"Pleased, honey! I am so full I'm chokin', I b'lieve. What you do all this for Miss May? I'm only a poor old nigger; I got no friends; I can never do nuffin for you. What you do it for?" she sobbed.
"Just because you are poor, because you are friendless, because you are old and black, Aunt Mabel. And more than that, I shall be well paid for my pains. Oho, you don't know every thing," said May, cheerfully.
"I used to hear buckra parson read out of the Book, when I was down in the plantation, that whomsoever give to the poor lend it to the Lord; is that it, honey?" she asked, wiping the tears from the furrows of her swarthy cheeks.
"That is just it, my dear old aunty, so you have found out how selfish I am, after all. You are the creature of God as well as I; in His sight your soul is as precious as mine. We are truly brethren in our eternal interests. Then you are very old and helpless, which makes me pity you. Now, let me have some wood in here, and make you a fire—a regular, rousing fire."
"Maybe so—maybe so," said old Mabel, thoughtfully; "but, look here, Miss May, what that you say 'bout wood, eh? You gwine out to cut some of the trees down in Howard's Park, I reckon?" she said, laughing and chuckling, highly diverted at the idea.
"No, ma'am, for there is a load of good wood at your door, which is now being sawed for your benefit."
"Did you do that too, Miss May?"
"Never mind who did it," said May, who ran out and gathered up a few small pieces of wood, which she hurried in with, and soon kindled a bright blaze on the hearth: after which, she requested the sawyer to bring in two large logs to lay behind.
"Now, Aunt Mabel, are you comfortable?" she inquired, as she drew a low chair up by the old woman's side, and seated herself in it.
"Ah, honey, if you could only know how good the warm blood feels creeping up to my shaky old heart, you wouldn't ask me; and this beautiful shawl, Miss May! it 'minds me so of the bright swamp flowers in old Ca'lina, that it takes me clean back thar. I had good times then, honey; but I can't say nuffin. I feel it all here, and I hope your heavenly Father will make it out, and pay you back ten thousand times," said old Mabel, laying her shrivelled hand on her heart.