“That don’t make no difference. I bet none of these white folks round here would do it.”
“That ain’t none of my business,” answered her husband. “I believe in every person doin’ their own duty. Put somethin’ down on the table; the man’s hungry. An’ don’t never git stuck up, ’Lizy; you don’t know what our children have got to come to.”
Nelse Hatton was a man of few words; but there was a positive manner about him at times that admitted of neither argument nor resistance.
His wife did as she was bidden, and then swept out in the majesty of wounded dignity, as the tramp was ushered in and seated before the table whose immaculate white cloth she had been prudent enough to change for a red one.
The man ate as if he were hungry, but always as if he were a hungry gentleman. There was something in his manner that impressed Nelse that he was not feeding a common tramp as he sat and looked at his visitor in polite curiosity. After a somewhat continued silence he addressed the man: “Why don’t you go to your own people when you’re hungry instead of coming to us coloured folks?”
There was no reproof in his tone, only inquiry.
The stranger’s eyes flashed suddenly.
“Go to them up here?” he said; “never. They would give me my supper with their hypocritical patronage and put it down to charity. You give me something to eat as a favour. Your gift proceeds from disinterested kindness; they would throw me a bone because they thought it would weigh something in the balance against their sins. To you I am an unfortunate man; to them I am a tramp.”
The stranger had spoken with much heat and no hesitation; but his ardour did not take the form of offence at Nelse’s question. He seemed perfectly to comprehend the motive which actuated it.