Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/147

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a saucerful of pickles; a bowl of tea; and a can of cider.

With laughing eyes, full of mingled mirth and amazement, Alice stood quietly by and watched the old darkie make his way through this heterogeneous mass of food, with the celerity and the apparent ease with which an able mower cuts his swath through a field of ripened grain; keeping up all the time an incessant shuffling of his feet, as if that were some part of the machinery by which he was able to accomplish so much in so short a time; but when, after making a clean sweep over the board, he turned his wishful eyes upon Winny with an Oliver Twistical expression, Alice could not help laughing. "He doesn't mean that he wants more, does he, Winny?"

"Oh, no; laws bress us, no; he tinks he does; but he dun'no. No, no, nigger! yer won't get nuffin' more here—yer kin go home now an' hav' yer supper."

But when Alice, furnished with the money by her grandmother, was about to offer it to old Drosky, the dusky hand of Winny was interposed. "Hi! hi! Alice; don't yer go