better than the salt pork and
hoecake cooked by the boy on the sloop. The wind had fallen, and the
water view was growing dim in the gloaming. Judith explained to the
peddler that the convict her husband had bought proved to be an old
enemy of his. She stammered a little in her endeavor not to betray the
real reasons for selling him, and Perkins, who was proud of his own
penetration, inferred that Browne was afraid of his life if he should
keep the new servant. He saw in this an unexpected chance for profit.
When Mrs. Browne offered to sell him if Perkins would take him to the
eastern shore or some other place away off, he said that servants wuz a
thing he didn't deal in--a leetle dangerous at sea where the crew wuz
so small as his. Hard to sell an old fellow; the planters wanted young
men. But he wanted to accommodate, you know, an' seein' as how Mis'
Braown had been a good customer, he would do what he could. He would
have to make a run over to the eastern shore perticular to sell this
man. Folks on the eastern shore didn't buy much. Hadn't sold 'em a hat,
for instance. They all wore white cotton caps, men an' women; an' they
made the caps themselves out of cotton of their own raisin'. But, as he
wuz a-sayin', Mis' Braown had been a good customer, an' he wanted to
accommodate. But he'd have to put the price low enough so as he
wouldn't be poorer by the trade. Thus he faced about on his disjunctive
conjunction, now this way, now that, until he had time to consider what
was the very lowest figure he could offer as a basis for his higgling.
He couldn't offer much, but he would give a price which he named in
pieces of eight, stipulating that he should pay it in goods. He saw in
this a chance for elastic profits in both directions.

Judith hardly gave a thought to the price he named; but as soon as she
perceived that he had disentangled himself from his higgling preamble
so far as to offer a definite sum, she accepted it.

This lack of hesitation on her part disconcerted the peddler, who had a
feeling that a bargain made without preliminary chaffering had not been
properly solemnized. He was suspicious now that he was the victim of
some design.

"That is to say, Mis' Braown, I only dew this to accommodate ole
friends. It ain't preudent to make such a trade in the dark. I'll dew
it if I find the man sound in wind and limb, and all satisfactory, when
I come to look him over."

"Of course that's what I mean," said Judith