e with her. His calculations could not have been more accurate, for
she was in front of the store when he came out.

"Oh," he said, "it's you! I thought I saw you pass just now. I'm going
your way. I wanted to inquire how your little patient is."

"Oh, he's tiptop!" she cried, a delicate flush of tender enthusiasm on
her face, a sparkle in her eyes. "Dr. Stone says he's mending twice as
fast at our house because the little fellow is so happy there. When I'm
off at work he's petted half to death by them two old women who haven't
had anything better than a cat to pamper up since I got out of their
clutch."

"And old Pitman let you move him?" Henley half questioned, as he suited
his step to hers. "How did you manage it?"

"Me and the doctor put up a job on him," she laughed. "Dr. Stone wanted
to help me gain my point, and he had the sharpest talk with old Sam you
ever heard. The law was going to take him in hand for violating his
contract in regard to the boy, and Dr. Stone would have to appear
against him. But he told Sam that if he'd turn the boy over to me till
he got well, he thought the whole thing might drop."

"Good job!" Henley chuckled. "Sam's a hard nut to crack."

Dixie raised her long lashes in a steady stare at him. "Guess what I've
been doing at the court-house," she said. "I've been engaged in an odd
thing for this modern day of enlightenment. Maybe you think slavery is
over--maybe you think the Yankees wiped it clean out forty years ago,
but they didn't. I've turned the wheels of Time back. I laid down the
cash and bought a real live slave to-day. I didn't have to dig up as
much as two thousand, which, I understand, was the old price for stout,
able-bodied, hard workers, for the one I bought was a little sick one.
Alfred, I actually bought little Joe to-day. I paid Sam Pitman
twenty-five dollars to get him to release all his claims without any
rumpus. I've adopted him. Judge Barton has fixed up the papers good and
stout, and says nothing can take him from me as long as I do my part by
him. Alfred, I'm so happy that I want to shout at the top of my lungs."

"You have adopted him!" Henley exclaimed, in wondering surprise. "Well,
well, what won't you do next? Of all the things on earth this knocks me
off my feet, and you already loaded down with responsibilities!"

"I don't care," Dixie laughed. "I'd welcome more like that, and never
complain. You ought to have seen Joe when I told him Sam had agreed to