“Sell you, Sam?” exclaimed Mrs. May in great surprise. “Sell you—and keep Aunt Dilsey?”
“Yes’m, that’s what I’m thinkin’,” the boy replied, and there was in his manner a not quite understandable hint of suppressed excitement. “You see, Ol’ Miss, that Macon man he ain’t got no manneh of use for my gran’mam nohow; but he’s mighty ready to give a good price fo’ Sam. Please, Ol’ Miss, sell me, and sell me quick.”
The request was a strange one, and Mrs. May, used to dealing with these simple people, expressed no further surprise at it, but sought the reasons behind it.
“Why have you decided that you want to be sold?” she asked kindly.
“It ain’t that I’s ’zackly wantin’, Ol’ Miss,” the boy replied, his eagerness growing with his decreasing embarrassment. “That Macon man, he’s meaner ’an dirt and that’s why I wants you to sell me to him.”
He looked up with a broad grin on his face, seeming to think he had made himself perfectly plain and that somewhere hidden in his words was a huge joke upon some one.
“You want to be sold to a mean man?” Mrs. May repeated. “I don’t understand you, Sam.”
“Well, Ol’ Miss, it’s like this,” the boy began, trying to make his explanation clear. “These Yanks is a-coming. Yes’m, we-all ain’t got no doubt o’ that, and so I’s figgerin’ I’d be free, anyways, and I’d a heap ruther that Macon man should lose me than my Ol’ Miss, when she was so kind and bought me an’ my ol’ gran’mam. But there ain’t much time to waste, Ol’ Miss. You heah what I’s tellin’ yoh.”
“Why are you so sure the Yanks are coming, Sam?” April asked.
“Why, Lil’ Miss, I jes’ nachally knows it,” he answered. “We-all down in the quarters is a-talkin’ hit oveh, and there ain’t no doubt ’bout it. Why, Lil’ Miss, don’ you-all know that this heah Yankee General has beat Marse Robert Lee?”