AFRICAN JACK 
As the little boy entered the cabin Uncle Remus smiled and 
nodded pleasantly, and made a place for him on a little stool upon 
which had been piled the odds and ends of work. Daddy Jack 
paid no attention to the child; his thoughts seemed to be else¬ 
where. 
“Go en shake han’s, honey, en tell Daddy Jack howdy. He lak 
good chilluns.” Then to Daddy Jack: “Brer Jack, dish yer de 
chap w’at I bin tellin’ you ’bout.” 
The little boy did as he was bid, but Daddy Jack grunted un¬ 
graciously and made no response to the salutation. He was evi¬ 
dently not fond of children. Uncle Remus glanced curiously at 
the dwarfed and withered figure, and spoke a little more em¬ 
phatically: — 
“Brer Jack, ef you take good look at dis chap, I lay you’ll see 
mo’n you speck ter see. You ’ll see sump’n’ dat ’ll make you grunt 
wusser dan you grunted deze many long year. Go up dar, honey, 
whar Daddy Jack kin see you.” 
The child went shyly up to the old African and stood at his 
knee. The sorrows and perplexities of nearly a hundred years lay 
between them; and now, as always, the baffled eyes of age gazed 
into the Sphinx-like face of youth, as if by this means to unravel 
the mysteries of the past and solve the problems of the future. 
Daddy Jack took the plump, rosy hands of the little boy in his 
black, withered ones, and gazed into his face so long and steadily, 
and with such curious earnestness, that the child did n’t know 
whether to laugh or cry. Presently the old African flung his hands 
to his head, and rocked his body from side to side, moaning and 
mumbling, and talking to himself, while the tears ran down his 
face like rain. 
“Ole Missy! Ole Missy! ’E come back! I bin shum dey-dey, 
I bin shum de night! I bin yeddy ’e v’ice, I bin yeddy de sign!” 
“Ah-yi!” exclaimed Uncle Remus, into whose arms the little 
boy had fled; “I des know d dat ud fetch im. Hit s bin manys 
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