By this time we reached the avenue gate and I sent Lizette to run to tell Jim, who was ploughing in the field, to put Ruth in the buckboard quickly and bring her to the gate. Shortly after I reached the avenue gate a buggy drove up containing Mr. Stout, the deputy sheriff, and Elihu, looking too downcast, black, and forlorn for words.
Elihu is of a peculiarly rich shade of black, almost blue black. His own mother when he was a boy always spoke of him as "dat black nigger." Through all the trials and tribulations of his fifty years of life he has never been in danger of the chain gang before, for he has kept a good character for one of his hue, and now the certain prospect of the gang unless some miracle happened had crushed the spirit out of him. I scarcely would have known him. I walked out of the gate and said:—
"Why, Mr. Stout, what does this mean?"
"It means, Miss Patience, that I'm a-taking Elihu to the chain gang. I've got the warrant in my pocket."
"And on what ground?"
"For cursing, Miss Patience, and making a disturbance on the public highway."
"Was he not in his son's house?"
"Yes, Miss Patience, but the Judge says that is within fifty yards of the public road."
"Has it been measured, Mr. Stout?"
"No, ma'am, Miss Patience, 'tain't been measured, but the woman said it was only forty yards from the road, en the Judge said he knowed the place and that was right."