"Let me have a look at that there thing you was a-shovin' out of sight behine your cheer when I come in," repeated Bud, striding up to the fire-place and catching up the article that had caught his eye. "Looked to me like one of them 'sendiary papers, an' it is too. What business you got to be readin' like a white gentleman?" he added, slapping Toby on the head with the paper which he picked up from the floor.
"Oh, Marse Gobble," began Toby.
"'Tain't my name," howled Bud, who always got angry whenever anybody took liberties with his cognomen. "G-o don't spell Gob, does it? You can't read or spell alongside of me, but you know too much to be of any more use around here. Me and Mr. Riley b'long to the Committee of Safety, an' it's our bounden duty to take chaps like you out in the woods an' lick ye. What do you say to that?"
Old Toby was so very badly frightened that he could not say anything. He had been caught almost in the act of reading a copy of the New York Tribune, and what would Mr. Riley say and do when he heard of it? The latter was known far and wide as a kind master. He gave his slaves plenty to eat and wear and never overworked them; but he believed as most of his class did, and it wasn't likely that he would deal leniently with one of his chattels who would bring a paper like the Tribune on the plantation, and afterward spread discontent among his fellows by preaching in secret the doctrines he found in it. Bud easily read the thoughts that were passing in the old negro's mind, and told himself that Susie deserved a new dress in return for the suggestions she had given him. He saw his advantage and determined to push it.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STRUGGLE ON THE TOWER.
Toby was said to be the most thrifty and "forehanded" darkey in the settlement. Like all the rest of the black people on Mr. Riley's plantation he had a little garden-patch, and as he and his family were industrious enough to cultivate it properly, they had vegetables to sell at the "great house" and received cash in hand for them. Being a minister, he did not think it right to spend much for clothing or finery, and there were those who believed that he had a goodly sum of money laid by. Bud Goble knew that his larder was generally well supplied, and he had designs upon it now.
"What do you reckon your Moster would do to ye if I should take this here docyment to him an' tell him I found you a-readin' of it?" Bud demanded, looking sharply at Uncle Toby. "It's my duty to do it, kase I b'long to the same committee that he does, bein' one of the most respected an' prominent citizens of Barrington. That's the way my letters come."
"Marse Bud," replied the negro (he did not dare venture on the surname again for fear of exciting his visitor's wrath), "I didn't go for to do wrong—I didn't for a fac'. Dat paper was gin to me—oh, laws, what am I sayin'?"
"Speak it out, nigger," exclaimed Bud fiercely. "Who gin it to you, an' how did he come by it in the first place?"