A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

								

had settled down to a peaceful old age.
On this particular Sunday afternoon Colonel Bob Carsey, the third of
his name, sat on the porch in a weather-beaten mahogany rocker, making
himself a mint julep. He was a stout, elderly gentleman, and, like the
rocking chair, was weather-beaten, and of a slightly mahogany hue. His
features, having long ago given up the struggle against encroaching
flesh, were now merely slight indentures, and mild protuberances,
with the exception of the eyes which still blazed away defiantly, like
twinkling lights at the end of a passage. Across his feet with nose
on paws lay a dog, and about him was scattered a profusion of fishing
paraphernalia.
The Colonel, carefully crushing the mint between his stubby fingers,
stirred it with the sugar at the bottom of his tall glass; then, resting
the concoction on the broad arm of the rocker, and without turning his
head, lifted his voice in stentorian command:
“Jimpson!”
No answer. He turned his head slightly to the left, in the general
direction of the negro cabins whose roofs could be seen through the
trees, and sent another summons hurtling through the bushes:
“Jimpson!”
Again he waited, and again there was no response. The Colonel sighed
resignedly, and spreading a large bordered handkerchief over his
obliterated features, clasped his fat hands with some difficulty about
his ample girth, and slept. When he awoke he began exactly where he had
left off, only this time turning his head slightly to the right, and
sending his command toward the kitchen wing.
A door slammed somewhere in the distance, and presently a shuffling
of feet was heard in the hall, and a small, alert old negro presented
himself to his master with an air of cheerful conciliation.
The Colonel did not turn his head; he gazed with an air of great injury
at the tops of the locust trees, clasping his tumbler as it rested on
the arm of the rocker.
“Jimpson,” he began, after the culprit had suffered his silence some
minutes.
“Now, Cunnel,” began Jimpson nervously. He had evidently rehearsed this
scene in the past.
“Just answer my questions,” insisted the Colonel. “Is this my house?”
“Yas, sir, but Carline, she--”
“And are you my nigger?” persisted the Colonel plaintively.
“Yas, sir; but you see, Carline--”
“And haven't I, for twenty years,” persisted the Colonel, “been taking a
mint julep at half past two on Sunday afternoons?”
“Yas, sir, I was a comin'--”
“Then you don't regard it as an unreasonable request, that a gentleman
should ask his own nigger, in his own house, to bring him a small piece
of ice?” The Colonel's sense of injury was becoming so overpowering that
the offender might have been crushed by contrition had not a laugh made
them both look up.
Standing in the doorway was a young girl in a short riding habit, and a
small hat of red felt that was carelessly pinned to her bright, tumbled