Joe got three biscuits and a pone of cornbread and carried them to Mink. The negro had freed his hand, and he loomed up in the darkness as tall as a giant.
“Why, you seem to be as big as a horse,” said Joe.
“Thanky, little marster, thanky. Yes, suh, I’m a mighty stout nigger, an’ ef marster would des make dat overseer lemme ’lone I’d do some mighty good work, an’ I’d a heap druther do it dan ter be hidin’ out in de swamp dis away like some wil’ varmint. Good-night, little marster.”
“Good-night!” said Joe.
“God bless you, little marster!” cried Mink, as he vanished in the darkness.
That night in Joe Maxwell’s dreams the voice of the fugitive came back to him, crying, “God bless you, little marster!”
But it was not in dreams alone that Mink came back to Joe. In more than one way the negro played an important part in the lad’s life on the plantation. One evening about dusk, as Joe was going home, taking a “near cut” through the Bermuda pasture, a tall form loomed up before him, outlining itself against the sky.