Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/190

180 man, whom suffering and much humiliation had rendered very mild and patient, if not quite broken-spirited. His voice was indulgent and gentle, with that mellow richness of tone peculiar to the negro. After he had spoken, the laughter subsided; and Joe, impressed by the quiet paternal authority, quickly devised means to obey without appearing to do so. For it is not so much obedience, as the manifestation of obedience, that is repugnant to human nature,—not in children only, but in grown folks as well.

Joe disguised his compliance in this way. He got up, took off the beggar's hat, put the spectacles into it, holding his hand on a rip in the crown to keep them from falling through, and passed it around, walking solemnly in his brother's abused coat.

"I'm Deacon Todd," said he, "taking up a collection to buy Gentleman Bill a new cut: gunter make a missionary of him!"

He passed the hat to the women and the girls, all of whom pretended to put in something.

"I ha'n't got nothin'!" said Fessenden's, when it came to him; "I'm real sorry I but I'll give my hat!"—earnest as could be.

When the hat came to Mr. Williams, he quietly put in his hand and took out his glasses.

"Here, I've got something for you; I desire to contribute," said Gentleman Bill.

But Joe was shy of his brother.

"Oh, we don't let the missionary give anything!" he said. "Here's the hat what you're gunter wear;—give it to him, Cresh!"

Bill disdained the beggar's, contribution; but, in his anxiety to seize Joe, he suffered his sister to slip up behind him and clap the wet, ragged straw wreck on his head.

"Oh, Bill! Oh, Bill!" screamed the girls with merriment, in which mother and grandmother joined, while even their father indulged in a silent, inward laugh.

"Good!" said Fessenden's; "he may have it!"

Bill, watching his opportunity, made a dash at the pretending Deacon Todd. That nimble and quick-witted dwarf escaped as fast as his awkward attire would permit. The bed seemed to be the only place of refuge, and he dodged under it.

"Come out!" shouted Bill, furious.

"Come in and git me!" screamed Joe, defiant.

Bill, if not too large, was far too dignified for such an enterprise. So he got the broom, and began to stir Joe with the handle,—not observing, in his wrath, that, the more he worried Joe, the more he was damaging his own precious broadcloth.

"I'm the lion to the show!" cried Joe, rolling and tumbling under the bed to avoid the broom. "The keeper's a punchin' on me, to make me roar!"

And the lion roared.

"He's a gunter come into the cage by-'m-by, and put his head into my mouth. Then I'm a gunter swaller him! Ki! hoo! hoo! oo!"

He roared in earnest this time. Bill, grown desperate, had knocked his shins. As long as he hit him only on the head, the king of beasts didn't care; but he couldn't stand an attack on the more sensitive part.

"Jest look here, now!" exclaimed the old negress, with unusual spirit; "gi' me that broom!"

She wrenched it from Bill's hand.

"Perty notion, you can't come home a minute without pesterin' that boy's life out of him!"

You see, color makes no difference with grandmothers. Black or white, they are universally unjust, when they come to decide the quarrels of their favorites.

"Great lubberly fellow like you, 'busin' that poor babby all the time! Come, Joey! come to granny, poor chile!"

It was a sorry-looking lion that issued whimpering from the cage, limping, and rubbing his eyes. His borrowed hide—namely, Bill's coat—had been twisted into marvellous shapes in the scuffle;