"It don't matter, Ma'am. I'd rather be up here with the fever than down with those niggers; and there a'n't no other place fer me."
Poor fellow! that was true. No ward in all the hospital would take him in to lie side by side with the most miserable white wreck there. Like the bat in Æsop's fable, he belonged to neither race; and the pride of one, the helplessness of the other, kept him hovering alone in the twilight a great sin has brought to overshadow the whole land.
"You shall stay, then; for I would far rather have you than my lazy Jack. But are you well and strong enough?"
"I guess I'll do, Ma'am."
He spoke with a passive sort of acquiescence,—as if it did not much matter, if he were not able, and no one would particularly rejoice, if he were.
"Yes, I think you will. By what name shall I call you?"
"Bob, Ma'am."
Every woman has her pet whim; one of mine was to teach the men self-respect by treating them respectfully. Tom, Dick, and Harry would pass, when lads rejoiced in those familiar abbreviations; but to address men often old enough to be my father in that style did not suit my old-fashioned ideas of propriety. This "Bob" would never do; I should have found it as easy to call the chaplain "Gus" as my tragical-looking contraband by a title so strongly associated with the tail of a kite.
"What is your other name?" I asked. "I like to call my attendants by their last names rather than by their first."
"I've got no other, Ma'am; we have our masters' names, or do without. Mine's dead, and I won't have anything of his about me."