There was no distinction of colour or condition there. There was no thought of superiority on the one hand, or feeling of inferiority on the other. They were simply two loving friends who had been long parted and had met again.
After a while the Negro said, “I’m sure the Lord must ’a’ sent you right here to this house, so’s you wouldn’t be eatin’ off o’ none o’ these poor white people ’round here.”
“I reckon you’re religious now, Nelse; but I see it ain’t changed your feeling toward poor white people.”
“I don’t know about that. I used to be purty bad about ’em.”
“Indeed you did. Do you remember the time we stoned the house of old Nat, the white wood-sawyer?”
“Well, I reckon I do! Wasn’t we awful, them days?” said Nelse, with forced contrition, but with something almost like a chuckle in his voice.
And yet there was a great struggle going on in the mind of this black man. Thirty years of freedom and the advantages of a Northern State made his whole soul revolt at the word “master.” But that fine feeling, that tender sympathy, which is natural to the real Negro, made him hesitate to make the poor wreck of former glory conscious of his changed estate by using a different appellation. His warm sympathies conquered.
“I want you to see my wife and boys, Mas’ Tom,” he said, as he passed out of the room.
Eliza Hatton sat in her neatly appointed little front room, swelling with impotent rage.