'Oh! tank 'ou, massa; it'm good ob 'ou; berry good ob 'ou, massa;' and again her apron found the way to her eyes.
'Well,' said Preston, after a moment's thought, 'I think you'd better take the boy now, aunty. I'm in some trouble, and I don't know how things may turn with me; so you'd better take him now.'
'But I hain't money 'nuff now, massa.'
'Well, never mind; pay the rest when you can, but don't scrimp yourself as you have, Dinah; I shan't care if you never pay it.'
The woman seemed bewildered, but said nothing. She evidently was unaccustomed to Preston's mode of doing business. I mentioned to him that he could not give a conveyance of the negro boy until the judgment against him was cancelled.
'True,' he replied; 'I didn't think of that. Shall we attend to it now?'
'Yes, at once; further costs may accumulate if you delay.'
Preston told the negro woman to meet him by eleven o'clock, at the store of the person who had charge of her money, and we rode at once to the 'Old State Bank.' Its doors were not then opened, but as the cashier resided in the building, we soon secured notes in exchange for Preston's draft on me, and in less than an hour had the judgment satisfied, and Ally's free papers, properly made out and executed. It was not quite ten o'clock when, as we were leaving the attorney's office, we noticed the slave woman and her son seated on the steps of Mr. Blackwell's store.
'Are you all ready, aunty?' asked Preston.
'Yes, massa, I'se all ready; I'se got de gole all heah,' she replied, holding up a small canvas bag; 'a hun'red an' twenty-sevin dollar an' firty cents—so massa Blackwell say; I karn't reckon so much as dat, massa.'