ever so slightly. It would be the hardest to get used to, he thought. As yet, he did not know the isolation of the long, interminably long, winter evenings, with absolutely nothing to do and no place to go – and no one who could understand.
At length, when they were ready to retrace their steps to the lower floor, old Mose had disappeared.
“Gone to tell his wife that the new master has come,” said Dick. “Let us go out to the kitchen.”
And there they found her – bustling around, making the fire, her head tied up in a bandana, her sleeves rolled to the shoulders. She turned, as they entered, and dropped them an old-fashioned curtsy.
“Josephine!” said Dick, “here is Mr. Croyden, the new master. Can you cook for him, as well as you did for Colonel Duval?”
“Survent, marster,” she said to Croyden, with another curtsy – then, to the agent, “Kin I cooks, Marster Dick! Kin I cooks? Sut’n’y, I kin. Don’ yo t’inks dis nigger’s forgot – jest yo waits, Marster Croyden, I shows yo, seh, sho’ nuf – jest gives me a little time to get my han’ in, seh.”
“You won’t need much time,” Dick commented. “The Colonel considered her very satisfactory, sir, very satisfactory, indeed. And he was a competent judge, sir, a very competent judge.”
“Oh, we’ll get along,” said Croyden, with a smile at Josephine. “If you could please Colonel Duval, you will more than please me.”
“Thankee, seh!” she replied, bobbing down again. “I sho’ tries, seh.”
“Have you had any experience with negro servants?” Dick asked, as they returned to the library.
“No,” Croyden responded: “I have always lived at a Club.”
“Well, Mose and his wife are of the old times – you can trust them, thoroughly, but there is one thing you’ll have to remember, sir: they are nothing but overgrown children, and you’ll have to discipline them accordingly. They don’t know what it is to be impertinent, sir; they have their faults, but they are always respectful.”
“Can I rely on them to do the buying?”
“I think so, sir, the Colonel did, I know. If you wish, I’ll send you a list of the various stores, and all you need do is to pay the bills. Is there anything else I can do now, sir?”
“Nothing,” said Croyden. “And thank you very much for all you have done.”
“How about your baggage – can I send it out? No trouble, sir, I assure you, no trouble. I’ll just give your checks to the drayman, as I pass. By the way, sir, you’ll want the telephone in, of course. I’ll notify the Company at once. And you needn’t fear to speak to your neighbors; they will take it as it’s meant, sir. The next on the left is Major Borden’s, and this, on the right, is Captain Tilghman’s, and across the way is Captain Lashiel’s, and Captain Carrington’s, and the house yonder, with the huge oaks in front, is Major Markoe’s.”
“Sort of a military settlement,” smiled Croyden.
“Yes, sir – some of them earned their title in the war, and some of them in the militia and some just inherited it from their pas. Sort of handed down in the family, sir. The men will call on you, promptly, too. I shouldn’t wonder some of them will be over this evening.”
Croyden thought instantly of the girl he had seen coming out of the Borden place, and who had directed him to Clarendon.
“Would it be safe to speak to the good-looking girls, too – those who are my neighbors?” he asked, with a sly smile.
“Certainly, sir; if you tell them your name – and don’t try to flirt with them,” Dick added, with a laugh. “Yonder is one, now – Miss Carrington,” nodding toward the far side of the street.
Croyden turned. – It was she! the girl of the blue-black hair and slender silken ankles.
“She’s Captain Carrington’s granddaughter,” Dick went on with the Southerner’s love for the definite in genealogy. “Her father and mother both died when she was a little tot, sir, and they – that is, the grandparents, sir – raised her. That’s the Carrington place she’s turning in at. Ah – ”
The girl glanced across and, recognizing Dick (and, it must be admitted, her Clarendon inquirer as well), nodded.
Both men took off their hats. But Croyden noticed that the older man could teach him much in the way it should be done. He did it shortly, sharply, in the city way; Dick, slowly, deferentially, as though it were an especial privilege to uncover to her.
“Miss Carrington is a beauty!” Croyden exclaimed, looking after her. “Are there more like her, in Hampton?”
“I’m too old, sir, to be a competent judge,” returned Dick, “but I should say we have several who trot in the same class. I mean, sir – ”
“I understand!” laughed Croyden. “It’s no disrespect in a Marylander, I take it, when he compares the ladies with his race-horses.”
“It’s not, sir! At least, that’s the way we of the older generation feel; our ladies and our horses run pretty close together. But that spirit is fast disappearing, sir! The younger ones are becoming – commercialized, if you please. It’s dollars first, and then the ladies, with them – and the horses nowhere. Though I don’t say it’s not wise. Horses and the war have almost broken us, sir. We lost the dollars, or forgot about them and they lost themselves, whichever way it was, sir. It’s right that our sons should start on a new track and run the course in their own way – Yes, sir,” suddenly recollecting himself, “Miss Carrington’s a pretty girl, and so’s Miss Tayloe and Miss Lashiel and a heap more. Indeed, sir, Hampton is famed on the Eastern Sho’ for her women. I’ll attend to your baggage, and the telephone, sir, and if there is anything else I can do, pray command me. Drop in and see me when you get up town. Good day, sir, good day.” And removing his hat with a bow just a little less deferential than the one he had given to Miss Carrington, he proceeded up the street, leisurely and deliberately, as though the world were waiting for him.
“And he is a real estate agent!” reflected Croyden. “The man who, according to our way of thinking, is the acme of hustle and bustle and business, and schemes to trap the unwary. Truly, the Eastern Shore has much to learn – or we have much to unlearn! Well, I have tried the one – and failed. Now, I’m going to try the other. It seems to promise a quiet life, at least.”
He turned, to find Moses in the doorway, waiting.
“Marster Croyden,” he said, “shall I puts yo satchel an’ things in de Cun’l’s room, seh?”
Croyden nodded. He did not know which was the Colonel’s room, but it was likely to be the best in the house, and, moreover, it was well to follow him wherever he could.
“And see that my luggage is taken there, when the man brings it,” he directed – “and tell Josephine to have luncheon at one and dinner at seven.”
The darky hesitated.
“De Cun’l hed dinner in de middle o’ de day, seh,” he said, as though Croyden had inadvertently erred.
And Croyden appreciating the situation, answered:
“Well, you see, Moses, I’ve been used to the other way and I reckon you will
