“How old are you, Juba?” asked Frank.
“I don’t know, chile. I’s powerful old. S’pecs I’s a hundred.”
Ernest smiled.
“No, Juba,” he said, “you are not nearly a hundred. You may be sixty.”
“Juba, did you ever hear about Uncle Tom?”
“Yes, chile, I knew Uncle Tom,” was the unexpected reply. “He was raised on Mr. Jackson’s place next to ours.”
Ernest asked some question about this Uncle Tom, but learned, as he expected, that it was quite a different person from the negro immortalized by Mrs. Stowe.
In looking over Frank’s books Ernest found an old copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and taking it down he read some portions, particularly those relating to Topsy. Both Frank and Juba were very much entertained.
“Did you know Topsy, Juba?” asked Frank.
“No, chile, never knowed Topsy. She must have been a no-account young nigga. If she’d lived on our plantation she’d have got flogged for her impudence.”