"Wha--wha'd you come hyeah fu'?" he asked.
"I thought I'd des' come in an' tek a bite wid you."
"Ain' gwine tek no bite wid me," said Jim.
"Heish," said Mandy, "wha' kin' o' way is dat to talk to de preachah?"
"Preachah er no preachah, you hyeah what I say," and he took the possum, and put it on the highest shelf.
"Wha's de mattah wid you, Jim; dat's one o' de' 'quiahments o' de chu'ch."
"Is it one o' de 'quiahments o' de chu'ch dat you eat hyeah ter-night?"
"Hit sholy am usual fu' de shepherd to sup wherevah he stop," said Parker suavely.
"Ve'y well, ve'y well," said Jim, "I wants you to know dat I 'specs to stay out o' yo' chu'ch. I's got two weeks mo' p'obation. You tek hit back, an' gin hit to de nex' niggah you ketches wid a 'possum."
Mandy was horrified. The preacher looked longingly at the possum, and took up his hat to go.
There were two disappointed men on the plantation when he told his master the next day the outcome of Jim's probation.
Mr. Marston sat upon his wide veranda in the cool of the summer Sabbath morning. His hat was off, the soft breeze was playing with his brown hair, and a fragrant cigar was rolled lazily between his lips. He was taking his ease after the fashion of a true gentleman. But his eyes roamed widely, and his glance rested now on the blue-green sweep of the great lawn, again on the bright blades of the growing corn, and anon on the waving fields of tobacco, and he sighed a sigh of ineffable content. The breath had hardly died on his lips when the figure of an old man appeared before him, and, hat in hand, shuffled up the wide steps of the porch.
It was a funny old figure, stooped and so one-sided that the tail of the long and shabby coat he wore dragged on the ground. The face was black and shrewd, and little patches of snow-white hair fringed the shiny pate.
"Good-morning, Uncle Simon," said Mr. Marston, heartily.
"I'm first-rate. How are you? How are your rheumatics coming on?"
"Oh, my, dey's mos' nigh well. Dey don' trouble me no mo'!"
"Most nigh well, don't trouble you any more?"
"Why, Uncle Simon, who ever heard tell of a man being cured of his aches and pains at your age?"
"I ain' so powahful ol', Mas', I ain' so powahful ol'."
"You're not so powerful old! Why, Uncle Simon, what's taken hold of you? You're eighty if a day."