“We must drop him--he ain't a gent'man,” she said of one. Of another: “Oh! Oh! honey, he won't do. He ain't our kind.” Or, “Betty, let him go, my Lamb. De Frenches don't pick up dat kine o' stick.”
Happily for Cabell Graeme, he had the old woman's approval. In the first place, he was related to the Frenches, and this in her eyes was a patent of gentility. Then, he had always been kind to little Betty and particularly civil to herself. He not only never omitted to ask after her health, but also inquired as to her pet ailments of “misery in her foot” and “whirlin' in her head,” with an interest which flattered her deeply. But it went further back than that Once, when Betty was a little girl, Cabell, then a well-grown boy of twelve, had found her and her mammy on the wrong side of a muddy road, and wading through, he had carried Betty across, and then wading back, had offered to carry Mam' Lyddy over, too.
“Go way f'om heah, boy, you can't carry me.”
“Yes, I can, Mam' Lyddy. You don't know how strong I am.” He squared himself for the feat.
She laughed at him, and with a flash in his gray eyes he suddenly grabbed her.
There was quite a scuffle. She was too heavy for him, but he won her friendship then and there, and as he grew up straight and sturdy, the friendship ripened. That he teased her and laughed at her did not in the least offend her. No one else could have taken such a liberty with her, but Cabell's references to old Caesar's declining health, and his innuendoes whenever she was “fixed up” that she was “looking around” in advance only amused her. It made no difference to her that he was poor, while several others of Betty's beaux were rich. He was “a gent'man,” and she was an aristocrat.
At times they had pitched battles, but each knew that the other was an ally.
Cabell won his final victory by an audacity which few would have dared venture on. Among his rivals was one Mr. Hereford, whom he particularly disliked, partly because he frequently “outsat” him, and partly because he thought Miss Betty favored his attentions too much, and whom Mammy Lyddy detested because he always ignored her. Cabell charged her with deserting his cause and going over to the side of Mr. Hereford, and threatened to carry off the prize in spite of her and her ally.