LITMIR.BIZ

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      And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest if I didn’t think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says:

      “Did you ever see the king?”

      “Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have—he goes to our church.” I knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he goes to our church, she says:

      “What—regular?”

      “Yes—regular. His pew’s right over opposite ourn—on t’other side the pulpit.”

      “I thought he lived in London?”

      “Well, he does. Where would he live?”

      “But I thought you lived in Sheffield?”

      I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says:

      “I mean he goes to our church regular when he’s in Sheffield. That’s only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths.”

      “Why, how you talk—Sheffield ain’t on the sea.”

      “Well, who said it was?”

      “Why, you did.”

      “I didn’t nuther.”

      “You did!”

      “I didn’t.”

      “You did.”

      “I never said nothing of the kind.”

      “Well, what did you say, then?”

      “Said he come to take the sea baths—that’s what I said.”

      “Well, then, how’s he going to take the sea baths if it ain’t on the sea?”

      “Looky here,” I says; “did you ever see any Congress-water?”

      “Yes.”

      “Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?”

      “Why, no.”

      “Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea bath.”

      “How does he get it, then?”

      “Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water—in barrels. There in the palace at Sheffield they’ve got furnaces, and he wants his water hot. They can’t bile that amount of water away off there at the sea. They haven’t got no conveniences for it.”

      “Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved time.”

      When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was comfortable and glad. Next, she says:

      “Do you go to church, too?”

      “Yes—regular.”

      “Where do you set?”

      “Why, in our pew.”

      “Whose pew?”

      “Why, ourn—your Uncle Harvey’s.”

      “His’n? What does he want with a pew?”

      “Wants it to set in. What did you reckon he wanted with it?”

      “Why, I thought he’d be in the pulpit.”

      Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says:

      “Blame it, do you suppose there ain’t but one preacher to a church?”

      “Why, what do they want with more?”

      “What!—to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you. They don’t have no less than seventeen.”

      “Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn’t set out such a string as that, not if I never got to glory. It must take ‘em a week.”

      “Shucks, they don’t all of ‘em preach the same day—only one of ‘em.”

      “Well, then, what does the rest of ‘em do?”

      “Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate—and one thing or another. But mainly they don’t do nothing.”

      “Well, then, what are they for?”

      “Why, they’re for style. Don’t you know nothing?”

      “Well, I don’t want to know no such foolishness as that. How is servants treated in England? Do they treat ‘em better ‘n we treat our niggers?”

      “No! A servant ain’t nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs.”

      “Don’t they give ‘em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year’s week, and Fourth of July?”

      “Oh, just listen! A body could tell you hain’t ever been to England by that. Why, Hare-l—why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year’s end to year’s end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger shows, nor nowheres.”

      “Nor church?”

      “Nor church.”

      “But you always went to church.”

      Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man’s servant. But next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was different from a common servant and had to go to church whether he wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the law. But I didn’t do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she warn’t satisfied. She says:

      “Honest injun, now, hain’t you been telling me a lot of lies?”

      “Honest injun,” says I.

      “None of it at all?”

      “None of it at all. Not a lie in it,” says I.

      “Lay your hand on this book and say it.”

      I see it warn’t nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says:

      “Well, then, I’ll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I’ll believe the rest.”

      “What is it you won’t believe, Joe?” says Mary Jane, stepping in with Susan behind her. "It ain’t right nor kind for you to talk so to him, and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be treated so?”

      “That’s always your way, Maim—always sailing in to help somebody before they’re hurt. I hain’t done nothing to him. He’s told some stretchers, I reckon, and I said I wouldn’t swallow it all; and that’s every bit and grain I did say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, can’t he?”

      “I don’t care whether ‘twas little or whether ‘twas big; he’s here in our house and a stranger, and it wasn’t good of you to say it. If you was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn’t to say a thing to another person that will make them feel ashamed.”

      “Why, Mam, he said—”

      “It don’t make no difference what he said—that ain’t the thing. The thing is for you to treat him kind, and not be saying things to make him remember he ain’t in his own country and amongst his own folks.”

      I says to myself, this is a girl that I’m letting that old reptile rob her of her money!

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