"You've saved your $30, hain't you?" she said to Mr. Gossett.
"Why—er—yes'm—but"—
"No buts about it," she snapped. "If you ain't changed mightily, you think a heap more of $30 in your pocket than you do of a nigger in the bushes. Jimmy don't owe you nothin', does he?"
"Well—er—no'm." Mr. Gossett had been taken completely by surprise.
"No, he don't, and if he did I'd quit him right now—this very minute," Mrs. Simmons declared, gesticulating ominously with her forefinger. "And what Jimmy wants to go trolloping about the country trying to catch the niggers you drive to the woods is more'n I can tell to save my life. Why, if he was to catch your runaway niggers they wouldn't stay at home no longer than the minute you took the ropes off 'em."
Mr. Simmons cleared his throat, as if to say something, but his wife anticipated him.
"Oh, hush up, Jimmy!" she cried. "You know I'm telling nothing but the truth. There ain't a living soul in this country that don't know a Gossett nigger as far as they can see him."
"What are the ear-marks, ma'am?" inquired Mr. Gossett, trying hard to be jocular. In a moment he was heartily sorry he had asked the question.
"Ear-marks? Ear-marks? Hide-marks, you better say. Why, they've been abused and half fed till they are ashamed to look folks in the face, and I don't blame 'em. They go sneaking and shambling along and look meaner than sin. And 't ain't their own meanness that shows in 'em. No! Not by a long sight. I'll say that much for the poor creeturs."
There was something of a pause here, and Mr. Gossett promptly took advantage of it. He rose, bowed to Mrs. Simmons, who turned her back on him, and started for the door, saying:—