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The Wreck of the Red Bird: A Story of the Carolina Coast
The Wreck of the Red Bird: A Story of the Carolina Coast
CHAPTER I
MAUM SALLY'S MANNERS
"Bress my heart, honey, wha'd you come from?"
It was old "Maum" Sally who uttered this exclamation as she came out of her kitchen, drying her hands on her apron, and warmly greeting one of the three boys who stood just outside the door.
"Is you done come to visit de folks? Well, I do declar'!"
"Now, Maum Sally," replied Ned Cooke, "stop 'declaring' and stop asking me questions till you answer mine. Or, no, you won't do that, so I'll answer yours first. Where did I come from? Why from Aiken, by way of Charleston and Hardeeville. Did I come to visit the folks? Well, no, not exactly that. You see, I didn't set out to come here at all. I have spent part of the summer up at Aiken with these two school-mates of mine, and they were to spend the rest of it with me in Savannah. We were on our way down there when I got a despatch from father, saying that as yellow fever has broken out there I mustn't come home, but must come down here to Bluffton and stay with Uncle Edward till frost or school time. So we got off the train, hired a man with an ox-cart to bring our trunks down, and walked the eighteen miles. The man with the trunks will get here sometime, I suppose. There! I've made a long speech at you. Now, answer my questions, please. Where is Uncle Edward? and where is Aunt Helen? and why is the house shut up? and when will they be back again? and can't you give us something to eat, for we're nearly starved?"
Ned laughed as he delivered this volley of questions, but Maum Sally remained perfectly solemn, as she always did. When he finished, she said:
"Yaller fever! Bress my heart! It'll be heah nex' thing we knows. Walked all de way from Hardeeville! an' dis heah hot day too! e'en a'most starved! Well, I reckon ye is, an' I'll jes mosey roun' heah an' git you some supper."
It must be explained that Maum Sally, although she lived on the coast of South Carolina, and was called "Maum" instead of "Aunt," was born and "raised," as she would have said, in "Ole Firginny," and her dialect was therefore somewhat as represented here. The negroes of the coast speak a peculiar jargon, which would be wholly unintelligible to other than South Carolinian readers, even if I could render it faithfully by phonetic spelling.
As Maum Sally ceased speaking, she turned to go into her kitchen, which, as is usual in the South, was a detached building, standing some distance from the main house.
"But wait, Maum Sally," cried Ned, seizing her hand; "I'm not going to let you off that way. You haven't answered my questions yet."
"Now, look heah, young Ned," she said, with great solemnity, "does you s'pose Ole Sally was bawn and raised in Ole Firginny for nothin'? I aint forgot my manners nor hospitality, ef I is lived nigh onto twenty-five years in dis heah heathen coast country whah de niggas talks monkey language. I'se a gwine to git you'n your fr'en's – ef you'll interduce 'em – some supper, fust an' foremost. Den I'll answer all de questions you're a mind to ax, ef you don't git to conundrumin'."