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Updated: June 21, 2025
It rippled, it lilted, it died away, and rolled forth again until the most blase listener smiled in sympathy, and children in the streets haw-hawed in mindless glee. It was the laugh of Hannah Mrs. 'Rastus Calhoun Breckenridge, as her husband was careful to explain; and he once so far forgot his dignity as to add, expansively, "We got de stifkit dat prove hit, Hannah an' me.
"Yas, sah, yas sah, I'se tellin' de truf, de whole truf, and everything but de truf," eagerly stuttered the negro. "Where did you first see the light?" demanded Captain Hazzard. "That's about where I saw it," burst out Frank. "Was it stationary?" asked Captain Hazzard. "Yas, sah; it's station was airy, dat's a fac'," grinned Rastus. "It was high up in de air."
For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her cabin and taken charge of affairs. Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and 'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the bed and helped as best they could.
Still grumbling to himself, the marquis reached the main corridor, where the scene was almost as animated as in the bar and where the principal topic of conversation seemed to be horses and races that had been or were about to be run. "I'd put Uncle Rastus' mule against that hoss!" "That four-year-old's quick as a runaway nigger!" "Five hundred, the gelding beats the runaway nigger!"
'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the run. "Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home." At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms.
He did not know that her customary budget, a sort of daily diary mailed once a month, had gone down with the fated Peruvia in mid-ocean, and he was uneasy and resentful. Mrs. Brevoort was out riding when he reached the ranch, so he merely instructed 'Rastus to inform her of his return, and dined at the common mess house.
"But, Brer Remus, you ain't " "I mout drap in, Brer Rastus, an' den ag'in I moutn't, but w'en you duz see me santer in de do', wid my specs on, you k'n des say to de congergashun, sorter familious like, 'Yer come ole man Remus wid his hoss-pistol, an' ef dar's much uv a skuffle 'roun' yer dis evenin' you er gwineter year fum 'im. Dat's me, an' dat's what you kin tell um. So long!
"Why, 'Rastus," exclaimed his mother, "does yo' 'tend lak yo' don't 'member little Sally Ma'tin yo' used to go wid almos' f'om de time you was babies? W'y, I'm s'prised at you." "She has slipped my mind," said the young man. For a long while the neighbours who had come and Aunt Mandy sat up to wait for Erastus, but he did not come in until the last one was gone.
Without preface or apology, 'Rastus came to the point. He wished a divorce from Hannah. He wished it to be procured as cheaply as possible, but economy was not to interfere with its being riveted as strongly as the law permitted. He had his facts neatly tabulated. There was no emotion on his little black face.
'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky stared after him in amazement. "What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.
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