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suh massa." His face beams. I have given him a cigar.
I too beam, for I am flattered; I have never been called
"massa" before.
George sets his pan of pumpkin on a little table, "Just
a minute, massa, Lemme git yuh a chair," he says.
He leaves me and goes into another room. I have a chance
to look around. The room is small though it seems to be a
perfect setting, for its furnishings which consist of a little
"number seven" stove, two small pine tables, and a rocker. The
ceiling is low; George's hair touches it occasionally and bits
of slate-colored plastering fall. The walls are slate-colored
too. The outer coloring has worn off in several places and sundry
colors, evidence of different coats of calsomining, appear; one
splotch is a bright red.
I look about the walls for pictures. I like pictures. There
are none, not even a "God Bless Our Home." Where pictures ought
to be hung, the space is filled with pots, pans, hand-saws, and
"rabbit tobacco." I count them rapidly; fifty-four articles
hanging on the wall and no two exactly alike.
"Heah yuh is, massa," George returns to the kitchen dragging
a chair behind him, I am no connoisseur of antiques; I do not
know what period the chair represents, I only know it is mahogany
and that it is old. The seat has long been worn away and it has
been recovered with goat skin. I sit down in it reluctantly, for
I have an idea that most of the goat hair will follow me away, on
the seat of my trousers.
George seats himself in the rocker. He does not know whether
I am a book agent, an insurance agent, or selling "hair straight-
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