He was overjoyed when the lady told him that they were all going back as soon as the son married. As this event was to occur in the course of a few weeks, Uncle Remus decided to wait for the rest of the family. The wedding came off, and then the father and mother returned to the plantation, and made their home there, much to the delight of the old negro.
In course of time, the man who had been the little boy for ever so long came to have a little boy of his own, and then it happened in the most natural way in the world that the little boy’s little boy fell under the spell of Uncle Remus, who was still hale and hearty in spite of his age.
This latest little boy was frailer and quieter than his father had been; indeed, he was fragile, and had hardly any color in his face. But he was a beautiful child, too beautiful for a boy. He had large, dreamy eyes, and the quaintest little ways that ever were seen; and he was polite and thoughtful of others. He was very choice in the use of words, and talked as if he had picked his language out of a book. He was a source of perpetual wonder to Uncle Remus; indeed, he was the wonder of wonders, and the old negro had a way of watching him curiously. Sometimes, as the result of this investigation, which was continuous, Uncle Remus would shake his head and chuckle; at other times, he would shake his head and sigh.
This little boy was not like the other little boy. He was more like a girl in his refinement; all the boyishness had been taken out of him by that mysterious course of discipline that some mothers know how to apply. He seemed to belong to a different age--to a different time; just how or why, it would be impossible to say. Still, the fact was so plain that any one old enough and wise enough to compare the two little boys--one the father of the other--could not fail to see the difference; and it was a difference not wholly on the surface. Miss Sally, the grandmother, could see it, and Uncle Remus could see it; but for all the rest the tendencies and characteristics of this later little boy were a matter of course.
“Miss Sally,” said Uncle Remus, a few days after the arrival of the little boy and his mother, “what dey gwineter do wid dat chile? What dey gwineter make out ’n ’im?”