"I wish I was a genius like you, Matt," he said. "What luck I'm in to have you. Raising chickens and vegetables, and negotiating with your lady friends for me! I feel like a caliph with a grand vizier. I never tasted such chicken or such waffles in my life!" "I'm settin' some tukkey-eggs now--under de yaller hen," said Matt, with a slyly exultant grin. "She's a good mother, the yaller hen; an' de way dem fruit-trees is gwine ter be loaded is a sight. Aunt Mary Field, she's tradin' with me a'ready agin fruit puttin'-up time." Rupert got up from his chair. He caught old Matt's dusky, yellow-palmed paw in his hand and shook it hard. His gloomy young face had changed its aspect, his eyes suddenly looked like his mother's--and Delia Vanuxem had been said to have the loveliest soft eyes in all the South. "Matt," he said, "I couldn't do without you. It isn't only _that_," with a gesture towards the table, "you--it's almost as if you had come to save me." "Ole nigger man like me, Marse Rupert," said Uncle Matt, "savin' of a fine young gentleman like what you is! How's I gwine ter do it?" But his wrinkled face looked tremulous with emotion. "Times is gwine ter change for you, they is, an' Matt's gwine ter stay by yer till dat come to pass. Marse Rupert," looking at him curiously, "I 'clar to Gawd you look like yo' young mammy did. Yo' ain't always, but jes' dish yer minnit yo' does--an' yer did jes' now when yer laf'." "Do I look like her?" said Rupert. "I'm glad of it. I want to be like her. Say, Uncle Matt, whenever I look or speak or act like her, you tell me." When in the course of neighbourly conversation Matt mentioned this to his friend Aunt Mary Fields, she put a new colour upon it. "He worshipped his maw, an' she jest 'dored down on him," she said; "but 'tain't only he want look like her, he _doan_' want look like his paw. Ev'one know what Cun'l de Courcy was--an' dat chile jest 'spise him. He was allus a mons'ous proud chile, and when de Cun'l broke loose an' went on one o' his t'ars, it mos' 'stroyed dat boy wid de disgracefulness. Dar's chil'en as doan' keer or notice--but dat boy, it 'most 'stroyed him."