to make room for the white
man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what
unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent
presence of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ away over here on this morning side
of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no
right to be, coming down-stream.

"My!" cried the girl, "I wish--oh, my, my, _my_, I wish I could be five
people at once!"

For here the boat's watchman sauntered by--a boat's watchman must be a
world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced
athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder
Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here
rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie
still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her
cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on
her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet
mother playing angel--oh, my, my!--and here, up yonder, was the pilot,
by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's
greenwood walls and out over their tops--"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever
listen to you, once we're in the chute!"

"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow.
She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh
sisteh--aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o'
Vicksbu'g, same like _us_ got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he
stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive'
yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma
die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa--a shawt
spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."

"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."

"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."

"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"

"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up
a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'--well, I'll stop tell you quits de
giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah
ayfteh y'uncle Dan--de bacheldeh--de pilot--quit de riveh a spell fo' to
run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak
up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa,
sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."

"Chi--you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"

"Ef I skips