ade or be indentured, lived
by fugitive pursuits on land and water, hauling and peddling vegetables
and provisions at times; and now, by the gift of Jimmy Phoebus, he
sailed his little sloop or cat-boat chiefly to carry terrapin to
Baltimore. Rough sailor acquaintances, exposure, a credulous, easily led
nature, and almost total neglect of school at a time when education was
a high privilege, had made him wayward and often intemperate, but
without developing any selfish or cruel characteristics, and being of an
agreeable exterior and affable disposition, he fell a prey to any
strangers who might be in town--gunners, negro buyers, idle planters,
and spreeing overseers, many of whom hired his company and vessel to
take their excursions; and, while loving his mother, and being her only
reliance, she saw him slipping further and further into manhood without
steadiness or education or fixed principles, or any female influence to
draw him to domestic constraints.

His slender, supple figure, and marks of gentility in his limbs, and
shapely brow and large, gentle eyes, poorly consorted with ragged
clothes, bare feet, and absolute dependence on chance employment, the
latter becoming more precarious as his age and stature made more
demands for money through his false appetites.

"Jack," said Levin Dennis, "what do you mean by gittin' money to buy
Roxy Custis? You never git no money."

"Won't he give it to me? Him?" Jack Wonnell indicated the hatchway down
which Joe Johnson had gone. "He's got bags of it."

"Him? Why, Jack, how much money do you s'pose a beautiful servant like
Roxy will fetch?"

"Won't that piece _he's_ gwyn to give you buy her?"

"Five dollars? Why, you poor fool, she will bring five hundred
dollars--maybe thousands. This nigger trader, with all his gold, would
be hard pushed, I 'spect, to buy Roxy."

Jack looked downcast, and failed to wink or whistle.

"Gals like her," said Levin, "goes for mistresses to rich men, an'
sometimes they eddicates 'em, I've hearn tell, to know music, an'
writin', an' grammar, an' them things."

"And a pore man who wouldn't abuse a gal most white like that, but would
respect her an' marry her, too, Levin, they makes laws agin him! Maybe I
kin steal Roxy?"

Here Jack whistled low, shut one eye with deep knowingness, and grinned
behind his bell-crown.

"Oh, you simpleton!" Levin said. "Where could you take her to?"

"Pennsylvany, Cannydy, Turkey, or some of them Abolitio