“And your rheumatism?” asked Betty, kindly.
He replied that it had been growing worse of late, and with a sympathetic word the girl was passing by when some newer pathos in his solitary figure stayed her feet, and she called back quickly, “Uncle Levi, were you ever married?”
“Dar, now,” cried Uncle Levi, halting in the path while a gleam of the wistful humour of his race leaped to his eyes. “Dar, now, is you ever hyern de likes er dat? Mah'ed! Cose I'se mah'ed. I'se mah'ed quick'en Marse Bolling. Ain't you never hyern tell er Sarindy?”
“Sarindy?” repeated the girl, questioningly.
“Lawd, Lawd, Sarindy wuz a moughty likely nigger,” said Uncle Levi, proudly; “she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz a moughty likely nigger.”
“And did she die?” asked Betty, in a whisper.
Uncle Levi rubbed his hands together, and shifted the brushwood upon his shoulder.
“Who say Sarindy dead?” he demanded sternly, and added with a chuckle, “she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', young miss, en I 'uz Marse Bolling's body sarvent, so w'en dey sot me loose, dey des sol' Sarindy up de river. Lawd, Lawd, she warn' nuttin' but a fiel' han', but she 'uz pow'ful likely.”
He went chuckling up the path, and Betty, with a glance at the fading sunset, started briskly homeward. As she walked she was asking herself, in a wonder greater than her own love or grief, if Uncle Levi really thought it funny that they sold Sarindy up the river.