Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

and play fair and see which of us gets the watch. The old darky surely ought to be able to pick out his ‘young marster’ without any trouble. The alleged aristocratic superiority of a ‘reb’ ought to be visible to him at once. He couldn’t make the mistake of handing over the timepiece to a Yankee, of course. The loser buys the dinner this evening and two dozen 15½ collars for Jake. Is it a go?”

Blandford agreed heartily. Percival was summoned, and told to usher the “colored gentleman” in.

Uncle Jake stepped inside the private office cautiously. He was a little old man, as black as soot, wrinkled and bald except for a fringe of white wool, cut decorously short, that ran over his ears and around his head. There was nothing of the stage “uncle” about him: his black suit nearly fitted him; his shoes shone, and his straw hat was banded with a gaudy ribbon. In his right hand he carried something carefully concealed by his closed fingers.

Uncle Jake stopped a few steps from the door. Two young men sat in their revolving desk-chairs ten feet apart and looked at him in friendly silence. His gaze slowly shifted many times from one to the other. He felt sure that he was in the presence of one, at least, of the revered family among whose fortunes his life had begun and was to end.

One had the pleasing but haughty Carteret air; the other had the unmistakable straight, long family nose. Both had the keen black eyes, horizontal brows, and thin, smiling lips that had distinguished both the Carteret of the Mayflower and him of the brigantine. Old Jake had thought that he could have picked out his young master instantly from a thousand Northerners; but he found himself in difficulties. The best he could do was to use strategy.

“Howdy, Marse Blandford⁠—howdy, suh?” he said, looking midway between the two young men.

“Howdy, Uncle Jake?” they both answered pleasantly and in unison. “Sit down. Have you brought the watch?”

Uncle Jake chose a hard-bottom chair at a respectful distance, sat on the edge of it, and laid his hat carefully on the floor. The watch in its buckskin case he gripped tightly. He had not risked his life on the battlefield to rescue that watch from his “old marster’s” foes to hand it over again to the enemy without a struggle.

“Yes, suh; I got it in my hand, suh. I’m gwine give it to you right away in jus’ a minute. Old Missus told me to put it in young Marse Blandford’s hand and tell him to wear it for the family pride and honor. It was a mighty longsome trip for an old nigger man to make⁠—ten thousand miles, it must be, back to old Vi’ginia, suh. You’ve growed mightily, young marster. I wouldn’t have reconnized you but for yo’ powerful resemblance to old marster.”

With admirable diplomacy the old man kept his eyes roaming in the space between the two men. His words might have been addressed to either. Though neither wicked nor perverse, he was seeking for a sign.

Blandford and John exchanged winks.

“I reckon you done got you ma’s letter,” went on Uncle Jake. “She said she was gwine to write to you ’bout my comin’ along up this er-way.”

“Yes, yes, Uncle Jake,” said John briskly. “My cousin and I have just been notified to expect you. We are both Carterets, you know.”

“Although one of us,” said Blandford, “was born and raised in the North.”

“So if you will hand over the watch⁠—” said John.

“My cousin and I⁠—” said Blandford.

“Will then see to it⁠—” said John.

“That comfortable quarters are found for you,” said Blandford.

With creditable ingenuity, old Jake set up a cackling, high-pitched, protracted laugh. He beat his knee, picked up his hat and bent the brim in an apparent paroxysm of humorous appreciation. The seizure afforded him a mask behind which he could roll his eyes impartially between, above, and beyond his two tormentors.

“I sees what!” he chuckled, after a while. “You gen’lemen is tryin’ to have fun with the po’ old nigger. But you can’t fool old Jake. I knowed you, Marse Blandford, the minute I sot eyes on you. You was a po’ skimpy little boy no mo’ than about fo’teen when you lef’ home to come No’th; but I knowed you the minute I sot eyes on you. You is the mawtal image of old marster. The other gen’leman resembles you mightily, suh; but you can’t fool old Jake on a member of the old Vi’ginia family. No suh.”

At exactly the same time both Carterets smiled and extended a hand for the watch.

Uncle Jake’s wrinkled, black face lost the expression of amusement to which he had vainly twisted it. He knew that he was being teased, and that it made little real difference, as far as its safety went, into which of those outstretched hands he placed the family treasure. But it seemed to him that not only his own pride and loyalty but much of the Virginia Carterets’ was at stake. He had heard down South during the war about that other branch of the family that lived in the North and fought on “the yuther side,” and it had always grieved him. He had followed his “old marster’s” fortunes from stately luxury through war to almost poverty. And now, with the last relic and reminder of him, blessed by “old missus,” and entrusted implicitly to his care, he had come ten thousand miles (as it seemed) to deliver it into the hands of the one who was to wear it and wind it and cherish it and listen to it tick off the unsullied hours that marked the lives of the Carterets⁠—of Virginia.

His experience and conception of the Yankees had been an impression of tyrants⁠—“low-down, common trash”⁠—in blue, laying waste with fire and sword. He had seen the smoke of many burning homesteads almost as grand as Carteret Hall ascending to the drowsy