“What child?” Mr. Mason asked, in some surprise.

Jake’s face was a study as he hesitated a minute, winking to keep his tears back before he said, “Sartin’, thar’s a chile.  Why shouldn’t thar be, but fo’ God it’s all right.  Miss Dory said so, an’ Elder Covil knows, only he’s done gone Norf or somewhar.  It’s all right, an’ you’ll know ’tis the minit you see Miss Dory’s face—­innocent as a baby’s.  Good day to you.”

He doffed his hat with a kind of grace one would hardly have expected, and walked rapidly away, leaving the Rev. Mr. Mason to think over what he had heard, and wonder that he didn’t ask the name of the family he was to visit.  “Miss Dory, ole Miss, and Jake,” were all he had to guide him, but the last name was sufficient.

“Oh, yes,” the landlord said, when questioned.  “It’s old Mrs. Harris and her grand-daughter out in the palmetto clearing; they’re Crackers.  The old woman is half demented, the whole family was queer, and the girl the queerest of all—­won’t talk and keeps her mouth shut as to her marriage, if there was one.”

“Who was the man?” Mr. Mason asked, and the landlord replied, “Some Northern cuss she met in Georgia where she was staying a spell with her kin.  A high blood, they say.  Attracted by her pretty face, I suppose, and then got tired of her, or was too proud to own up.  I wasn’t landlord then, but I’ve heard about it.  I think he was here once three or four years ago.  He came on the ‘Hatty’ and staid on her—­the house was so full.  Didn’t register, nor anything—­nor tell his name to a livin’ soul.  One or two ast him square, I b’lieve, but he either pretended not to hear ’em, or got out of it somehow.  Acted prouder than Lucifer.  Walked along the shore and in the woods, and went to the clearin’—­some said to buy that limb of a Mandy Ann, but more to see Miss Dory.  All the time he was on the boat he was so stiff and starched that nobody wanted to tackle him, and that girl—­I mean Miss Dory—­has kept a close mouth about him, and when her baby was born, and some of the old cats talked she only said, ‘It is all right, I’m a good girl,’ and I b’lieve she was.  But that Northern cuss needs killin’.  He sends her money, they say, through some friend in Palatka, who keeps his mouth shut tight, but neither she nor Jake will use a cent of it.  They are savin’ it to educate the little girl and make a lady of her, if nobody claims her.  A lady out of a Cracker!  I’d laugh!  That Jake is a dandy.  He’s free, but has stuck to the Harrises because his father belonged to old Mrs. Harris.  He is smarter than chain lightnin’, if he is a nigger, and knows more than a dozen of some white men.  He drives a white mule, and has managed to put a top of sail cloth on an old ramshackle buggy, which he calls a ‘shay.’  You’ll go to the funeral in style.”