'He can safely promise that,' said the lady, laughing through her tears; 'for Aggy is fifty, and never had a child.'
A half-hour's conversation over the details of the proposed arrangement followed; then Joe rose, and taking the account books under his arm, bade us 'good evenin'.' As he was leaving the room, I asked, 'Do you preach to-morrow?'
'Yas, sar, an' I'se gwine home to study ober de sermon. You'll come dar, sar? You won't har no raal preachin', 'less master Robert feel de sperrit move, fur de Lord don't gib de black man de tongue he gib de white.'
'I'm not sure of that; but I'll be there. Good night.'
'Good night, sar, an' de Lord bless you.'
When he had gone, I said to Preston: 'You have admitted me to your confidence, my friend, and asked my advice; therefore, I think you will pardon me, if I make you a few business suggestions.'
'Most certainly, and I shall be guided by what you say.'
'With a hundred hands in those thick woods, Joe will turn out a vast amount of produce. His ambition is excited with the idea of being his own master, and he will coin money for you; but you need to be prudent. You owe a mortgage of twenty thousand dollars—and mortgage debts are the worst in the world. Your plantation and negroes may be worth three times the amount, but they are in jeopardy so long as it exists. If it were called in on you suddenly, you couldn't pay it—your property would be sacrificed—everything might be lost. Now, I would suggest that you sell, at once, your three hundred acres of swamp land, all your surplus live stock and materials, and appropriate the proceeds to paying your floating debt, and reducing the mortgage.'
'And we might reduce our family expenses, Robert,' said his wife; 'we have too many house-servants. We could hire out five or six of them in Newbern. And Joseph's schooling costs us five hundred dollars a year; he might come home—I could teach him.'
'You would take too much on yourself, Lucy,' replied her husband. 'You are not strong, and you can't spare a single servant.'