Speak out, Huldy!"
"I heard Patty Cannon mutter that she was going to set her black man
free to kidnap for her. Hark! I must fly."
Hulda descended the ladder in time to surprise Cy James coming up. He
bent his goose neck down as he leaned his hands upon his knees, and,
looking up into her face, ejaculated,
"Hokey-pokey! By smoke! And Pangymonum, too."
* * * * *
"Samson," said Jimmy Phoebus, as soon as Hulda disappeared, "git
ready to be a first-class liar; I want you to take up Patty Cannon's
offer."
"An' leave you yer alone, Jimmy? I can't do it."
"Don't be a fool, Samson. Ironed here, we can't help nobody. Make your
way to Seaford and Georgetown, and go round the Cypress Swamp to
Prencess Anne. Alarm the pungy captains; fur Johnson'll try to run us by
sail, I reckon, down the bay to Norfolk. I've got a file that
cymlin-headed feller give me, an' I reckon I'll git out of my irons
about the time you git to Judge Custis's. There! ole Patty's coming."
"Go, Samson," spoke the Delaware colored man. "I'm younger than you, and
I'll fight as heartily under Mr. Phoebus's orders."
Aunt Hominy's voice came in blank monologue out of the background:
"He tuk dat debbil's hat, chillen, an' measured us in wid little Vessy."
* * * * *
That evening there was a long, free conference between Samson and Patty
Cannon, in her kitchen, next to the bar, where Hulda heard laughing and
invitations to drink, and all the sounds of perfect equality, the
negro's piquant sayings and _bonhommie_ seeming to disarm and please the
designing woman, whose familiarity was at once her influence and her
weakness, and she lavished her sociable nature on blacks and whites.
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