.

He was evidently immensely old, and was