“What?” asked Mrs. Royall.
“How old?” asked Jack.
“Yes.” Amelia was a little impatient. “The one you’re talking about—that slave who spoke. I’m sure I know who he is!”
“Oh, my goodness, Amelia! That’s impossible!” The idea made Jack frown. Mrs. Royall snorted.
“Describe him to me, Jack,” Amelia insisted, “every detail.”
She kept nodding her head while Jack rather grudgingly complied with her request. It seemed such a waste of time. He shook his head as he finished.
“There couldn’t possibly have been such an extraordinary slave around any place where you’ve been. All of us would have heard of him!”
Amelia smiled.
“I remember how he came walking up the road that day in a swirl of dust. He was little more than a boy then. Now he’s a man. It is the same.”
Then she told how that morning at dawn she had leaned from her attic window and watched a young buck slave defy a slave-breaker, how he had sent the overseer moaning to one side with his kick, how he had thrown the master to the ground. This was the first time she had ever told the story, but she told it very well.