At this moment the shambling, yet in a way facile, footsteps of Barnaby,
the sporadic freedman of the household, were soothing. Colonel Sommerton
turned his eyes on the comer inquiringly, almost eagerly.
"Well, Barn, you're back," he said.
"Yah, sah; I'se had er confab wid 'em," remarked the negro, seating himself
on the top step of the veranda, and mopping his coal-black face with a red
cotton handkerchief; "an' hit do beat all. Niggahs is mos'ly eejits,
spacially w'en yo' wants 'em to hab some sense."
He was a huge, ill-shapen, muscular fellow, old but still vigorous, and in
his small black eyes twinkled an unsounded depth of shrewdness. He had been
the Colonel's slave from his young manhood to the close of the war; since
then he had hung around Ellijay what time he was not sponging a livelihood
from Sommerton Place under color of doing various light turns in the
vegetable garden, and of attending to his quondam master's horses.
Barnaby was a great banjoist, a charming song-singer, and a leader of the
negroes around about. Lately he was gaining some reputation as a political
boss.
There was but one political party in the county (for the colored people
were so few that they could not be called a party), and the only struggle
for office came in the pursuit of a nomination, which was always equivalent
to election.
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