"Every one said we would better talk with you, Mr. Yancy, and we
were hoping to meet you as we came along," supplemented Miss
Malroy, and her words of flattery were wafted to him with so
sweet a smile that Yancy instantly capitulated.
"I reckon you-all can count on my nevvy," he said.
When he reached Scratch Hill, in the waning light of day,
Hannibal, in a state of high excitement, met him at the log shed,
which served as a barn.
"I hear you-all have been entertaining visitors while Uncle Bob
was away," observed Yancy, and remembering what Crenshaw had told
him, he rested his big hand on the boy's head with a special
tenderness.
"There's going to be a school in the cabin in the old field!"
said the boy. "May I go?--Oh, Uncle Bob, will you please take
me?"
"When's this here school going to begin, anyhow?"
"To-morrow at four o'clock, she said, Uncle Bob."
"She's a quick lady, ain't she? Well, I expected you'd be
hopping around on one leg when you named it to me. You wait
until Sunday and see what I do fo' my nevvy," said Yancy.
He was as good as his implied promise, but the day began
discouragingly with an extra and, as it seemed to Hannibal, an
unnecessary amount of soap and water.
"You owe it to yo'self to show a clean skin in the house of
worship. Just suppose one of them nice ladies was to cast her
eye back of yo' ears! She'd surely be put out to name it offhand
whether you was black or white. I reckon I'll have to barber you
some, too, with the shears.
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