The story of Aaron (so named) the son of Ben Ali : Told

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Title: The story of Aaron (so named) the son of Ben Ali
Told by his friends and acquaintances

Author: Joel Chandler Harris

Illustrator: Oliver Herford

Release date: December 11, 2024 [eBook #74880]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company

Credits: David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF AARON (SO NAMED) THE SON OF BEN ALI ***

Books by Joel Chandler Harris.

LITTLE MR. THIMBLEFINGER AND HIS QUEER COUNTRY. Illustrated by OLIVER
HERFORD.

MR. RABBIT AT HOME. A Sequel to Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer
Country. Illustrated by OLIVER HERFORD.

THE STORY OF AARON (SO-NAMED) THE SON OF BEN ALI. Told by his Friends and
Acquaintances. Illustrated by OLIVER HERFORD.

AARON IN THE WILDWOODS. Illustrated by OLIVER HERFORD.

PLANTATION PAGEANTS. Illustrated by E. BOYD SMITH.

NIGHTS WITH UNCLE REMUS. Illustrated.

UNCLE REMUS AND HIS FRIENDS. Illustrated.

MINGO, AND OTHER SKETCHES IN BLACK AND WHITE.

BALAAM AND HIS MASTER, AND OTHER SKETCHES.

SISTER JANE, HER FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES. A Narrative of Certain Events
and Episodes transcribed from the Papers of the late William Wornum.

TALES OF THE HOME FOLKS IN PEACE AND WAR. Illustrated.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK

[Illustration: DRUSILLA FELL ON THE GROUND IN A HEAP (Page 23)]

The Story of Aaron
(_SO NAMED_)
The Son of Ben Ali

_TOLD BY HIS FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES_

BY
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
AUTHOR OF “UNCLE REMUS,” ETC.

_ILLUSTRATED BY OLIVER HERFORD_

[Illustration]

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

_All rights reserved._

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANIMALS 1

II. A RIDE ON THE BLACK STALLION 19

III. GRISTLE, THE GRAY PONY, BEGINS HIS STORY 34

IV. GRISTLE, THE GRAY PONY, CONCLUDES HIS STORY 52

V. RAMBLER, THE TRACK DOG, BEGINS HIS STORY 69

VI. A RUN THROUGH THE WOODS 86

VII. RAMBLER, THE TRACK DOG, CONCLUDES HIS STORY 103

VIII. GRUNTER, THE WHITE PIG 120

IX. THE WHITE PIG’S STORY 137

X. THE BLACK STALLION’S STORY 155

XI. FREE POLLY’S STORY 172

XII. THE ARMY MARCHES BY 187

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

DRUSILLA FELL ON THE GROUND IN A HEAP _Frontispiece._

BUSTER JOHN WENT FORWARD AND KNOCKED 6

AARON SHOWING THE MIRROR 10

A RIDE ON THE BLACK STALLION 26

A RABBIT JUMPED UP AT THEIR FEET 38

THEY CARRIED HIM SOME GREEN CORN 42

THE SLAVE TRAIN 46

BEN ALI HAD FOUND TWO FRIENDS 54

A RABBIT DASHED ACROSS THE ROAD 76

OLD GRIZZLY BROUGHT HIM BACK 82

I WAS CLOSE TO THE RABBIT 86

MAMMY SAY DEY WUS COURTIN’ 90

I LOOKED UP AND WHINED 104

YOUNG GRIZZLY BOWED LOW 114

THE WHITE PIG GREW STRONG AND DANGEROUS 122

GRUNTER ASKING THE RED SQUIRRELS FOR NUTS 134

THE WHITE PIG TELLS HIS STORY 140

A WILD CAT WAS WATCHING ME 144

LOOK ON THE HILL YONDER 148

THE GRAY MARE LEAPED AWAY FROM ME 164

THE WHITE-HAIRED MASTER CUT THE ROPE 168

AARON TOTED HIM DOWN DE TREE 182

DE SQUINCH OWL LIGHTED ON A’ON’S HAND 184

TWO SOLDIERS RODE ALONG 188

HIS EYES LINGERED ON THE PORTRAIT 192

THE STORY OF AARON.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANIMALS.

The story of how Buster John, Sweetest Susan, and Drusilla found their
way into Mr. Thimblefinger’s queer country has been set forth, and many
of the tales they heard there have been told. All of this matter has
been put into a book, where the curious may now find it. This being so,
it is not necessary to go over it again. Imitation is bad enough, but
repetition is worse. It is enough to say, therefore, that these children
whose names have been mentioned lived on a large plantation in Middle
Georgia, in that part of the country where cotton grows, where the
mocking-birds sing in the orchards, and where the roses bloom in the open
air from April to November.

There is nothing tropical or even semi-tropical in Middle Georgia. The
trees and shrubs and all of the wild flowers are much the same as those
that grow in New England. The summers are not so hot nor the winters
so long and cold in Middle Georgia as they are farther to the north;
but warm weather lasts longer, and that is the reason that cotton and
sugar-cane and watermelons can be raised in Middle Georgia in the open
air.

The plantation on which the children lived appeared to be just like all
the other plantations round about, but the youngsters had already found
out that it was entirely different from the rest in some respects. So
far as they knew, and they had made careful inquiries, there was no Mr.
Thimblefinger on any one of the neighboring plantations, and there was
no road leading from any other plantation to Mr. Thimblefinger’s queer
country.

On Sundays when there was a big meeting going on at Mt. Zion church,
and the congregation carried dinner in hamper baskets, Buster John and
Sweetest Susan and Drusilla (their negro nurse and playmate) took pains
to inquire among the children they met there if any of them had ever seen
Mr. Thimblefinger. The reply was that they had not only never seen him,
but had never even heard of him before. This made Buster John feel more
important than ever, and Sweetest Susan said she was surprised and sorry
that the other children should have failed to see Mr. Thimblefinger, and
they so near his queer country, too. As for Drusilla, she declared that
it made no difference, anyhow, “Kaze ef dey wuz ter see ’im wid der naked
eyes dey wouldn’t b’lieve dey seed ’im.” But the neighbor-children said
nothing, they simply stared at one another and concluded that Buster John
and Sweetest Susan and Drusilla were trying to make fun of them.

If the neighbor-children had been wise, they would have asked some
questions about Mr. Thimblefinger, and then they would have found out
that the Abercrombie place, as it was called, was different from all the
other plantations they had ever heard of, being the scene of some of Mr.
Thimblefinger’s performances, and containing within its boundaries the
gateway to Mr. Thimblefinger’s queer country, which lies next door to the
world.

Those who have taken the trouble to read the book in which the stories
told by Mr. Thimblefinger and his friends are partly set forth will
remember that when Buster John, Sweetest Susan, and Drusilla were on the
point of returning home, they were asked if they knew a man named Aaron.
To which Buster John replied that he ought to know Aaron, since he was
foreman of the field-hands. Whereupon Buster John was told that Aaron was
the Son of Ben Ali, and knew the language of animals. “If you want to
learn this language,” said Mr. Rabbit, “go to Aaron, Son of Ben Ali, take
him by his left hand, bend the thumb back, and with your right forefinger
make a cross mark on it. Should Aaron pay no attention to it, repeat the
sign. The third time he will know it.”

But the minds of the children were so busy thinking of what they had seen
and heard that they forgot all about the matter. Once when Buster John
chanced to remember what he had been told, Aaron happened to be ill in
bed. Another time, when the children determined to find out something
about the language of the animals, they found that Aaron was away from
home. He had gone with the wagons to Augusta, one hundred miles away,
to sell the year’s crop of cotton. Thus, in one way and another, Buster
John, Sweetest Susan, and Drusilla were many long months older when they
sought and found Aaron in his cabin than they were when they made their
last visit to Mr. Thimblefinger’s queer country.

Now Aaron was the most remarkable slave in all the country round, not
because he was tall and finely formed, nor because he carried himself as
proudly as a military officer, but because he had a well-shaped head, a
sharp black eye, thin lips, and a nose prominent, but not flat. Another
remarkable feature was his hair, which, instead of being coarse and
kinky, was fine, thick, wavy, glossy, and as black as jet.

The negroes on the place seemed to be very much afraid of him. This would
not have been strange if Aaron had been an old man; negroes always stand
in awe of those who are very old; but he was not above forty, and seemed
to be even younger. There were many stories current about Aaron, which
the negroes told to each other in whispers when their cabin fires burned
low. One was that he was a conjurer, and in league with the “old boy.”
This was because Aaron refused to associate with his fellow servants on
terms of equality, and would allow them to take no liberties with him.

Another story was that he was of Indian blood. But he had no Indian
characteristic, except that of serenity. His color was dark brown. He was
both quick in his movements and fluent in his speech, but his talk was
different from that of the negroes. Still another story about Aaron was
that he was very dangerous. It was whispered that he had killed several
people, a number of women and children among them. This story grew out
of the fact that he alone could manage Timoleon, the big black stallion.
This horse, wild in his ways and fierce of temper, was as gentle as a
dog in Aaron’s hands, and followed him about as the chicken follows the
mother hen.

[Illustration: BUSTER JOHN WENT FORWARD AND KNOCKED]

It was one Saturday, when Buster John, Sweetest Susan, and Drusilla
went to Aaron’s cabin. On the plantation there was a half-holiday every
Saturday, if crop work was not pressing, and sometimes when the corn
was laid by the negroes had a whole holiday. This was the case now. The
children saw Aaron go into his cabin and half close the door after
him. Buster John went forward and knocked. There was no invitation to
“come in,” as there would have been at any other cabin in the negro
quarters. Instead, Aaron came to the door, pulled it open and looked out
with something like a frown on his face. But he smiled when he saw the
children.

“Oh, you?” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t know who. Jump in!”

There was a step lacking among those leading to the door, so he seized
Buster John by the hand and swung him into the room. Then he lifted
Sweetest Susan a little more carefully, but ignored Drusilla altogether.
This was not regarded by Drusilla as a slight, for she was not anxious to
be touched by him. She was not even anxious to go into the cabin, but her
curiosity was more powerful than her vague fears, and so, after a while,
she followed the children in.

Aaron, still smiling, lifted Buster John high in the air. “Le’ me see;
like enough you’d weigh ninety poun’.”

“Eighty-seven,” replied Buster John.

“Heavy! heavy!” exclaimed Aaron. “One time I toted your uncle all night
long. He was sixteen-year old and weighed fifty poun’.”

“That was Uncle Crotchet, who is dead,” said Buster John.

“Yes. Folks named him Little Crotchet,” Aaron remarked.

“That was ever so long ago,” suggested Sweetest Susan.

“Fifteen year,” said Aaron.

Meanwhile Buster John pretended to be playing with Aaron’s left hand.
Finally he seized the thumb, bent it back as far as it would go, and made
a cross-mark on it. Aaron playfully jerked his hand away, but Buster
John caught it again, bent the thumb back and again made the cross-mark.
Apparently Aaron paid no attention to this, for he failed to take his
hand away. Once more, and for the third time, Buster John bent the thumb
back and made the cross-mark. At once Aaron put him gently aside and went
to the door and closed it. Then he turned to Buster John and said in a
whisper:—

“How come? Where you been? Who told you?”

Buster John was so much surprised that he hesitated a moment, and then
began to reply in a tone of voice somewhat louder than usual.

“Sh-sh! talk low!” whispered Aaron. “Did somebody tell you to do that?”

“Yes,” said Buster John.

“Round anywhere by the spring?” Aaron was very cautious in putting his
questions. Apparently he wanted to make himself perfectly sure.

“Yes,” cried Sweetest Susan. “The spring is the gate, you know.”

“She, too?” asked Aaron, nodding his head toward Drusilla.

“Of course,” said Buster John.

“I dunner how come I can’t go whar de yuthers does,” remarked Drusilla.

“All right—all right!” exclaimed Aaron. Then he counted them.
“One—two—three! And now you’ve come to me. What for?”

“We want to learn how to talk with the animals,” said Buster John.

Aaron, who had been frowning a little, seemed to be relieved. The frown
disappeared.

“Oho,” he cried, “is that all? ’Tain’t much, yet it’s a heap. You’ll
hear lots of sassy talk. Sometimes, maybe, you’ll have to stop up your
ears.”

“We won’t mind that,” remarked Buster John.

“Maybe not,” said Aaron. Then he went to a large wooden chest that sat
in the corner, unlocked it, and presently brought forth a bundle of red
cloth. This he placed on the floor and sat beside it, motioning the
children to sit on the floor in a circle around the bundle. He unrolled
the cloth until he came to an oval-shaped mirror. The frame was heavy and
richly carved, and shone as bright as new silver shines.

Aaron placed the beautiful mirror carefully on the floor, face up. Then
he threw the red cloth over his head and over the children’s heads. If
any one had been peeping through the chinks of the chimney he would have
been very much puzzled by what he saw and heard. He would have seen the
red cloth bobbing up and down as if those underneath were bowing their
heads back and forth, and he would have heard muffled exclamations of
wonder, the loudest of all being Drusilla’s involuntary cry:—

“Don’t dat beat all!”

[Illustration: AARON SHOWING THE MIRROR]

The children never told what happened under the cloth, nor what they saw
in the mirror. When Aaron rose to his feet, the cloth still over his
head, he made a few movements with his arms, and lo! there was the bundle
in his hands with the mirror wrapped in its folds.

Sweetest Susan looked at Buster John. “Wasn’t it easy?” she cried. “Did
you ever see anything as bright”—She would have said more, but Aaron
touched her gently on the arm and put his finger on his lips. At that
moment a gander in the spring lot began to scream.

“What did he say?” asked Aaron, looking at Drusilla.

“He say, ‘I’m gwine atter water—water—who wanter go?’”

Aaron seemed satisfied with the answer. He replaced the bundle in the
chest, turned the key and then leaned against the rude mantel shelf he
had nailed over his fireplace.

“You think I’m a nigger, don’t you?” He turned to Buster John.

“Of course,” said the youngster without hesitation. “What else are you?”

“I’ll show you.” From his pocket Aaron drew a little package—something
wrapped in soft leather and securely tied. It was a memorandum book.
Opening this small book, Aaron held it toward Buster John, saying “What’s
here?”

“It looks like pothooks,” replied the boy, frankly.

“Ain’t a word in it I can’t read,” said Aaron.

“Read some of it, please,” pleaded Sweetest Susan.

Thereupon Aaron began to read from the book in a strange tongue, the tone
of his voice taking on modulations the children had never heard before.

“I ain’t never hear no jabber like dat,” said Drusilla.

“What sort of talk is it?” asked Buster John.

“’Tain’t no creetur talk,” remarked Drusilla; “I know dat mighty well.”

“It’s the talk of Ben Ali,” said Aaron—“Ben Ali, my daddy. Every word
here was put down by him.”

“Why, I’ve heard grandpa talk about uncle Ben Ali,” suggested Buster
John.

Aaron nodded. “Many a time. Your grandpa, my master, tried to buy my
daddy, but Ben Ali was worth too much. I went to see him with my master
twice a year till he died. He was no nigger.”

“What then?” Buster John asked.

“Arab—man of the desert—slave hunter—all put down here,” said Aaron,
tapping the little book with his finger.

The children were anxious to hear more about Ben Ali, the Arab—Ben Ali
the slave hunter, who had himself become a slave. There was not much to
tell, but that little was full of interest as Aaron told it, sitting in
his door, the children on the steps below him. For the most part the book
was a diary of events that had happened to Ben Ali after he landed in
this country, being written in one of the desert dialects; but the first
few pages told how the Arab chief happened to be a slave.

Ben Ali was the leader of a band that made constant war on some of the
African tribes in the Senegambian region. With their captives, this
band of Arabs frequently pushed on to the Guinea coast and there sold
them to the slave traders. These excursions continued until, on one
occasion, the Arabs chanced to clash with a war-loving tribe, which was
also engaged in plundering and raiding its neighbors. The meeting was
unexpected to the Arabs, but not to the Africans. The Arabs who were left
alive were led captive to the coast and there sold with other prisoners
to slave traders. Among them was Ben Ali, who was then not more than
thirty years old. With the rest, he was brought to America, where he
was sold to a Virginian planter, fetching a very high price. Along with
him, in the same ship, was an Arab girl, and she was also bought by the
planter. Nothing was said in the diary in regard to the history of this
girl, except that she became Ben Ali’s wife, and bore him a son and a
daughter. The son was Aaron, so named. The daughter died while yet a
child.

These things Aaron told the children, little by little and in a rambling
way, begging Buster John and Sweetest Susan to say nothing about the
matter to any other person, and threatening Drusilla with uplifted finger
that if she opened her mouth about it he would put “the misery” on her.
Drusilla had seen negroes who were the victims of “the misery”—which is
the plantation name of the spell that conjurers put on people, and she
declared over and over again that she wouldn’t tell—“crossing her heart”
to show that she meant what she said.

“Can we talk with the animals sure enough—the horses, the cows, the
sheep, the dogs, and the hogs?” asked Buster John.

Aaron smiled as he answered: “A little bit now, more pretty soon. The
sheep—I don’t know. Sheep don’t talk much around me. But the others are
talking all the time. You must watch all the motions they make, shutting
the eye, switching the tail, flopping the ear, stamping the foot—all part
of the talk.”

“When shall we try?” asked Buster John.

“Right after dinner,” replied Aaron; “we’ll go see old Timoleon.”

“Timoleon!” cried Sweetest Susan, in dismay.

Aaron laughed and nodded his head. “We’ll take him out the stable and see
what he says. Timoleon good talker.”

“Oh, I’m afraid to go!” cried Sweetest Susan. “Mamma told me never to go
near Timoleon’s stable.”

“I’ll tell you de plain trufe,” said Drusilla vehemently, “I wouldn’t go
up dar in dat fiel’ whar dat hoss is—I wouldn’t go dar, not fer money.
Ain’t I done see ’im jump on a nigger man an’ tar de cloze off’n ’im?
Uh-uh! you don’t ketch me up dar!”

“Little Missy will go with me,” remarked Aaron. Then he pointed to
Drusilla. “You go or stay, but, look out! No talk!”

“I’ll set on de fence an’ see de hoss eat ’em up,” suggested Drusilla, by
way of a compromise.

“She’ll go if I do,” said Sweetest Susan.

“You mus’n’t be agwine, den,” was Drusilla’s comment.

Aaron looked at the girl so severely that she shrank back.

“Don’t mind Drusilla,” said Sweetest Susan. “She doesn’t mean anything
she says, except when she asks for something to eat.”

“After dinner we’ll go see Timoleon. If he seems like he’s in good
humor,” Aaron explained, “we’ll bring him out. If he has been fretting,
we’ll let him stay.”

This was perfectly satisfactory to the children, especially to Buster
John.

They went to play, but they only pretended to play. All they could do was
to discuss what they had already seen and heard, and what they hoped to
see and hear. Time seemed to pass very slowly. They sat down and talked,
and then walked about and talked, but still it was not dinner time. They
would have become very impatient indeed had not Buster John chanced to
hear the big gray rooster call out to the yellow hen:—

“Run, run, run! Here’s a bug!”

The yellow hen went running, but just as she reached the gray rooster he
turned and walked away with great dignity, saying: “Come on, let’s go;
come on.”

“I might have known it,” complained the yellow hen; “you are like all the
rest of the roosters. A respectable hen can’t depend on anything you say.”

“Come on, come on,” said the big gray rooster, strutting along, “I was
just trying to get you away from that one-eyed dominicker. He’s not fit
company for you to associate with.”

“Hoity-toity!” cried the yellow hen. “And didn’t I see you this morning
scratching your toes off for the Friesland pullet?”

Buster John and Sweetest Susan laughed heartily at this, but Drusilla was
very serious.

“I dunno which de wuss,” she cried, “chickens er folks.”

After that, time no longer hung heavy on the children’s hands. When the
dinner bell rang, Buster John and Sweetest Susan were on hand promptly,
with their faces washed and their hair combed. They were so anxious to
get through their dinner that they ate rapidly, and this attracted the
attention of their mother, who wanted to know what they had been doing
to make them so hungry. The only satisfaction she got was a request to
“Please, ma’m, make haste and have some dinner fixed for Drusilla.”

This was very soon done, and in a little while the children were ready to
go with Aaron to see Timoleon.

II.

A RIDE ON THE BLACK STALLION.

Aaron was not ready as soon as the children were, but they waited for him
with lamblike patience, considering their eagerness. Finally Aaron came
out of his cabin and waved his hand as a signal that he was ready. The
children ran to him, and together they went to the barn, where Timoleon
had his stable. This barn had once been the corn crib. It was built of
stout logs, hewn square and mortised together, and was in the middle of
a five-acre field that had once been in cultivation, but was now overrun
with Bermuda grass. Here Timoleon reigned in solitude, except when Aaron
was with him. In this stable he remained securely imprisoned, save when
Aaron took him out for exercise.

Timoleon was a horse renowned throughout the country—renowned for his
victories on the race track and for his vicious temper. Even in his old
age he was fleet and fierce, more dangerous, people said, than a tiger,
and stronger than a lion. Fierce and strong, he was also beautiful. His
coat glistened in the sun like satin. His mane was flowing and heavy, his
tail long and full. His neck and shoulders were thick and powerful; his
head tapering to the muzzle, his ears small and in constant motion, as
when the night wind stirs the leaves of the willow; his nostrils red and
flexible, and all his motions quick and graceful.

As Aaron and the children approached the stable, they heard Timoleon
pounding against the heavy logs with his feet.

“I’m gwine back!” cried Drusilla. “He tryin’ ter git out now.”

But she kept along with the rest.

“What is the matter with him?” asked Sweetest Susan.

“He’s fretting,” replied Aaron—“fretting or playing.”

He went to the stable door and unlocked it, saying “What now?”

“Son of Ben Ali, what have I done?” cried Timoleon. “To-day I go hungry
because the corn is on the cob, to-morrow I’ll be foundered because the
corn is shelled. Is it, then, nothing to you that I am old and my teeth
are bad? What have I done? As for the fodder, it is full of dust. To put
my nose in it is to cough all night. In the desert, I have been told an
old horse has new rice and cracked barley.”

Buster John looked at Sweetest Susan, and Sweetest Susan looked at Buster
John. They were too much astonished to say anything.

“Even so, Grandson of Abdallah,” said Aaron, “what says the sun on the
wall above your trough? Does it stand at the dinner hour? Why grumble,
then, about corn on the cob that I have saved for the grunter?”

“What is the Grunting Pig to me, Son of Ben Ali? Or the sun on the
wall? The dinner hour of those who are hungry comes best when it comes
quickest. I have hurt my teeth on your nubbins. Take them away.”

Saying this, Timoleon snorted contemptuously. Then suddenly he gave a
loud snort of surprise and anger. His quick and restless eye had caught
sight of Sweetest Susan’s dress through a crack in the door.

“Son of Ben Ali,” he said, “what is this? You are not alone.”

“No, Grandson of Abdallah, I have brought three of my friends,” replied
Aaron.

“Who are they, Son of Ben Ali?”

“Two grandchildren of the White-haired Master and their servant.”

“Why have they come?”

“As I have touched your knee, so they have touched my thumb. Once, twice,
thrice.”

Timoleon turned from the door, walked to the far end of his stable, and
then returned.

“The grandchildren of the White-haired Master are wise,” he said.

“So it seems,” replied Aaron.

“Then let me touch them with my nose, so that hereafter I may know them.”

Aaron opened the door and Timoleon strode out. He had on neither halter
nor bridle, and the children shrank and cowered behind Aaron.

“Son of Ben Ali, what does this mean?” asked Timoleon.

“It means that they are children who have heard that the Grandson of
Abdallah is a savage beast,” replied Aaron.

Timoleon with lowered head went to the children and pressed his muzzle
gently against the shoulder of each—against Buster John first, Sweetest
Susan next, and Drusilla last. They were all frightened, but Drusilla’s
terror was such that her face, black as it was, took on an ashen hue. To
make matters worse, Timoleon snorted suddenly and loudly when he pressed
his nose on her shoulder. She gave a piercing scream, and fell on the
ground in a heap. Timoleon sprang back as though an attack had been
made on him. It was all so comical that Aaron laughed, and Buster John
and Sweetest Susan relieved the strain on their feelings by joining him
boisterously—almost hysterically. Drusilla, hearing this, rose to her
feet with anger in her eyes.

“I dunner what you-all white chillun laughin’ at. Ef you speck I’m
gwineter stan’ flat-footed an’ let dat ar hoss bite de top er my head
off, you done gone an’ fooled yo’se’f. I know’d what he wuz gwine ter do,
time I seed de white er his eye. His breff hot nuff ter burn yo’ han’.
What he want ter come doin’ dat a way fer? I don’t want no hoss ter be
huggin’ me wid his upper lip nohow. I’ll tell anybody dat.”

While Drusilla was quarreling, Timoleon was grazing near by, and Aaron
and the children were still laughing.

“Ef you-all think it so funny, go dar whar dat hoss is, an’ let ’im
nibble at you an’ blow his nose on you a time er two.”

“What does she say, Son of Ben Ali?” Timoleon asked, raising his head
from the rank Bermuda grass.

“She says she thought you were about to bite off her head.”

Timoleon gave a snort of contempt, and addressed himself again to the
dainty feast before him.

“Not too much of that, Grandson of Abdallah,” said Aaron. “You are too
fat now. You need exercise. How long since you have had a gallop?”

“A month of Sundays, Son of Ben Ali.”

“To-day you shall have one. On your head I will place a halter, on your
broad back I will strap your blanket. On the blanket I will place my
friends and yours, the grandchildren of the White-haired Master. But
listen! a stumble, and I’m done with you; any trickery, and the Son of
Ben Ali will come near you no more.”

“So may it be, Son of Ben Ali.”

“I believe you, Grandson of Abdallah. You are to go by yonder gate
through the lane to the great road. From there it is a mile and a half
to the gate that opens on the avenue, leading to the house of the
White-haired Master. At that gate I shall await you. Then up the avenue
to the house you are to go, and three times around the boxwood circle
where the avenue ends.”

“So it shall be, Son of Ben Ali. Have you not carried a noggin of water
on my back and set me at a gallop without spilling a drop? So it shall be
now, Son of Ben Ali.”

Aaron went into the stable and came forth with a halter. This he threw on
Timoleon’s head, passing the loose end over the horse’s neck and tying it
in the ring, thus forming reins for the rider to handle. Then he folded a
heavy blanket four times, placed it on the horse’s back, and strapped it
down with a surcingle.

“Not too tight—not too tight, Son of Ben Ali,” said Timoleon, backing his
ears a little.

“Now, then, for a ride,” said Aaron, turning to the children.

“Oh, I’m afraid!” cried Sweetest Susan. “Mamma would be angry.”

“Try him here, in the lot,” suggested Aaron to Buster John.

Now Buster John was a pretty good rider for a youngster, and was somewhat
proud of the fact. He had even helped to break a young mule to the
saddle. So, after a little persuasion, he allowed Aaron to lift him to
Timoleon’s back.

“Easy, now,” said Aaron.

The black stallion stepped proudly off. From a swinging walk he broke
into an easy canter, which soon became a swinging gallop. Before he had
gone around the field, Buster John had lost all fear, and from his gently
undulating seat waved his hand gayly to Sweetest Susan.

“Oh, I wish I could go, too!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

“Why not, little Missy?” said Aaron. “I have seen you riding the Gray
Pony without a saddle.”

“But he is as gentle as a dog,” explained Sweetest Susan.

“Why, so is Timoleon,” replied Aaron. “Try him. I will run beside him to
catch you, if you fall. I’ll not run far before you will say, ‘Go back!’”

[Illustration: A RIDE ON THE BLACK STALLION]

By this time Timoleon came sweeping up to where they stood, and stopped.
Buster John’s face fairly glowed with the delight he felt.

“Well,” said Sweetest Susan, unable to resist the temptation. “Well, I’ll
go, but if I fall”—

Before she could finish what she had to say, the strong arms of Aaron had
lifted her to a seat behind Buster John.

“How can you fall?” asked that bold youngster. “Hold fast to me. Put your
arms around me, and when you fall, let me know.”

“You didn’t talk that way just now,” said Sweetest Susan. To this Buster
John made no reply. Aaron stood beside the black stallion and stroked his
neck.

“Grandson of Abdallah, show me what you are this day. Once around the
field, and then to the lane gate.”

The horse took three long strides forward, and then broke into a canter
as before. Aaron ran beside Timoleon a little way, one hand on Sweetest
Susan’s elbow to give her confidence, but he soon saw that she had lost
all fear, and so, still running, he went to the gate that opened in the
lane and threw it back, and stood there. The black stallion, going in a
steady gallop, swept around the field, and then came toward the gate. The
children were laughing.

“Don’t forget, Grandson of Abdallah! You know my hand!” This was Aaron’s
last warning, as Timoleon went through the gate. The Son of Ben Ali
watched horse and riders for a few moments. Then he closed the gate and
ran swiftly through the lot, going toward the head of the avenue that led
to the big house. The lane, half a mile in length, led obliquely away
from the house and from the avenue until it joined the public road. From
that point, turning squarely to the left, the distance to the avenue gate
was about a mile. From the stable to the avenue gate, through the spring
lot—the way Aaron went—was not quite half a mile.

“If I go too fast, grandson of the White-haired Master,” said Timoleon,
as they turned into the public road, “touch me on the shoulder. And don’t
be frightened when I lift my head and tell the fools I am coming.”

As they came in sight of the negro quarters, Timoleon raised his head
high in the air and neighed shrilly three times in quick succession. It
sounded like a challenge to man and beast. That plantation had heard it
many times before, and it had usually been the forerunner of some display
of savagery on the part of the black stallion—sometimes a negro run down
and trampled, sometimes a mule or a cow crippled; but always something.
The sound of it was heard with dismay, except by Aaron.

It was no wonder, therefore, that the negroes came out of their cabins
with alarm painted on their faces. It was no wonder they stood transfixed
when they saw the horse flying along the road, his thick mane whipping
the wind, with the two children on his back. They had no time to admire
the strength and symmetry of the horse, and yet he presented a beautiful
sight—his glossy neck arched, his long mane enveloping the children as in
a cloud, the undulations of his magnificent form and his swift movements
the perfection of grace.

Once more, as he thundered across the bridge that spanned the stream
leading from the spring, the black stallion screamed forth his note of
defiance. A man, coming along the road, went over the fence as nimbly as
a squirrel. Cows grazing in the fields, near the roadside, hoisted their
tails in the air and ran off to the woods. The mules in the horse lot ran
around aimlessly, and then huddled themselves together in a corner. The
Gray Pony went scampering through the peach orchard, hunting a place of
safety.

Then the cry went up from the negro quarters, “Timoleon’s loose!
Timoleon’s loose!” The cry was echoed at the big house. The children’s
father laid down the book he was reading, and went out upon the veranda,
followed quickly by his wife. The grandfather rose from his easy chair
and joined them. They heard the tremendous clatter of hoofs on the hard
road and the screaming stallion. They saw Aaron running up the avenue,
followed by Drusilla. Calamity seemed to have swooped down upon the
plantation. A negro woman, bolder than the rest, had managed to run to
the big house. She rushed through it, without regard for ceremony.

“Mistiss, dem blessed chillun”—

She wanted to say were riding the runaway stallion, but she sank to the
floor, speechless.

“Oh, my children! my children! Where are my precious children?” cried the
mother.

At that moment Aaron reached the avenue gate, opened it wide, and the
black stallion cantered through it, and came galloping down the drive.

“I see the children,” said the white-haired grandfather. “They are safe.
They have been giving Timoleon his exercise. See! they are laughing and
waving their hands!”

The mother looked, but the sight seemed to terrify her so that she
covered her face with her hands. Only for a moment, however. She looked
again, thinking they were wringing their hands and crying for help. But,
no! they were really laughing. In front of the yard gate there was an
ornamental circle, filled with neatly trimmed box-wood, privet and acacia
bushes. Coming to this circle Timoleon turned to the right and galloped
around it, the children waving their hands to their mother, father and
grandfather. With his waving mane and flowing tail, his arched and
shining neck, and his graceful movements, the horse presented a spectacle
long to be remembered.

“Why, they are riding him with a halter!” cried the father, taking fresh
alarm.

“How many times have I told you he is the gentlest horse I ever knew?”
sighed the grandfather. “Ah, what a magnificent creature he is! What a
pity he is penned on this plantation!”

Three times around the circle Timoleon galloped, and then wheeled toward
the gate that led to the stable lot. The children waved a mock farewell
to the still astonished spectators, who, standing on the veranda, heard
Timoleon go clattering to the rear of the house.

The mother recovering from her fright, which was serious, became very
angry, and this was not serious at all.

“That is Aaron’s work,” she cried, “and the children shall never go about
him any more.”

“Aaron will thank you, if you’ll stick to your word,” said the
grandfather. “I bought Aaron fifteen years ago, and I have never had
occasion to undo anything he has ever done. I owe him a debt of gratitude
that I could never repay if I were to live a thousand years.”

“I know, father—I know,” replied the children’s mother, more gently. “But
he gave me a terrible fright just now.”

Timoleon galloped to his stable, and stood there waiting for Aaron.
Sweetest Susan, holding to Buster John’s hand, slid to the ground, and
then Buster John followed suit.

“You might take the halter off, little one,” said Timoleon, and he held
his head so that the youngster could unbuckle the strap. Then the horse
began to graze as contentedly as any farm animal. Presently Aaron came
with a bucket of cool water from the spring. Timoleon buried his nose in
it, drank his fill, and then washed his mouth by sucking up the water
and letting it run out over his tongue and teeth. Then the blanket was
removed and the Grandson of Abdallah stretched himself on the warm grass
and had a good wallow. After that Aaron rubbed him off thoroughly, gave
him a bait of oats, and, while he ate, went over his silky coat with a
currycomb and brush, whistling all the while in a peculiar way.

III.

GRISTLE, THE GRAY PONY, BEGINS HIS STORY.

The ride on Timoleon, which was an exciting one from start to finish, was
enough fun for the children for one day. They sought no other amusement.
When they had seen Aaron feed and groom the horse, they went to the big
house, where they knew the ride had created a sensation. There, in answer
to numberless questions asked by their mother, they told a part of the
story of their ride. They said nothing about hearing Timoleon talk, for
they knew that not even their grandfather would believe that part of the
story. But they told all about the ride, how swiftly and easily the horse
went, and how gentle he was. Buster John was, of course, quite a hero,
and Sweetest Susan shared all the honors with him.

The children’s mother had more than half a notion to read them a lecture;
but the white-haired grandfather protested against this. He said the
youngsters were perfectly safe in Aaron’s care. He declared he didn’t
want to see boys play the part of girls, nor girls act like dolls. Then
he began to talk about Little Crotchet, who had been so fond of Aaron. It
was curious to the children to hear the white-haired grandfather talk of
their uncle (whom they had never seen) as though he were a little boy.

“It seems but yesterday,” said the old gentleman, with a gentle sigh that
ended in a smile, “that Little Crotchet was hobbling through the house on
his crutches, or scampering about the neighborhood on the Gray Pony. But
the Gray Pony is grazing out there in the orchard, and Little Crotchet
has been dead these fifteen years. If he were alive now, he would be
twenty-nine years old.”

The old gentleman fell to musing, and sat silent for a little while. Then
he went on, as if talking to himself:—

“And I am seventy-three, and Aaron is forty, and, let me see, the pony is
eighteen, and Timoleon seventeen. All getting old.”

“Uncle Crotchet wasn’t always crippled, was he, grandfather?” asked
Sweetest Susan.

“Oh, no,” replied the old gentleman. “Until he was seven years old he was
as healthy a child as I ever saw. Then he was suddenly taken ill, and
lay in his bed for months. After that he was never able to walk without
crutches. Twenty-nine years old! Why, he’d be a man grown. As it is, he
is still a little boy. I remember,” the grandfather continued, becoming
reminiscent, “when he wanted me to buy Aaron. From the very first the two
had a fancy for each other. Aaron came from Virginia in a speculator’s
caravan. He became so unmanageable that he had to be sold. Little
Crotchet begged me to buy him, but I stood joking with the little fellow,
and before I knew it our neighbor across the creek had bought him.”

“Old Mr. Gossett?” inquired Buster John.

“Yes,” replied the grandfather. “Mr. Gossett bought Aaron. Little
Crotchet was so distressed about it that I offered Mr. Gossett half as
much more for Aaron than he had given. But he refused it. Then I offered
him twice as much, and he refused that, and I didn’t feel able to give
any more.”

“Why wouldn’t Mr. Gossett sell Aaron?” asked Buster John. “I’ve heard
he’s very fond of money.”

“He’s a queer man,” responded the grandfather, “hard in some things and
clever enough in others. He had heard the speculator say that Aaron was a
very dangerous character, and so Mr. Gossett declared that he was going
to tame him. Gossett was a much younger man then than he is now, and
about as reckless as any one in the county. I remember he said something
in a light way that made Little Crotchet angry, and the lad spurred the
Gray Pony at him and would have rode him down but for me.”

“Was he riding the Gray Pony, grandfather?” asked Buster John.

“Yes,” replied the old gentleman with a sigh: “yes, the Gray Pony. It was
fifteen years ago, but it seems but yesterday.”

The grandfather was silent after that, and the children said no more.
They went to bed when bedtime came, but not before Buster John had made
up his mind to rise bright and early the next morning and call on the
Gray Pony. He told Sweetest Susan and Drusilla of his plan, and they said
they were anxious to go, too. So it was arranged that the housemaid
should wake them when she came in from the quarters.

This was done, and to the surprise of everybody whose business it was to
be up early, the children sallied forth a little after sunrise. They went
into the orchard, hunting for the Gray Pony. Before they had gone far, a
rabbit jumped up right at their feet, ran off a little distance, and then
sat up and looked at them.

“He’s very much like Mr. Rabbit,” said Sweetest Susan.

“He’s lots better lookin’,” remarked Drusilla, who had never forgiven Mr.
Rabbit for mistaking her for the Tar Baby.

While they were standing there looking at the rabbit, Sweetest Susan
lifted her hands suddenly and uttered an exclamation that startled Buster
John and Drusilla, and sent the rabbit scurrying off through the sedge.

“What is the matter?” asked Buster John.

“Oh, to-day is Sunday!” cried Sweetest Susan.

“Why, of course it is Sunday,” said Buster John. “What of it? Is it any
harm to walk through an old peach orchard hunting for a pony?”

[Illustration: A RABBIT JUMPED UP AT THEIR FEET]

“No-o-o,” replied Sweetest Susan, hesitatingly.

“What is the matter, then?”

“Nothing. I had forgotten it was Sunday, and just happened to think about
it,” Sweetest Susan replied demurely.

Going forward and looking about the orchard, the children soon saw the
Gray Pony grazing in a fence corner at the further side. As they went
toward him, the Gray Pony saw them and began to move away, backing his
ears and showing signs of irritation.

“Leave me alone,” said the Pony. “I don’t want to run through these
briars and scratch myself. Go away. I don’t want to see you.”

“Wait,” cried Buster John; “I want to talk to you.”

“Shucks and smutty nubbins!” exclaimed the Pony. “You can hardly talk to
yourselves. I don’t want you about me. All you can do is to throw rocks
and poke sticks at me through the fence. Go away. I might accidentally
hurt you. I wouldn’t be sorry if I did, but they’d send me off to the
river place, and I don’t want to go there and get curkle burrs in my mane
and tail.”

“But I can talk to you,” persisted Buster John. “I can understand
everything you say.”

The Gray Pony tossed his head contemptuously. “Go off—go off. Yonder
comes Aaron. The Son of Ben Ali will make you let me alone.”

Sure enough, Aaron was coming along the orchard path with a bucket of
bran. Presently he called the Gray Pony. “Come, Gristle, come.”

The Pony kicked up his heels, shook his head, and went galloping toward
Aaron as hard as he could go. When the children came up to where the Pony
was eating his bran, they found him disputing with Aaron. If the children
didn’t know how to talk to him day before yesterday, how could they talk
now? That’s what he’d like to know.

“Gristle, listen! If you didn’t have this bran-mash an hour ago, how can
you be sticking your nose in it now? That’s what I’d like to know.”

The Pony snorted so hard that he blew the wet bran all around. “How did
they learn to talk to us?” he asked.

“They have been touched,” replied Aaron.

“Well,” said the Gray Pony, “that changes things. That alters the case.
I’m sorry I abused them. But that boy there hasn’t been very good to
me. I’ve seen no boy like Little Crotchet. I saw them riding the black
stallion yesterday. How was that?”

“Haven’t I told you, Gristle? They have been touched. They have the sign.”

“I see,” responded the Gray Pony. “That changes things. That alters the
case. But what do they want with me?”

“They can answer for themselves, Gristle. They are here.”

“Why, we wanted you to tell us about the time when my Uncle Crotchet
asked grandfather to buy Uncle Aaron.”

The Pony drew away from the bucket of wet bran and looked at the
children. Then he looked at Aaron. “Well!” he snorted, “how did they
know?”

Aaron laughed and pointed toward the big house. “They heard it there,
from the White-haired Master. They are our friends, Gristle. They know
the sign.”

“That alters the case,” said the Gray Pony for the third time, “but the
story is a long one. To-day is the day when you get in the carriage and
go where the talking-man lives. I used to carry the Little Master there,
one day in every week, from the time he could ride.”

“He means to preaching,” explained Aaron, and the explanation made the
children laugh.

“Come to-morrow,” said the Gray Pony; “then everybody will be at work,
and we shall have no one to bother us.”

Aaron thought that this was a good idea, and at his suggestion, the
children agreed to it, though not with a very good grace. To-morrow
seemed to be so far off.

But time rolled away on the plantation as it did elsewhere, and some time
during the night, when the children were fast asleep, and snoring, maybe,
to-morrow became to-day. After breakfast, when they had gone over their
lessons with their grandfather, who taught them, to amuse himself, they
went out and found the Gray Pony, carrying him some green corn.

[Illustration: THEY CARRIED HIM SOME GREEN CORN]

“Now, I like that,” said the Pony switching his tail vigorously. “I’ve
had a bad taste in my mouth all day, and this green corn will drive
it away.” He munched at it a little while, looking at the children
occasionally, and then began:

“I was very fond of the Little Master from the first. The White-haired
Master found me in a drove of mules and horses in a pen in town. We had
traveled hundreds of miles, and though I was young and tough, I was very
stiff and tired. But the drover cracked his whip, separated me from the
rest, and ran me into a corner of the pen, where I stood trembling,
because I didn’t know what moment the lash would crack on my back, as it
had cracked many times before. The White-haired Master—his hair was as
gray as mine even then—held the Little Master in his arms, and when they
came near I stood still and allowed the little fellow to pat my back and
stroke my neck. The Little Master cried: ‘Father buy him! I like him!’

“That was enough. A negro came and put a halter on me, and led me from
the pen. Soon some one brought a bridle, and then a small saddle. After
awhile the Little Master was placed on my back, and some one handed him
two heavy sticks. I was alarmed at first, fearing I was to be beaten with
them, but when I flinched the Little Master stroked my neck, and I had
no more fear. The sticks he carried along to help him over the ground
when he was not riding, and he used them nimbly.

“So we came home, and grew to know each other. In cold weather I had a
warm stable to rest in, and a heavy blanket to sleep under. In pleasant
weather I had cool water twice a day, and young corn and green barley.
People used to say he rode me too hard at times, but it was not so. It
was a pleasure to him and no harm to me.

“One day there came to him from far away a teacher—a young man with brown
hair and blue eyes—and for a time the Little Master was troubled. He had
no desire to sit in the house for hours and do nothing but read in the
books. I used to watch for him through the fence, and he was very proud
indeed when he found that I knew his voice from the rest and would follow
him about without bridle or halter. I missed him when the teacher came,
and I used to go to the fence and call him.

“But I missed him only a day or two. The teacher was a wise young man,
and he soon saw that if the Little Master was to be taught at all, the
teaching must go on in the open air, with no more books to bother with
than he could carry in one hand. So it came to pass that every day the
little master would call for me, and then we would go on long journeys
through the woods and fields, the teacher walking with me.

“Sometimes the teacher would carry books in his hand, but he carried more
in his head. He was wise. He knew the poisonous plants and vines almost
as well as I did, and I used to wonder how he found them out, not having
to eat them. This went on whenever the weather was pleasant, and I heard
the teacher from far away say to the little master that he was learning
a great deal more of the things that were in the books, than if he were
shut up in a tight room with the books themselves. If I could have
remembered all I heard, I’d be pretty well educated myself.

“One morning I was fed early. I heard the negroes say that the
White-haired Master, the Little Master, and the teacher were going to
town. It was court week, they said. The judge and jury were going to sit
and punish men for being meaner than the animals. I thought it was very
funny. But I ate my breakfast with a better appetite, because I knew none
of my kith and kin were to be hauled up before the judge and jury for
cheating and swindling, and drinking and gambling.

“So we went to town, the Little Master and I. The White-haired Master and
the teacher rode in the buggy. We kept with them a little way, but the
weather was fine and the roads were good, and after a while the Little
Master gave me the rein, which I had been asking for ever so long, and I
cantered forward, leaving the buggy far behind and out of sight.

“I cantered on in this way, up hill and down hill—for it was as easy as
walking—until we came nearly to the town. Then suddenly the Little Master
reached forward and touched me on the shoulder. It was the way he had of
warning me. We were coming to a point where another road led into ours,
and it was well the Little Master warned me when he did. Else, when I saw
what I did, I should have given a start that would have unseated him; for
right before me, coming slowly our road, was a train of huge wagons,
covered with white cloth. There were five wagons, each pulled by two
mules. In front of the foremost wagon a file of negroes was marching,
two by two. There must have been forty odd in all. At first I thought
they were pulling the wagon, for there was a stout rope reaching from the
end of the wagon tongue to the foremost negro of the file, and the end
was fastened to his waist. On each side of this rope the other negroes
walked, and I soon saw that every one was handcuffed to the rope.

[Illustration: THE SLAVE TRAIN]

“The sight of all this,” said the gray pony, continuing his story,
“surprised me so that I stopped in the road, and came near tucking tail
and running back the way I came. But the Little Master was never afraid
of anything. He stroked my shoulder and scolded me, too, and urged me
forward. Now there was nothing about this wagon train to frighten me.
I had seen wagon trains before. But this one loomed up so suddenly and
unexpectedly that it made me have a queer, shivery feeling, as when I
hear a horse-fly zooning around and don’t know where he is going to
light. It happened that the wagons were on a sandy level, and neither
their wheels nor the mules’ feet made any noise. The negroes were
marching along as silently as the shadows that run on the ground when the
moon is shining and the clouds are flying. It was the first time I had
ever seen negroes going along the road together in utter silence. They
were neither talking nor laughing, and they seemed to be very far from
singing.

“Going nearer, I saw that the negro drivers were chained to the wagons.
On each side of the file of marching negroes rode a white man, a shotgun
lying across his lap. I thought the negroes were prisoners, and that the
men were carrying them to court for the judge and jury to sit on them. So
the Little Master thought, for he urged me forward until we came up with
the man who rode near the tall negro at the head of the file.

“‘Good-morning,’ said the Little Master to the man.

“‘Good-day, sonny,’ replied the man, but he kept his eye on the negro at
the head of the file.

“‘Whose negroes are these?’ the Little Master asked.

“‘Mine,’ said the man, smacking his lips over it; ‘every one mine.’

“Then we went on in silence. The Little Master had a way, when he
was puzzled, of reaching over the saddle and twisting a wisp of mane
between his fingers. He did this now. He curled the wisp of hair on his
forefinger and uncurled it ever so many times, as we went on in silence.
I noticed that the negro at the head of the file had his arms tied at the
elbows. The whole weight of the long rope, which was a big one, fell on
this negro, but he was tall and strong and moved forward without sign of
distress.

“Presently the Little Master spoke to the man again. ‘What have your
negroes done that they should be carried to jail?’

“The man laughed loudly, as he replied: ‘I’m not carrying them to jail.
They are for sale.’

“‘Then you are a negro speculator,’ said the Little Master.

“‘That’s what some people call me, sonny; speculator or what not, I have
negroes for sale. If you want to buy one, I’ll sell you that buck at the
head of the gang. He’s the finest of the lot, but I’ll sell him cheap.
He’s worse than a tiger.’

“The Little Master urged me forward until we came to the side of the man
at the head of the file. That was my first sight of the Son of Ben Ali. I
knew at once that he was no negro. The Little Master spoke to him, and he
smiled as he answered.

“‘I’ll sell him cheap, sonny,’ said the man; ‘name your own price, give
me the money, and take him.’

“The Little Master slapped the pommel of his saddle, and I knew by that
he was angry. But what he intended to say was never said, for just then
the White-haired Master and the teacher came by in the buggy, going at a
sweeping trot, and the Little Master gave me the rein to follow, which I
was more than glad to do. Never before had I seen the White-haired Master
use the whip on old Sorrel, the buggy horse, but he used it that day, and
I had hard work to catch up and keep up. The teacher had turned in his
seat and watched the file of negroes and the covered wagons as far as he
could see them. There was a frown on his face, and his eyes had a queer
light in them. I always dodge when a man looks at me that way.

“I think the White-haired Master wanted to get the teacher away from that
procession of negroes. I heard them talking as I cantered behind the
buggy.

“‘You are from the North, and, of course, you don’t understand these
things,’ said the White-haired Master.

“‘You are right,’ replied the teacher. ‘I don’t understand them at all.
I’m truly sorry I saw that sight. I shall see it again in my dreams.’

“‘I have been living here fifty years,’ the White-haired Master remarked,
‘and that is the second time I ever saw it.’

“The teacher said nothing more, and we soon entered the town, where there
was a great many people. Hitched to one of the racks I saw a roan mule
that had given me a vicious bite when we were in the drove together.
He was poor enough now, and his ears hung dejectedly. I wanted to stop
and read him a moral, but the Little Master bade me go on, and I had no
opportunity to speak to my old tormentor.”

IV.

GRISTLE, THE GRAY PONY, CONCLUDES HIS STORY.

The Little Master gave me a drink of cool water from the well in the
public square, and then he had me carried to a comfortable stall in the
stable behind the old tavern. I don’t know how long I stayed there, but
by the time I had dropped off into a comfortable doze, dreaming that I
was nibbling sassafras buds in the orchard at home, a negro came running
into the stable and into my stall. He came upon me so sudden that I
turned in the stall to get out of his way, and nearly mashed the breath
out of him. He limped along and led me to the front of the tavern. There
I saw the Little Master waiting to mount, and I went toward him gladly
enough.

“I thought we were to go home, but my thoughts jumped ahead of facts. I
soon saw that the speculator’s wagons and his file of negroes had come
into town, and had stopped to rest on the public square, where a great
crowd had gathered around them—some out of curiosity and some out of
sympathy. I heard an old horse, blind in one eye, say to a companion tied
near that such sights were seldom seen in these parts. The Little Master
had sent for me, so that, by sitting on my back, he would be as tall as
any of the men.

“He rode me into the crowd that had gathered around the negroes. The
people made way for him, and I soon found myself so close to the Son of
Ben Ali that he could touch my nose with his hand, although his elbows
were pinioned. So that he was able to give me the sign, and I knew him
and spoke to him and he to me; whereupon he knew that he had found one
friend there. He had found two friends, for the Little Master stretched
forth his hands, white as a flower, and touched the Son of Ben Ali on the
cheek, where there was the mark of a wound, saying, ‘Poor fellow! I am
sorry for you.’ And the Son of Ben Ali reached up the best he could, his
arms being pinioned, and took the white hand of the Little Master in his,
and pressed it to his forehead and then to his lips. After that he held
his head higher, so that he looked over all that stood around him and
beyond him, and smiled a little.

“But just then the man who owned him came hustling toward us, untied
the rope to which the Son of Ben Ali was chained and pushed him roughly
through the crowd to the sheriff’s block that stood near the court house
door. This he made the Son of Ben Ali mount, so that all might see him.
As he stood there, without a coat, the collar of his shirt thrown open,
and the muscles of his chest swelling and falling, he seemed to be a man
among men. When the white man stood on the block beside him, the crown of
his hat was no higher than the Son of Ben Ali’s shoulder.

[Illustration: BEN ALI HAD FOUND TWO FRIENDS]

“The man made a speech to the people. I don’t remember everything he
said, but I could see he hated the Son of Ben Ali, and was afraid of
him. He was ready to jump from the block and run. But the Son of Ben
Ali paid no attention to him. He had his eyes fixed on the face of the
Little Master, following every movement he made, and always smiling. The
Little Master kept his eyes on the White-haired Master, and called and
beckoned to him. But somehow—I couldn’t see what the trouble was—the
White-haired Master appeared to be very busy. He was talking with a man
who was a stranger to me, and, although he heard the Little Master, and
nodded and smiled at him, he kept on talking. I went toward him without
any urging, and when we got there he was talking about constitutions and
other government contraptions, and seemed to be very warm over it. I
was so disgusted that I snorted as often and as loud as I could, and if
people had only known it, there was more horse sense in one of my snorts
than there was in all the politics I have heard from that day to this.

“But all this time the speculator, or trader, or whatever you call him,
was calling to the crowd to come and see the fine bargain he was going to
offer. I had one ear for the trader and another for the Little Master.
One said:—

“‘Come up, gentlemen, and see what a sacrifice I am going to make. Come
up, and I’ll tell you why.’

“The other said: ‘Come, father, please come! You’ll be too late!’ The
White-haired Master nodded and smiled. ‘Presently, son; presently.’

“The trader said: ‘Walk right up, gentlemen, and I’ll tell you the truth.
I’m selling this boy because he’s too tricky to travel with. He’s bad
tempered and hard headed. What he needs is a master who will take time to
make him buckle down to work.’

“The Little Master said: ‘Father, come. Oh, don’t wait any longer.’ The
White-haired Master smiled. ‘Yes, yes!’ and placed his hand on my neck,
whereupon I snorted and shook it off.

“The trader cried out at the top of his voice: ‘Come up, gentlemen! Come
up! Look at this boy’s limbs. Look at his muscles. Not a flaw about him,
except his temper. What am I offered, cash down, for this likely fellow?’

“The Little Master said: ‘Please, please hurry, father! You’ll be too
late. The man is selling him now!’ The air was blue with state rights and
constitutions. I shook my head and gave a loud whicker. This seemed to
irritate the White-haired Master, for he ceased to smile and joke.

“‘Go buy him yourself,’ he said, sharply.

“‘How much shall I bid, father?’

“‘Up to twelve hundred dollars.’

“Before the Little Master could take the bridle reins in his hand, I
wheeled and cantered toward the crowd that had gathered around the
sheriff’s block, where the Son of Ben Ali stood.

“The trader was saying: ‘How much am I offered? How much? Look at him,
gentlemen! As sound as a dollar!’

“The man who lives across the creek—Mr. Goshawk—no—Mr. Gossett—got on the
block with the Son of Ben Ali and put on his spectacles and looked at
him, and felt of him, and thumped him on the back, and punched him in the
sides. The Son of Ben Ali never flinched nor moved a muscle. He kept his
eyes fixed on the Little Master. But, after all, what could the Little
Master do? He was but a child.

“Mr. Gossett came down from the block, took off his spectacles, and said
something to the trader, who then cried out:—

“‘What do you think, good people? I am asked to give this boy away! My
friend here offers me five hundred dollars for the finest hand that ever
stood on the block in this country. Five hundred dollars! I am offered
five hundred dollars!’

“‘Seven hundred dollars!’ cried the Little Master.

“The trader stopped and looked at the Little Master, as if he thought the
bid was a joke.

“‘Who said seven hundred?’ he asked.

“‘I did,’ cried the Little Master.

“‘Seven hundred it is,’ said the trader. ‘I am offered seven hundred—only
seven hundred!’

“Mr. Gossett said something to the trader, who cried out: ‘Eight hundred!
I am offered eight hundred!’

“‘Nine hundred!’ said the Little Master.

“‘That is right!’ cried the trader. ‘In this country even the children
have saddle-bags full of money. Nine hundred! I am offered nine hundred!’

“Mr. Gossett nodded his head. I was watching him.

“‘One thousand!’ cried the trader. ‘I am offered one thousand! Am I to
give this man away for one thousand dollars?’

“‘Twelve hundred,’ said the Little Master in a voice as clear as a bell.

“This seemed to stagger the trader. He looked at the Little Master, and
then he looked at the crowd. He shook his head, and then some of the
people laughed. This made others laugh, and then the trader, very red in
the face, turned to Mr. Gossett and said:—

“‘I don’t like to be made a fool of. This negro is yours, sir, for one
thousand dollars.’

“This made the people laugh again, but the Little Master didn’t laugh.
He cried to the crowd around. ‘Get out of the way here!’ and gave me the
word to push my way through. I needed neither whip nor spur for that, and
the people in front of me had as much as they could do to scuffle and
scramble out of my way.

“‘Here, sir, what does this mean?’ cried the Little Master. ‘I bid twelve
hundred dollars, and you sell him for one thousand dollars. What do you
mean?’

“‘Don’t bother me, sonny,’ the man replied. ‘The negro is mine. I sell
him for what I please. This gentleman here,’ he pointed to Mr. Gossett,
‘said you were playing one of your pranks. I’ve no time for pranks. If
you are not pranking, plank down your twelve hundred dollars on that
block there.’

“Mr. Gossett had taken from his pocket a long red book, and was already
counting out the money he had bid. Then and there a thing happened that
has never been understood by anybody but me. Everybody will tell you that
the Little Master tried to ride over and run down Mr. Gossett, but it is
not so. The Little Master had no more to do with it than the old buggy
horse who was tied to the rack near by. I felt the Little Master’s hand
shake as it rested on my shoulder, and I heard him sob. I was so mad that
everything grew dark except Mr. Gossett’s face. I plunged at him and
tried to get his head in my mouth, but he saw me coming and fell backward
and rolled out of the way before I could reach him, nor could I trample
him. His luck saved him.

“And then somebody caught my bridle and gave it a jerk that brought me to
my senses. Whoever it was led me out of the crowd and away from the court
house. I could feel the Little Master shaking in the saddle, and I knew
he was crying, but I held my head down, not knowing what to do or where
to go.

“Presently the White-haired Master, hearing of the commotion, came
running toward us. His face was as white as a sheet.

“‘Why, my son! my darling boy! What is the trouble?’ He placed his arms
around the Little Master. ‘Oh, tell your father! Has any one dared to
hurt so much as your little finger? There, don’t cry any more.’

“Then the Little Master told him what you have already heard, his voice
shaking and his white hands trembling.

“‘Wait!’ said the White-haired Master.

“With that he suddenly turned and went toward the crowd at the court
house. I followed, though the Little Master never touched a rein. The
people seemed to expect something, and they made way for the White-haired
Master, and for me, with my nose at his coat-tails.

“‘Has the sale been closed?’ he asked sharply. His words snapped out like
the popping of a whip.

“‘Yes, sir; yes, sir—it has been closed,’ the trader replied. He was as
humble and polite as one of his poor negroes.

“‘Gossett!’ said the White-haired Master—his voice sounded as I have
heard it when he was talking to a lazy plough hand—‘Gossett! I will give
you fifteen hundred dollars for your bargain.’

“Mr. Gossett shook his head and smiled, showing two or three yellow
teeth. I was so anxious to get at him that the Little Master was
compelled to slap me with the slack of the bridle reins and bid me stand
still.

“‘No,’ said Mr. Gossett, ‘I’d ruther have the nigger than the money.’

“‘I’ll give you two thousand dollars,’ persisted the White-haired Master.

“Mr. Gossett showed his yellow teeth again. ‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘if
he’s worth that to you, he’s worth it to me. The fact is, I want to tame
the nigger. They say he’s as wild as a buck, and as hard-headed as a
mule. I want to tame him.’

“The White-haired Master turned to the trader. ‘Why did you insult my son
and me by refusing to cry his last bid?’ He caught the man by the throat
and shook him. The people gave back and scattered a little at this, for
in those times men were quick to use their knives and pistols. But the
trader had no idea of using his, though he had both in his belt.

“‘Let me explain, sir; let me explain,’ he cried, as the White-haired
Master released his hold. ‘That gentleman there said the youngster was
only playing me one of his jokes.’

“‘What gentleman?’ the White-haired Master asked, as quick as a flash. He
wheeled and looked around, as if searching for some one. The people were
still afraid a fight was about to take place, and they stood off some
distance, but not so far that they couldn’t hear every word that was said.

“‘What gentleman?’ the White-haired Master repeated, facing the trader.

“The trader went to Mr. Gossett and touched his shoulder so as to make no
mistake. ‘This is the gentleman, sir,’ he said.

“At this the White-haired Master fairly roared with laughter. ‘Pay him
another hundred, Gossett—pay him another hundred! He has earned it.
You’ll not find another man in the county to pay you such a compliment.’

“There must have been some joke or hit in this, for the people laughed
even louder than the White-haired Master, and Mr. Gossett turned very red
in the face. But if it was a joke it passed over my head. I saw no fun
in it, and neither did the Son of Ben Ali, who had drawn near and was
fondling the thin white hand of the Little Master in his.”

Here the Gray Pony paused and held his head up as if he heard a noise
somewhere. Then he cropped off a bunch of peach leaves and chewed on
them, to all appearances relishing their flavor. This done, he scratched
his neck by rubbing it against the peach-tree, which was old and rough.
The children sat absorbed in the story he was telling.

“Now, right here,” the Gray Pony went on, “two or three things happened
so close together that the quickest eye could hardly separate them. If I
told them as they happened I should have to tell them all at once, but
this can’t be done, not even in your tongue. So I’ll have to blunder
along the best I know how. In cantering or galloping I always start off
on my right forefoot. A man taught me that with a whip, and I’ve never
been able to forget it. That foot comes down heaviest, and I always
fling the right foreshoe first. It was loose when we started from home
that morning, and when I jumped at Mr. Gossett I wrenched it nearly off.
For a time I didn’t mind it, but every time I stamped my foot to drive
the flies away it rang and rattled like a cow bell. The Son of Ben Ali,
hearing it rattle as he stood by the Little Master, stooped and placed
his hand on my knee. I gave him my foot, and he drew the shoe off by
giving it a slight twist with his fingers.

“When the White-haired Master told Mr. Gossett to pay the trader another
hundred dollars he made a step toward the man to see what he would do.
At that moment Mr. Gossett’s son George, a great rowdy and bully, came
rushing through the crowd. He was red in the face and fairly foaming at
the mouth. He came crying, ‘Is pap in a fuss? Where are you, pap?’ He had
a pistol in his hand, and when he saw the White-haired Master standing
so near his pap, as he called him, he bellowed like a mad bull, and came
rushing up, leveling the pistol as he got near.

“This happened just as the Son of Ben Ali wrenched the shoe from my foot.
Still stooping he turned his head and saw George Gossett halt and point
his pistol at the White-haired Master. I felt the body of the Son of Ben
Ali sway under my neck in the most unaccountable manner, and the next
moment I saw young Gossett fall as if he had been struck by lightning.
The Son of Ben Ali crept under my belly, and when I saw him again he was
sitting on the block where he had stood to be sold, his arms folded, and
his eyes closed as if he were fast asleep.

“No one knew what had happened except the Son of Ben Ali and myself. All
eyes had been fixed on George Gossett and the White-haired Master. Some
said Gossett had fallen in a fit of passion and that the blood had burst
from his face. Some said that he had fallen on a horseshoe that happened
to be lying near. Some said one thing and some another. George Gossett
always declared, so I’ve heard, that somebody jabbed him in the face with
a forked stick, but his best friends said he was drunk at the time and
fell on the horseshoe and hurt himself. But there were some people who
whispered it around that they saw the blood gush from his face as he fell
forward.

“The matter was never explained, and for many a long day no one but the
Son of Ben Ali and I knew that Gossett had been hit in the face by one of
my shoes. I think the White-haired Master learned the truth by asking
the Son of Ben Ali about it one night, when they were returning from a
long ride together.

“In the midst of the excitement, old Mr. Gossett forgot all about the Son
of Ben Ali. But after the wounded man had been carried to a doctor’s shop
and physicked, and the doctors had said that he would recover, though the
bruise was a serious one, Mr. Gossett remembered his purchase, and came
out to the public square in some alarm, fearing that his newly-bought
slave had given him the slip. But he had not far to seek. Though the
public square was deserted, except for the horses and mules tied to the
racks and a few people straggling aimlessly about, the Son of Ben Ali
still sat on the sheriff’s block, erect and silent, his arms folded and
his feet crossed. The trader’s wagons and his train of slaves had passed
on through the town.

“When Mr. Gossett saw the Son of Ben Ali sitting where he had left him,
he nodded his head approvingly. His son had come to town in a wagon, and
in this the young man had to be carried home. Straw was spread in the
body of the wagon, and into this George Gossett was lifted. The old man
had come in a buggy and he made the Son of Ben Ali sit beside him and
drive him.”

At this point the Gray Pony paused and bit at a speckled fly that was
sitting on his fat side out of reach of the sweep of his tail.

“Is that all?” asked Buster John.

“It is enough,” replied the Gray Pony. “A few days afterward, being
on the far side of the plantation, I heard a plough mule telling Mr.
Gossett’s buggy horse that the Son of Ben Ali had gone to the woods.”

The Gray Pony, saying this, turned and walked away.

RAMBLER, THE TRACK DOG, BEGINS HIS STORY.

The children thought that they had been treated somewhat impolitely by
the Gray Pony, and so, as soon as they could find an opportunity, and
when they thought he was in a good humor, they asked him why he walked
away so abruptly and refused to tell them the reason Aaron went to the
woods and what befell him when he got there.

“As for that,” the Gray Pony answered, “I know nothing of the matter of
my own knowledge. It is all hearsay with me. The Son of Ben Ali can tell
you. He knows. He was there.”

The children had to be content with this until they found an opportunity
to talk with Aaron. He was very busy during the day, and sometimes at
night, managing the affairs of the plantation, but he told them that
whenever they saw a light in his cabin right after supper, he would have
time to talk to them. This happened the next night. Drusilla saw the
light, and told Sweetest Susan and Buster John it was there, and in a few
minutes they were all in Aaron’s cabin.

They found him baking a hoecake and frying some bacon, and it smelt so
good that Buster John’s mouth began to water, although he had just eaten
his supper.

“Uncle Aaron,” he said, “I’ll give you two biscuits and a piece of ham
for a piece of your hoecake and some of your meat.”

“Do so—do so,” answered Aaron.

“Bring four biscuits and two pieces of ham,” cried Sweetest Susan, as
Buster John rushed out of the door. He returned in a little while with
four biscuits, each sandwiched with a piece of ham. Whereupon Aaron
turned over to the children all his hoecake and fried bacon, which they
devoured with a relish which belongs to youth alone. This done, they gave
Aaron to understand what they came for, and he, without any apology,
explanation, or delay, such as a negro would have indulged in, and
likewise without any humor, told his story. Perhaps there was no room for
humor, but a negro would have found a place for it.

“I can’t tell you the story as the field hands could,” said Aaron. “They
have a word for everything. What I know is that when I saw the little
white boy crying about me, I was no longer the same man. Something
swelled here”—touching his throat—“and something broke here”—striking his
breast. “I had said to myself, be as cunning as a snake. My mind was made
up to run away from the man that bought me, and follow the negro trader
and strangle him in the night. He was a beast. I promised myself that he
should live no more. The thoughts made me happy, and then I saw the white
child, small and crippled, crying because his father had not bought me.
I said, what is he to me? And then my hands shook and my knees trembled.
Another man crept into my skin and looked out of my eyes. Not since my
mother shook hands with me and told me good-by when I was a boy had I
seen anybody crying for me. Then, I said, the man who gets me to-day will
get a good bargain.

“In my mind there was but one thought—the child is my Little Master. The
Gray Pony has told you what happened. It was to save the Little Master’s
father that I threw the horseshoe. I thought the young man was killed,
and I said, it is a pity! When I rode home with Mr. Gossett, I kept on
saying it is a pity—a great pity; and when my new master asked me if I
would treat him right, I smiled and told him I would do the best I could.
And I did. I worked for him as hard as I ever worked for a man. But he
never trusted me. He was always watching me.

“One night, just after sundown, he called me out of my hut—it was not a
cabin—and said he wanted me to get in the one-horse wagon and take a bale
of cotton to a neighbor’s house and sell it to him. At once I smelled
trouble.

“‘But will the man buy it?’ I asked.

“The answer was: ‘He may; if he does, the money is yours. If not, no harm
is done.’

“‘I am afraid of the patterrollers,’ said I.

“The answer was: ‘I’ll not be far away.’

“I had nothing else to do but go, but I knew there was trouble at the end
of the road. I had seen negroes lashed for selling their masters’ things,
and I had seen white men sent to jail for trading with negroes between
two suns. I found out long afterward that Mr. Gossett’s neighbor had
some land that he refused to sell. He was not very well off, but he held
to his land and made poor crops. If he bought the cotton from me, Mr.
Gossett could buy his land or put him in jail. But this was all dark to
me then.

“I mounted the wagon—But wait! Rambler, the track dog, is here. He knows
what happened. I will call him.”

Aaron went to the door of his cabin, put his right hand to his mouth, and
gave a musical halloo. The dogs were barking in another part of the lot,
but they ceased instantly, as if listening. Then Watch, the catch dog,
barked three times:—

“Who is it?”

Again Aaron gave the halloo, and this time it was answered by the
quavering cry of a hound. Before the children learned the language of
the animals, they would have said a dog was howling somewhere on the
plantation, but now they knew that Rambler was saying:—

“I am c-o-m-i-n-g!”

In a few minutes he came running into the cabin, his hair damp with the
dew. He looked rather sheepish, as the saying is, and crouched near
Aaron, as if he expected to be scolded. Once upon a time Rambler had been
a black-and-tan, but he was now old, and the gray hairs had well-nigh
obliterated the tan, and were encroaching on the black. His muzzle was
very gray, and his dew-claws had grown until they were nearly an inch
and a half long. One of his long ears was split a little at the end, the
result of a skirmish with old Mr. Raccoon. He kept his eyes averted from
Aaron and the children and seemed to be both humble and uneasy. He was
better satisfied when Aaron told him what was wanted. Indeed, he became
very lively and went about the room picking up the scraps of bread the
children had dropped on the floor. Aaron went to his little pine cupboard
and got out a pone of corn bread that he had saved from the day before.
Rambler took the bread in his mouth and then placed it gently on the
floor. Gently wagging his tail, he looked up in Aaron’s face.

“Son of Ben Ali,” he said, “I am getting old, and, what with gnawing
bones and killing cats and fighting coons, my teeth are bad. This bread
is hard.”

Whereupon Aaron took the bread, crushed it in his hands, dropped it in an
old tin platter, and placed it on the hearth.

“This would taste better, if it had ham gravy on it,” remarked Rambler,
after saying “Thanky” with his tail; “yes, a good deal better, but I’ll
not be choice.”

When he had finished the bread, he seated himself near the chimney corner
and licked his chops carefully.

“You want to know about that trip the Son of Ben Ali made to sell the
cotton. But I don’t even know how to begin. My tongue and my tail will be
here talking and wagging, and my mind will be off in the woods hunting
minks and coons and possums. You know how one thing leads to another.
Well, if I get started I’ll get things upside down, as the rabbit does
when he tries to run down hill.”

“When I started with the cotton,” suggested Aaron, “you made up your mind
to go with me.”

“That’s so,” said Rambler. “I don’t know why. I knew well enough you
weren’t going hunting. It was just a notion that seized me. I trotted
along sometimes in front of the wagon and sometimes behind it. Before we
had gone very far I happened to be in front of the wagon when a rabbit
ran across the road. I dashed after it and bumped my head against a fence
rail. It hurt so that I sat down by the roadside and waited for the pain
to go away. The wagon went by and I concluded to go back home and go to
bed in the shuckpen. I started back, but before I had gone far, I heard
the clinking of bridle-reins and bits, and presently I saw two men on
horseback.

“I stopped until they passed by. And then I saw that it was Old Grizzly
and the overseer.”

“Old Grizzly!” cried Buster John. “Who was he?”

“That was the name the negroes had for Mr. Gossett,” Aaron explained.

[Illustration: A RABBIT DASHED ACROSS THE ROAD]

“Old Grizzly and the overseer,” Rambler continued, paying no attention
to the interruption. “They were riding along after the wagon, but at
some distance behind it. I says to myself, well, well! something is up.
So, instead of going back home, I turned around and trotted along the
road till I passed Old Grizzly and the overseer, and caught up with the
wagon. I said to the Son of Ben Ali:—

“‘Get down and fix one of your wagon wheels, and see who comes behind
you.’

“This he did, but when Old Grizzly and the overseer heard the Son of Ben
Ali knocking on one of the wagon wheels with a rock, they stopped, and
came no farther until after he drove on again. Then I knew, and the Son
of Ben Ali knew, that Old Grizzly and the overseer were coming to see
that orders were obeyed.

“The house to which the Son of Ben Ali was carrying the cotton was not
far. It was in the midst of a big grove of oak-trees. The trees were too
big for the house, or the house was not fine enough for the trees, for
they made everything so dark that, from the road, those who cannot see in
the night would never know that a house was there.

“The Son of Ben Ali drove the wagon under the trees, waited until he
could hear the clinking of bridles and bits, as Old Grizzly and the
overseer rode up, and then he slipped around the house and went to the
back door. I waited until I saw Old Grizzly and the overseer stop under
one of the big oaks, and then I followed.

“The Son of Ben Ali knocked at the back door, which was soon opened by a
negro woman, who asked him what he wanted. He told her, and then the man
came to the door.

“‘What do you want?’ he asked.

“‘I want to see you,’ said the Son of Ben Ali. ‘I want to sell you a bale
of cotton.’

“‘Who is your master?’ the man asked.

“‘Mr. Gossett,’ the Son of Ben Ali answered.

“‘What is your name?’

“‘They call me Aaron.’

“‘You are the boy he bought not long ago.’

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘Wait a moment.’ The man went into another room, and when he appeared
again he had a shotgun in his hands. My hide is not very thick, and so I
went under the steps. The man seemed to be mad. The Son of Ben Ali had
some such idea, for he asked:—

“‘What are you going to do with the gun, sir?’

“‘Get the truth out of you.’

“‘A dead man will neither lie nor tell the truth,’ said the Son of Ben
Ali. His voice sounded as if he might be laughing, but I was under the
steps and couldn’t see.

“‘Is the cotton yours?’ the man asked.

“‘It is Mr. Gossett’s.’

“‘Why do you bring it here to-night?’

“‘I had my orders.’

“‘Oh, if I had the old scoundrel here!’ cried the man in a rage.

“‘If you talk loud, he’ll hear you,” said Aaron.

“The man understood at once. ‘Wait!’ he whispered. Then he slipped around
the corner of the house. Suddenly I heard the gun go off, and it scared
me so I couldn’t help but cry out. Some one else yelled, too — some one
under the oaks in front, and then I heard the snorting and stamping of
horses. The Son of Ben Ali stole off in the dark before the man returned,
and I followed him, not knowing what had happened or what might happen.

“But I soon found out, and it was not as bad as it might have been. The
shot the man fired had shattered one of the overseer’s arms. He was not
hurt so badly but he could ride his horse, and he and Old Grizzly hurried
home as fast as they could.

“After a while the Son of Ben Ali followed, but instead of riding in the
wagon, he walked by the side of it, and I went ahead to see that the way
was clear. The Son of Ben Ali knew that there was trouble in store for
him, and he didn’t want Old Grizzly to get hold of him.”

“I don’t see why,” said Buster John.

“Why, Old Grizzly didn’t know but the Son of Ben Ali had gone to the
man’s house and told him about the whole business. There was nobody else
to tell the man, and if he knew that Old Grizzly and the overseer were
waiting in the grove, of course he must have got the news from the Son
of Ben Ali. But it happened that the overseer was so badly scared about
his wounded arm that Old Grizzly had to go home and sit up with him, and
this left the way clear for the Son of Ben Ali to take the mule and wagon
and cotton where they belonged. He drove the wagon under the gin-shelter,
unharnessed the mule and fed it, and then went to his hut and gathered up
his belongings and took to the woods.”

“Then he was a runaway,” said Sweetest Susan. She looked at Aaron with
new interest. She had often heard of runaways, but she had never seen
one.

“Yes, he was a runaway,” Rambler answered, “and it was a long time before
he was anything else. I didn’t bother my head about the Son of Ben Ali
when he went to the woods, for I knew he was just as much at home there
as I was. I stayed behind to see what would happen, and by staying I soon
found out that I had made some trouble for myself.

“It was very curious, too, when you come to think about it. Old Grizzly
behaved with so much meanness toward his negroes, half feeding and
clothing them, and working them long after dark, that some of them were
in the woods most of the time. Now, Old Grizzly’s son, George, was very
fond of fox-hunting, and some of his friends sent me to him when I was
quite young. My whole family have a great name for running foxes, so it
is said, and Old Grizzly’s George wanted me to hunt foxes for him along
with the other dogs. I didn’t need any teaching in that business, for
the minute I smelled a fox, no matter at what hour of the day or night,
I felt bound to hunt him up and run him down. I had that feeling as far
back as I can remember.

“One day, when I was very young, I was playing at hunting with the
little negroes just to pass the time away. One would hold me, and another
would go far out of sight and hide. I had to use my nose to find him, and
I soon came to enjoy the fun. Once Old Grizzly himself saw us playing,
and he seemed to be very much pleased with the way I followed the trail
of the little negroes. He took part in it himself, holding me while one
of the children ran through the pasture and down the branch, and around
by the gin-screw back to the house. He did this many times, and seemed to
be very much pleased with me. After a while, when I grew older, he made
some of the large negroes run, but I never failed to find and bay them.
I soon found out why Old Grizzly was so well pleased. One morning, one
of the negroes was missing. He had run away some time during the night,
having been promised a strapping for the next morning. Old Grizzly called
me, and we went to the negro’s hut, where I was made to smell of his
blanket and such of his belongings as he had failed to take with him.
I knew at once what Old Grizzly wanted me to do, and I was more than
willing to do it, for the negro happened to be one that had given me
more kicks than scraps. I settled down to business at once. I ran for the
hut, and circled around it. The scent was as plain to me as a track in
the mud is to you. I followed it with no trouble at all, and Old Grizzly,
having his horse ready, went along with me, keeping as close to me as he
could. In an hour we had overtaken the negro, and Old Grizzly carried him
back, making him walk before the horse all the way home.

[Illustration: OLD GRIZZLY BROUGHT HIM BACK]

“After that I had to look out for myself. The negroes treated me worse
than ever. They were ready to kill me at any time, and I had to keep out
of their way. This made it worse for the negroes. None of them could
escape Old Grizzly by going to the woods. I had help, too, for some of
the other hounds, seeing me made much of by the master and the overseer,
joined me in my expeditions, and in a short while Old Grizzly had a pack
of ‘nigger dogs,’ as he called us, that seemed to fill him with pride.

“This was going on when the Son of Ben Ali came—when he came and touched
me and gave me the sign. And then I knew more than I had known before.
After he came he was the first to go into the woods, as I have told you,
and the next morning my trouble began.

“Old Grizzly was very mad when, at daylight, he sent for the Son of
Ben Ali and found him gone. I slept under the house in a corner of
the chimney stack, and I heard Old Grizzly when he came in from the
overseer’s house. He bawled at the cook for not having breakfast ready,
though it was not time, and then he came out, ripping and rearing, and
sent the house-boy for the Son of Ben Ali. But the Son of Ben Ali was not
to be found. This made matters worse. Old Grizzly called up my companions
and myself, gave us a few bites of stale bread, had his horse saddled,
and then carried us to the hut where the Son of Ben Ali had lived.

“I knew then what was going to happen. I ought to have known before, but
it had never occurred to me. We were to run the Son of Ben Ali down so
that Old Grizzly could capture him. This didn’t suit me at all, but I had
to go. There was no way to get out of it.”

“Oh, I don’t see why!” cried Sweetest Susan.

“Me, nuther,” Drusilla chimed in.

“It is simple enough,” said Rambler, placing himself in a more
comfortable position—he had been sitting on his haunches. “The other dogs
would have gone whether I went or not. So I pretended I was very glad to
go. I circled around the house, and ran over the scent twice so as to see
what the other dogs would do. They ran over it, too, but I knew that one
of them had a faint hint of it. He went back to it, and then”—

Here a spark from the pine knot that made a light in the cabin flew out
near Rambler’s head, and suddenly burst into a shower of smaller sparks.
Rambler dodged and jumped out of the way so quickly that the children
laughed.

“You may think it is funny,” said Rambler, “and it may be, but I’ll not
laugh until I see you with a hot spark in your ear.”

He settled himself again and resumed his story, but this time he kept one
eye on the pine knot.

VI.

A RUN THROUGH THE WOODS.

“As I was saying,” Rambler went on, “the scent was as plain as the nose
on your face, and, although I passed it over, one of the other dogs had
a hint of it and whimpered over it. This dog afterwards made a very good
track dog. He had what they call a cold nose, and he was hard headed
enough to hang on. But at that time he was young and foolish, and new to
the business. He had no mind of his own. So I went back to the trail,
picked up the scent and went along with it slowly, as if it were a
tedious job to unravel it.

“What I wanted to do was to follow it until it crossed some other trail,
and then pick up the new one and carry Old Grizzly away from the Son of
Ben Ali. But it was impossible. No one had passed, and so we ran on after
the Son of Ben Ali.

[Illustration: I WAS CLOSE TO THE RABBIT]

“The next best thing to finding some other track, I thought, was to get
out of sight of Old Grizzly. I let myself out a little, the other dogs
did the same, and in a few moments we had left Old Grizzly behind. Right
then I did something I have never done before, and that was to try to
catch a rabbit, when I was hunting a different kind of game. While we
were going along, full tilt, a big fat rabbit jumped up right under my
nose. I dashed after it as hard as I could go, and the other dogs came
tumbling after. I was so close to the rabbit that it turned before going
into the swamp. I made it turn again, and it ran into the mouth of one
of my companions. The others ran up, and they had quite a fight over the
rabbit, tearing it to pieces in short order. I was hungry myself, and
nothing would have pleased me better than to rush in and take the rabbit
away from my companions. But I didn’t have time.

“While the others were snapping and snarling I slipped into the swamp,
ran across it and made a circle of a mile or more, and tried to pick up
the scent again where I thought it ought to be. But it was not there. I
knew then that the Son of Ben Ali had wandered about, not knowing or
caring where he went so long as he kept out of the way of Old Grizzly.
I made another circle, and this time I picked up the scent again. I had
said to myself when I was hunting for it that I would remain silent when
I found it, but I came upon it so suddenly and unexpectedly, and it
was so warm and fresh, that I cried out at the top of my voice. It was
foolish, but such is habit. My companions heard it, and they came to me
without delay. I knew they were coming, and the best I could do was to
discover quickly which way the scent led, and then take the back track,
trusting to the dullness of my companions to mislead them. By the time
they came up I was tripping along toward the cold end of the trail as
noisily as if the Son of Ben Ali were in plain view. The others, not to
be outdone, joined in the cry, and we went bolting along the back track.
In this way we came up with Old Grizzly, who seemed to be much astonished
to see us running headlong in the way he had just come.

“The scent grew fainter and fainter, and everything would have gone well
but for one of my companions, the one that discovered the scent at the
beginning of the hunt. When the scent grew colder, he began to circle
around for himself, and about a half a mile away he picked it up with
such a howl and a flourish that I ran up to him. It was so warm that I
looked up, expecting to see the Son of Ben Ali trotting along a quarter
of a mile away. But it was not so. He was not in sight.

“I joined in and took the lead, saying to myself that when we got into
the woods I’d show my spotted companion a new wrinkle in trailing. When
we came to the bushes I dropped back a little, seized my companion by the
neck and dragged him around and shook him up in a way that surprised him
and the others.

“‘What’s that for?’ he cried. ‘You’re too spotted,’ I replied. This
quieted them down, but it was too late to carry out my new plans. The
scent had been growing warmer and warmer, and I took it up again as a
matter of duty, and the others followed in a more sober manner. We went
through the woods at a pretty good pace, and I expected to see the Son of
Ben Ali limping along ahead of us, ready to drop, for we had now come
several miles in doubling and twisting and turning.

“But instead of seeing the Son of Ben Ali, we saw something that was more
surprising. We came upon a young man and a young lady. The young man had
been hunting, for he had a gun, and the young lady had been gathering
wild flowers, for a negro girl with her had a basketful.”

“I know! I know!” cried Drusilla. “Dat nigger ’oman wuz my mammy. I been
hear ’er tell dat many an’ many’s de time. Yes, suh! dat wuz my mammy!
An’ dat ain’t all. Dat ar white man an’ dat ar white ’oman wuz yo’ all’s
pa an’ ma.”

Buster John and Sweetest Susan looked at Aaron for confirmation or denial.

“That’s so,” Aaron said.

“Mammy say dey wuz courtin’,” explained Drusilla.

[Illustration: MAMMY SAY DEY WUZ COURTIN’]

Buster John seemed to be somewhat embarrassed at this information, but
Sweetest Susan appeared to relish it. On the other hand, Rambler went to
Aaron and said:—

“Son of Ben Ali, it would please me much if you would scrape your shoe
just behind my shoulders. A colony of fleas has settled there, because
they know I can reach them neither with my teeth nor with my hind feet.”

Aaron performed this service willingly, and the scraping seemed to tickle
Rambler so that he raised one of his hind feet from the ground, and made
believe to be scratching himself, but his foot was simply moving up and
down in the air. At this the children laughed very heartily.

“Well,” said Rambler, “when we ran up on the young man and the young
lady there was a great flurry. The negro girl screamed, and the young
lady rushed into the arms of the young man for protection. My companions
and I ran around and circled, but all trace of the Son of Ben Ali had
disappeared.

“I found the warm scent of a horse, but there was no horse to be seen.
I thought this very strange, so I followed it a few hundred yards, but
said nothing to my companions about it. The scent led out of the woods,
through a field in which the brown sedge grew high, and, in going through
this, I caught the scent of the Son of Ben Ali. It was high on the sedge,
and I knew by this that the horse had the Son of Ben Ali for a rider.
But I said nothing to my companions. I turned away from the horse’s
trail, and continued to go in a circle, until, coming to the point where
the young man had entered the woods, I made some fuss over it, and thus
drew my companions away from the sedge field. They came to me, but I told
them it was a mistake, and in this way cooled them off, so that they were
no longer as keen to find the trail of the Son of Ben Ali as they had
been.

“I have told pretty much all I know about it,” continued Rambler, dodging
another spark. “It happened that the young man who was out there in the
woods with the young lady was the man to whom Old Grizzly had sent the
Son of Ben Ali with the bale of cotton.”

“Was it really papa and mamma?” asked Buster John, turning to Aaron.

Aaron laughed and nodded his head.

“Well, they’ve never told me anything about it,” said Sweetest Susan, in
an injured tone.

“Nor me either,” remarked Buster John.

“Huh!” exclaimed Drusilla, “folks don’t hafter tell dey chilluns all dey
know.”

Just then a loud, but mellow voice outside cried out: “Drusilla! You
Drusilla! You better answer me gal! I boun’ I’ll make you talk when I git
holt er you!”

Drusilla put her head outside the door and yelled out: “Ma’am!”

“Come ’ere dis minnit, madam! Whar is you?”

“At Unk A’on’s house, mammy!”

“Tell her, Uncle Aaron says he wants to see her,” said Buster John. This
Drusilla did, and presently Drusilla’s mother was heard coming along the
path, breathing dire vengeance against Drusilla, and wondering what in
the world Aaron wanted.

“Is that you, Jemimy?” asked Aaron. “Come in—don’t be scared.”

Jemimy came in laughing, and her smile was in queer contrast to the
threats she had just made against her daughter.

“What you-all doin’ here?” she said, seeing the white children. “Unk
Aaron is sho got mo’ time fer ter fool wid you dan what I got. An’ dar’s
dat ol’ dog settin’ up dar big ez anybody. What you want, honey?” turning
to Buster John. “Talk quick. I ain’t got no time ter th’ow way. I got
ter go up yonder,” indicating the big house, “and set my mornin’s bread
ter rise.” Then she turned to Aaron, “Did you call me sho’ nuff, er is
deze yer chillun des runnin’ on wid der foolishness?”

Aaron nodded his head and brought out a stool for himself, giving Jemimy
the chair in which he had been sitting.

“I ’clar’. I ain’t got no time fer ter be settin’ down here gwine on wid
deze chillun. Time yo’ Unk A’on know much ’bout you ez what I does he
won’t be settin’ down here worryin’ ’long wid you.”

Jemimy said this, laughing in an embarrassed way. She stood in awe of
Aaron, but she sat down. “What you grinnin’ at, I like ter know?” she
cried, turning suddenly on Drusilla, to hide her own confusion. “Whar yo’
manners?”

Aaron shook his head and Drusilla made no reply.

“Aunt Mimy,” said Buster John, “we want you to tell us about the time you
went into the woods with mamma—when Uncle Aaron was a runaway, and when
Mr. Gossett was running him with dogs.”

Jemimy laughed, and then she looked serious. She looked first at the
children and then at Aaron. At last, her eye fell on Rambler, who had
crossed the hearth and was sitting between Aaron and the chimney-jamb.

“Ef I ain’t mighty much mistaken,” said Jemimy, “dat ar very dog dar is
one er de dogs what wuz runnin’ atter you.” Aaron nodded his head. “He
gittin’ ol’, mon. Why, dat ar dog ain’t fur frum twenty year ol’.” Jemimy
paused, but nobody said anything. Finally she went on:

“I never is ter fergit dat day, ef I wuz ter live ter be older dan ol’
man Methusalem. I speck I wuz ’bout fourteen year ol’, an’ Miss Rachel,
she wuz ’bout eighteen or nineteen—some’rs ’long in dar. Soon one mornin’
she sont me out ter tell ol’ Unk Aberham fer ter saddle de pacin’ filly.
She low she gwineter go out in de woods atter some wil’ flowers, an’ she
says she want me ter go ’long wid ’er. So dey done saddle de filly, en
put Miss Rachel on ’er, an’ den Miss Rachel, she rid up side de fence
an’ tuck me on behine ’er, bein’s ez de filly done been trained to tote
double. I had er basket on my arm, an’ dat ar basket sholy did worry dat
hoss. She danced an’ she pranced, an’ twuz e’en’bout all I could do ter
set up dar, her back wuz so slick.

“But bimeby de filly done git usen ter de basket, an’ atter dat I ax
Miss Rachel whar she gwine. She say she gwine atter some wil’ flowers.
I ax her wharbouts. I ’low’d dey wuz plenty right whar we wuz at. She
up ’n say dey want ’nuff ter suit her. We rid on an’ rid on, an’ bimeby
I say, ‘Miss Rache, you know you ain’t gwine atter no flowers.’ She ax
me wharbouts she gwine den. I say, ‘You er gwine over yon’er in de big
woods.’ She ax what she gwine over dar for. I say”—

Here Jemimy straightened herself up and looked at Aaron curiously.

“I ’clar ter gracious, I oughtn’t ter be tellin’ dis ’fo’ deze yer
chillun,” she said.

Aaron made no reply one way or another, but seemed to be surprised, and
the children protested loudly.

“You’ll run right straight an’ tell Miss Rachel!” exclaimed Jemimy, as
indignantly as if the children had already told their mother.

“Why, mamma knows it already—if it’s true,” said Buster John scornfully.

“She’d run me off’n de place ef she know’d I wuz runnin’ on ’bout ol’
times right here ’fo’ you all. La! niggers is fools, mo’ speshually when
dey er wimmen folks.”

“I reckon she’s about right,” said Rambler, yawning and stretching
himself.

“What kinder cu’us fuss is dat dog makin’?” asked Jemimy, seeing Aaron
and the children laughing. “I ain’t never see no dog make fuss like dat.
You all better watch dat dog. He so ol’, dey ain’t no tellin’ when he’ll
go ravin’.”

“You told mamma she was going to the big woods,” said Buster John, by way
of a reminder.

“She wa’n’t yo’ ma den!” remarked Jemimy. “I say, ‘You ain’t gwine atter
no flowers. You er gwine over yon’er in de big woods.’ She ax me what she
gwine over dar fer. I say, ‘You er gwine dar kaze you speck you’ll strike
up wid dat ar Dave Henry Wyche.’ Man, suh! She blush up twel it look like
you kin see plum thoo her ears, dey got so red. Atter while she ax me who
tol’ me dat, an’ I say, ‘How come my eyeballs ain’t big nuff fer me ter
tell myse’f?’

“We rid ’long, an’ rid ’long, an’ den bimeby she low dat Mr. Wyche des
ez good ez anybody else, ef he ain’t got ez much prop’ty ez some er de
res’. I say, ‘I ain’t’ sputin’ dat, but how come you call ’im Mr. Wyche
now, when you been callin’ ’im Dave Henry yever since he toted yo’ school
bucket when you wa’n’t knee-high to a goslin’?’ Den she say it’s kaze dey
done got older dan what dey useter wuz.

“We rid on, an’ rid on, an’ bimeby we come ter whar de big poplar grows
dar in de woods. Right dar she w’o’d de filly, an’ tol’ me ter jump down,
kaze right dar whar she gwine ter git some wil’ flowers. I hilt de hoss,
I did, an’ she lipt down same ez a bird off’n de bush, an’ den she tuck
de basket an’ went sa’nterin’ ’roun’.

“I ’low, ‘Ef you gwine ter git any flowers right roun’ here, you’ll
hafter dig in de groun’ atter ’em,’ an’ she say I better be ’tendin’ ter
my business, an’ hol’ dat ar filly so she won’t break loose an’ run away.
Well, dat sorter brung me ’roun’, kaze I skeerd er hosses anyhow, but I
hilt on ter de bridle reins, an’ I kep’ one eye on Miss Rachel, an’ de
udder one on de filly. Miss Rachel, she went on thoo’ de woods, sorter
hummin’ one er dem ar ol’ time chunes, an’ I foller’d ’long atter de
bes’ way I could, kaze I skeer’d dat ar filly gwine ter walk up behine me
an’ tromple me. Bimeby, I see somebody gwine ’long thoo de woods wid a
gun. I look right good, an’ den I know’d ’twuz Marse Dave Henry Wyche.

“Well suh! you dunner how quare folks is. Miss Rachel she seed ’im ’mos’
time I did, an’ den she stopped and fetched a little squall, des like
she didn’t know all de time he wuz gwine ter be dar, an’ den Marse Dave
Henry, he stopped like he wuz ’stonished, an’ tuck off his hat like he
ain’t seed Miss Rachel in a mont’ er Sundays. Den dey shuck han’s an’
stood dar an’ talked an’ talked. I dunner what dey say, but one time
Marse Dave Henry would laugh, an’ look down at his foots, an’ den Miss
Rachel, she’d snicker an’ blush. Dey wuz gwine on dat way when I feel de
filly pullin’ on de reins, an’ den when I look at ’er, she had her ears
sot forrerd, like she wuz lis’nin’ at sump’n. Den I hear houn’s a-bayin’,
an’ des ’bout dat time I hear de bushes shakin’, an’ somebody come
chargin’ ’long hard ez he kin come.

“Dis make de filly jerk back and r’ar, but I swung on ter de bridle rein,
an’ holler w’oa, an’ den, bimeby, she w’oad. Well, suh, dat ar somebody
chargin’ ’long wuz yo’ Unk A’on dar. De dogs was a-gainin’ on ’im eve’y
jump. He seed Miss Rachel an’ Marse Dave Henry stan’in’ dar, an’ he went
up ter whar dey wuz, an’ say: ‘You see what I git fer tellin’ you las’
night.’ Marse Dave Henry ’low, ‘I wish ter God I could help you!’ Miss
Rachel riz on her tiptoes, an’ stretch out her han’ an’ say, ‘Take dat
filly dar an’ ride her home fer me!’ She looked lots bigger dan what
Marse Dave Henry did. I tell you now, when you git de Abercrombie blood
stirred up you better go off som’rs twel it cool off.

“Well, Unk A’on dar, he fetched a jump er two an’ jerked de reins out’n
my han’, an’ lipt on de filly’s back—behine de side-saddle, now, mind
you—an’ hit her wid his heels a time er two, an’ wuz done gone ’fo’ I
could git up offin’ de groun’ whar I fell at. Den Marse Dave Henry flung
his gun ’cross his lef’ arm an’ put some fresh caps on it, an’ dar he
hilt it.

“Bimeby, here come de dogs. Dey sailed ’roun’, an’ sailed ’roun’, but
dey couldn’t go no fudder. Den here come dat ol’ Mr. Gossett. I hope
he’ll go ter heaven, but I never shill b’lieve it twel I see ’im dar. He
come a-follerin’ long atter de dogs. He rid up an’ tuck off his hat when
he see Miss Rachel. But na’er one un um do like dey know he’s a-livin’.
Miss Rachel she look at Marse Dave Henry, an’ Marse Dave Henry, he look
right straight at ol’ Mr. Gossett. He sot dar on his hoss an’ look at
um, an’ thump de pummel er his saddle like he studyin’ ’bout sump’n ’way
off yon’er—an’ den he spied me. He lif’ his hat agin, like he tellin’ um
good-by, an’ den he rid up by me. He say, ‘Gal, is you seed any nigger
man runnin’ ’long by here?’ I look at Miss Rachel, an’ she drapt her
eyeleds. I say, ‘Yasser.’ He say, ‘Which away wuz he gwine?’ I look at
Miss Rachel, an’ she thow her eyes over ter de lef’, an’ I pint dat way
an’ ’low, ‘Cross yon’er.’ He sot dar, dat ar white man did, an’ look at
me n’ thump de pummel er his saddle, en den he broke out in a big laugh
an’ rid on. I tell you now, ol’ Nick wa’n’t no sharper dan dat ar white
man.

“Marse Dave Henry made a motion like he wuz gwine ter foller on atter
ol’ Mr. Gossett, but Miss Rachel, she laid her han’ on his arm, an’ den
we all walked back home. De las’ word I say ter Miss Rachel—an’ she’ll
tell you so herse’f—wuz, ‘I tol’ you you wa’n’t huntin’ no flowers;’ an’
she ’low, ‘How kin anybody hunt flowers when de woods is full er runaway
niggers an’ dogs?’ an’ I say, ‘You ain’t call de name er all what de
woods wuz full uv;’ an’ she ’low ef I don’t hush up, she’ll be mad wid me
all de balance er de week, an’ den I hushed up.”

Jemimy paused, looked all around, and then turned to the children:—

“Don’t you dast ter tell yo’ ma dat I been gwine on wid all dish yer ol’
time foolishness, kaze ef you do, she’ll take me out’n de kitchen an’
sen’ me ter de cotton patch, an’ I’m doin’ mighty well whar I is.”

Then, after telling Drusilla not to be sitting up all night, she went
out.

VII.

RAMBLER, THE TRACK DOG, CONCLUDES HIS STORY.

“Where did you go when you rode the filly off?” Buster John asked Aaron.

“He came right here,” said Rambler; “I know it, because when old Grizzly
whistled to me and my companions and started home, I went back, picked up
the scent of the filly, and followed it here. At the lot, the Son of Ben
Ali took the saddle off, hung it under the shed, and then came to this
house.”

“That is so,” remarked Aaron; “an old man by the name of Abe lived here.”

“Why, I remember old Uncle Abe,” said Buster John. “He used to sit in the
sun and make horse collars and baskets, and tell tales.”

“He was a great hand for that,” assented Aaron.

“I followed him here,” continued Rambler, “but found the door shut. I
scratched at it and whined. The man named Abe opened it, and I came in,
but I didn’t see anything of the Son of Ben Ali. But I knew he was in
here. My nose told me so. I noticed some planks across the rafters—they
are there yet, as you can see—and I looked up and whined. The man named
Abe looked around until he found his axe. ‘So you are Gossett’s nigger
dog,’ he said. ‘Well, you’ll never hunt any more niggers for him.’

“‘What is that?’ said the Son of Ben Ali from the loft.

“‘Gossett’s nigger dog,’ said the man named Abe. ‘He has followed you
here. What shall I do with him?’

“‘Give him something to eat,’ answered the Son of Ben Ali, and this made
me glad, for I had had a long, a hot, and a hard chase.

“‘What shall I do then?’ asked the man named Abe.

“‘Give him a drink of clean water,’ replied the Son of Ben Ali.

“‘What then?’

“‘Then let him alone.’

[Illustration: I LOOKED UP AND WHINED]

“Now, I was very glad of that,” continued Rambler, licking his chops, and
keeping one eye on the sputtering pine knot that gave out a flickering
light, “for I wanted bread, and I wanted water, and I wanted to lie down
and rest somewhere, where I wouldn’t have to fight the flies.

“So the man named Abe went into his cupboard—that same cupboard there—and
gave me a big chunk of ash cake, and placed a pan of water close by. Then
he sat in the door and began to weave his baskets. I ate all he gave me,
drank as much water as I wanted, and crept under a low bedstead that
stood in the corner yonder.

“I don’t know how long I slept, but when I woke I knew it was night, for
I heard the man named Abe frying his bacon, and the smell of it crept
under the bed where I was, and made me as hungry as I had been before I
ate. After a while I heard voices. The Son of Ben Ali was asking the man
named Abe if he would have to stay in the loft on the planks all night.
The man named Abe said no, that he had a snug place for the Son of Ben
Ali.

“Now, at that time there was a sort of closet or something near where the
chimney juts out here. The man named Abe had nailed some planks across
from the wall to the edge of the chimney, and in between the wall and the
planks there was room enough for a man to stand up, or to lie down, if he
lay on his side.

“After a while, when everything was quiet, the Son of Ben Ali clambered
down the wall, but when he touched the floor he stumbled and fell over,
groaning. The man named Abe was scared nearly to death, but it was
nothing. I had been running hard, and I was stiff and sore. The Son of
Ben Ali had been running hard, and he was stiff and sore. Besides, he
had been lying on the planks in the loft in a cramped position, not
daring to move, for fear he would be discovered, and this made the matter
worse. But it was nothing, after all. The Son of Ben Ali raised himself,
laughing, and limped into the closet.

“But he didn’t stay there long. He came out to stretch himself. This made
the man named Abe uneasy, and then he became angry. But the Son of Ben
Ali simply laughed at him. This made him still angrier, and he threatened
to go to the white folk’s house—that’s what he called it—and tell them
that a runaway negro had taken possession of his cabin. The man named
Abe started out. I don’t know whether he would have gone if he had been
let alone, but he was not let alone. The Son of Ben Ali seized him by the
shoulders and jammed him down on his stool, and then stood over him. The
man named Abe would have cried out, but the Son of Ben Ali placed his
hand softly on the man’s mouth and spoke one word—‘Listen!’—but that was
enough.

“The man named Abe quieted down at once. But he said he would be killed
if the white people caught him hiding a runaway. At this, the Son of Ben
Ali called me to him and said:—

“‘Go out and stand by the door there. When you hear any one coming, say
so.’

“I limped out from under the bed the best I could, for I was stiff, and
scratched at the door and asked to be let out. The man named Abe opened
the door, and watched to see what I would do. I only went a few steps
away from the door, and then sat down, turning my head in all directions
and listening. When the man named Abe shut the door again, I went and sat
on the steps. I heard the man ask the Son of Ben Ali if he was a witch,
and the reply he got was that the Son of Ben Ali was witch enough not to
be caught any more. Then the man named Abe wanted to know if the Son of
Ben Ali was angry with him, and the answer he got was that the Son of Ben
Ali was the friend of those who were his friends and was never angry with
them.

“Well, they had their supper in there, for I could hear them chewing,
and presently the man named Abe came to the door and gave me mine, the
biggest half of a warm hoe-cake, and I don’t know that plain bread ever
tasted better than it did right then.

“Not long after that I heard some one laughing and talking in the
direction of the big house up yonder, and the sounds seemed to get
nearer. I gave the warning, and I soon heard the Son of Ben Ali go into
the closet. The voices came nearer, and I soon knew one for the Young
Mistress, whom I had heard talking in the woods that very morning. The
other seemed to be the voice of a child, but I heard thump—thump—thump—as
of some one walking with a heavy cane. So I said to myself the Master is
with them. But, no; it was the little boy, who walked with the crutches,
as I soon saw. He was pleading with his sister to come to the house of
the man named Abe and get him to tell a tale, such as he used to tell her
when she was a little girl. She said she was too large for that, but the
Little Master declared that he was small enough for both of them. And so
they came to the door.

“The Young Mistress called out ‘Uncle Abe!’ and the man named Abe opened
the door. He looked out cautiously, and with a frown on his face, as I
could see; but when he found who it was he danced around, and opened the
door as nimbly as if he had been a young man. I try to be polite myself,
and sometimes I shake my tail pretty hard, but the man named Abe shook
his whole body, he was so polite, and bowed nearly to the floor. And it
wasn’t put on, neither, as I found out afterward, for every one on the
place loved the Young Mistress and Little Master. These two went in, and
I followed them. I wanted to see what would happen.

“After a while, in bustling around, one of them stepped on my foot. Of
course this hurt my feelings, and I cried out.

“‘Poor doggie!’ said the Little Master. ‘Come here!’ He looked at me
closely, and exclaimed:—

“‘Why, this is one of the Gossett track dogs! What is he doing here?’

“But the man named Abe said he didn’t know. Then the Young Mistress
wondered if I was one of the dogs that had been running after a negro in
the woods that morning, and she asked the man named Abe, looking at him
hard, if he had seen a strange negro bring the filly home. But the man
named Abe shook his head and fumbled with the splits which he wove into
baskets.

“The Little Master said he had come to hear a story, one of those old
stories about Brother Fox and Brother Rabbit. I thought to myself that
if all the rabbits I had caught could talk, they would have more stories
to tell than the Little Master had time to listen to. The man named Abe
shuffled around and coughed and excused himself, but it was no use. I
knew he wanted the Young Mistress and the Little Master to go away. He
was uneasy about the Son of Ben Ali—afraid that they might discover the
runaway. But nothing would satisfy the Little Master but a story, and
so the man named Abe sat down and told him one. And then nothing would
satisfy him but another story, and so they went on, until finally I fell
asleep by the hearth. I could hear the story-telling going on in my
dreams, and I remember I said to myself that if the man named Abe, or any
other man, was as willing to work as he was to talk, a good many things
would be different.

“While I was lying there dozing, I heard the Son of Ben Ali begin to
snore. The Little Master heard it too, for he asked what the noise was.
The man named Abe said it was the dog—meaning me—and then he went on with
his story, moving his feet about on the floor and talking loud. I dozed
off again, and was getting ready to go to sleep sure enough, for I was
tired, when suddenly I heard a noise outside, as of two or three persons
creeping around the cabin. I jumped up and ran to the door and smelt
under it. The scent that came under the door was the scent of strange
persons, and of white people at that. Just as I was about to cry out my
discovery I got a whiff of another scent. I knew at once that George
Gossett was with the strange persons, and that they were patroling the
settlement searching for the Son of Ben Ali.

“I gave one whine, and ran under the bed, for I didn’t want young Grizzly
to see me there.

“‘What is the matter with the dog?’ asked the Young Mistress, in some
alarm.

“‘Sh-h!’ said the man named Abe, softly.

“Then some one struck the door with a cane, following it with a loud
demand:—

“‘Hello, here! Open this door!’

“Peeping from under the bed, I watched to see what would happen. The man
named Abe looked hard at the Young Mistress. She, rising, swung the chair
behind her, leaning on it with her left hand. She lifted her right arm
and waved it toward the door.

“‘Open it!’ she said.

“The man named Abe did as he was bid. He threw it open suddenly and stood
behind it. Young Grizzly must have been leaning heavily against it, for
he stumbled into the room and came near falling.

“‘What are you trying to do? Why you’—Then, looking up, he caught
sight of the Young Mistress standing there with anger in her face.
Young Grizzly took off his hat and bowed low. There were pieces of
sticking-plaster on his forehead and cheek bones. He caught his breath
and stammered: ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, I’—

“‘Uncle Abe,’ said the Young Mistress, ‘go to the house and tell father
that Mr. Gossett—Mr. George Gossett—has called to see him on business,
but has missed his way.’

“‘Not at all, Miss Rachel! Not at all! I beg ten thousand pardons! I was
hunting a runaway nigger in the settlement, and I thought perhaps—maybe—I
might find him here. A runaway nigger you know, Miss Rachel, is just as
apt to be in one place as another.’ In this way spoke young Grizzly, as
he backed out at the door, still bowing.

“‘Then, Uncle Abe, tell father that Mr. George Gossett believes one of
his runaways is hid on his place, and wants to find him.’

“‘By no means, Miss Rachel—by no means! Not for the world. You know me
too well not to know that I never intended any disrespect to you. Not the
least bit in the world.’ So said young Grizzly.

“‘Who are your companions, sir?’ asked the Young Mistress, going toward
the door.

“‘Just some of the neighbor boys, ma’am. I asked them to come with me.
None of us meant the least harm, and certainly no disrespect to you.’
Thus spoke young Grizzly.

“By this time his companions had taken to their heels, and young Grizzly
was quick to follow their example as soon as he got out of reach of the
Young Mistress’s eyes. So said the man named Abe, and he was standing
where he could see, having pretended to go after the White-haired Master.
Never have I seen a white man more frightened than young Grizzly was.”

“What was he afraid of?” asked Sweetest Susan.

“Buckshot,” replied Aaron.

Rambler yawned and then continued:—

“The Little Master was even angrier than the Young Mistress, but he had
said nothing. When the door was shut he struck the floor with his crutch
and cried out:—

“‘Oh, I hope it is Aaron they are after, and I hope they will never get
him.’

“‘Aaron is his name,’ said the man named Abe.

[Illustration: YOUNG GRIZZLY BOWED LOW]

“‘He rode my filly home to-day,’ the Young Mistress said.

“‘Did he? Did he? I’ll kiss you, sis, for that!’ So spoke the Little
Master, and he was as good as his word. He hopped nearly across the floor
on his crutches and smacked the Young Mistress right in the mouth.

“I was wondering whether the Son of Ben Ali was sleeping all this
time, so I went and sat by the closet. I could hear the Son of Ben Ali
breathing very hard, and I said to myself, if he is not asleep, he is
sitting in there crying.”

Sweetest Susan looked at Aaron, and her beautiful eyes were full of
tears. Aaron shook his head and smiled, and then pretended to be gazing
at something in the fireplace.

“He may have been laughing,” continued Rambler, licking his foreleg,
where a briar had scratched it, “but as there was nothing to laugh at,
that I could see, I thought maybe he was crying. But maybe he wasn’t. I’m
never certain of anything until I get my nose on it, and there was a wall
between the Son of Ben Ali and me.

“The Young Mistress and the Little Master were very angry, but before
they could say much a very curious thing happened. The door of the closet
flew open, and the Son of Ben Ali tumbled out in a heap on the floor. The
Young Mistress fell back a step or two and gave a little scream, but the
Little Master stood his ground and lifted his crutch in a threatening
manner. But the Son of Ben Ali simply fell out of the closet in a heap.
He was still stiff and sore, and by the time he had gathered himself
together the Young Mistress knew who he was, and in a moment, too, the
Little Master knew him.

“‘Why, it’s Aaron!’ he cried, though nobody ever told me why any one ever
called the Son of Ben Ali Aaron.

“Then he seized the Son of Ben Ali’s hand, and stood leaning against him
for support, as he did many and many a day and night after, as I have
seen. The Little Master’s head came no higher than the Son of Ben Ali’s
shoulder, though the child was standing on his feet, and the Son of Ben
Ali on his knees.

“The Young Mistress said: ‘If you stay here they will catch you, sure.’

“The Son of Ben Ali shook his head, and the man named Abe made this
reply: ‘No, ma’am, they’ll not come back here in a hurry, after hearing
what you said.’

“At this, they all laughed, except the Son of Ben Ali. ‘You may be
certain,’ he said, ‘that I’ll not stay here where I can be seen. The
Gossett negroes go hungry every day in the year, and for an extra pint of
meal they would tell everything they know and more too. And I would be
the last to blame them.’

“Then suddenly the Little Master spoke: ‘Can you climb a tree?’

“‘By this time I ought to know how,’ said the Son of Ben Ali.

“‘Then come, I’ll show you.’ So saying, the Little Master swung himself
on his crutches and went hopping to the door as nimbly as if his legs
were sound and whole. And the Young Mistress went too, and I followed.

“But by the time the Little Master had reached the door the Son of Ben
Ali was out and before him.

“‘You are such a good rider, I’ll be your horse,’ said the Son of Ben
Ali.

“He took the crutches, leaned them against the door, and swung the Little
Master to his broad back, picking up the crutches, and sore as he was,
pretended to be a horse. We went toward the big house.

“If you will notice, the stump of a big oak tree stands near the back
porch. Before the tree was killed by fire, a big limb stretched to the
little balcony above the porch. At least, it used to be so. The Little
Master showed this tree and the limb and the balcony to the Son of Ben
Ali, and told him that the big window that opened on the balcony was in
his room. And he said to him:—

“‘Whenever at night you feel lonely and tired, climb these stairs and
come to my room. Many a night I lie awake and count the stars, and I
should like to have you there to talk to me. You may come to-night, if
you will.’

“The Son of Ben Ali stood a moment after he had placed the Little Master
on the steps and given him his crutches.

“‘Not to-night—not to-night, Little Master. But before long I’ll come.
To-night I must go into the woods and find me a hiding-place.’

“So said the Son of Ben Ali, and then he seized the Little Master’s hand
and kissed it, bowed to the Young Mistress, whistled for me, and went off
into the woods humming an old tune that made me feel sorry.”

At this point Rambler tried to scratch between his shoulders, first with
one hind foot and then with the other. Then he tried to bite the fleas,
but he couldn’t reach them, being old and stiff; and he sat and whined
so pitifully that Aaron rubbed his back with a pine knot. This seemed
to give him great relief, so much so that, hearing the dogs barking in
another part of the lot, he ran out at the door to join them, and soon
the deep mellow sound of his voice was heard baying with the rest.

Shortly afterward the children bade Aaron good-night, and it wasn’t long
before they were all in bed and sound asleep.

VIII.

GRUNTER, THE WHITE PIG.

When the children awoke the next morning, they found that they were as
much puzzled as ever about Aaron. He had escaped from Mr. Gossett and the
patrol, and he had gone into the woods; but what then? What did he do
there? How long did he stay? There were a thousand questions they wanted
to ask. So the next time they saw Aaron, and each time thereafter, they
begged him to tell them this and tell them that, until finally he said he
would take them over to the two-mile place some fine day, and show them
the White Pig.

Now, on that plantation, the White Pig was a well-known character. His
history was a short one, but it was enough. A good many years before
that, an old sow, with thirteen pigs following her, concluded to go
traveling. She refused to come up to be fed when the other hogs were
called. Nobody knew the reason. The hog feeder had a beautiful song to
call them with, and a strong, melodious voice with which to sing the
song—a voice that could be heard from one end of the plantation to the
other. But however long or however loud he might call, the old sow with
her thirteen pigs kept close in the swamp.

Day after day the hog feeder called; day after day he expected them to
come; and day after day they failed to come. After so long a time he went
to hunt them. The old sow he found, but her pigs were missing. Some said
the foxes and wildcats had caught the young ones, and some said they had
gone wild in the swamp. But when the negroes planted their watermelon and
goober patches, they soon found out that not all of the pigs had been
caught.

Then a great effort was made to catch them. Some were run down and caught
with dogs, and some were shot; but one, the most mischievous of all, was
never caught. He kept out of the way of the guns, and he ripped open and
killed all the dog’s that came within reach of him. He was fleet of foot
and cunning. He never came out of the canebrake except at night, and he
was so white and swift that the negroes came to be afraid of him. They
said to themselves that a pig that could fool the white people and outrun
a pack of foxhounds must be something more than a common pig.

Consequently, when they were going through the fields at dead of night
and heard the White Pig crunching goobers, or chewing sugar-cane, or
smacking his mouth over a yam potato, they said nothing, but slipped away
as fast as they could, and left him to the enjoyment of his feast. This
went on until the White Pig grew to be strong and dangerous. His tusks,
or tushes, as the negroes called them, were long and sharp. He could kill
as many dogs as could be piled upon him. When a catch dog was sent after
him, he had a great trick of running until the dog came close enough, and
then wheeling and ripping the pursuer’s hide open.

[Illustration: THE WHITE PIG GREW STRONG AND DANGEROUS]

It came to pass that the sport of hunting the White Pig grew too
dangerous to be indulged in, so he was left to roam in the swamps and
cane-brakes with no one to molest. It happened, too, that as soon as
he was left alone, the White Pig ceased to molest the watermelons,
sugar-canes, sweet potatoes, goobers, and other truck, which the negroes
were allowed to raise in order to make themselves a little pocket money.
For a long time this was the wonder of the plantation, and yet none of
the patches planted by the negroes were torn up and destroyed. Then, as
everybody got used to this state of things, it ceased to be astonishing,
and was no longer talked of. And some of the negroes even forgot that the
White Pig was still at large, ready and willing to kill and cripple the
biggest pack of dogs that could be sent against him.

This, then, was the White Pig that Aaron said he would have to show the
children. Many and many a time they had been told not to go too far from
the house for fear the White Pig would catch them. They had been taught
to regard the White Pig as the Booger-Bear of the plantation, and they,
as well as the negroes, stood greatly in awe of him, the more so as they
had never seen him. It is no wonder, therefore, that they looked at one
another with some astonishment when Aaron told them that he would have to
take them to the two-mile place and show them the White Pig.

“I speck he’s tired of foolin’ ’long wid us,” said Drusilla, by way of
explanation, “an’ I don’t blame him much, kaze you-all been a-follerin’
atter him an’ a-ding-dongin’ at him twel he done plum’ wo’ out.”

“You too!” exclaimed Buster John.

“Not me!” protested Drusilla. “No, suh! I ain’t been a-ding-dongin’ atter
Unk A’on; I ben a-follerin’ atter you-all, an’ dat what Mistiss tol’ me
ter do. Ef I don’t do it, she’ll make me tote water fer mammy ter wash de
cloze wid, an’ I know mighty well I don’t want ter do dat.”

But Aaron, as it turned out, was not joking at all. So, one pleasant
morning, when he saw them playing in the spring lot, he gave them to
understand that the time had come for them to make the acquaintance of
the White Pig, and Buster John said he was quite ready; but Sweetest
Susan looked at Drusilla and hesitated a little. Drusilla looked at
Sweetest Susan and hesitated a good deal. In fact, she drew back.

“Now, I tell you what,” she said, “you-all kin go on out dar in de swamp
an’ le’ me stay here, an’ den when you come back you kin set down an’
tell me all ’bout it.”

“But mamma said you were to go with us wherever we went,” Sweetest Susan
reminded her.

“Dat what she say,” replied Drusilla, “yit she ain’t tell me to go wid
you out dar whar dat ar wil’ hog is, which he done cripple a hoss an’
kilt a yardful er dogs. Unk A’on kin take keer er you lots better dan
what I kin.”

“Come on,” said Buster John to Sweetest Susan. “Let her stay if she wants
to.”

“Yes,” remarked Aaron, “she’s big enough to go to the field now. We need
her there right now.”

This didn’t suit Drusilla at all, so she ran toward the others, laughing.

“I wuz des foolin’,” she said. “I des wanted ter see what you-all gwine
ter do. You may not need me, but I’m gwine anyhow, an’ ef de White Pig
git me, you’ll hatter answer to Mistiss for it.”

Aaron hitched a mule to the plantation cart, and in this rig they made
their way to the two-mile place. They jogged along the little-used road,
the journey being enlivened by some of the queer songs that Aaron was in
the habit of singing when he was in a good humor. They went nearly to
the river—the Oconee—and then Aaron turned out of the plantation road,
and drove straight through the woods and bushes until they came in sight
of a big cane-brake. Here he stopped, took the mule from the cart, and
fastened him with a long tether, so that he could browse around, and
nibble the grass and bushes. Then he lifted Sweetest Susan to his broad
shoulders, took Buster John by the hand, and went toward the cane-brake.
He went on until he came to the damp ground near the edge of the swamp.
Selecting a dry place—a little knoll higher than the rest—Aaron stationed
the children there, and then went to the verge of the cane-brake.
Here he paused, placed his two hands to his mouth, and gave utterance
to a peculiar call, or cry. It sounded as if he were trying to say,
“Goof—goof—goof!” but had smothered the noise with his hands. It was loud
enough to be heard a considerable distance, however, for after he had
repeated the call three times there was a reply from the farther side of
the swamp, and presently the children heard a rushing, crashing sound
among the canes.

Sweetest Susan crept a little closer to Buster John, and Drusilla
snuggled up to Sweetest Susan. The children were not frightened, but they
were filled with unknown anticipations. They knew not what to expect
next. The crashing noise in the canes seemed to come nearer, and then it
suddenly stopped. If it was the White Pig, he was listening.

“Come, White Pig! Come, Grunter, come!” called Aaron. “Are you then
afraid?”

The crashing sound in the canes was renewed more violently than ever, and
in a moment the White Pig—the terror of the plantation—burst from the
reeds with a grunt that was nearly a roar.

“I dunner what they call him a pig fer,” whispered Drusilla, “he big
enough for two hogs.”

And this was true. The White Pig was not fat, but he was lean and tall.
He was not a pretty pig by any means. There was a vicious twinkle in his
eye. His body was nearly covered with mud, and one of his ears was gone,
having been torn away by dogs when he was less able to defend himself
than now.

“It is long since I’ve seen you, Son of Ben Ali. Humph! No wonder! What
am I?”

Aaron was about to say something, but the quick, restless eye of the
White Pig caught sight of the children, and, with a snort of mingled fear
and rage, he plunged into the cane-brake again. He ran a little way, as
the children could see by the shaking of the reeds, and then stopped to
listen. He heard nothing but the loud laugh Aaron sent after him.

“Go, then!” cried Aaron. “Go and stay. In the light here your shadow will
catch you. Go, then! The White Pig that used to roam these fields with me
had neither the heart nor the feet of a fox.”

Presently, when everything was quiet, the children could see by the
shaking of the reeds, that the White Pig was coming out again. But this
time he came no further than the edge of the swamp. Nothing could be seen
except his head and shoulders, and these, with one ear gone, were not as
pretty as a picture. His bristles stood up straight and stiff, from fear
or anger, giving him a ragged appearance, and he opened and closed his
mouth viciously.

“Humph! humph!” he said. “Who are these, Son of Ben Ali, and what trap
have you set for me?”

“Some little children armed with broom straws,” laughed Aaron. “Run,
White Pig, run. They will catch you, sure!”

“Boof!” cried the White Pig contemptuously. “The Spotted Sow goes about
with her children squealing behind her. When did the Son of Ben Ali take
up that trade? Boof!”

“When the White Pig became afraid of his shadow,” replied Aaron.

“Then why call me?” asked the White Pig.

Aaron shook his head slowly. “You are right,” he replied. “Why should I
call you at night, when I have a basket of new corn scattered for you?”

“Humph!” grunted the White Pig.

“I call you because I choose to. The children yonder have seen the sign;
they have been touched. They know who we are and what we are. Two belong
by blood to the Little Master. That is enough for me.”

“Humph! Boof! Son of Ben Ali, it is also enough for me. Goof! I have seen
them—they have seen me—what more can I do? Why should I stay? The mud in
the swamp is soft and cool, but here the sun shines hot.”

“If I had a bag of corn,” suggested Aaron.

“I say nothing, Son of Ben Ali. I see no corn, and the sun shines hot.
What am I to do?”

“These who have been touched and who have seen the sign are here to speak
with you. They came to hear you tell of the time when you and I lived in
these fields together, sleeping and hiding in the daytime, and slipping
about at night.”

The White Pig’s bristles no longer stood up.

“Humph!” he grunted. “I will go wallow in the branch and wash the mud
off.”

“He gone ter wash his face and hands, an’ comb his hair,” whispered
Drusilla. “I speck he gwine ter come buljin’ out’n dat swamp terreckly,
an’ den what we gwine do? Ef he look hard at me, I’m gwine ter fall right
flat on de groun’ an’ holler loud ez I kin squall.”

“Well, if you do that,” said Buster John, “you’ll scare him, and they say
that when a wild hog is scared he gets mad.”

“I do’ know what I’m gwine ter do,” remarked Drusilla, after a pause,
during which she seemed to be thinking. “But I tell you now, I feel
mighty quare. Ef dey wuz any tree ’roun’ here I’d climb it er break my
neck tryin’. You-all is de outdoinest white chillun I ever hear tell
un—comin’ way out here from yo’ pa an’ ma des ter be ripped up an’ kilt
by a great big ol’ wil’ hog.”

“You know the way back to the wagon,” said Buster John. “Just go there
and wait till we come. You make too much fuss anyhow.”

“Go dar by myself!” exclaimed Drusilla. “No, suh! You don’ know me! I
wouldn’t go ’cross dat hill dar by myse’f, not fer ham! Uh-uh! I know I
ain’t got much sense, but I got mo’ sense dan dat. I wouldn’t mo’ dan
git out er sight er you-all fo’ dat ar White Pig would have me. He may
be gwine ter ketch me anyhow, but ef he do I’ll be right here where
you-all kin see me. You done brung me, en ef I git kilt, you-all will be
de ’casion un it. Ef Marster an’ Mistiss done come ter de pass whar dey
want de niggers fed ter hogs, an’ wil’ hogs at dat, den I ain’t got no
complaints ter make.”

But Buster John and Sweetest Susan were paying the smallest attention to
Drusilla. They were watching Aaron, and waiting for the White Pig to make
his appearance again. Finally Aaron turned away from the swamp and came
to the children, and presently they heard the White Pig coming up behind
them, grunting and “goofing,” though not so fiercely as before.

Drusilla turned and saw him coming, and exclaimed: “Dar now! what I
tell you. Ef I’d a-started to’rds dat wagon, he’d a got me sho ez de
worl’. An’ he may git me yit.” She jumped up and ran towards Aaron for
protection. But he shook her in a way to convince her that she would do
well to keep quiet.

The White Pig had gone into the swamp, wallowed in the clean water of
the branch, and had then come out and gone around half a mile to see
that there was no ambuscade. He seemed to be very well satisfied, for he
grunted in a good-humored way as he trotted up.

“You didn’t go far enough, White Pig,” said Aaron, “I forgot you were
growing old. My men are hid behind the wagon on the other hill. Next time
I will bring them nearer—even to the edge of the swamp.”

“Goof—goof!” replied the White Pig. “What would you have? I am alone.
You are yonder. I am here. How do I know that the Son of Ben Ali remains
the same? Humph! let me see for myself. Once you would go far to scratch
my back till I fell asleep in the shade. Once you would shake down the
scalybarks in the woods. Now you fling corn here and there and go your
way. And sometimes many suns and moons come between the baskets of corn.
Do I complain? Goof! I go into the cool swamp and tell the red squirrels
that the Son of Ben Ali is sick, or away on a journey. And they say
‘Come,’ and we go into the woods beyond the swamp, and then the red
squirrels shake down the scalybarks and the hickory nuts. Goof! goof!”

Aaron laid his hand on the White Pig’s back and passed it gently through
the thick bristles.

“That is so,” said Aaron, “but you forget about the yams that are left
buried in the field for you. You forget the goobers, the turnips, and the
bank of sugar-cane. You forget the corn that is scattered here and there
for you every day when the weather is cold.”

“Goof! Why should I think of them, Son of Ben Ali? Hot or cold, the long
swamp is a feed trough for me. I need never come out of it. What is it to
me if you come empty-handed, so you come? Do you think I have forgotten
the long nights when I trotted through the woods with you? Or when I
ran to the sound of your whistling? Or when I charged the hounds that
were trailing you and drove them away? I was thinking only of the Son of
Ben Ali. I am getting very old. My tusks are yellow, and one of them is
broken. I can run, but not so swiftly as when I carried you the news of
the great fire one night. No, my legs fail me.”

“You are old,” said Aaron. “Of all your kind, you are the oldest I have
ever seen.”

“Goof—humph! Why not? All the rest are glad to run into the pen when
they hear corn falling from the basket. They go in and eat and sleep
until they are fat, and then some cold night you see the fires lit, and
then, one after another you hear the fat fools in the pen squeal. Then
in the morning you can see them hanging by their heels in a row. Goof! I
have seen it. Hanging by their heels, their hair off, and their throats
cut. Oof! It makes me shiver. I saw it when I was running about with
my mother, and though I have gone hungry many a night, never did I go
through a gap in the fence that was left for me, and never did I follow
the rest when they went to be fed in the pen.”

[Illustration: GRUNTER ASKING THE RED SQUIRRELS FOR NUTS]

All this time the White Pig, using his forefeet as pivots, turned his
body first one way and then the other, watching every open space, and
often pausing to listen. There was an air of wildness about him that kept
the children quiet and subdued.

“These,” said Aaron, “are my friends. They shall be yours, if you choose.”

“Humph! What do they want with me?”

“We want to hear you tell about the time when Uncle Aaron was a runaway,”
suggested Buster John.

“Goof! Who is Uncle Aaron?” asked the White Pig.

“Me,” said Aaron.

“Oof—oof!” cried the White Pig, scornfully. “Return to the swamp, Son of
Ben Ali, where we have no such names. The paths are all there. I have
kept them hard and firm. Come!”

Aaron shook his head. “It is too late,” he said. “I belong yonder; you
belong here.”

“Then I’ll go where I belong. Ooft!”

“When you have pleased my friends.”

“To-morrow, Son of Ben Ali. Not now. They are too far from home.
To-night, when the moon stands high, I’ll come through the long lane that
has been closed, and hide in the plum thicket that has been left in the
peach orchard.”

“So then,” said Aaron, “we will go. Before long I’ll come and have a race
with you in the swamp.”

“Oof—ooft!” grunted the White Pig. “You shall win if you can!”

Then Aaron and the children started back to where they had left the
wagon. The White Pig trotted with them a quarter of a mile or more, and
then paused and sniffed the air.

“Gooft! The sun is too bright here. As for me, I travel in the dark.”

With that he turned and went galloping back into the swamp.

IX.

THE WHITE PIG’S STORY.

The next day the children were ready to go to the plum thicket in the
peach orchard as soon as they had their breakfast, but while they were
talking about it a new trouble arose. It grew out of a question asked by
Drusilla.

“Is Unk A’on gwine ’long wid us?” she inquired.

It was a natural and an innocent question, but it presented a difficulty.
Sweetest Susan looked at Buster John for an answer, and Buster John
looked at Sweetest Susan and Drusilla, but made no reply.

“Kaze ef he ain’t,” remarked Drusilla, pursuing the subject, “you’ll des
hatter count me out. I’ll stan’ off som’ers whar I kin run an’ holler
when dat ar wil’ hog git mad an’ rip you up, but when it comes ter gwine
right whar he is when Unk A’on ain’t wid us, I ain’t gwine ter do it. So
dar you got it, flat an’ plain. I ain’t gwine. I watch his eye yistiddy,
an’ time I see it lookin’ red on de eye-ball, I know’d dat ar hog was
rank pizen when he git mad.”

Finally Buster John said he would find Aaron, but Aaron was not to be
found. He had gone off with the plow hands early in the morning, and
wouldn’t be back before night. Thereupon Buster John declared that he was
going to the plum thicket, if he had to go by himself.

“I’m most afraid,” said Sweetest Susan.

“I’m wuss’n dat,” exclaimed Drusilla. “I’m skeered des dry so.”

“Then both of you stay where you are,” cried Buster John. He started
off very boldly, but not without some misgivings. Looking back without
pretending to do so, he saw Sweetest Susan coming, though very slowly,
while Drusilla was dragging along and bringing up the rear, quarreling,
and begging Sweetest Susan to turn back. Buster John stopped and told his
sister to come on, and waited for her.

“I’ll go whar I kin see how dat wil’ hog do when he eats folks, but
hosses can’t drag me in dat ar plum thicket whar he hidin’,” remarked
Drusilla.

Sweetest Susan was not much afraid, seeing Buster John so bold, and
Buster John was made bolder by the fact that his sister seemed willing to
go. So they went, Drusilla bringing up the rear and protesting.

The plum thicket grew on each side of a gully that had washed in the
lower part of the orchard. The plum trees were small and grew very close
together, and the gully was filled with a season’s growth of weeds that
had not been uprooted by the rains. So that, taken altogether, the plum
thicket was a very convenient hiding-place for the White Pig, or for any
other creature not larger than a horse.

The children approached it cautiously, and hesitated about entering.
While they were halting and considering what to do, they heard a grunt
from the middle of the thicket—a grunt as friendly and as familiar as
if it came from a fat hog in a pen. Reassured by this, Buster John went
into the thicket, followed by Sweetest Susan. They went in cautiously and
looked about them very cautiously, but they could see nothing.

“Ooft—gooft!” grunted the White Pig in a contented manner. “Where am I?
Can’t you find me?”

They looked about them with all the eyes they had, but failed to find
him. Their search became so interesting that Sweetest Susan laughed.
There was nothing to laugh at, but she was so thrilled by the excitement
of trying to find the White Pig—and he was not a small pig by any
means—that she had to express her feelings in some way, and so she
laughed.

At that moment Drusilla came to the edge of the thicket. Hearing Sweetest
Susan laugh, she grew bold enough to venture in.

“What you-all doin,’ I like ter know?” she asked in a somewhat dubious
tone.

“Oh, come and help us, Drusilla!” cried Sweetest Susan, as gleefully as
if she were playing hide-the-switch, or kick-the-can. “We are trying to
find him. He’s hiding in here, and we can’t find him. Come on!”

Drusilla joined the others, but not with any degree of enthusiasm.
“You-all want ter fin’ ’im lots wuss’n I does. I’m mo’ fear’d er fin’in’
’im dan I is er not fin’in’ ’im.”

[Illustration: THE WHITE PIG TELLS HIS STORY]

“Let’s go across the gully,” said Buster John. He ran down the bank,
through the thick weeds, and out on the other side, followed by Sweetest
Susan. Drusilla would have followed, too, but just as she had reached the
bottom of the gully and started through the weeds, the White Pig rose by
her side with a loud grunt. Drusilla was so terrified that she sank in
the weeds, unable to utter a sound. Sweetest Susan screamed and Buster
John was so taken by surprise and so confused, that for an instant he was
undecided whether to take to his heels, dragging his sister after him, or
whether to stand his ground.

“Gooft—ooft!” grunted the White Pig. “What is the matter here?”

With this he walked out of the gully, went past Buster John and Drusilla,
and lay down where the shade was thickest. Drusilla recovered almost
immediately, and, as sometimes happens with older and more enlightened
people, anger took the place of fear. To the surprise of her companions,
she came out of the gully, walked straight to the White Pig, and sat down
by him, so close that she might have touched him with her hand without
unbending her arm.

“Humph!” grunted the White Pig, in a friendly way. “That is better. The
Son of Ben Ali brought some roasting ears before the sun came out. They
were very fine—sweet and juicy. Gooft!” The White Pig smacked his mouth
and blinked his eyes as if to show how he had enjoyed the feast. Buster
John and Sweetest Susan seated themselves near Drusilla.

“The first time I saw the Son of Ben Ali,” said the White Pig, “I was
just big enough to hide in the grass and run about without squealing
for my mammy. I used to slip out of the swamp and run into the woods
after the acorns. The red squirrel was my friend then, and his
great-grand-children are my friends now. He used to climb the big turkey
oak, and run about on the limbs pretending to be playing, but all the
time he would be shaking down the sweet little acorns. He barked at
me and I grunted at him, and we used to have a very nice time all by
ourselves.

“One day, while I was out in the open woods cracking acorns, I heard some
one call, ‘Run here little Pig! run quick!’ I didn’t have any better
sense than to do as I was told, so I ran as hard as I could toward the
call. Then I heard a zooning sound in the air, a loud squall, and a noise
as of a tree falling. I ran right into the hands of a big man. I was
terribly frightened, and I suppose I must have squealed as loud as I
could. The big man was the Son of Ben Ali, and he hushed me up by telling
me that he called me because a wildcat had been watching me from the
lowest limb of the turkey oak.

“Humph—ooft!” grunted the White Pig, “the only reason he didn’t get me
was because the Son of Ben Ali struck him with a stone just as he started
to jump. The wildcat fell out of the tree dead. His skull was shivered.
You have never seen the Son of Ben Ali throw a stone? Well that is
between you and him. I have seen him.

“He killed the wildcat that my mammy had often told me about, and after
that I came to know the Son of Ben Ali well. Whenever I could find him,
night or day, I trotted around with him, and that is how it happened that
when my brothers and sisters were shot by men and caught by dogs I was
not with them to be shot or caught. I was trotting about with the Son of
Ben Ali.

“It was the same thing day after day and night after night, the Son of
Ben Ali coming and going, and I trotting at his heels or running in the
bushes close by. One day, when the sun had gone down, we were slipping
along behind the orchard here. The Son of Ben Ali said he was going to
see the Little Master, and I was to wait for him. I heard a dog bark, and
this made me stop. And then, while I was listening, a man came upon us—a
white man. He seemed to rise out of a dark place in the road. I dodged
into a fence corner before he saw me, and stood there, listening.

“‘Who are you?’ said the Son of Ben Ali. His voice shook a little.

“‘That’s what the owl said,’ answered the white man. This tickled me so
that I grunted before I knew it. The white man laughed, too, and said he
was the Teacher of the young people at the big house. Gooft! a Teacher!
There was once a schoolhouse—they called it that, but it was nothing in
the world but a log cabin—in the woods over yonder. Every day the Teacher
would come and pound and pummel the boys, and every day the boys would go
out and stone the cows and hogs. They killed a blood cousin of mine.

“So I said to myself, Gooft! if this Teacher is teaching the Little
Master to do these things, I will keep out of the Little Master’s way.

[Illustration: A WILD CAT WAS WATCHING ME]

“Humph! The Son of Ben Ali said to this Teacher: ‘You ought to know me.
You saw me in the speculator’s train, and you saw me sold from the block.’

“The Teacher placed his hand on the Son of Ben Ali’s shoulder and
replied: ‘I came from far away, and there the people are thinking about
you and praying for you. Bear that in mind—thinking about you, and
praying for you every day and every night. Hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands—all thinking about you and praying for you.’

“Gooft—ooft! This Teacher talked as the man talks in the little house on
the creek road where the people go when the bell rings—the little house
with the high wooden chimney, where the bell is.”

“It is a church,” said Buster John.

“Humph! It may be a church for all I know. I have stood in the woods and
heard the man talk to the people, and the Teacher talked just like him. I
don’t know what else the Teacher said to the Son of Ben Ali, nor what the
Son of Ben Ali said to him, but that night, after the Son of Ben Ali had
seen the Little Master, and when we were on our way back to the woods,
we met the Teacher again. He had been to another plantation, and told the
negroes there how the people in his country were thinking about them and
praying for them.

“‘You go too far from home,’ said the Son of Ben Ali. ‘Many a negro where
you’ve been to-night will tell what you have said, in hopes of getting an
extra rasher of meat.’

“Ooft—gooft!” grunted the White Pig; “and hog meat at that. But the
Teacher said that he would trust them.

“‘The best good-night I can give you,’ said the Son of Ben Ali, ‘is not
to trust them too much or too far.’

“Ooft—oof! Now you might wonder how I could remember such little things.
But little things have a way of growing, and this was one of the little
things that grew. Humph! It grew like a pumpkin vine. One thing followed
another like sheep jumping over a rail on the ground. The last sheep to
go over jumps higher than a man’s head. So with these things I am telling
you of. They grew, and they jumped.

“When we met the Teacher, the grass was green, but it was not long
before the winds began to blow keen and cold, and then the grass
shriveled and the leaves on the trees began to fall. As for me, I could
lie in the sedge and keep warm, or I could make me a bed of leaves on the
windward side of the fence and never know that the weather was cold. With
the Son of Ben Ali, it was different. Not having been born free to the
woods and the weather—to the four winds and the four seasons—humph!—he
must have a fire. He must have a fire that could be felt and not be seen.
So he dug him a hole in the ground, a trench he called it, and in this he
made his fire, and he seemed to be very fond of it when the weather was
damp and cold.

“One night when I was returning from the yam patch to the top of the
hill, I heard horses going along the road. I knew the horses had riders,
for I could hear no wheels. The fog was heavy and thick, and so I went
close to the road to see and hear what I could. I slipped through the wet
grass and listened. Suddenly one of the riders pulled up his horse and
cried out:—

“‘Look! look on the hill yonder!’

“I turned to see what it was, and it was terrible enough to scare
anybody. On the clouds above the hill was the shadow of a man as big as
a fodder stack, and as high as the tallest pine. Even the horses saw it
and snorted with fear. The shadow raised its arms above its head and then
let them drop quickly. I knew at once that it was the shadow of the Son
of Ben Ali, but even then I had a quaking fear. Suddenly I heard another
voice call out:—

“‘Whoever you are, come and help a man in trouble.’

“The Son of Ben Ali heard it, too, for the cry of the man for help had
hardly died away before the shadow on the clouds disappeared as if it
had been wiped out. I knew that the voice that had called to the shadow
was the voice of the Teacher, the man who had told the Son of Ben Ali
that thousands and tens of thousands were praying for him. And I wondered
whether the thousands and the tens of thousands were praying for the
Teacher, now that he seemed to be in trouble.

“The Teacher called again, and then I heard the voice of old Grizzly’s
son George tell the man to hush or he would blow his brains out.

[Illustration: LOOK ON THE HILL YONDER]

“‘But I have done nothing to you, gentlemen,’ said the Teacher. ‘I have
not harmed you in the least. What have you seized me for, and where are
you taking me?’

“‘Hush, you sniveling wretch!’ said old Grizzly’s son George. ‘You’ve
been colloguing with the niggers, and telling them about freedom. You
want to raise an insurrection, and you’ll have to pay for it!’

“After that the Teacher said no more, and the patrol rode on. I could
see, dark as it was, that they had the Teacher riding behind Old
Grizzly’s son George. The Teacher was tied with a rope, and the rope was
fastened to Old Grizzly’s son. All this I saw, and I saw guns—gooft—the
things that burn and sting you from afar. It was well that my eyes
were fitted for the dark, otherwise the Son of Ben Ali would have been
riddled. But I ran and met him, and told him of the guns. He wanted to
slip among the horses, cut the ropes that bound the Teacher, and carry
him out of hearing among the bushes. But there were the guns!

“Then the Son of Ben Ali wanted me to run ahead, get in the road and rush
out at the horses when they came up, while he cut the ropes from the
Teacher. Gooft! But there were the guns! We heard the men talking, and
found that they were going to take the Teacher to a cross-roads store,
called Harmony, seven miles away, and there hang him.”

Sweetest Susan shuddered. Drusilla cried, “Well, suh!” Buster John pulled
up a big bunch of grass and threw it away from him. His face was red with
anger or excitement.

“Humph! Hang him to a limb!” grunted the White Pig. “Ooft! There was a
bridge a quarter of a mile ahead. It was long and narrow and low—just
wide enough for a wagon and not higher from the shallow creek than a
man’s head. Over this bridge the men had to go, and the Son of Ben Ali
wanted me to run ahead, get on the further end of the bridge, charge the
horses when they reached the middle, and then jump off and get under the
bridge before the men could make their guns talk. It was not to my taste.
If I had had to choose between charging the horses on that bridge and a
mess of ripe persimmons—humph—I think I would have taken a few of the
persimmons. But what could I do? Gooft! The Son of Ben Ali had his mind
made up.

“So I ran ahead, jumped over a low place in the fence, and reached the
bridge before the horses did. I heard them come on the other end of the
bridge, and I tried to get my bristles up, but—gooft—ooft—they wouldn’t
stay up. As the men came across I went to meet them, and when they came
within a few steps of me, I charged at them, making as much noise as I
could, crying:

“‘Gooft—ooft! Gooft!’

“It was all so sudden that the horses were terribly frightened. There
were five of them. One reared and I ran under his forelegs. Another shied
too far to one side, and went crashing through the railing into the
creek. One of the horses kicked me, and—gooft!—that made me mad. For the
first time my bristles rose. I rushed at them with open mouth. Another
crashed through the railing and went over. All this time I could see the
Son of Ben Ali at the heels of the horse that was carrying the Teacher
and old Grizzly’s son.

“But the horse was scared nearly to death. His rider couldn’t manage him.
He was wild. Before the Son of Ben Ali could cut the rope, the scared
horse had whirled and rushed off the bridge, and I went after him. The
Son of Ben Ali disappeared, and I went over the fence and rested in the
bushes. Presently the Son of Ben Ali came creeping to where I was. He was
wet with sweat and trembling all over.

“Neither the men nor the horses were hurt. Gooft! they came together and
sat on their horses within a few steps of where we lay. One said it was a
man seven feet high. Another said it was a wild varment as big as a lion.
Still another said it was Satan. Gooft—ooft! The Teacher said it was a
warning. Ooft! ‘The hand of the Lord is in it,’ he said.

“‘It will be a hard race, little Grunter—a hard race! It is three miles
to the big house, and from there eight miles to Harmony. It is to be a
hard race, little Grunter—a hard race. But it must be run.’ So said the
Son of Ben Ali.

“‘Am I to go, Son of Ben Ali?’ I said.

“‘As far as you may and as fast as you can, little Grunter.’

“Gooft! you have never seen the Son of Ben Ali throw a stone, and you
have never seen him run! We got in the big road where the ground was
firm. Gooft! I began to gallop, but I heard the Son of Ben Ali right at
my heels. I began to run, and—gooft—ooft!—I heard him closer at my heels.
The faster I went, the faster the Son of Ben Ali went. I was a pretty
swift runner and am to this day, but that night I could never get more
than twenty steps away from the Son of Ben Ali. Gooft! he was running to
save life, and I was running for fun. Once we passed a stray traveler—a
stray negro. He called out: ‘What are you trying to do, brother?
‘Ooft!—and the Son of Ben Ali called back: ‘Trying to catch little
Grunter, brother!’ Gooft—and the stranger cried: ‘I wish you mighty well,
my brother!’

“Gooft—ooft! It was a warm race and a long one. We were not going as fast
at the end as we were at the beginning. Ooft! but we were going. And
we went till we came to the horse lot, and then I stopped. I spoke to
the Son of Ben Ali and said that we were now as close to the hogpen as
I hoped ever to be, and so he cried out as he ran: ‘Good night, little
Grunter!’ I heard him go to the stable where the Black Stallion, the Son
of Abdallah, is kept. Then I heard the door thrown open, and the Son of
Abdallah came out with a scream and a snort, and that is all I know. The
rest the Black Stallion can tell you.

“Ooft—gooft! That is all. Say nothing to no one. I’ll sleep here a
little, and when the sun gets lower I’ll slip away to the swamp.”

“We are very much obliged to you,” said Sweetest Susan.

“Humph—umph! Humph—umph!” grunted the White Pig. “Nicely said—nicely
said! I’m over-paid.”

THE BLACK STALLION’S STORY.

The children were anxious to hear the rest of the story at once, but they
were compelled to wait. The White Pig had told all he knew, and Aaron was
on the other side of the plantation. So Buster John and Sweetest Susan
amused themselves by wondering whether the Teacher was hanged or whether
he was rescued. As for Drusilla, she very plainly said that she didn’t
much care. It was all past and gone anyhow. Break a pumpkin, she said,
and nobody in the world can mend it, not even if people were to come and
cry over it.

But Buster John and Sweetest Susan thought it made all the difference
whether a man was hanged or saved. They talked about it a good deal, and
when they went to the house they asked their grandfather the name of the
man who had come from a far country to teach their Uncle Crotchet. The
old gentleman leaned back in his chair and looked at the youngsters. He
smiled a little, and then closed his eyes and seemed to be thinking. The
question had carried him back to the past.

“Have you forgotten his name, Grandfather?” asked Sweetest Susan, after a
while.

“Forgotten his name!” exclaimed the grandfather. “Oh, no! No, indeed! His
name was Hudspeth—Richard Hudspeth. I remember him as well as if he had
been here only yesterday. At bottom, he was a fine character. He came
here from Massachusetts, and he went back there.”

The grandfather paused and drummed gently on the arms of his easy chair.
Then—

“Yes; he went back there. He is a big man now. He was elected to Congress
some time ago. We have had some correspondence. He is a very able man. I
wonder if he remembers his adventures here?”

“He is a bitter abolitionist,” said the children’s father.

“He was always that,” said the grandfather. “But I shall always love him
on account of Little Crotchet. The two were devoted to each other.”

“Grandfather,” said Sweetest Susan, after a while, “what is a bitter
abolitionist? Isn’t that what papa said?” she asked, seeing her
grandfather laugh.

“My darling child, you wouldn’t know now if I were to tell you. Run along
with Drusilla. I’ll think it over, and tell you about it some other time.”

Sweetest Susan and Drusilla joined Buster John in the yard, and there
they discussed the matter, without coming to any conclusion. Buster John
knew that the abolitionists wanted to free the negro slaves, but that was
all.

That night they went to Aaron’s house and asked him whether the Teacher
had been hanged or rescued, but Aaron said he was too tired to sit up
and talk. He said he would be around the lot all day the next day, and
then they could go and see Timoleon, who could tell all about it. This
satisfied the children, and they went to bed happy in the expectation of
visiting the Black Stallion.

The children were up bright and early the next morning, which was
something unusual, for they were very fond of sleeping late. As soon as
Drusilla had eaten her breakfast—she waited on the children, at the
table, and was allowed to eat as soon as they had finished—all three went
hunting for Aaron. They found him right where they wanted to find him, in
the lot where Timoleon’s stable stood. So they went to him, and he lost
no time in opening the door of the stable.

The Black Stallion did not have fresh air and exercise every day, and so
he sprung through the open door and went galloping madly about the field,
sending forth a screaming challenge to the whole plantation. He galloped
about the field as far as the limits of the high fence would permit, and
paid no attention to either Aaron or the children.

“He has forgotten us,” said Sweetest Susan in some alarm.

Aaron laughed. “Folks forget,” said he, “but my brothers that run on four
legs never forget.”

When the Black Stallion had taken his exercise, he walked slowly back to
the stable, sometimes pausing to crop the grass or to hold his head high
in the air.

“Grandson of Abdallah,” said Aaron, “you have forgotten your friends.”

“I am the forgotten one, Son of Ben Ali,” replied Timoleon, “my feed is
chucked into the trough, the door is shut, and I am left to chew my cud.
Am I a cow, that I should be chewing my cud? Am I a hog, that I should be
fastened in a pen?”

“Whose fault, Grandson of Abdallah? You will have no one to feed you but
me, and I—well, what I have to do I must do. The grandchildren of the
White-haired Master are here.”

“I thought they had forgotten me, Son of Ben Ali. I am glad they are
here. But what of it? I go in my pen, and the door is closed; what
matters it to me whether they are here or yonder?”

“No, Grandson of Abdallah. In the pasture here the morning sun shines,
the grass is green, the air is cool. Here for a little while you may stay
with these grandchildren of the White-haired Master. Your stable is to be
cleaned.”

For answer, the Black Stallion sought out a soft place in the grass, held
his head close to the ground, walked in a small circle that constantly
grew smaller until his knees bent under him, and then he keeled over on
his side and began to wallow. This finished, he rose and began to graze
close to the children, apparently as gentle as any horse could be.

“Do you remember the night the White-haired Master rode you to Harmony?”
asked Aaron from inside the stable.

The Grandson of Abdallah raised his head and went to the stable door, his
mouth half full of grass. Some of the grass must have tickled his nose,
for he snorted twice in quick succession.

“Do I remember it, Son of Ben Ali? How could I forget it? It was a little
while before the big race at Lexington. That was the night I learned how
to put my nose at a horse’s flank and run the breath out of him.”

“The children of the White-haired Master would like to hear of that,”
said Aaron.

“It was at night,” remarked the Black Stallion, threshing at a perverse
fly with his tail. “What time, I know not, but I had been dozing, and
just before that I had heard the chickens crow. There was no moon. The
big white star was glittering where the sun rises, and there was frost
in the air. Suddenly I heard some one tugging at my stable door and the
voice of the Son of Ben Ali calling.

“The door was barred, but he broke the bar. The stable was dark, but he
found the bridle, blanket, and saddle. He cried:—

“‘Steady, Son of Abdallah! There is work for us this night!’

“I bit at him in play, and took a piece of his coat off, but he made no
pause until saddle and bridle were on. Then he ran through the door,
crying ‘Come, Son of Abdallah! Come! There is work for us to-night!
Steady! You will have play enough before the night is over.’

“I liked nothing better than that, so I sprang through the door, and went
galloping after the Son of Ben Ali. He ran to the house, and there I saw
the Gray Mare, my sister, standing. She was bridled, but the saddle was
missing.

“‘Stand here!’ said the Son of Ben Ali. He placed his hand on the yard
fence and sprang over, though the gate was near. He ran to the big tree
near the corner of the house, and began to walk upward. This was new to
me, so I started back in some surprise. But the Son of Ben Ali called to
me to be quiet, and in a minute he had disappeared in the little window
that juts from the roof.

“Then I heard the voice of the Little Master crying ‘Take me down stairs!’

“In a little while the Son of Ben Ali came down the tree and stood at the
door, which was presently opened by the White-haired Master. His speech
was short and quick:—

“‘Where are the horses?’

“‘Here, Master,’ said the Son of Ben Ali, who came running toward me.
‘Mount here, Master.’

“‘Show me the way!’ said the White-haired Master.

“The Son of Ben Ali flung himself on the Gray Mare, my sister. The
gates were all open, and we went through them in a hurry. I felt the
White-haired Master settle himself in the saddle and try the stirrups.
Then his knees pressed a little closer to the saddle, and I thought,
‘Here is a rider—a little heavy, but more helpful than a lighter man who
has never learned to fit himself to the curve of the saddle, and to move
as the horse moves.’ He reached his right arm forward to feel of the play
of my shoulders, and gave me a gentle pat by way of praise.

“The Gray Mare, my sister, was trained for racing, while I was raw and
untried, waiting for my turn, that came afterward, and she tripped along
ahead of me as lightly as a rabbit that has just been frightened from its
bed.

“We cleared the gates and the narrow lane, and presently struck into the
big road.

“‘Are we going to Harmony?’ asked the White-haired Master.

“‘Yes, Master.’

“‘We shall have to ride, then.’

“At that the Gray Mare, my sister, seemed to glide away from me. The
Son of Ben Ali had slapped her with his open hand. I went after her
with a little rush that never moved the White-haired Master in his
saddle. I felt my blood tingling. Whatever the Gray Mare, my sister, was
doing, I knew I was going at only half speed, and I longed to show the
White-haired Master what I could do.

“I said as we galloped, ‘My sister, this night you will see which of us
has the swiftest feet.’ The answer she made was a loud snort, and again
she tried to glide away, but I kept my muzzle at the Son of Ben Ali’s
knee.

“‘Not now,’ said the Son of Ben Ali. ‘Wait! Wait till we cross the
bridge.’

“‘Are we riding or playing?’ asked the White-haired Master. Man, we’ll be
too late!’

“‘When we cross the bridge, we’ll go, Master,’ said the Son of Ben Ali.

“Yet the ground was firm and springy, and the road level. I was so
fretted that I bit at the Son of Ben Ali’s leg. ‘You won’t play when you
come to your journey’s end, Grandson of Abdallah,’ he said. I knew then
that we would go fast enough after awhile, and so I fell back a little
and settled down to a swift, steady gallop. My easy movements must have
pleased the White-haired Master, for he reached forward and gave me a
love-lick, saying, ‘Good horse!’

“So in a little while we came to the bridge, a small affair, but rickety.
On the other side the Son of Ben Ali leaned forward a little, saying,
‘Now, Master!’ The Gray Mare, my sister, leaped away from me with a
snort. I threw my head forward as the White-haired Master gave me the
length of the rein, and the Gray Mare, my sister, soon found that she
would not have the road to herself.

[Illustration: THE GRAY MARE LEAPED AWAY FROM ME]

“Within a quarter of a mile, I was running with my nose at her flank, and
I kept it there. I could have run past her, but I knew the White-haired
Master would give the word for that, and so I kept my place. Yet, I could
feel that the Gray Mare, my sister, was trying her best to get away from
me.

“The sound of our feet on the hard road must have made a terrible
clatter. I could hear it flung back at us from the woods on either side.
Once, as we were passing a house by the roadside, a pack of curs came
trooping out at us. This was my chance. The Gray Mare, my sister, shied,
while I ran right through the pack, knocking them right and left. The
White-haired Master touched me again, saying, ‘Good horse!’ and shook the
reins just a little, but it was enough. Before the dog I had crippled
could yelp twice, I had taken the road away from the Gray Mare, my
sister. I could hear her coming behind me. I could hear the Son of Ben
Ali slap her first with his open hand, and then with the slack of the
bridle rein.

“But it did no good. I loved to listen to the clatter of my feet on the
hard clay in the road. I was proud to feel that I was not running at full
speed. I was proud to know that the White-haired Master had grown young
again, and to feel him holding the reins just steady enough to catch
me should I chance to stumble. I was proud to feel him sitting in the
saddle, balancing himself to all my movements so as not to worry me with
his weight.

“Suddenly I felt him turn in the saddle and look back. Then his firm hand
checked me, and I knew that the Gray Mare, my sister, had been more than
matched. As I settled down into a steadier gallop the White-haired Master
said:—

“‘Another racehorse here, boy—the greatest of all.’

“‘Yes, Master,’ replied the Son of Ben Ali, ‘he is the grandson of
Abdallah.’

“It was well that the White-haired Master drew rein when he did, for we
still had two miles to go, and the Gray Mare, my sister, was beginning to
blow a little. But we rested ourselves by going easily. Presently I saw
firelight shining through the trees half a mile ahead.

“‘That’s the place!’ cried the White-haired Master.

“He leaned forward in the saddle, and I took that for a signal to go. It
was a level road, and I stretched myself out for a run that would please
and surprise the White-haired Master. As I ran I wondered what the people
at the fire would think as they heard us thundering down the road.

“Nobody knows to this day what they thought. We were upon them before
they could gather their wits about them. We were upon them before they
could get out of the way. The torches glimmering through the trees
blinded the eyes of the White-haired Master, so that he drew rein a
little too late to stop me near the group of men standing there. One of
them, the son of the man called Old Grizzly, tried to dodge out of the
way, but as he dodged I swerved to one side, and so struck him fairly on
the shoulder. He went down as if a tree had fallen on him. As I turned
again I caught the arm of one of them in my teeth, and carried him with
me, screaming like a woman. From that day to this I have been called the
Man-eater; but as to eating a man—Blibbelibbel—it makes me sick to think
of it!

“I was still jumping, but trying to come to a halt, when the White-haired
Master drove his heels at me, and whirled me around on my hind feet as
on a pivot. As I turned I saw why. The man called the Teacher had been
sitting on a horse, his arms tied, and a rope around his neck, one end
fastened to the limb of a tree. As we came up, some of the men had given
the horse a cut with a hickory, and he had jumped away, leaving the
Teacher swinging by the neck.

“With one stroke of a knife he carried, the White-haired Master cut the
rope, and then he leaped nimbly from my back and lifted the man called
the Teacher to his feet, cutting the rope from his arms and from his neck.

“The man called the Teacher was neither much hurt nor frightened, but he
was weak. So he leaned against me as I stood panting for breath. There
the White-haired Master left him and turned his attention to the men who
were standing around. He called them murderers and assassins and cowards,
but they made little or no reply. The Son of Old Grizzly, who was rubbing
his shoulder, made some kind of excuse. He said he thought anybody had a
right to hang anybody else who was trying to make the negroes rise and
kill their masters.

[Illustration: THE WHITE-HAIRED MASTER CUT THE ROPE]

“But the man called the Teacher hit the saddle he was leaning against
so hard with his fist that it made me jump, and said it was a lie. He
declared that he had told the negroes to be patient, that thousands of
good people were praying for them, and that the time would come when they
would be free.

“‘What do I care what he told the negroes?’ cried the White-haired
Master, turning upon the men. ‘Don’t you know, you cowardly wretches,
that I will protect whoever lives under my roof with my life? Take
yourselves off, and be glad that you have escaped so lightly. I know all
of you, and I’ll have an eye on you hereafter.’ So said the White-haired
Master; and the men, making what excuses they could think of, slunk away
to where they had left their horses tied.

“Seeing the Gray Mare, my sister, standing near, I looked around for the
Son of Ben Ali, but he was nowhere to be seen. I knew he was not far off.
He was waiting till the men should get out of sight. Then he came forth
from the bushes, and in the dark, lifted the man called the Teacher to
the back of the Gray Mare, my sister.

“And so we went back home, going slowly, the man called the Teacher
riding the Gray Mare, my sister, and the Son of Ben Ali walking
alongside to hold him in place should his strength fail.

“That is all. I saw no more of the Son of Ben Ali until after the big
fire.”

“When the house was burned?” asked Buster John.

“The big house—yes,” replied the Black Stallion.

“That was the time you broke down your stable door,” suggested Aaron, who
was working away inside the stable.

“And came near catching the son of Old Grizzly, as he went over the
fence,” said the Black Stallion.

“Mr. George Gossett?” exclaimed Buster John. “Why, he’s an old man.”

“He’s older than he’s good,” remarked Aaron.

“I heard a great noise,” said the Black Stallion—“the cows asking the
mules what the trouble was, the mules asking the horses, and the geese
screaming and flying about—and so I broke down my stable door. Just then
I saw some one running through the field away from the house, and I tried
to catch him. He was too near the fence, but I saw it was the son of Old
Grizzly.”

“Why was he running through the field?” inquired Buster John.

“Well,” said Aaron, “there was a fire burning the house, and there was
this George Gossett running away. You can put the two together, if you
want to, or you can leave them just as the Grandson of Abdallah saw
them—one burning the house and the other running away.”

“Huh! he sot dat house afire!” exclaimed Drusilla; “kaze I hear my mammy
an’ ol’ Aunt Free Polly sesso.”

All this made Sweetest Susan open her eyes in amazement, and they were
very bright and beautiful eyes.

“Oh, how could he be so cruel?” she cried.

“He thought the White-haired Master rode him down that night on purpose,”
said Aaron, “and he had a good many other thoughts.”

The Black Stallion galloped to another part of the field, and Aaron said
it was time for the children to go to the house and fix for dinner. So
they went running along.

XI.

FREE POLLY’S STORY.

It was not long before the children had an appointment to see Free Polly.
She had chosen their father for her guardian, and was in the habit of
visiting the plantation very often, sometimes staying there for weeks at
a time.

Free Polly was sixty years old, but very frisky and fond of fun—always
ready to listen to a joke or tell a story. All her stories were older
than she was, but she never told one without laughing at it just as
heartily as if she had heard it for the first time. She bowed her head
from side to side in jaunty fashion, and laughed loudly. The children
laughed, too, for she made a very comical appearance. She had on a yellow
basque with flowing sleeves, and a blue skirt. On her head she wore a
flaming red bandana, and on top of that a bonnet shaped like a sugar
scoop and stuffed full of faded artificial flowers. At sixty years old
Free Polly still considered herself a belle, and put on a great many
airs. Whenever she met anybody, black or white, she always bowed her
head, first to the left, then to the right, and made a low curtsy. This
she did now when the children called her. She bowed and curtsied, and
then placed her arms akimbo, and waited for the youngsters to come up.

“Oh, I so glad to see you,” she cried, “I can’t tell you how glad I is.
You mos’ done grown. ’Fo’ I know it you’ll be done grown an’ married.
Hey-hey! You nee’n ter laugh. I done see young people ’fo’ I see you. Dey
mos’ all do dat away.”

“Aunt Polly,” said Buster John, “do you remember the night the big house
burned?”

Free Polly ceased laughing and screwed up her mouth and face in pretended
indignation.

“How I gwine ter fergit it? Wa’n’t I right dar in de house? Right un’ de
roofness?”

“Won’t you please tell us about it?” asked Sweetest Susan, with her
pretty, coaxing smile.

Free Polly shook her head solemnly, closed her eyes, and heaved a deep
sigh.

“How kin I tell you stan’in’ up here flat-footed in de sun? Wait. I
comin’ in de house atter supper to see Mistiss. When you see me in dar,
run an’ ax me to come in yo’ room ’fo’ I go. But when I go in dar I
mus’ fin’ sump’n else ’sides a cheer, an’ a table, an’ a bedstid, an’ a
washstan’.”

“What do you want to find?” Buster John inquired.

Again Free Polly closed her eyes and sighed, as she answered:—

“What I want to fin’? Biscuit. Battercakes. Butter. Ham.” At each word
Free Polly smacked her lips and opened her mouth wide. The children
laughed, and promised that they would carry as much food into the nursery
as they could make an excuse for.

At supper their mother saw them buttering more biscuits than they usually
ate. So she suddenly asked:—

“Has any one seen Free Polly to-day?”

“Yes’m,” promptly replied Drusilla, who was waiting on Buster John and
Sweetest Susan.

“Is she coming here to-night?”

“I—I speck so,” Drusilla answered somewhat doubtfully.

At this the mother looked at the children and laughed.

“Mamma, how did you know?” cried Sweetest Susan.

“Because she used to come to see me when I was a little girl, and I
always had to carry biscuits and ham to my room, if I wanted her to tell
me a tale. Drusilla, put those biscuits and three slices of ham on a
plate, and carry it to the nursery.”

Naturally the children were delighted at the way their mother fell
into their innocent little plans, and they waited with a good deal of
impatience for Free Polly to come. She came after what seemed to be a
very long while. She was even more comically polite in the house than
she was out of doors, and pretended to have a good deal to say to the
“Mistiss;” but the lady said she was busy at that moment, and told Free
Polly to go into the nursery and see the children.

Thus it came about that Buster John and Sweetest Susan heard all the
particulars of the burning of the big house, told in a style that was to
them the most graphic and complete that could be imagined.

After eating the supper that had been brought in for her, Free Polly
wiped her mouth with the back of her hands, placed her heels on the top
round of the chair she sat in, and clasped her knees with her long arms.
Then closing her eyes, she began:

“I dunner how come it, but when de sun shine it look like a long time
ago when de house burn. When night come, it look like it done happen
yistiddy. It so come ’bout dat I hatter come see ol’ Marster dat ve’y
night. I start from de place whar I been workin’ time de sun go down, an’
when I come to turn in de big gate up yander, twuz gittin dark. I raise
de latch er de big gate, I did, an’ den I say ter myse’f, ‘No, I won’t go
de front way, kaze dey might be comp’ny in de front peazzer, an’ I’ll go
roun’ de back way an’ come in by de nigger quarter.’ I had my min’ on dat
ar man what dey like ter hang—dat ar Mr. Hudspy”—

“Hudspeth,” said Buster John.

“Kaze he gimme a sev’m-punce one time, an’ I wuz mighty sorry he had
to go back home. I walk ’long, I did, an’ I ’low I mighty sorry dat ar
Mr. Hudspy ain’t here now, kaze he might fergit hissif an’ gimme a n’er
sev’m-punce.’ Des ’bout dat time I look up an’ look ’round, an’ right at
me wuz a man. I could ’a’ put out my han’ an’ totch him. Ef he’d ’a’
said ‘Boo!’ at me, I’d ’a’ drapt right in my tracks. But I bowed, I did,
an’ drapt him a curtsy, an’ ax’d him howdy.

“He say, ‘Ain’t dat Free Polly?’ I say, ‘Yasser.’ I know’d time he open
his mouth dat ’t’wan’t nobody in de roun’ worl’ but dat ar George Gossett.

“He say, ‘I got a crow to pick wid you.’ I say, ‘How come dat, suh?’

“He say, ‘You been harborin’ runaway niggers.’ I say, ‘I don’t see how I
kin do dat, suh, when it’s e’enabout all I kin do fer ter harbor myse’f,
let ’lone runaway niggers.’

“He say, ‘I hear tell you es des han’ in glove wid dat ar nigger A’on
what Pap bought fum de speculator.’ I say, ‘Ef A’on ever is been at my
house, suh, it wuz unbeknownst to me.’

“He say, ‘Nummine. I’ll git you yit; an’ when I does, hit’ll be all night
Isom dar wid you.’ I say, ‘Yasser,’ and den I bowed perlite ez I know
how, an’ come on to de big house.

“I ain’t been here long, ’fo’ dey tell me dat de Little Marster—which dey
call him Little Crotchet—is sorter ailin’, an’ I say ter myse’f dat I’ll
go up sta’rs dar whar he stay at, an’ see him. So, atter while, up I
goes, an’ sho’ nuff, dar wuz de Little Marster layin’ up dar readin’.

“He put down his book, he did, an’ look like he mighty glad ter see me,
an’ he ax me what good fer deze here long-time pains in de legs; an’ I
say I dunno, ’cep’n you have somebody to rub ’em. He ax me ef I won’t rub
’em; an’ I say tooby-shore I will, an’ glad to do it, an’ den I whirled
in an’ rub ’em; an’ whiles I’m a-rubbin’ he ax me de names er all de
presidencies er de Nunitin’ States whar we live at, an’ I say ef I ever
know’d ’em I done fergitted ’em off’en my min’. Desso.

“An’ den, bless yo’ souls, he lay dar flat er his back, an’ call off de
names er all de presidencies er de Nunitin’ States same ez ef he had ’em
right dar in a book, an’ den when he done dat he tol’ me all ’bout John
Henry Bonaparte an’ Mr. Benjamin Arnold, which he traded off his country
fer a pa’r er shiny boots an’ a cocked hat.”

Buster John and Sweetest Susan laughed heartily at this, and Free Polly
laughed in sympathy.

“Yes, honey, he lay dar flat er his back an’ tol’ me all de news. I
dunner how long I sot dar, rubbin’ an’ noddin’, an’ lis’nin’ ter de
Little Marster, tellin’ me all ’bout how de Nunitin’ State of Americus,
Georgy, come up, an’ how he wuz skeer’d she wuz gwine down agin ef de
folks up dar whar dey make laws did’n’ stop scandalizin’ an’ gwine on. I
speck both un us must er drapt off ter sleep, kaze when I waked up, de
candle had done burnted mos’ down. Bimeby de Little Marster say, ‘Polly
Ann’—he call me Polly Ann fer short—‘Polly Ann, I smell smoke. What does
you smell?’

“I say, ‘I smells smoke, too. I speck somebody burnin’ off a new groun’.’

“He say, ‘Polly Ann, dis ain’t de time er de year when dey burns off de
new groun’.’

“I say, ‘Maybe somebody possum huntin’ drapt der torch an’ sot fire to de
woods.’

“He say, ‘Polly Ann, dis ain’t de time er de year when dey hunts possums.’

“I say, ‘I dunner how come it den.’

“He say, ‘All de same, Polly Ann, I smells smoke.’

“I say, ‘Dat what Brer Fox say when Brer Rabbit put fire ter de hay what
he totin’ on his back.’

“De Little Marster say, ‘Polly Ann, maybe somebody done put fire ter de
hay what we got on our backs.’

“I say, ‘I ain’t skeer’d er dat.’

“Dis make him laugh. He say, ‘Polly Ann, folks don’t hafter be skeer’d
ter git burnted up.’”

At this point Free Polly suddenly became very solemn. A heavy frown
appeared on her face. Her voice fell to a tragic whisper. She placed one
hand lightly on Sweetest Susan’s shoulder and held the other to a gesture
of warning, looking all around the room as if expecting to discover the
beginning or the ending of some horrible catastrophe.

“Right dar an den,” she said, “I not only smelt de smoke, I seed it. Seed
it wid my own eyes. Yes, honey! A little streak un it, not much bigger
dan a pipestem, come curlin’ up by de candle an’ went dancin’ up ter
de ceilin’. Den’ way off yander, I hear somebody holler. Den somebody
holler’d mo’ closer. Den de cows ’gun ter low, an’ de hosses ter whicker.

“I say ter myse’f, ‘Nigger ’oman, you better keep yo’ eye peeled, kaze
sump’n n’er gwine on, an’ ’tain’t so mighty fur fum here, needer.’ Den I
hear somebody holler right out in de lot dar.

“De Little Marster say, ‘Polly Ann, I tell you I smells smoke. Hit’s
right off’n de fire.’

“I say, ‘I b’lieve you, honey.’

“By dis time, de fuss outside wuz gittin’ wuss an’ wuss, an’ I could hear
somep’n cracklin’ like somebody walkin’ thoo a patch er ragweed in de
winter time. It look like de little candle got mo’ paler, an’ den it seem
like I could see shadders dancin’ on de wall. Den I happen to look up at
de window, an’, man, suh, de whole place wuz lit up.

“I say, ‘Hey! ef de sun done riz up in de night, she shinin’ mighty red.’
De smoke keep on curlin’ up an’ curlin’ up. It cum thoo de crack er de
flo’.

“De Little Marster say, ‘De smoke smell so bad, I got ter put my head un’
de cover.’

“I say to myse’f, ‘Look a-here, nigger ’oman, you better be up an’ gwine,
kaze when you see de smoke comin’ up thoo de floor you better watch out.’”

“I’d ’a’ gone down dem stairsteps faster’n I come up,” exclaimed Drusilla.

“Ef you had,” said Free Polly, scornfully, “you’d ’a’ never gone down any
yuther steps—an’ dat would ’a’ been des like a nigger fer de worl’. I
ain’t run down no steps. I des sot dar an’ sorter pat de Little Marster
on de leg fer ter keep him comp’ny, an’ de smoke kep’ on comin’ wusser
an’ wusser. I say to myse’f, ‘Watch out, nigger ’oman! Watch out!’

“Den I ’gun to strangle, an’ I went ter de window, an’ des ’bout dat time
I hear mo’ squallin’ an’ fussin’ dan I ever been hear befo’, an’ time I
got ter de window somebody smash it in, an’ I des give one big squeal an’
drapt on de flo’.

“Now, dat ar somebody wuz A’on. He clum de tree, he did, an’ smash in de
window, an’ he wrop de Little Marster in de quilts an’ coverleds what he
had on him, an’ toted him down de tree on one arm, an’ den he come back
an’ toted me.

“When we got down, dar wuz a big crowd stannin’ ’round, an’ ol’ Marster
wuz a-cryin’, an’ A’on put me down an’ went up in de crowd, an’ when he
got dar he fell down like he wuz dead. When he smash in de window, de
glass cut him in de arm an’ in de face an’ he wuz bloodier dan a stuck
pig. So dar he wuz, an’ dar he lay. He des shet his eyes an’ fell back
like he done dead.

[Illustration: AARON TOTED HIM DOWN DE TREE]

“Yes, honey! dar he wuz right in de middle of a big crowd. All de
niggers wuz dar fum five mile ’roun’, an’ mighty nigh all de white folks
wuz dar. Ol’ Mr. Gossett wuz dar wid his eyelids red, an’ lookin’ like
dey been turn wrongsudout’ards. He walk up, he did, an’ ’low—

“‘Aha! If I ain’t mighty much mistaken, dat’s my nigger, A’on. A’on, ’git
up fum’ dar, you gran’ rascal.’

“But A’on ain’t move. He des lay dar like he dead. Ol’ Mr. Gossett knelt
down by ’im, an’ put his han’ on him, an’ felt ’im like de doctors does.
Den he riz up an’ look at A’on long time, an’ den he shuck his head. He
shuck his head, an’ turn roun’ an’ holler to Ol’ Marster:—

“‘Jedge, once ’pon a time I hear you say you want to buy dis nigger.
What’ll you gimme fer ’im des ez he is?’

“‘Twelve hundred dollars!’ Ol’ Marster holler’d back. He talk short an’
sharp, like he talkin’ to a fiel’ han’.

“Ol’ Mr. Gossett holler back, ‘Done!’

“Den Ol’ Marster, bidout movin’ in his tracks, tuck a long book out er
his side pocket, an’ pulled out five bills an’ sont um to Mr. Gossett by
one er de niggers.

“He say, ‘Dat’s a hunderd fer ter make de trade bindin’. Meet me in town
ter-morrer, an’ I’ll pay you de rest.’

“Ol’ Mr. Gossett say, ‘But, Jedge, s’posin’ de nigger is dead now?’

“Ol’ Marster snap ’im short off: ‘A trade’s a trade. You stan’ by yone,
an’ I’ll stan’ by mine.’

“Mr. Gossett say, ‘Oh, I’ll stan’ by mine, Jedge. De nigger is yone,
’live or dead.’

“It look like ter me,” continued Free Polly, shifting her position and
talking in a less solemn tone, “dat A’on must ’a’ been playin’ possum.
Kaze time he hear ol’ Mr. Gossett say dat, he open his eyes an’ riz up
fum whar he wuz layin’ at. He walk sorter weak, but he wa’n’t hurted
much. He got up an’ went whar dey had de Little Marster, an’ fum dat time
on, de two stuck mighty close by one anudder. Whar you’d see one, you’d
be mighty apt to see de udder. It was dat away all de time, fum Monday
mornin’ twell Sat’day night.

“De Little Marster ’gun ter git well an’ strong. Some say he grow’d an’
got fatter. I can’t tell you ’bout dat. He allers look mighty pale an’
puny ter me, but dey ain’t no ’sputin’ dat he got ’roun’ on his crutches
mo’ soopler. He wuz ez nimble on dem crutches ez a game rooster is on his
legs.

[Illustration: DE SQUINCH OWL LIGHTED ON A’ON’S HAND]

“’Twa’n’t long atter dat ’fo’ de niggers on de place wuz all fear’d er
A’on. Dey seed all de creeturs a-follerin’ ’im ’bout, an’ dey got it
spread ’roun’ dat he wuz a cunjer-man, one er deze yer hoodoo folks what
puts spells on you. Den dey got it spread ’roun’ dat he want no nigger,
kaze he don’t do like niggers. I didn’t blame ’em much fer bein’ skeer’d,
kaze one day, des atter sundown, I happen to see A’on lookin’ up in de
big pine out dar in de lot. I hear a squinch owl holler, an’ den I hear
A’on say sump’n. Time he do dat I see de squinch owl drap fum de top er
de pine an’ light right on A’on’s han’. De bird sot dar, he did, an’ pop
his bill like a waggin whip, an’ den he up an’ flew’d away. He come right
by my head, an’ it’s Lord’s trufe, he ain’t make no mo’ fuss dan a fedder
floatin’ on de win’.

“I wuz sorter skeer’d, but I walk right up to A’on an’ say, ‘Man, who is
you, an’ what is you?’

“He turns ’roun’ an’ say, ‘De Son of Ben Ali.’

“I say, ‘Thanky. I know mos’ ez much now ez I did befo’.’

“Den he say, ‘Le’ me show you.’ Wid dat he holler, an’ de black hoss
answer him. He holler agin, an’ de gray mar’ whicker. He holler once mo’,
an’ de pony come a runnin’ an’ a whinnyin’.

“I say, ‘Man, le’ me go ’way fum here. I done hear talk er Ben Ali long
’fo’ I seed you.’”

XII.

THE ARMY MARCHES BY.

It was not long before the children saw another sight on that plantation.
They forgot all about Mr. Thimblefinger and Mrs. Meadows and Mr. Rabbit.
They forgot to talk to the animals. The war had been under way for some
time, and one rainy day in November word came that two soldiers in blue
had been seen riding along the road at a gallop. That was early in the
morning. By noon the plantation fairly swarmed with the foragers in blue.
The Union army was on its way from Atlanta to the sea.

Standing at the window and looking through the mist and rain, Buster
John and Sweetest Susan could see the foraging parties running about
collecting the cows and calves, the horses and the mules, and presently
they saw the same men in blue driving the stock out through the avenue
and into the public road. Sweetest Susan cried when she saw the old Gray
Pony ambling along with the rest, but Buster John never thought about
the Pony at all. He was watching to see the Black Stallion pass by, and
wondering how the men would manage him.

The children also saw many of the negroes following the soldiers off.
They saw Aaron dressed in his Sunday best, and they wondered whether he
was going with the rest. But after awhile they heard Aaron talking to
their grandfather in the next room. They heard him say that he had tried
to hide the horses and mules in the swamp, but some of the negroes had
carried the foragers in blue to the hiding-place. They heard Aaron say
that he had carried Timoleon to another part of the plantation, and that
the old horse was not likely to be found. They heard their grandfather
tell Aaron that he was now free to go where he might—that he was no
longer a slave. To which Aaron replied that if he was free to go or stay,
he would stay.

[Illustration: TWO SOLDIERS RODE ALONG]

A little later the children, still standing at the window, or near it,
heard a great clatter of hoofs in the avenue, mingled with the lowing of
cattle, the neighing of horses, and the shouts and yells of drivers. At
first Buster John and Sweetest Susan, looking through the mist, could
see nothing but a dense and moving mass of animals and men. But in a
few moments they were surprised to see that the foragers in blue were
bringing back the horses and cattle they had driven off. There was the
old pony, ambling back to the lot; there were the carriage horses; and
there were the milk cows and dry cattle. Accompanying the foragers, who
were on foot, were two or three mounted men, and one of these wore a
sword and was giving orders.

The grandfather, attracted by the children’s cries of surprise, had come
to the window, and he stood there gazing at the spectacle in a bewildered
way. It was more surprising to him than it was to the children. He could
make nothing of it. He could only rub his eyes and look. Here were his
horses, his mules, and his cattle coming back in a hurry, driven by the
soldiers in blue. He went to the rear porch to see what would be done
with the stock, and there, to his further surprise, he saw a soldier
on guard. The soldier saluted the white-haired old man with the utmost
deference, standing at “present arms” until the gentleman, somewhat rusty
in military etiquette, had returned the salute. Then the soldier resumed
his march back and forth.

Looking across to the lot, the old gentleman saw Aaron showing the
foragers where to put the horses, the mules, and the cows, and with Aaron
were two or three negroes who had refused to go off with the rest.

“What is the trouble here?” the old gentleman asked the soldier. “Are we
prisoners?”

“No, sir,” replied the soldier, laughing; “we are here to protect this
house from the foragers and stragglers. I was thinkin’ may be you’re some
close kin to Uncle Cump.”

“Uncle who?”

“Uncle Cump, Cump—Tecump. We march by that name.”

The white-haired gentleman, regarding this as a soldier’s joke, went
into the house. The children, still at the window, called attention to
a soldier marching back and forth. Going on the front piazza, he saw a
soldier marching on that side, and but for the garden fence doubtless
there would have been a fourth soldier marching behind the kitchen.

Later in the afternoon a squad of riders came galloping down the avenue.
They drew up their horses at the yard gate, and one of them alighted,
throwing his reins to one of the others. The children ran into the front
parlor and peeped through the curtains. The soldier who had come into
the yard had neither gun nor sword. He wore a heavy overcoat, and his
spurs rattled as he stamped the mud and water from his boots. He removed
his overcoat, lifted the knocker on the door and let it fall twice, and
then walked back and forth on the piazza, with a quick, nervous step. He
seemed to be restless and impatient.

The children’s grandfather went to the door and threw it open. The
soldier lifted his hat with a gesture that was more familiar than
deferential.

“Come in, sir,” said the grandfather. “We do not keep the door closed
even on our enemies.”

“I am here,” remarked the soldier, curtly, “because I have a message for
this house.”

He had a quick, nervous way of talking, and his eyes ran from the carpet
on the floor to the pictures on the wall. One of these pictures was the
portrait of a little boy, pale and wan, and the top of a crutch peeped
from behind his shoulder. On this portrait the eyes of the soldier
lingered, and he turned to it with a quick gesture. The children’s
grandfather stood watching him. The old gentleman’s attitude was stiff
and formal, and there was an expression of resentment on his face, for he
recognized that the commander, the General of the Army of invasion, stood
before him.

As for the soldier, his stiff red beard bristled, the lines in his
weather-beaten face deepened, and his eyes sparkled. If he had noticed
the attitude or expression of the other he ignored it.

“That is Little Crotchet,” he said, brusquely. “Where is he?”

The face of the children’s grandfather softened and his whole attitude
changed.

“Little Crotchet is not here now,” he replied. He turned and walked to
the window, which seemed to be blurred by the mist and the rain blown
against it by the east wind.

The commander took a quick step forward and placed his hand gently on the
grandfather’s shoulder.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I have a message for Little Crotchet.”

[Illustration: HIS EYES LINGERED ON THE PORTRAIT]

“If my son had lived,” remarked the children’s grandfather, by way of
explanation, “he would be a grown man. As it is, he is still a little
boy.”

“That is curious, too,” said the commander. “Since I heard of him, I have
always thought of him as a little bit of a chap. Something like that.” He
turned to the portrait on the wall almost impatiently.

“I am forgetting myself,” said the children’s grandfather, holding out
his hand, which the soldier seized and pressed in his quick, nervous way.
“Sit in this rocking-chair near the hearth and dry yourself. You and I
are old acquaintances. Years ago you passed through this part of the
country on horseback, and stopped here over night.”

“That is so,” replied the commander. “I was just beginning the business
of life. You had already begun it.”

“To some extent. I was ahead of you, then, just as you have now
outstripped me in the business of dealing out death and destruction.”

The commander rose from his chair quick as a flash, and again placed his
hand on the old gentleman’s shoulder.

“My dear sir,” he said, “this is war, and war is the most serious
business that men can engage in.”

He resumed his seat as suddenly as he had left it, throwing one leg
across the other with an easy familiarity that was not at all displeasing
to the elder man.

“You would think war was my business,” remarked the commander, after a
pause, during which his keen, restless eyes tried to solve the mysteries
of the glowing coals; “but it is not. I am a school teacher. I had rather
be yonder in Mississippi, training my college boys, than to be leading
this army. But war is the price of union and peace, and here I am. Where
is Aaron?”

“Aaron?” The question was so sudden and unexpected that the children’s
grandfather was taken by surprise.

“Wasn’t that the name of some queer negro you owned?”

“Certainly. I will call him,” replied the grandfather.

At that moment there was a rap at the door, and Aaron opened it. He bowed
as he saw the uniformed and booted stranger, and then proceeded to make
his report. He told his master that all the horses, mules, and cattle had
been brought back, and some more besides. He stood, half smiling, in an
easy and yet an expectant attitude.

“This is Aaron,” said the commander. “I must take him by the hand.” He
stepped across the floor with arm extended and clasped Aaron’s hand in
his. “You are a good man, Aaron,” he remarked, “a good man. I want to
read you something.”

The commander fumbled in the breast pocket of his coat and drew forth a
huge morocco memorandum book. From this he took a letter.

“This,” he said, “was sent to me in cipher from the War Department at
Washington. I have had it translated and written out. Do you remember a
man named Hudspeth?”

“Perfectly,” said the old gentleman.

“Mighty well,” said Aaron.

“Well, this man, Richard Hudspeth, is one of the most influential members
of Congress. He is on the Military Committee of the House. Here is what
he says:

“DEAR GENERAL,—As a member of the Committee on Military
Affairs, it has come to my ears that you will before long swing
loose from Atlanta and march across Georgia, either to Savannah
or Augusta. Should my information be correct, I have a favor to
ask of you. It is this: that, so far as is consistent with your
duties as a soldier, you will protect the lives and property of
the people whom you may find on the Abercrombie place in Middle
Georgia. You cannot miss the place. Whether you go to Savannah
or Augusta, it will be in your line of march. It is in the very
heart of Georgia, and is known far and wide.

“I am not sure that the people I knew are living there now;
but I am very sure that I spent some very happy and some very
miserable days there. It was in the days of the years of my
youth, and I should have been more miserable still but for the
kindness of the people on that place.

“More than that, I owe them my life, which at one time I was on
the point of losing at the hands of some of the neighborhood
ruffians. Some day when we meet in Washington you shall have
the particulars.

“You will find on that place, I trust—though he seemed too
frail to live long—a youngster known as Little Crotchet. Say
to him that I shall love him tenderly while life lasts. I hope
you will also find there the kindly gentleman to whose patience
and courtesy I owe many a pleasant hour. I hope, too, you will
find Aaron there—Aaron the fugitive, who was and who remains a
mystery.

“For the sake of these people and for the sake of old times, I
venture to ask you to surround the place with such protection
as may be consistent with duties which at this distance I can
only have a vague conception of.

“Meanwhile, the few of us who have had hints of the adventure
you are about to undertake are trembling with fear and hope.
We confide in your genius, but we should be happier if we had
already heard from you at the end of your journey.

“Faithfully yours,

“RICHARD HUDSPETH.”

The children’s grandfather gazed steadily in the fire without moving.
The commander placed the letter in his pocket, and rose from his chair,
pushing it away from him impatiently.

“And this is Aaron?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” replied Aaron.

“Well, Aaron, I want to shake your hand again.”

Aaron took the proffered hand and bowed his head over it, as if giving
silent utterance to a prayer. The commander gave his hand to the
White-haired Master, passed out upon the veranda, and so to where he had
left his orderlies. He leaped into the saddle, turned and waved an adieu,
and then the small cavalcade went clattering up the avenue.

Somewhere in the distance Buster John and Sweetest Susan heard a band
playing a sweet tune, and so War passed out of their sight—passed
out of their sight, let us hope, forever. But it should be recorded
here that the spectacle of these slow-moving files of armed men, this
vast procession of cavalry and artillery, with all their lumbering
accompaniments, was far more amazing to these children than anything they
had seen and heard in Mr. Thimblefinger’s queer country, or than any of
their experience with the Son of Ben Ali.

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