“Come on away!� she was wailing. “Uh, what you let ’em see you for? My old man, my old man! Dey got to kill me, too, when dey kill you.�
“Hush that racket. You’re all right,� said Dick.
Isham went to Anne and put up appealing hands. “I didn’t mean you no harm, Miss Anne,� he sobbed. “I wouldn’t ’a’ teched a hair o’ yore head.�
“I know you wouldn’t, Unc’ Isham,� said Anne. “Oh, don’t cry! Do stop crying! Oh! we’re so glad to see you. We’ve wondered where you were.�
“We runned away,� said Lily Belle. “We—we started to runned away—an’—an’——�
“Den we crope back,� said Isham. “We done lived here all our lives, an’ we couldn’t go traipsin’ ’round strange neighborhoods. We ruther you-all would kill us here at home.�
“Nobody’s going to hurt you,� Anne assured them. “We know you didn’t mean any harm. Oh, Uncle Isham! Dick and I were hiding in a hole in the mine, and we heard you telling Cæsar he mustn’t hurt me. We are all your friends, and you’re just as safe as we are.�
Lily Belle forgot her fears. “I told you so, old man,� she cried; “I told you to come on out them bushes. Ain’t nobody gwine to hurt us. Our white folks is gwine to take keer of us. Um, um! Come on home, old man; an’ ain’t we glad to git back!�
By this time the smoke came in lessening swirls from the mine hole. Mr. Osborne and the boys carried the tub into the mine and set it at the edge of the hole, and filled it with water.
“Now for a smotheration!� he said.