Grace turned with a distressed countenance. "Did Tilly have a little girl?" she asked.
"Y-e-s," answered Mr. Chittenden, rather reluctantly.
"Why didn't you buy her too?" she asked indignantly. "What if someone should take me from you?"
Mr. Chittenden winced. "That is different, child," he answered. "As for Tilly's child, a trader from New Orleans bought her, paying an enormous price. She was nearly white, and gave promise of becoming quite a beauty. Rich people give large prices for such for maids. I could not afford to buy her. As it was, I had to pay a big price for Tilly."
Grace said no more, but from that time new thoughts entered her mind, and when alone with Tilly she tried to comfort her.
Tilly proved as good a housekeeper and cook as Mr. Chittenden could have desired, and in time seemed to have forgotten her child. But Grace knew better, for when alone with her Tilly never tired of telling her about her "honey chile," and Grace was learning what it meant to be a slave, and all unconsciously to herself she was drinking in a love of freedom.
As for Tilly, she came to worship the very ground that Grace walked on. Willingly she would have shed every drop of blood in her veins for her.
Years went by and other settlers came into the Ozarks, but they were a rough, uneducated class, and Mr. Chittenden had little in common with them. In time a Mr. Thomas Osborne settled about four miles from him. He was a northern man, well educated, and had come to the Ozarks for his health, being threatened with consumption. He had a daughter, Helen, about the age of Grace, and the two became inseparable friends.
When Grace was about fifteen years of age it was evident that she would be a very beautiful woman. She was by no means an ignorant girl, for her father had employed a private teacher for her, and she was far better acquainted with the elementary branches and with books than most girls who attend fashionable boarding schools.
But she was still a child of nature, the birds her best companions. The wind whispering through the forest told her wonderful stories. She could ride and shoot equal to any boy who roamed the Ozarks, and was the companion of her father as he looked after his flocks and herds.