“The bill? Why, it isn’t any use to you, you can’t read it. What do you want with it?”
“Gimme de bill!” Tom gave it to her, but with a reluctance which he could not entirely disguise. “Did you read it all to me?”
“Certainly I did.”
“Hole up yo’ han’ en swah to it.”
Tom did it. Roxana put the bill carefully away in her pocket, with her eyes fixed upon Tom’s face all the while; then she said—
“Yo’s lyin’!”
“What would I want to lie about it for?”
“I don’t know—but you is. Dat’s my opinion, anyways. But nemmine ’bout dat. When I seed dat man I ’uz dat sk’yerd dat I could sca’cely wobble home. Den I give a nigger man a dollar for dese clo’es, en I ain’t be’n in a house sence, night ner day, till now. I blacked my face en laid hid in de cellar of a ole house dat’s burnt down, daytimes, en robbed de sugar hogsheads en grain sacks on de wharf, nights, to git somethin’ to eat, en never dast to try to buy noth’n’, en I’s ’mos’ starved. En I never dast to come near dis place till dis rainy night, when dey ain’t no people roun’ sca’cely. But to-night I be’n a-stannin’ in de dark alley ever sence night come, waitin’ for you to go by. En here I is.”
She fell to thinking. Presently she said—
“You seed dat man at noon, las’ Monday?”