The stranger alighted and asked to see Colonel Williams. After a little conversation he proposed to buy Ratie from her master. Colonel Williams had never thought of selling the little deformity. He kept her on the place more through charity than aught else. The extent of her musical genius was unappreciated, and even unknown to him; but as she was a happy little creature, much liked by all the family, and was only a trifling expense, he had never thought of parting with her. Now, however, when a handsome price was offered, she assumed something like importance and interest in his eyes. He called her into the house, and she obeyed with great alacrity, coming in neatly dressed, with a fresh white apron, and sundry bits of bright-colored ribbons tied round her head and neck.
"Give us one of your best songs, Ratie," said her master.
The girl broke out in a wild, warbling strain, clear, bird-like, and musical, filling the long room with gushes of melody, until the lofty arches echoed and re-echoed with the wild notes. When she had finished, the enthusiastic stranger exclaimed, "That throat is a mint of gold!"
And so little hunchback Ratie sang song after song, until she exhausted herself; when her master sent her off to the slave-quarters, where she continued her ditties out under the broad, soft light of the low-hanging southern moon.
The gentlemen sat up late that night, talking upon different subjects; but, before they parted, it was arranged that the stranger should buy Ratie at the high price he offered.
The next morning, long before the sun rose, little Ratie was up, walking through the quarter. She stooped down to look at every drop of dew that glittered and sparkled on the green leaves and shrubs; and when the great, round, golden sun began to creep up the eastern sky, and set it all ablaze with red and gold and purple clouds, glorious as the pavilion of the prophet, Ratie's little spirit danced within her, and broke forth in hymns of music such as the wise men long ago—eighteen hundred years past—sang at the foot of a little manger in a stable in Bethlehem of Judæa.
The child was too young and ignorant to know the meaning of the emotions which fluttered and set on fire her own soul, but she was none the less happy for this ignorance. God is very good!
As Ratie wandered on, singing to herself, she grew so happy that the rush of passionate fervor half frightened her. Tears came to her eyes, and choked the song in her throat. She paused in her walk, and seated herself on a little rock that lay in one corner of the quarter. As she sat there alone, she continued to sing and weep; wherefore she could not tell. By and by the great, rusty bell of the quarter rang out from its hoarse, iron tongue the morning summons for the slaves to assemble. Ragged, tattered, unshorn and unshaven, dirty, ill and angry-looking, the negroes—men, women, and children, in large numbers—collected in the quarter-yard, where the overseer, an ugly, harsh white man, with a pistol in his belt, knife at his side, and whip in hand, stood to call the roll. At the mention of each name, a slave came forward, saying with a bow, "Here I am, massa."
Ratie, who had no particular work to do, went limping on past the place of the roll-call, when she saw her master and the strange gentleman coming toward her. She did not, however, notice them. They were talking together quite earnestly, and looking at her. Her master called out, "Stop, Ratie; come this way."