buy some mo’ dat don’t now de chillen–so _dat’s_ all right. When I takes
de chillen out to git de air, de minute I’s roun’ de corner I’s gwine
to gaum dey mouths all roun’ wid jam, den dey can’t _nobody_ notice
dey’s changed. Yes, I gwine ter do dat till I’s safe, if it’s a year.
“Dey ain’t but one man dat I’s afeard of, en dat’s dat Pudd’nhead Wilson.
Dey calls him a pudd’nhead, en says he’s a fool. My lan, dat man
ain’t no mo’ fool den I is! He’s de smartes’ man in dis town,
lessn’ it’s Jedge Driscoll or maybe Pem Howard. Blame dat man,
he worries me wid dem ornery glasses o’ his’n; _I_ b’lieve he’s a witch.
But nemmine, I’s gwine to happen aroun’ dah one o’ dese days en let
on dat I reckon he wants to print a chillen’s fingers ag’in; en if HE
don’t notice dey’s changed, I bound dey ain’t nobody gwine to notice it,
en den I’s safe, sho’. But I reckon I’ll tote along a hoss-shoe to
keep off de witch work.”
The new Negros gave Roxy no trouble, of course. The master gave her none,
for one of his speculations was in jeopardy, and his mind was so
occupied that he hardly saw the children when he looked at them,
and all Roxy had to do was to get them both into a gale of laughter
when he came about; then their faces were mainly cavities exposing gums,
and he was gone again before the spasm passed and the little creatures
resumed a human aspect.
Within a few days the fate of the speculation became so dubious that
Mr. Percy went away with his brother, the judge, to see what could be
done with it. It was a land speculation as usual, and it had gotten
complicated with a lawsuit. The men were gone seven weeks. Before they
got back, Roxy had paid her visit to Wilson, and was satisfied.
Wilson took the fingerprints, labeled them with the names and with the date–
October the first–put them carefully away, and continued his chat
with Roxy, who seemed very anxious that he should admire the great
advance in flesh and beauty which the babes had made since he took
their fingerprints a month before. He complimented their improvement
to her contentment; and as they were without any disguise of jam
or other stain, she trembled all the while and was miserably frightened
lest at any moment he–
But he didn’t. He discovered nothing; and she went home jubilant,
and dropped all concern about the matter permanently out of her mind.
CHAPTER 4
The Ways of the Changelings
Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was,
that they escaped teething.
–Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
There is this trouble about special providences–namely, there is
so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary.
In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet,
the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than
the prophet did, because they got the children.
–Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
This history must henceforth accommodate itself to the change which
Roxana has consummated, and call the real heir “Chambers” and the
usurping little slave, “Thomas `a Becket”–shortening this latter
name to “Tom,” for daily use, as the people about him did.
“Tom” was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation.
He would cry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish
temper without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall
after squall, then climax the thing with “holding his breath”–
that frightful specialty of the teething nursling, in the throes of
which the creature exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless
squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath,
while the lips turn blue and the mouth stands wide and rigid,
offering for inspection one wee tooth set in the lower rim of a hoop
of red gums; and when the appalling stillness has endured until one
is sure the lost breath will never return, a nurse comes flying,
and dashes water in the child’s face, and–presto! the lungs fill,