Tulee, where is the baby?"

"Don't know no more than the dead what's become of the poor little
picaninny," she replied. "After ye went away, Missy Duroy's cousin,
who was a sea-captain, brought his baby with a black nurse to board
there, because his wife had died. I remember how ye looked at me when
ye said, 'Take good care of the poor little baby.' And I did try to
take good care of him. I toted him about a bit out doors whenever I
could get a chance. One day, just as I was going back into the house,
a gentleman o'horseback turned and looked at me. I didn't think
anything about it then; but the next day, he come to the house, and he
said I was Mr. Royal's slave, and that Mr. Fitzgerald bought me. He
wanted to know where ye was; and when I told him ye'd gone over the
sea with Madame and the Signor, he cursed and swore, and said he'd
been cheated. When he went away, Missis Duroy said it was Mr.
Bruteman. I didn't think there was much to be 'fraid of, 'cause ye'd
got away safe, and I had free papers, and the picaninny was too small
to be sold. But I remembered ye was always anxious about his being a
slave, and I was a little uneasy. One day when the sea-captain came to
see his baby, he was marking an anchor on his own arm with a needle
and some sort of black stuff; and he said 't would never come out. I
thought if they should carry off yer picaninny, it would be more easy
to find him again if he was marked. I told the captain I had heard ye
call him Gerald; and he said he would mark G.F. on his arm. The poor
little thing worried in his sleep while he was doing it, and Missis
Duroy scolded at me for hurting him. The next week Massa Duroy was
taken with yellow-fever; and then Missis Duroy was taken, and then the
captain's baby and the black nurse. I was frighted, and tried to keep
the picaninny out doors all I could. One day, when I'd gone a bit from
the house, two men grabbed us and put us in a cart. When I screamed,
they beat me, and swore at me for a runaway nigger. When I said I was
free, they beat me more, and told me to shut up. They put us in the
calaboose; and when I told 'em the picaninny belonged to a white
lady, they laughed and said there was a great many white niggers. Mr.
Bruteman come to see us, and he said we was his niggers. When I showed
him my free paper, he said 't want good for anything, and tore it to
pieces. O Missy Rosy, that was a dreadful dark time. The jailer's wife
didn't seem so hard-hearted as