"Leben," she said.
Two young ragamuffins crawled among the legs of the crowd up to her basket and filched pies and cake beneath her very nose.
"Twelve!" cried the student, laughing.
"Thirteen!" she laughed, too, but her eyes flashed.
"You are bidding against a niggah" whispered the student's companion in his ear.
"So I am; let's be off," answered the other, with a hot flush on his proud face.
Thus the sale was ended, and the crowd variously dispersed. In a distant corner of the courtyard the ragged urchins were devouring their unexpected booty. The old negress drew a red handkerchief out of her bosom, untied a knot in a corner of it, and counted out the money to the sheriff. Only she and the vagrant were now left on the spot.
"You have bought me. What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly.
"Lohd, honey!" she answered, in a low tone of affectionate chiding, "I don' wan' you to do no thin'! I wuzn' gwine t' 'low dem white folks to buy you. Dey'd wuk you till you dropped dead. You go 'long en do ez you please."
She gave a cunning chuckle of triumph in thus setting at naught the ends of justice, and in a voice rich and musical with affection, she said, as she gave him a little push: