PAGE 12
Quality Folks
by
The wide front porch was empty where the old Judge spent most of his leisure hours when the weather suited, and knowing as she did the custom of the house, and being, for a fact, almost as much at home beneath its roof as beneath her own, Emmy Lou, without knocking, walked into the hall and turning to the right entered the big sitting room. Its lone occupant sat up with a jerk, wiping the drowsiness out of his eyes with the back of his hand. He had been taking a cat nap on his ancient sofa; his long white back hair was tousled up comically behind his bald pink brow.
“Why, hello, honey!” he said heartily, rising to his feet and bowing with a quaint ceremonial gesture that contrasted with and yet somehow matched the homeliness of his greeting. “You slipped in so quiet on them dainty little feet of yours I never heared you comin’ a-tall.” He took her small hands in his broad pudgy ones, holding her off at arm’s length. “And don’t you look purty! Mighty nigh any woman looks cool and sweet when she’s got on white fixin’s, but when a girl like you puts ’em on–well, child, there ain’t no use talkin’, you shorely are a sight to cure sore eyes. And you git to favour your sweet mother more and more every day you live. I can’t pay you no higher compliment than that. Set down in that cheer yonder, where I kin look at you whilst we visit.”
“I’d rather sit here by you, sir, on the sofa, if you don’t mind,” she said.
“Suit yourself, honey.”
She settled herself upon the sofa and he let his bulky frame down alongside her, taking one of her hands into his. Her free hand played with one of the big buttons on the front of her starched linen skirt and she looked, not at him, but at the shining disk of pearl, as he said:
“Well, Emmy Lou, whut brings you ‘way out here to my house in the heat of the day?”
She turned her face full upon him then and he saw the brooding in her eyes and gave her hand a sympathetic little squeeze.
“Judge,” she told him, “you went to so much trouble on my account and Mildred’s when we were still minors that I hate to come now worrying you with my affairs. But somehow I felt that you were the one for me to turn to.”
“Emmy Lou,” he said very gravely, “your father was one of the best men that ever lived and one of the best friends ever I had on this earth. And no dearer woman than your mother ever drawed the breath of life. It was a mighty proud day fur me and fur Lew Lake when he named us two as the guardians of his children, and it was a pleasure to both of us to help look to your interests after he was took from us. Why, when your mother went too, I’d a’ liked the best in the world to have adopted you two children outright.” He chuckled a soft little chuckle. “I reckin I would have made the effort, too, only it seemed like that old nigger woman of yours appeared to have prior rights in the matter, and knowin’ her disposition I was kind of skeered to advance the suggestion.'”
“It was about Aunt Sharley that I came to see you to-day, Judge Priest.”
“That so? I had a visit from her here the other day.”
“What other day?” she asked, startled.
“Oh, it must have been a matter of three weeks ago–fully. Shall I tell you whut she come to see me about? You’ll laugh when you hear it. It tickled me right smartly at the time. She wanted to know what I knew about this here young Mr. Winslow–yes, that was it. She said all the visible signs p’inted to a serious affair ‘twixt you two young people, and she said before it went any further she wanted to know ef he was the kind of a young man to be gittin’ hisself engaged to a member of the Dabney family, and she wanted to know ef his folks were the real quality folks and not this here codfish aristocracy: That was the very term she used–‘codfish aristocracy.’ Well, I was able to reasshore her. You see, honey, I’d took it on myself to do a little inquirin’ round about Mr. Winslow on my own responsibility–not that I wanted to be pryin’ into your business and not because I aimed to be tryin’ to come between you and the young man ef I wasn’t altogether satisfied with the accounts I got of him, but because I loved you and wanted to make sure in my own mind that Tom Dabney’s child wasn’t makin’ the wrong choice. You understand, don’t you? You see, ez fur back ez a month and a half ago, or mebbe even further back than that, I was kind of given to understand that you and this young man were gittin’ deeply interested in each other.”