Alice Wilde: The Raftsman's Daughter. A Forest Romance

								

expanding whites of his eyes.
"You nebbah could see tru a grin'-stone till I'd made a hole in it for
yer. It's a wonder I tuk up wid such an ole fool as you is, Saturn. If
yer eyes were wurf half as much as dem pertaters' eyes, yer could see
for yerself. Hasn't masser swore agin dem city gentleum?"
"He's swore--dat's so."
"And he never would forgive one as would come and steal away his
precious child--nebbah!" continued Pallas, lifting her rolling-pin
threatingly at the bare thought. "If he war rich as gold, and lubbed
her to distruction, 'twouldn't make a speck o' difference. He's jealous
of the very ground she walks on; and he hates dem smoof-spoken city
folks."
"Do you suspec' he's a kidnapper--dat ar' vis'ter?" asked Saturn, his
eyes growing still bigger, and looking toward the door as if he thought
of the possibility of the handsome young stranger carrying him off.
"You is born a fool, and you can't help it. Put 'em 'taters in
de pot, and mind yer own bisness. I want some more wood for dis
fiah--immejetly!"
When Pallas said "immejetly!" with that majestic air, there was
nothing left for her worser half save to obey, and he retreated to the
wood-pile with alacrity. On going out he run against Ben Perkins, who
had been standing by the open door, unperceived, for the last five
minutes.
"Why, Ben, dat you?" asked Pallas, good-naturedly, not dreaming that he
had overheard her confidential conversation.
"Yes; I came up to the house to seen if Captain Wilde had any orders
for the mill to-night. I see him when he passed the creek. Who's with
him, Pallas?"
The old colored woman gave a sudden sharp glance at the youth's
troubled face.
"It's a frien' for all I know. What bisness is it of yours to be
askin'?"
"I s'pose I hain't no business. Do you think it's likely it's anybody
as expects to marry Miss Alice?" his voice trembled, and he looked at
his boots as he asked the question.
"Marry Miss Alice! What a simpl'un you is, Ben. Wha's that pickaninny
but a chile yet, I'se like to know? a little chit as don't know nothin'
'bout marryin' nobody. 'Sides that, long as her fadder libs, she'll
never marry, not if it war a king. He'd be mad as fury ef any one was
to dar' to speak of such a thing. Humf! my pickaninny, indeed!" with
an air of scorn and indignation deeply felt by the youth, whose face
was flushing beneath the implied rebuke. "Ef you'll stop a few minutes,
I'll give yer some of dese soda biscuits," she said, after a brief
silence, secretly pitying a trouble at which she had shrewdly guessed,
though she resented the audacity of the hope from which it sprang. "Dat
ar' man-cook what gets up the vittles for the mill-hands can't make
sech biscuits as mine. Stop now, and hab some, won't yer?"
"Thank ye, Pallas, I ain't hungry," was the melancholy
reply--melancholy when proceeding from a hearty, hard-working young
man, who ought to have been hungry at that hour of the day. He