that he always declared that he had been sold by some one other than
his master from that plantation, that his wife and boy had been sold to
some other person at the same time for twelve hundred dollars (he was
particular as to the amount), and that his master was coming in the
summer to buy him back and take him home, and would bring him his wife
and child when he came. Everything since that day was a blank to him,
and as he could not tell the name of his master or wife, or even his
own name, and as no one was left old enough to remember him, the
neighborhood having been entirely deserted after the war, he simply
passed as a harmless old lunatic laboring under a delusion. He was
devoted to children, and Ephraim's small brood were his chief delight.
They were not at all afraid of him, and whenever they got a chance they
would slip off and steal down to his house, where they might be found
any time squatting about his feet, listening to his accounts of his
expected visit from his master, and what he was going to do afterward.
It was all of a great plantation, and fine carriages and horses, and a
house with his wife and the boy.

This was all that was known of him, except that once a stranger,
passing through the country, and hearing the name Ole 'Stracted, said
that he heard a similar one once, long before the war, in one of the
Louisiana parishes, where the man roamed at will, having been bought of
the trader by the gentleman who owned him, for a small price, on
account of his infirmity.

"Is you gwine in dyah?" asked the woman, as they approached the hut.

"Hi! yes; 'tain' nuttin' gwine hu't you; an' you say Ephum say he be
layin' in de baid?" he replied, his mind having evidently been busy on
the subject.

"An' mighty comical," she corrected him, with exactness born of
apprehension.

"Well? I 'feared he sick."

"I ain' nuver been in dyah," she persisted.

"Ain' de chil'n been in dyah?"

"Dee say 'stracted folks oon hu't chil'n."

"Dat ole man oon hu't nobody; he jes tame as a ole tomcat."

"I wonder he ain' feared to live in dat lonesome ole house by hisself.
I jes lieve stay in a graveyard at once. I ain' wonder folks say he
sees sperrits in dat hanty-lookin' place." She came up by her husband's
side at the suggestion. "I wonder he don' go home."

"Whar he got any home to go to sep heaven?" said Ephraim.

"What was you mammy name, Ephum?"

"Mymy," said he, simply.

They were at the cabin now, and a