"O, you little ducky darling," cried she, seizing Prudy in her arms, "don't you cry, and you shall have a pocket full of candy. You didn't get burnt a mite, did you, honey?"
"No'm, I ain't cryin'," sobbed Prudy. "I ain't crying any thing about that;" and every word seemed to be shaken out, as if there was a little earthquake at her heart—"there—is—black folks! O, he is just as—black!"
"Is that all," said Grace, stroking Prudy's hair. "Didn't she ever see any negroes—any nice black negro men before, Susy?"
"I thought she had; why, we have 'em in the streets at Portland, lots and lots of 'em."
After much soothing, and a good deal of candy, Prudy was comforted, and the supper went off famously. The children were all polite and well-behaved, "even the boys," as Ruth said; and though they all had keen appetites, nobody was greedy.
By and by, when it would not do to stay any longer, they all started for home, happy and tired.
Ruth held Prudy's little hand in a firm grasp, and wished she had held it so all the afternoon; "for," as she said, to herself, "she's a very slippery child."
This had been a trying day for Prudy, and when aunt Madge put her to bed, her sweet blue eyes wouldn't stay shut.
"Where do they grow, auntie?" said she, "them black folks. Be they the jispies?"
"O, they grow any where," replied aunt Madge, laughing; "just like any body. They are not gypsies, but negroes."