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Quality Folks
by
She crossed the yard and let herself out of a side gate opening upon an empty side street and went out of sight and ultimately out of hearing down the side street in the hot sunshine of the late afternoon. But before she was out of hearing she had made it plain that not only a loving mother and a loving father, but likewise a loving brother and a loving sister, a loving nephew and a loving uncle, a loving grandmother and divers other loving relatives–had all been engaged in the hill-climbing pilgrimage along a lion-guarded path.
The hush that succeeded her departure was a profound hush; indeed, by comparison with the clamorous outburst that had gone before it seemed almost ghastly. Not even the shrieks of the caucusing blue jays that might now be heard in the oak trees upon the lawn, where they were holding one of their excited powwows, served to destroy the illusion that a dead quiet had descended upon a spot lately racked by loud sounds. The well-dressed young man who had been listening with the air of one intent on catching and memorising the air, settled back in the hammock in which he was stretched behind the thick screen of vines that covered the wide front porch of the house.
“The estimable Aunt Charlotte appears to be in excellent voice and spirits to-day,” he said with a wry smile. “I don’t know that I ever heard her when her top notes carried farther than they did just now.”
The slender black-haired girl who sat alongside him in a porch chair winced.
“It’s perfectly awful–I know it,” she lamented. “I suppose if Mildred and I have asked her once not to carry on like that here at the front of the house we’ve asked her a hundred times. It’s bad enough to have her whooping like a wild Indian in the kitchen. But it never seems to do any good.”
“Why don’t you try getting rid of her altogether as a remedy?” suggested the young man.
“Get rid of Aunt Sharley! Why, Harvey–why, Mr. Winslow, I mean–we couldn’t do that! Why, Aunt Sharley has always been in our family! Why, she’s just like one of us–just like our own flesh and blood! Why, she used to belong to my Grandmother Helm before the war—-“
“I see,” he said dryly, breaking in on her. “She used to belong to your grandmother, and now you belong to her. The plan of ownership has merely been reversed, that’s all. Tell me, Miss Emmy Lou, how does it feel to be a human chattel, with no prospect of emancipation?” Then catching the hurt look on her flushed face he dropped his raillery and hastened to make amends. “Well, never mind. You’re the sweetest slave girl I ever met–I guess you’re the sweetest one that ever lived. Besides, she’s gone–probably won’t be back for half an hour or so. Don’t hitch your chair away from me–I’ve got something very important that I want to tell you–in confidence. It concerns you–and somebody else. It concerns me and somebody else–and yet only two persons are concerned in it.”
He was wrong about the time, however, truthful as he may have been in asserting his desire to deal confidentially with important topics. Inside of ten minutes, which to him seemed no more than a minute, seeing that he was in love and time always speeds fast for a lover with his sweetheart, the old black woman came hurrying back up the side street, and turned in at the side gate and retraversed the lawn to the back of the old house, giving the vine-screened porch a swift searching look as she hobbled past its corner.
Her curiosity, if so this scrutiny was to be interpreted, carried her further. In a minute or two she suddenly poked her head out through the open front door. She had removed her damaged straw headgear, but still wore her kerchief. Hastily and guiltily the young man released his hold upon a slim white hand which somehow had found its way inside his own. The sharp eyes of the old negress snapped. She gave a grunt as she withdrew her head. It was speedily to develop, though, that she had not entirely betaken herself away. Almost immediately there came to the ears of the couple the creak-creak of a rocking-chair just inside the hall, but out of view from their end of the porch.