_Lady-Like!_
As I looks back on it now, after the passing of two weeks or so, it
seems to me I never traveled so fast and covered so much ground in all
my born days as I did on the next day following immediately along after
this here night before. For awhile you just naturally couldn't see me
for the dust.
In the first place, right after breakfast-time, I glides out and I
scoots up-town and I puts up ten dollars for security and thereby I
borrows the loan of one of his extra spare revolvers off of a
yellow-complected person named Snake-Eye Jamison, which it is his habit
to go round the colored districts recommending himself as the coroner's
friend and acting very gunnery towards parties that he gets dissatisfied
with. I don't know how many folkses he's killed in his life, but he
must bury his dead where they falls, because I ain't never had none of
the gravestones pointed out to me. But, anyway, he goes heeled on both
hips at all times. But I makes him onload her before he turns her over
to me, because I is not taking no chances on having that thing going off
accidental and maybe crippling somebody. I totes this here large and
poisonous-looking chunk of dark-blue hardware back to the apartment and
stores it in a safe place where I can put my hand upon it on short
notices.
Then I waits till Mr. Dallas is in the bathroom with the water running
so as to hide the sound of my voice, and I goes to the telephone and I
calls up Miss Bill-Lee's[3] number over on Riverside Drive.
She must've rose early so as to have her complexion laid on so it'll get
set good before she goes out for the day; because it's her which answers
my call instead of the maid.
I tells her it's me on the wire and I asks her, as a special favor, can
I run over to her flat as soon as it's agreeable, to speak to her on a
very important matter? She says yes, so eager-like it must be she's
expecting I'm fetching a present from Mr. Dallas same as I has done
quite often before this. She says I can come at ten o'clock.
Ten o'clock and I'm at the door. She's in her sitting-room waiting for
me. She looks sort of disappointed when she sees I ain't brought along
no flowers nor no candy nor no jewelry-box nor nothing with me; but she
welcomes me very kindly. I don't lose no time getting going.
"Miss DeWitt," I says, making my voice as winning as I can, "now 'at you
an' Mr. Dallas is fixin' to git married to one 'nother I been wonderin'
'bout what's goin' become of me in the shuffle. I 'preciates 'at he laks
me fuss-rate; but he idolizes you so deeply 'at I knows he wouldn't keep
on keepin' me nur nobody else round him widout he wuz shore 'at you
laked 'em, too. Tha's what's been worryin' me--the question whether you
felt disposed agreeable to me? An' so, after broodin' over the matter
fur goin' on it's nearly a week, I finally has tuck the liberty of
comin' to speak to you 'bout it. Yassum!"
"Jefferson," she says kind of indifferent and yet not hostile, "I have
nothing against you--in fact I rather like you. If your services are
satisfactory to Dallas I shall have not the slightest objection to his
keeping you on as his servant."
"Thanky, ma'am," I says, "hearin' you say 'at frum yore own lips
su'ttinly teks a big load offen my mind. I strives ever to please.
'Sides, I got a mighty winnin' way wid chillen. I'll come in handy w'en
it comes to he'pin' out wid the nursin' an' all lak 'at."
She sets up straight from where she's been kind of half-laying down and
some of that chain-gang jewelry of hers gives a brisk rattle.
"Children!" she says, plenty startled. "What in the world are you
talking about?"
I answers back like I'm expecting of course she'll understand.
"W'y," I says, "the chillen w'ich enshores 'at Mr. Dallas don't lose out
none in the final cuttin' up of the estate," I says.
By now she's rose bolt upright on her feet. All that languidsome manner
is fled from her, and her voice is sharper than what I ever has heard it
before.
"What's that?" she says, quite snappy. "What's that you are saying? Do
you mean to tell me that Dallas has been married before--that he has a
child, or more than one child, hidden away somewhere?"
"Oh, nome," I says, very soothing, "nuthin' lak 'at. 'Course Mr. Dallas
ain't never been married--up 'twell now he's practically been
heart-whole an' fancy-free. Yassum! I wuz merely speakin'--ef you'll
please, ma'am, 'scuse me--of the chillen, w'ich natchelly 'll be comin'
long ez purvided fur onder the terms of the ole gen'elman's will, you
know. Tha's all I meant."
"Will!" she says. "What will? Whose will? Here, you, give me the
straight of this thing! I haven't the faintest idea what it's all
about."
"Now!" I says, acting like I'm overcome with a sudden great regret.
"Ain't that jes' lak me, puttin' my big foot in it, gabblin' 'bout
somethin' w'ich it ain't none of my affairs? Most doubtless, Mr. Dallas,
he's been savin' it all up ez a happy surprise fur you. An' now, in my
innocence an' my ign'ence, I starts blabbin' it fo'th unbeknowst. Lemme
git out of yere, please ma'am, 'fore I gits myse'f in any deeper 'en
whut already I is in!"
She comes sailing across the floor right at me. Them big floating black
eyes of hers seems to get smaller and sharper until they bores into me
the same as a pair of sharp gimblets.
"You stay right where you are," she says, commanding as a
major's-general. "You don't leave this room until I get this mystery
straightened out."
"Please, ma'am, I'd a heap ruther you spoke to Mr. Dallas 'bout it," I
says, pretending to be pleading hard. "No doubt in due time he'll
confide to you all 'bout the way the property is tied up an' 'bout his
paw's views ez 'spressed in the will, an' also 'bout the way the matter
stands betwixt him an' his twin brother, Mr. Clarence, an' all the rest
of it."
"Twin brother!" she says, and by now she's been jolted so hard she's
mighty near to the screeching point. "Where is this twin brother? I
never heard of him--never dreamed there was such a person. Say, are you
crazy or am I?"
"W'ich 'at do settle it!" I says, very lamentful. "Ef Mr. Dallas ain't
told you 'bout his twin brother neither, it suttinly is a shore sign to
me 'at he wuz aimin' to purserve ever'thing ez a precious secret frum
you fur the time bein'. I 'spects he'll jest more'n snatch me
ball-haided fur this, Miss DeWitt. Please, ma'am, don't say nothin' to
him 'bout my havin' give you the tip, will you?"
"I don't want tips," she says, "I want facts. And I'm going to have them
here and now--and from you! If you want to get out of here with a whole
skin you'll quit your vague mumblings about wills and children and
estates and twin brothers that I never heard of before, and you'll tell
me in plain words the entire story, whatever it is, that has been held
back from me so carefully. You tell it beginning to end!"
"Yassum," I says, "jest ez you wishes, ma'am." I tries to make my voice
sound like I'm scared half to death, which it don't call for no great
amount of putting-on on my part neither, because she has done shed all
her laziness and all her silkiness and all her smoothness same as a
blue-racer sheds his skin in the spring of the year, and she's done
bared her real het-up dangersome self before me. "Jest ez you wishes," I
says, "only I do trus' an' pray at you'll purtec' me frum Mr. Dallases'
wrath w'en he finds out I done spilt ever'thin' so premanture-lak."
"Forget it!" she says. "It strikes me I'm the one who needs protection
if anybody does. Now, without any more dodging or ducking you give me
the truth, understand? No original embroidery of your own, either--the
cold truth, all of it! And if I find out afterwards that you've been
holding back a single detail from me----!"
With that she stops short and pins me with them eyes of hers. I can't
hardly keep from flinching back from before her. If she was a hornet
it'd be high time to start one of the hands off to the nearest drugstore
after the soothing ointments, because somebody certainly would be due to
get all stung up. Rejoiceful though I is inside of me to see how nice
she's grabbed at all the hints which I has flung out to her like
fishing-baits, one after another, I'd be almost as glad if I was outside
that room talking to her through the keyhole. But it's shore dependent
on me to set easy and keep on play-acting and not make no slips. Things
is going well, but they has got to go still better yet if she's to
swallow down the main dose.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Note.--It has just dawned upon Jeff's volunteer amanuensis that
throughout the preceding pages of this narrative, Jeff's more or less
phonetic rendering of this word was an effort on his part to deal with
the Gallicized pronunciation of an English diminutive for a common
proper name, to wit: _Billy_.