“Oh, so fine, the very rafters hold their breff, and Sam find the way. Sam feel the hand she say was stretched out for him. He grasp it tight. He never let it go, never cease thankin’ God that ‘Come unto me’ mean just such an ole nigger as Sam, or that Miss Ellis was sent to him. She teach me ‘Our Father,’ and I say it every day, and I ’members her, too, and now I puts her and Mas’r Hugh in de same words. Seems ef they make good span, only Mas’r Hugh not so fixed up as she, but he’s good.”
“Where is Miss Ellis now?” Adah asked, and Sam replied,
“Gone home. Gone to Masser—what you say once—but not till letter come to her from Mas’r Brown, sayin’ Sam was stealed, and ’fore long Mas’r Brown come on hisself after me and the others. Miss Ellis so glad, and Mas’r Fitzhugh, too. Sam not much ’count, he say, and let me go easy, that’s the way I come home. Miss Ellis gived me five dollars and then ask what else. I look at her and say, ‘Sam wants a spear or two of yer shinin’ har’, and Miss Mabel takes shears and cut a little curl. I’se got ’em now. I never spend the money,” and from an old leathern wallet Sam drew a bill and a soft silken curl which he laid across Adah’s hand.
“And where is Sullivan?” asked Adah, a chill creeping over her as she remembered how about four years ago the man she called her guardian was absent for some time, and came back to her with colored hair and whiskers.
“Oh, he gone long before, nobody know whar. Sam b’lieves, though, he hear they cotch him, but misremembers, got such mizzable memory.”
“You said he had a mark?” Adah continued. And Sam replied, “Yes, queer mark,—must of been thar when he was borned, showd better when he’s cussin mad. You ever seen him?”
“I do not know,” and Adah half groaned aloud at the sad memories which Sam’s story had awakened within her.
She could scarcely doubt that Sullivan the negro-stealer, and Redfield, her guardian, were the same, but where was he now, and why had he treated her so treacherously, when he had always seemed so kind? Why did everybody desert her? What had she done to deserve so sad a fate? All the old bitter anguish was welling up again, and desirous of being alone, she bade Sam leave her as it was growing late.
“Miss Adah prays,” the old man answered, “Won’t she say Our Father with Sam?”
Adah could not refuse, and falling on her knees she joined her voice with that of Sam’s in that most beautiful of all prayers—the one our Saviour taught. Sam did not know it correctly, but God heard him all the same; heard too, the strangely-worded petition that “He would bless Mas’r Hugh, Miss Ellis, and Miss Adah, and fotch ’em all right some time.”