Aunt Tulip disappeared and returned with a small colored boy, very black, very ragged, almost shoeless, but with beady eyes cheerful as Betty’s own, and a row of shining teeth which he showed freely. The solemn book of life evidently had no terrors for him.
As he saw Betty in her party gown, with the wreath on her delicate head, a rapturous look came into the eyes of the waif, his grin broadened, he seemed to have a vision of Paradise.
“Why,” cried Betty, “he’s as black as the kettle! What’s your name, little boy?”
“Solomon ’Zekiel Timons,” replied the waif, now fairly laughing with joy amid his rags.
“Where did you come from?” asked the Colonel.
Then Solomon ’Zekiel Timons, prompted by Aunt Tulip, told his story. He lived with some colored people who were always on the move. Lately, they had been living not far from Holly Lodge, and the waif knew Miss Betty by sight, and thought she was “the beautifulest lady ever I see.” He did not know whether the colored people were related to him or not, nor where he was born, nor anything except his name. He had not been ill-treated, but he did not always have enough to eat, and he knew his “clo’es was mighty raggety.” The colored people were going somewhere by the steamboat, and he had gone that day to the wharf with them, their belongings packed on an ox-cart. But on reaching the wharf, and seeing the steamboat, Solomon Ezekiel’s heart had fainted within him. The grin left his little black face, and his round beady eyes grew terrified when he described in jerky sentences the horrors of the steamboat.
“There wuz two gre’t wheels,” he gasped, opening his arms wide, “as big as dis heah house—an’ they keeps on a-churnin’ and a-churnin’! An’ a awful thing on top de boat goin’ up an’ down like dis”—here Solomon ’Zekiel gave a very realistic imitation of the propeller of a side-wheel steamer in motion.
“An’ den”—his frightened voice sank to a whisper—“’fo’ it reach de wharf, de steamboat hollered—it jes’ keep on hollerin’ an’ screechin’ an’ de smoke jes’ po’ outen a chimley, an’ de steamboat everlastin’ hollerin’. An’ I wuz so skeered, I jes’ run offen de wharf an’ come heah.”
Solomon ’Zekiel coolly ignored the fact that the steamboat landing was five miles away, and that he had trudged through the biting cold and the snow, in his poor rags and broken shoes, all that distance—and he was a very little fellow indeed.
“Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?” asked Betty, with melting eyes.