“Miss Maggie, honey, chile, don’ you leave dem keys dah no moah. You say I’m hones’, an’ so I hopes I am. But den agin I don’ know. But when anybody can’t do sumpin’, den dey don’ do it, an’ don’ you leave dem keys dah no moah.”
“Why, Aunt Mela, I trust you,” sez Maggie in her sweet voice. “I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”
“To hurt you? No, honey. But den how can I tell when ole Mars Saten will jes’ rise up an’ try to hurt ole Mela? He may jes’ make me do sumpin’ mean jes’ to spite me for turnin’ my back on him. He jes’ hates Massa Jesus, ole Saten duz, an’ he’s tried to spite me ebery way sense I jine him.
“So you jes’ keep dem keys, Miss Maggie, and if ole Saten tells me to get sumpin’ outen dat stow room to teck to my sister down to Eden Centre, I’ll say:
“‘You jes’ go ’long! I can’t do it nohow, for Miss Maggie done got de keys.’”
Maggie took the keys and tried to keep them after this.
But she told me that many times Aunt Mela had warned her in the same way.
One day she had been tellin’ me a good deal about her trials and labors sence the War, and how she and her sister had worked to get them a little home, and how many times they had been cheated and imposed upon, and made to pay over bills time and agin, owin’ to their ignorance of business.
And I asked her if she thought she wuz any better off now than when she wuz a slave.
She straightened up her tall figure, put her hands on her hips, and looked at me over the top of her glasses.