But the old man he
didn't take any hand hardly, and was absent-minded
and restless, and done a considerable amount of sigh-
ing; and it was kind of heart-breaking to see him so
sad and troubled and worried.
By and by, a spell after supper, come a nigger and
knocked on the door and put his head in with his old
straw hat in his hand bowing and scraping, and said his
Marse Brace was out at the stile and wanted his
brother, and was getting tired waiting supper for him,
and would Marse Silas please tell him where he was?
I never see Uncle Silas speak up so sharp and fractious
before. He says:
"Am I his brother's keeper?" And then he kind
of wilted together, and looked like he wished he hadn't
spoken so, and then he says, very gentle: "But you
needn't say that, Billy; I was took sudden and irritable,
and I ain't very well these days, and not hardly respon-
sible. Tell him he ain't here."
And when the nigger was gone he got up and
walked the floor, backwards and forwards, mumbling
and muttering to himself and plowing his hands through
his hair. It was real pitiful to see him. Aunt Sally she
whispered to us and told us not to take notice of him,
it embarrassed him. She said he was always thinking
and thinking, since these troubles come on, and she
allowed he didn't more'n about half know what he was
about when the thinking spells was on him; and she
said he walked in his sleep considerable more now than
he used to, and sometimes wandered around over the
house and even outdoors in his sleep, and if we catched
him at it we must let him alone and not disturb him.
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