“Oh, no,” said Brad. “We just came out here on a little boat ride and for a picnic supper.”
The old man took off his battered felt and scratched his woolly head. “Reckon y’all bettah go some’ers else to eat yo’ suppah. Massa don’ like nobody in the pine grove. Reckon you see dem sign he stick up.”
They had noticed “No trespassing” signs, but Kitty had thought that applied to hunting and fishing.
“We aren’t doing a bit of harm,” Kitty told the old man. “The trees are so beautiful. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy them.”
“Yas’m, dat so, but jus’ de same boss don’t like nobody meddlin’ round the pine thicket. Might set foire an’ bu’n it up.”
“We aren’t going to cook anything. We brought a cold lunch. And if we did make a fire we’d put out every spark.”
“Yas’m, dat whut I tell him too. I been libin’ all mah life in dat shack yonder.” The old man indicated a log cabin in a clearing a little farther south. “I ain’t neber sot foire to de woods. But he can’t be satisfy when he lease de place las’ year till I come to lib in dat new house behind his.”
“Oh, he only rented the island last year?” asked Brad.
“Yessuh! An’ I has to be powerful keerful ’bout whut I does since he been here. I wouldn’t be down here fishin’ me mah ole fish place, ’cept he gone to town fer de day.”
“So you’re enjoying yourself while he’s gone,” said Kitty kindly.
“Yas’m. I sho’ gits lonesome fer de ole times an’ de easy ways, ’fore dis island was a hog lot.”
“Oh, so your boss is the man who gets the refuse from the hospital?” asked Brad.
“Yassuh. I ain’ neber see so much slop since I been born. In de ole days my Massa wouldn’t ov tetched he hand to sich wuk, but not Mr. Beeson. He go fer dat stuff all de time hisself.”
Kitty thought the old man looked to be eighty or ninety. His bloodshot eyes were deeply sunken in his wrinkled dusty brown face, while his once-large frame had little padding left on the bones.
“It was nice of Mr. Beeson to let you continue to live here after he rented the island,” Kitty remarked, hoping to draw him out further.
“Yassum, but he can’t he’p hisse’f. Massa’s son, up nawth, whut own de island all dese years, say he won’t rent to nobody, lessen I kin stay here de res’ o’ mah days an’ lib in peace.”