"Watching a child—looking hard at it."
"Wuz you, sho nuff?" She came a step nearer. "How come any chil' out dis time er night?"
"A black child," Aaron went on. "Its dress was afire. It went up and down the path here. It went across the hill. Crying and calling—calling and crying, 'Aaron! Aaron! Mammy's hunting for you! Aaron! Aaron! Mammy's telling on you.'"
"My Lord fum heaven!" moaned the woman; "dat wuz my chil'—de one what got burnt up kaze I wuz off in de fiel'." She threw her apron over her head, fell on her knees, and moaned and shuddered.
"Well, I'm Aaron. You hunted for me in the nigger cabins; you slipped to the fence yonder; you told three men you couldn't find me."
"O Lord! I wuz bleege ter do it. It wuz dat er take ter de woods, an' dey ain't no place fer me in de woods. What'd I do out dar by myse'f at night? I know'd dey couldn't ketch you. Oh, dat wuz my chil'!"
"Stand up!" Aaron commanded.
"What you gwine ter do?" the woman asked, slowly rising to her feet, and holding herself ready to dodge an expected blow—for, as she herself said, she was not at all "ambitious."
"Your breakfast is ready, and I've been waiting here to give it to you. Hold your apron."
The woman did as she was told, and Aaron took from the basket which Little Crotchet had given him four biscuits and as many slices of ham.