'Now I guess we free-born Americans don't be above having our helps to eat with us; we ain't poor and proud, as that comes to. But I'll see ye brought down to it, or my name's not Zack Bunting. It tickles me to see aristocrats like ye at work--rael hard work, to take the consait out of ye; and if I was this feller,' glancing at Andy, 'I'd make tracks if ye didn't give me my rights, smart enough.'
The glow in the Irish servant's eyes was not to be mistaken.
'I guess I've riled you a bit,' added the Yankee wonderingly.
'An' what's my rights, sir, if yer honour would be plasin' to tell me?' asked Andy, with mock obsequiousness; 'for I donno of a single one this minit, barrin' to do what my master bids me.'
'Because I calc'late you've been raised in them mean opinions, an' to think yerself not as good flesh an' blood as the aristocrats that keep you in bondage.'
'Come now,' interrupted Sam Holt, 'you shut up, Mr. Bunting. It's no bondage to eat one's dinner afterwards; and he'll be twice as comfortable.'
'That's thrue,' said Andy; 'I never yet could ate my bit in presence of the quality; so that's one right I'd forgive; and as for me--the likes of _me_--bein' as good blood as the Masther Wynns of Dunore, I'd as soon think the Yankee was himself.'
With sovereign contempt, Andy turned his back on Mr. Bunting, and proceeded to cook his dinner.
'Wal, it's the first time I see a feller's dander riz for tellin' him he's as good as another,' remarked Zack, sauntering in the wake of the others towards the unfinished shanty. 'I reckon it's almost time for me to make tracks to hum; the ole woman will be lookin' out. But I say, stranger, what are you going to do with that heaver meadow below on the creek? It's a choice slice of pasture that.'
'Cut the grass in summer,' replied Sam Holt, tolerably sure of what was coming.
'I've as fine a red heifer,' said the Yankee confidentially, 'as ever was milked, and I'd let you have it, being a new-comer, and not up to the ways of the country, very cheap.' His little black eyes twinkled. 'I'd like to drive a trade with you, I would; for she's a rael prime article.'
'Thank you,' said Mr. Holt, 'but we don't contemplate dairy farming as yet.' Zack could not be rebuffed under half-a-dozen refusals. 'Wal, if you won't trade, you'll be wantin' fixins from the store, an' I have most everythin' in stock. Some of my lads will be along to see you to-morrow, I reckon, and any whisky or tobacco you wanted they could bring; and if you chose to run a bill'--