“I am surprised, Dad, to see you here again?” said the boy, frowning.
“Why, your mother and I, after thinking the matter over yesterday, decided to take Jim out; it will cost $65, but I am going to do it. I have borrowed the money, and will take the negro home with me.”
“You are a good one, father—you and mother—taking Jim out of jail, but there is something about that sort of thing that I like,” said the son, smiling. “Race problem? Negro haters? Why ask who is the negro’s friends when incidents like this occur every day?”
Harry, who had been traveling in the East and West for four or five years, did not feel about the negro as he once did. Being in constant touch with the old cornfield darkey ’Squire Brown had a different viewpoint. The kindly feeling that the younger man once had was passing away.
Late that afternoon, in a cloud of summer dust, ’Squire Brown and Jim Parks, his negro, drove out South Tryon street toward Pineville, and in passing in front of The Observer building Jim caught sight of Harry, turned in the buggy and shouted back: “Good-bye, Mr. Harry, me an’ Marse Henry’s gwine home to see your Maw. Be a good boy, an’ don’t let de jedge git you. ‘Have yo’se’f, an’ stay out uv cote, but ef you do git in, by accident, des lak I done, don’t have Col. Tedder to ’fend you, onless you spects to go right on to jail.”
“No wonder the old folks like the black scamp,” said Harry, laughing to himself. “He’s an interesting negro.”
There was great rejoicing on the Brown place that night when the ’Squire and Jim arrived. Ella, Jim’s wife, was beside herself, and ’Squire and Mrs. Brown were almost as happy. Everybody, white and black, was delighted.
The following December, after the cotton, the corn, the potatoes, and the fruit had been gathered, Harry visited his parents at the old place. In driving down the lane he observed that the little log cabin, formerly occupied by Jim and Ella, was empty, and when the black worthy failed to show up to take the horse, as he had done many times before, he asked of his father what had become of the negro.
“He’s gone to South Carolina,” said the ’Squire.