house across the street, with the cooper shop
behind it. After they had acquired their freedom, Peter and Nancy did
no work for Mis' Molly save as they were paid for it, and as a rule
preferred not to work at all for the woman who had been practically
their mistress; it made them seem less free. Nevertheless, the two
households had remained upon good terms, even after the death of the
man whose will had brought them together, and who had remained Peter's
patron after he had ceased to be his master. There was no intimate
association between the two families. Mis' Molly felt herself
infinitely superior to Peter and his wife,--scarcely less superior than
her poor white neighbors felt themselves to Mis' Molly. Mis' Molly
always meant to be kind, and treated Peter and Nancy with a certain
good-natured condescension. They resented this, never openly or
offensively, but always in a subconscious sort of way, even when they
did not speak of it among themselves--much as they had resented her
mistress-ship in the old days. For after all, they argued, in spite of
her airs and graces, her white face and her fine clothes, was she not a
negro, even as themselves? and since the slaves had been freed, was not
one negro as good as another?

Peter's son Frank had grown up with little Rena. He was several years
older than she, and when Rena was a small child Mis' Molly had often
confided her to his care, and he had watched over her and kept her from
harm. When Frank became old enough to go to work in the cooper shop,
Rena, then six or seven, had often gone across to play among the clean
white shavings. Once Frank, while learning the trade, had let slip a
sharp steel tool, which flying toward Rena had grazed her arm and sent
the red blood coursing along the white flesh and soaking the muslin
sleeve. He had rolled up the sleeve and stanched the blood and dried
her tears. For a long time thereafter her mother kept her away from
the shop and was very cold to Frank. One day the little girl wandered
down to the bank of the old canal. It had been raining for several
days, and the water was quite deep in the channel. The child slipped
and fell into the stream. From the open window of the cooper shop
Frank heard a scream. He ran down to the canal and pulled her out, and
carried her all wet and dripping to the house. From that time he had
been restored to favor. He had watched the girl grow up to womanhood
in the years following th