“Kin I do it?” he was saying.  “Kin I do it?” Then he would stop his walk and his cogitations would bloom into a mirthful chuckle.  Something very pleasant was passing through his mind.

As he approached, Viney was standing in the door of the little cabin, whose white sides with green Madeira clambering over them made a pretty frame for the dark girl in her print dress.  The husband bent double at sight of her, stopped, took off his hat, slapped his knee, and relieved his feelings by a sounding “Who-ee!”

“What’s de mattah wid you, Ben?  You ac’ lak you mighty happy.  Bettah come on in hyeah an’ git yo’ suppah fo’ hit gits col’.”

For answer, the big fellow dropped the hoe and, seizing the slight form in his arms, swung her around until she gasped for breath.

“Oh, Ben,” she shrieked, “you done tuk all my win’!”

“Dah, now,” he said, letting her down; “dat’s what you gits fu’ talkin’ sassy to me!”

“Nev’ min’; I’m goin’ to fix you fu’ dat fus’ time I gits de chanst—­see ef I don’t.”

“Whut you gwine do?  Gwine to pizen me?”

“Worse’n dat!”

“Wuss’n dat?  Whut you gwine fin’ any wuss’n pizenin’ me, less’n you conjuh me?”

“Huh uh—­still worse’n dat.  I’m goin’ to leave you.”

“Huh uh—­no you ain’, ‘cause any place you’d go you wouldn’ no more’n git dah twell you’d tu’n erroun’ all of er sudden an’ say, ’Why, dah’s Ben!’ an’ dah I’d be.”

They chattered on like children while she was putting the supper on the table and he was laving his hot face in the basin beside the door.

“I got great news fu’ you,” he said, as they sat down.

“I bet you ain’ got nothin’ of de kin’.”

“All right.  Den dey ain’ no use in me a tryin’ to ‘vince you.  I jes’ be wastin’ my bref.”

“Go on—­tell me, Ben.”

“Huh uh—­you bet I ain’, an’ ef I tell you you lose de bet.”

“I don’ keer.  Ef you don’ tell me, den I know you ain’ got no news worth tellin’.”

“Ain’ go no news wuff tellin’!  Who-ee!”

He came near choking on a gulp of coffee, and again his knee suffered from the pounding of his great hands.

“Huccume you so full of laugh to-night?” she asked, laughing with him.

“How you ‘spec’ I gwine tell you dat less’n I tell you my sec’ut?”

“Well, den, go on—­tell me yo’ sec’ut.”

“Huh uh.  You done bet it ain’ wuff tellin’.”

“I don’t keer what I bet.  I wan’ to hyeah it now.  Please, Ben, please!”

“Listen how she baig!  Well, I gwine tell you now.  I ain’ gwine tease you no mo’.”

She bent her head forward expectantly.

“I had a talk wid Mas’ Raymond to-day,” resumed Ben.

“Yes?”

“An’ he say he pay me all my back money fu’ ovahtime.”

“Oh!”

“An’ all I gits right along he gwine he’p me save, an’ when I git fo’ hund’ed dollahs he gwine gin me de free papahs fu’ you, my little gal.”