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This was one evening at the supper table. Zuba, a mulatto girl, brought in some preserves and, in passing them, very carelessly spilled them upon Julia’s new blue merino. In the anger of the moment Mr. Wilmot and his good opinion were forgotten. Springing up, she gave the girl a blow which sent her half across the room and caused her to drop the dish, which was broken in twenty pieces.
And so preparations for the reception began. There was to be a collation, and when this item of information was imparted to Azuba the kitchen became a maelstrom of activity in which Captain Daniel could no longer find rest and refuge. "But, Zuba," he remonstrated, "what do you think's comin' here; a drove of hyenas? You've cooked enough already to victual a ship halfway across the ocean.
There! let's go into the sittin'-room a few minutes and give Zuba a chance to clear off. Sam's tendin' store and his dinner can wait a spell; judgin' by the time he took for breakfast he hadn't ought to be hungry for the next week."
She ain't got any home but ours, and nobody else to turn to, and I won't cast her adrift just because I've got more money than I did have. I'd be ASHAMED to do it. No, sir! if Zuba Ginn wants to go to Scarford, along with us, she goes, or I don't go myself." He struck the desk a violent blow with his clenched fist. Serena regarded him with astonishment.
"Hey?" he exclaimed, looking up. "Did you speak?" "I said 'Well?. I suppose that's speakin'?" "'Well? Well what?" "Oh, nothin'! I was just wonderin' " "Wonderin' what?" "I was wonderin' if that letter was anything important. Ain't you goin' to open it and see?" "Hey? Open it? Oh, yes, yes. Well, I shouldn't wonder if I opened it some time or other, Zuba. I gen'rally open my letters.
"Here! hold on, Zuba!" interrupted her bewildered employer. "'Vast heavin' a second, will you? You ought to run that yarn of yours through a sieve and strain some of the 'hes' and 'shes' out of it. 'He said that she said she wanted to see her. Who wanted to see what?" "Why, Barney Black's wife. She wanted to see Serena. So in she came, all rigged up in her best clothes and "
You ought to be advanced enough by this time to fight your own battles." "That's right, Zuba," counseled Mr. Ginn. "Fight 'em out in there. You can be just as free in there as you want to. Have some of my terbacker, Cap'n?" Captain Dan declined. The prisoner continued to thump and kick and threaten. Her jailer refilled and lighted his pipe.
If the way some folks go slip-slop, hit or miss, through this world ain't a caution then Tut! tut! tut! don't talk to ME!" Captain Dan looked up from the ledger. "What?" he asked absently. "I say, don't talk to ME!" "We ll," with deliberation, "I guess I shan't, unless you stop talkin' yourself, and give me a chance. What's the matter now, Zuba?" "Matter!
"If he should come, just send for me. I'd just as soon talk to him as not rather, if anything." The captain shook his head in a puzzled way. "That business of of him and Zuba was the strangest thing," he declared. "I can't make head nor tail of it, and Gertie won't talk about it at all. He said 'twas a mistake, and of course it must have been. Either that or he'd gone crazy. No sane man would "
You might sell out, retire, and be a gentleman of leisure, one of the town's rich men. You could do that perfectly well." Daniel grunted in disgust. "Don't talk that way," he repeated. "I've had enough gentleman of leisure foolishness to last me through. What do you think I am; a second-hand copy of Cousin Percy, without the gilt edges? I might be kissin' Zuba by mistake if I did that."
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