“Uncle Aaron,” he said, “I’ll give you two biscuits and a piece of ham for a piece of your hoecake and some of your meat.”
“Do so—do so,” answered Aaron.
“Bring four biscuits and two pieces of ham,” cried Sweetest Susan, as Buster John rushed out of the door. He returned in a little while with four biscuits, each sandwiched with a piece of ham. Whereupon Aaron turned over to the children all his hoecake and fried bacon, which they devoured with a relish which belongs to youth alone. This done, they gave Aaron to understand what they came for, and he, without any apology, explanation, or delay, such as a negro would have indulged in, and likewise without any humor, told his story. Perhaps there was no room for humor, but a negro would have found a place for it.
“I can’t tell you the story as the field hands could,” said Aaron. “They have a word for everything. What I know is that when I saw the little white boy crying about me, I was no longer the same man. Something swelled here”—touching his throat—“and something broke here”—striking his breast. “I had said to myself, be as cunning as a snake. My mind was made up to run away from the man that bought me, and follow the negro trader and strangle him in the night. He was a beast. I promised myself that he should live no more. The thoughts made me happy, and then I saw the white child, small and crippled, crying because his father had not bought me. I said, what is he to me? And then my hands shook and my knees trembled. Another man crept into my skin and looked out of my eyes. Not since my mother shook hands with me and told me good-by when I was a boy had I seen anybody crying for me. Then, I said, the man who gets me to-day will get a good bargain.
“In my mind there was but one thought—the child is my Little Master. The Gray Pony has told you what happened. It was to save the Little Master’s father that I threw the horseshoe. I thought the young man was killed, and I said, it is a pity! When I rode home with Mr. Gossett, I kept on saying it is a pity—a great pity; and when my new master asked me if I would treat him right, I smiled and told him I would do the best I could. And I did. I worked for him as hard as I ever worked for a man. But he never trusted me. He was always watching me.
“One night, just after sundown, he called me out of my hut—it was not a cabin—and said he wanted me to get in the one-horse wagon and take a bale of cotton to a neighbor’s house and sell it to him. At once I smelled trouble.
“‘But will the man buy it?’ I asked.
“The answer was: ‘He may; if he does, the money is yours. If not, no harm is done.’
“‘I am afraid of the patterrollers,’ said I.