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Then he was to be advanced if he deserved it. It was indeed a bright prospect for a boy who, only a year before, could neither read nor write, and depended for a night's lodging upon the chance hospitality of an alley-way or old wagon. Dick's great ambition to "grow up 'spectable" seemed likely to be accomplished after all. "I wish Fosdick was as well off as I am," he thought generously.
"I've heard it's a good book, but I don't know much about it." "You ought to go to some Sunday School. Would you be willing?" "Yes," said Dick, promptly. "I want to grow up 'spectable. But I don't know where to go." "Then I'll tell you. The church I attend is at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-first Street." "I've seen it," said Dick. "I have a class in the Sunday School there.
"Father hed a farm in Tennessee, and ez I was the only boy, I had a heap of work ter do on the cussid place. I didn't like fannin' much, and used ter tease the old folks ter let me go down ter Knoxville and go into a store, or enter inter some other ekelly 'spectable bizness. But the old folks allowed that I must stay with 'em till I was twenty-one, any how.
We are going to capture Vincennes, Kenton, are we not? We shall, sha'n't we, Jazon? Nothing, nothing can prevent us, can it?" Kenton heartily returned the pressure of the young man's hand, while Oncle Jazon looked up quizzically and said: "We're a tol'ble 'spectable lot to prevent; but then we might git pervented. I've seed better men an' us purty consid'ble pervented lots o' times in my life."
De ladies and genmen say I can play de fiddle right smart," Brutus responded, rolling his eyes and showing his well-preserved white teeth. "If de ladies and genmen will wait a little till old Brutus can make himself 'spectable, he'll make de fiddle sing." While the old negro was getting ready to entertain them with his violin, they proposed conundrums and riddles and narrated stories.
"Dick can speak more correctly when he pleases," said Fosdick; "but sometimes he falls back into his old way. He understands the common English branches very well." "Then he must have worked hard; for when I first met him a year ago, he was " "As ignorant as a horse," interrupted Dick. "It was you that first made me ambitious, Frank. I wanted to be like you, and grow up 'spectable."
I see fifteen hundred dollars a man on this job, if so be as ye don't broach too thirstily as you go along. Mr. Rodney, Joe here's a steady, 'spectable man, and'll make you a good mate. Cromwell and Billy Pitt are black only in their hides; all else's as good as white."
"I'se gwine to make it 'spectable, so she won't be 'shamed if she ever comes back to see whar she was bawn," he had thought, and to him it seemed almost palatial, with its addition, which he called a "linter," and which consisted of a large room furnished with a most heterogeneous mass of articles gathered here and there as he could afford them.
"Once dar war two men here wid him, sah, sitting at dat table ober in de corner. Rough-looking fellows dey war. In old times people like dat wouldn't come to a 'spectable hotel, but now most ebery one got rough clothes, can't get no others, so one don't tink nuffin about it; but dose fellows was rough-looking besides dar clothes. Didn't like dar looks nohow. Dey only came here once.
Yer ain' gwine back on yo' Dave, is yer? "But w'at Dave say didn' hab no 'fec' on Dilsey. Dem lies folks b'en tellin' her had p'isen' her min' 'g'in' Dave. "'I doan wanter talk ter no nigger, says she, 'w'at be'n whip' fer stealin', en w'at gwine roun' wid sich a lookin' thing ez dat hung roun' his neck. I's a 'spectable gal, I is. W'at yer call dat, Dave?
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