her nose, her temples, and around her
ears, and disappeared mysteriously in the creases of her brown neck. A
single drop accidentally hung glistening like a diamond on the circlet
of one of her large brass earrings.

The sheriff looked at her a moment, smiling but a little disconcerted.
The spectacle was unprecedented.

"What do you want heah, Aun' Charlotte?" he asked kindly. "You can't
sell yo' pies an' gingerbread heah."

"I don' _wan_' sell no pies en gingerbread," she replied,
contemptuously. "I wan' bid on _him_," and she nodded sidewise at the
vagrant. "White folks allers sellin' niggahs to wuk fuh _dem_; I gwine
to buy a white man to wuk fuh _me_. En he gwine t' git a mighty hard
mistiss, you heah _me_!"

The eyes of the sheriff twinkled with delight.

"Ten dollahs is offahed foh ole King Sol'mon. Is theah any othah bid.
Are you all done?"

"Leben," she said.

Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her
basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.

"Twelve!" cried the student, laughing.

"Thirteen!" she laughed, too, but her eyes flashed.

"_You are bidding against a niggah_" whispered the student's companion
in his ear.

"So I am; let's be off," answered the other, with a hot flush on his
proud face.

Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed. In a distant
corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their
unexpected booty. The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of her
bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money to the
sheriff. Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.

"You have bought me. What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.

"Lohd, honey!" she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, "I
don' wan' you to do _no thin_'! I wuzn' gwine t' 'low dem white folks to
buy you. Dey'd wuk you till you dropped dead. You go 'long en do ez
you please."

She gave a cunning chuckle of triumph in thus setting at naught the ends
of justice, and in a voice rich and musical with affection, she said, as
she gave him a little push:

"You bettah be gittin' out o' dis blazin' sun. G' on home! I be 'long
by-en-by."

He turned and moved slowly away in the direction of Water Street, where
she lived; and she, taking up her basket, shuffled across the market
place toward Cheapside, muttering to herself the while:

"I come mighty nigh gittin' dar too late, foolin' long wid dese pies.
Sellin' _him_