"Kase why?" queried her husband.
"Kase Bre'er 'Liab don't come oftener. Dat's why."
"Dar, now, jes see what yer done git fer being so contrary-like, will yer?" said the master to his guest. H'yer, you Axylone," he continued to his eldest born, " fo'd up yer han's while Bre'er 'Liab ax de blessin'. You, too, Capting," shaking his finger at a roll of animated blackness on the end of the seat opposite.
"Now, Bre'er 'Liab."
The little black fingers were interlocked, the close-clipped, kinky heads were bowed upon them; the master of the house bent reverently over his plate; the plump young wife crossed her hands demurely on the bright handle of the big coffee-pot by which she stood, and "Bre'er 'Liab," clasping his slender fingers, uplifted his eyes and hands to heaven, and uttered a grace which grew into a prayer. His voice was full of thankfulness, and tears crept from under his trembling lids.
The setting sun, which looked in upon the peaceful scene, no doubt flickered and giggled with laughter as he sank to his evening couch with the thought, "How quick these 'sassy' free-niggers do put on airs like white folks!"
In the tobacco-field on the hillside back of his house, Nimbus and his wife, Lugena, wrought in the light of the full moon nearly all the night which followed, and early on the morrow Nimbus harnessed his mule into his canvas-covered wagon, in which, upon a bed of straw, reclined his friend Eliab Hill, and drove again to the place of registration. On arriving there he took his friend in his arms, carried him in and sat him on the railing before the Board. Clasping the blanket close about his deformed extremities the cripple leaned upon his friend's shoulder and answered the necessary questions with calmness and precision.
"There's a pair for you, captain," said Gleason, nodding good-naturedly toward Nimbus as he bore his helpless charge again to the wagon.
"Is he white?" asked the officer, with a puzzled look.
"White?" exclaimed Sheriff Gleason, with a laugh. "No, indeed! He's a nigger preacher who lives with Nimbus down at Red Wing. They're great cronies—always together. I expect he's at the bottom of all the black nigger's perversity, though he always seems as smooth and respectful as you please. He's a deep one. I 'llow he does all the scheming, and just makes Nimbus a cat's-paw to do his work. I don't know much about him, though. He hardly ever talks with anybody."