He was a big man with black hair an'
very violent. He could never have kept no help, if he hadn't owned
'em, but he was so rich, that people respected him, in spite of all
his crimes. My grandmother was a native o' the Isle o' Wight. She
was a frail an' tender woman, with yeller hair, and deep blue eyes,
an' gentle, an' soft, an' good to the poor. She used to take
baskits of vittles aroun' to sick folks, an' set down on the side
o' their beds an' read "The Shepherd o' Salisbury Plains" to 'em.
She hardly ever speaked above her breath, an' always wore white
gowns with a silk kerchief a-folded placidly aroun' her neck.'
'Them was awful different kind o' people,' I says to him, 'I wonder
how they ever come to be married.' 'They never was married,' says
he. 'Never married!' I hollers, a-jumpin' up from my chair, 'and
you sit there carmly an' look me in the eye.' 'Yes,' says he,
'they was never married. They never met; one was my mother's
father, and the other one my father's mother. 'Twas well they did
not wed.' 'I should think so,' said I, 'an' now, what's the good
of tellin' me a thing like that?'
"'It's about as near the mark as most of the stories of people's
lives, I reckon,' says he, 'an' besides I'd only jus' begun it.'
"'Well, I don't want no more,' says I, an' I jus' tell this story
of his to show what kind of stories he told about that time. He
said they was pleasant fictions, but I told him that if he didn't
look out he'd hear 'em called by a good deal of a worse kind of a
name than that.
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