"Kase
white folks won't see good fine-terbacker lan' when dey walks ober
it, tain't my fault, is it?"
"No more tain't, Nimbus; but don't yer s'pose yer Marse Potem's
smartly worried over it?"
"La, no, I reckon not. He don't 'pear ter be, ennyhow. He war by
here when I was curin' up dis barn, an' stopped in an' looked at
it, an' axed a power ob questions, an' got Lugena ter bring him out
some buttermilk an' a corn pone. Den he went up an' sot an hour
in de school an' sed ez how he war mighty proud ter see one of his
ole nigga's gittin' on dat er way."
"Wal, now, that was kind of him, wasn't it?"
"Dat it war, sah, an' hit done us all a power ob good, too. Hev
you ebber ben ter de school, Mr. Sheriff? No? wal, yer oughter;
an' you, too, Capting. Dar's a little Yankee woman, Miss Mollie
Ainslie, a runnin' ob it, dat do beat all curration fer managin'
tings. I'd nebber'd got long so h'yer, not by no means, ez I hez,
but fer her advice--her'n an' 'Liab's, gentlemen. Dar she am now,"
he added, as a slight figure, mounted on a powerful black horse,
and dressed in a dark riding-habit, with a black plume hanging from
a low-crowned felt hat, came out of the woods below and cantered
easily along the road a hundred yards away, toward the school-house.
The visitors watched her curiously, and expressed a desire to visit
the school. Nimbus said that if they would walk on slowly he would
go by the house and get his coat and overtake them before they
reached the school-house.
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