FullReads

“‘If you are not too busy, I’d like for you to find him a place to board where they have white-meal corn-bread, and try to keep him from taking his shoes off in your office or on the street. His right foot swells a little, and he likes to be comfortable.

“‘If you can spare the time, count his handkerchiefs when they come back from the wash. I bought him a dozen new ones before he left. He should be there about the time this letter reaches you. I told him to go straight to your office when he arrives.'”

As soon as Blandford had finished the reading of this, something happened (as there should happen in stories and must happen on the stage).

Percival, the office boy, with his air of despising the world’s output of mill supplies and leather belting, came in to announce that a colored gentleman was outside to see Mr. Blandford Carteret.

“Bring him in,” said Blandford, rising.

John Carteret swung around in his chair and said to Percival: “Ask him to wait a few minutes outside. We’ll let you know when to bring him in.”

Then he turned to his cousin with one of those broad, slow smiles that was an inheritance of all the Carterets, and said:

“Bland, I’ve always had a consuming curiosity to understand the differences that you haughty Southerners believe to exist between ‘you all ‘ and the people of the North. Of course, I know that you consider yourselves made out of finer clay and look upon Adam as only a collateral branch of your ancestry; but I don’t know why. I never could understand the differences between us.”

“Well, John,” said Blandford, laughing, “what you don’t understand about it is just the difference, of course. I suppose it was the feudal way in which we lived that gave us our lordly baronial airs and feeling of superiority.”

“But you are not feudal, now,” went on John. “Since we licked you and stole your cotton and mules you’ve had to go to work just as we ‘damyankees,’ as you call us, have always been doing. And you’re just as proud and exclusive and upper-classy as you were before the war. So it wasn’t your money that caused it.”

“Maybe it was the climate,” said Blandford, lightly, “or maybe our negroes spoiled us. I’ll call old Jake in, now. I’ll be glad to see the old villain again.”

“Wait just a moment,” said John. “I’ve got a little theory I want to test. You and I are pretty much alike in our general appearance. Old Jake hasn’t seen you since you were fifteen. Let’s have him in and play fair and see which of us gets the watch. The old darky surrey ought to be able to pick out his ‘young marster’ without any trouble. The alleged aristocratic superiority of a ‘reb’ ought to be visible to him at once. He couldn’t make the mistake of handing over the timepiece to a Yankee, of course. The loser buys the dinner this evening and two dozen 15 1/2 collars for Jake. Is it a go?”

Blandford agreed heartily. Percival was summoned, and told to usher the “colored gentleman” in.

Uncle Jake stepped inside the private office cautiously. He was a little old man, as black as soot, wrinkled and bald except for a fringe of white wool, cut decorously short, that ran over his ears and around his head. There was nothing of the stage “uncle” about him: his black suit nearly fitted him; his shoes shone, and his straw hat was banded with a gaudy ribbon. In his right hand he carried something carefully concealed by his closed fingers.

Uncle Jake stopped a few steps from the door. Two young men sat in their revolving desk-chairs ten feet apart and looked at him in friendly silence. His gaze slowly shifted many times from one to the other. He felt sure that he was in the presence of one, at least, of the revered family among whose fortunes his life had begun and was to end.