"Little marster mighty funny!"
That was the word,—"funny,"—and yet it had a deeper meaning for the negroes than the white people ever gave it. Funny!—when the lad leaned his pale cheek on the frail hand, and allowed his thoughts (were they thoughts or fleeting aspirations or momentary longings?) to follow the swift, sweet echoes of the song. For the echoes had a thousand nimble feet, and with these they fled away, away,—away beyond the river and its bordering hills; for the echoes had twangling wings, like those of a turtle-dove, and on these they lifted themselves heavenward, and floated above the world, and above the toil and trouble and sorrow and pain that dwell therein.
Funny!—when the voice of some singer, sweeter and more powerful than the rest, rose suddenly from the pauses of the song, and gave words, as it seemed, to all the suffering that the Little Master had ever known. Aye! so funny that at such times Little Crotchet would suddenly wave his hand to the singing reapers, and turn the Gray Pony's head toward the river. Was he following the rolling echoes? He could never hope to overtake them.
Once when this happened Uncle Fountain stopped singing to say:—
"I wish I wuz a runaway nigger!"
"No, you don't!" exclaimed Randall.
"Yes, I does," Uncle Fountain insisted.
"How come?"
"Kaze den I'd have little Marster runnin' atter me ev'y chance he got."
"Go 'way, nigger man! You'd have Jim Simmons's nigger dogs atter you, an' den what'd you do?"