atching the child as
she examined the carving. Lifting up her bright eyes to the Colonel,
she said, "Moosich--me sing," and a burst of childish song rang through
the room--part of a negro melody, and "Me wants to be an angel"
alternating in a kind of melody, to which the Colonel listened in
wonder.

"Me done sing dood," she said, and her eyes shone and flashed, and her
bosom rose and fell, as if she were standing before an audience, sure of
success and applause.

Jake did clap his hands when she finished, and said to the Colonel, "She
done goes on dat way very often. She's wonderful wid her voice an' eyes.
'Specs she'll make a singer. She's a little quar--dem Harrises--"

Here he stopped suddenly, and asked, "Is you cole?" as he saw the
Colonel shiver. He knew the Harrises were _quar_, and this dark-haired,
dark-eyed child singing in a shrill, high-pitched, but very sweet voice,
seemed to him uncanny, and he shrank from her as she said. "Me sing some
mo'."

Jake now interfered, saying, "No, honey; we're gwine to yer mother's
grave."

"Me go, too," the child answered, slipping her hand into the Colonel's
and leading the way to a little enclosure where the Harrises were
buried.

The Colonel felt _quar_ with that hand holding his so tight, and the
child hippy-ty-hopping by his side over the boards Jake had put down for
a walk to the graveyard.

"Dis mine. Me play here," the child said, more intent upon her
play-house than upon her mother's grave.

The play-house was a simple affair, which Jake had constructed. There
were two pieces of board for a floor, and a small bench for a table, on
which were bits of broken cups and saucers, the slice of bread and
molasses the child had left when she went to see the stranger, a rag
doll, fashioned from a cob, with a cloth head stuffed with bran, and a
book, soiled and worn as from frequent usage. The child made the Colonel
look at the doll which she called Judy, "after ole mammy Judy, who came
nigh havin' de pow' at de funeral, an' who done made it for her," Jake
explained. The book--a child's reader--was next taken up, the little
girl saying, "Mamma's book--me read," and opening it she made a pretense
of reading something which sounded like "Now I lay me." The Colonel, who
had freed his hand from the fingers which had held it so fast, looked
inquiringly at Jake, who said, "Miss Dory's book; she done read it a
sight, 'case 'twas easier readin' dan dem books from Palatka; an