CHAPTER II. DISTRUST. “The murky shades o’ care With starless gloom o’ercast my sullen sky.” —BURNS. “WALK in, Mr. Roome; walk in. Glad to see you. Have a chair? Well, what is the news from Bean Island and Baconsville?” “Bad, Mr. Elly, bad!” replied Uncle Jesse, as he seated himself, and took from his hat a huge red cotton pocket-handkerchief, with which he proceeded with great deliberation to wipe his dusky face and bald head. “I did not know it was so warm out,” said the courteous host. “This office is such a cool place that I come up here Sunday afternoons to be cool and quiet. It is a good place to read.” “I reckon it is not so warm to most folks. I’m hotter’n I ought to be, I know; but I’m worreted,” said Uncle Jesse, still wiping industriously with both hands at once, and then thrusting the handkerchief into his hat which he had been holding tightly between his knees, he placed it carefully upon the floor beside him, and putting a hand upon either knee, he leaned forward, looked earnestly into Mr. Elly’s face, and with a significant expression, and in a low tone asked, “Is you alone, Mr. Elly?” “Yes; or, but—well, Mr. Watta is in the back office, but I can close the door”—rising. “No, no,” said Uncle Jesse, raising both hands deprecatingly. “Ask him in; ask him in. Or, why can’t I go in there?” glancing around at doors and windows. “Certainly you can,” replied Elly. “Did you want to see Mr. Watta?” “I reckon so; yes. Well, now, this is what I call providential; and I reckon I wa’n’t fur wrong in coming, if it is Sunday. The folks in No’thern Ohio don’t do no business on Sundays, and money paid Sunday a’n’t paid at all—can be collected over again; but work is driving awfully now. The freshet put the cawn back so for awhile; but it is ketching up now. But I knowed I ought to come.” Handshakings and preliminaries over, the trio were soon seated around a large writing table—colored men all of them. Both Elly and Watta were tall and slender—the former quite black, and the latter very light—and both had enjoyed the blessing of education at a Northern school established for the benefit of freedmen, and almost sanctified to the race by bearing the name of “Lincoln.” Jesse Roome’s northern experiences had not been with books, save at evening schools, of which he had eagerly availed himself; but his naturally well-balanced mind and keen powers of observation had not been idle; and sensible ideas of common duties and relations of life in a highly-civilized and enlightened community were his reward. Elly was a thriving lawyer and ex-member of the State Legislature, where he had been “Speaker of the House,” and, ever with an eye to business, he had already scented a fee in his visitor’s troubled manner and reply. “You must excuse my abruptness, but I leave on the train for Columbia in half an hour,” said he, “and you and Watta can talk after I am gone. Now, what can I do for you?”