houghtful!" Sarah Smith's was a grateful heart.

"Go 'long now--hit ain't a thing."

Then came a pause, the old woman sliding into the proffered seat, while
over her genial, dimpled smile there dropped a dull veil of care. Her
eyes shifted uneasily. Miss Smith tried not to notice the change.

"Well, are you all moved, Aunt Rachel?" she inquired cheerfully.

"No'm, and we ain't gwine to move."

"But I thought it was all arranged."

"It was," gloomily, "but de ole Cunnel, he won't let us go."

The listener was instantly sympathetic. "Why not?" she asked.

"He says we owes him."

"But didn't you settle at Christmas?"

"Yas'm; but when he found we was goin' away, he looked up some more
debts."

"How much?"

"I don't know 'zactly--more'n a hundred dollars. Den de boys done got in
dat trouble, and he paid their fines."

"What was the trouble?"

"Well, one was a-gambling, and the other struck the overseer what was
a-whippin' him."

"Whipping him!"--in horrified exclamation, quite as much at Aunt
Rachel's matter-of-fact way of regarding the matter as at the deed
itself.

"Yas'm. He didn't do his work right and he whipped him. I speck he
needed it."

"But he's a grown man," Miss Smith urged earnestly.

"Yas'm; he's twenty now, and big."

"Whipped him!" Miss Smith repeated. "And so you can't leave?"

"No'm, he say he'll sell us out and put us in de chain-gang if we go.
The boys is plumb mad, but I'se a-pleadin' with 'em not to do nothin'
rash."

"But--but I thought they had already started to work a crop on the
Tolliver place?"

"Yes'm, dey had; but, you see, dey were arrested, and then Cunnel
Cresswell took 'em and 'lowed they couldn't leave his place. Ol' man
Tolliver was powerful mad."

"Why, Aunt Rachel, it's slavery!" cried the lady in dismay. Aunt Rachel
did not offer to dispute her declaration.

"Yas'm, hit's slavery," she agreed. "I hates it mighty bad, too, 'cause
I wanted de little chillens in school; but--" The old woman broke down
and sobbed.

A knocking came at the door; hastily wiping her eyes Aunt Rachel rose.

"I'll--I'll see what I can do, Aunt Rachel--I must do something,"
murmured Miss Smith hastily, as the woman departed, and an old black man
came limping in. Miss Smith looked up in surprise.

"I begs pardon, Mistress--I begs pardon. Good-morning."

"Good-morning--" she hesitated.

"Sykes--Jim Sykes--that's me."

"Yes, I've heard of you, Mr. Sykes; you live over south o