This is a short story book. Old Jabe belonged to the Meriwethers, a fact which he never forgot or allowed anyone else to forget; and on this he traded as a capital, which paid him many dividends of one kind or another, among them being a dividend in wives. How many wives he had had no one knew; and Jabe's own account was incredible. It would have eclipsed Henry VIII and Bluebeard. But making all due allowance for his arithmetic, he must have run these worthies a close second. He had not been a specially good 'hand' before the war, and was generally on unfriendly terms with the overseers. They used to say that he was a 'slick-tongued loafer', and 'the laziest n****r on the place'. But Jabe declared, in defiance, that he had been on the plantation before any overseer ever put his foot there, and he would outstay the last one of them all, which, indeed, proved to be true. The overseers disappeared with the end of Slavery, but Jabe remained 'slick-tongued', oily, and humorous, as before.
